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indigozeal

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indigozeal

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Edited By indigozeal

Saw the news elsewhere and logged back in to say thanks and good luck to @benpack. You were always bringing new ideas and features to the table and seemed always willing to help others out with theirs; you made the best effort among the crew to be knowledgeable on both older games and new stuff; and I enjoyed your commentary and your sense of humor. You put a ton of work in, and I'm sorry if that isn't appreciated in certain quarters. I hope your next step finds you in a happy place.

To throw in a comment on dynamics: Ben, Abby, and Dan seemed to be the three major engines of content ideas. Losing them in a year's span just personality-wise would be a major blow, but asking the others to fill their shoes in terms of content idea generation is a particularly big ask and, I think, the salient issue in terms of site-future-gazing.

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Edited By indigozeal

Aw. We never got an update on last week's most important story: the Email Salutation That Rocked the World.

(As for the "don't you feel BAD you wanted us to talk about the workers' rights angle!?": no, I don't, actually, for the reasons I cited in last week's comments. The jubilation with which certain concerns were discarded, and the indignation at the idea that someone would consider them more important than the Bombcast's hurt feelings over a line in a PR email, were enough to convince me that I don't want to be on that side, ever.)

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Edited By indigozeal

People did know about Working Designs' difficulty changes back in the day, as Victor Ireland talked about them in interviews and manuals. I will say there's not much in the way of difficulty that got people really riled outside of paying for saves in Lunar: Eternal Blue; the discussion back in the day was all about the pop-culture jokes in their translations and the company's often-antagonistic attitude toward fans.

I have to say that the latter-day reaction to Ireland's attitude has robbed him of his rightful recognition as perhaps the defining trailblazer in localization. Working Designs' approach - keep only the skeleton of the plotline; dump the script near-completely and substitute a jokey script rife with pop-culture references specific to the region - was controversial back in the day but, for better or worse (worse. it's worse), is the default for localization today.

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Edited By indigozeal

@jedikv: Hold on: I had a realization here. You're arguing that our opinions should just reflect those of Giant Bomb. You didn't arrive at your position in this debate through any sort of logic or reasoning: it is, by your own admission, just a reflection of what Giant Bomb thinks - no consideration on your end was involved. (This is why you keep repeating the same stuff, because your viewpoints themselves are repeats.)

Therefore, it is futile to argue with you, because the basis of argumentation has absolutely no bearing on the ideas you adopt.

Man, I'm glad I figured this out. I'm going to go eat some ice cream.

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indigozeal

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@jedikv: "Not a member" doesn't rule out independent contractors, and I'd want more information before I take Totilo's word. I know you don't actually read my posts, so I'll just quote myself here:

even on the off chance the leaking might not be fueled by that abuse, the possibility is too big to ignore - as is the tactic's potential use in the industry's numerous other instances of mega-crunch projects.

The worker abuse and nonpayment of workers was the most obvious motive for a leak that originated from the dev side. Not discussing the possibility in favor of a lengthy derail about insufficiently deferential emails was madness, as was ignoring the significance of such a tactic in future labor issues in the industry (an issue you've never addressed in all your posts, because - well, you don't have an answer, do you?). I'm unmoved from my previous position.

Other issues:

- As in the very Twitter thread you quoted, Schreier is currently downplaying his own reporting about conditions at Naughty Dog, stating that he hears it's a "pretty nice place to work!" As many have noted, this is bizarre, and concerning. The leak may indeed not be related to worker issues (though, as I've said, that would be a surprise)...but there seem to be certain parties who, for one reason or another, are acting very invested in this not being related to worker issues. (Sony and Naughty Dog certainly wouldn't want those rumors attached to a big moneymaker.)

- As noted in my previous posts, yes, Giant Bomb has discussed worker abuse allegations in the past...but they're gradually lightening up on that: their failure to discuss the angle here; the muted comment on the NetherRealm allegations; the lack of mention of such issues in the 2019 GotY - or, actually, 2018, where Fallout 76 was chosen as a Hotter Mess than...everything happened that year. You say that Giant Bomb should "tackle [labor issues] with facts" - what do you make of the silence in those cases, where there was plenty of substantiation to go around?

- For that matter, again, why aren't you mad about the whole WWE2K discussion, or just about literally any other discussion they have regarding news, which contains a lot of the speculation you claim is so deadly to credibility and games journalism?

I don't expect any answers from you on this or anything else, though, because I think your real issue with what I'm saying, as implied with your bizarre "random internet commenters" bit, is that I'm expressing disagreement with Giant Bomb on how they tackled this story - or, that I'm expressing disagreement with Giant Bomb, period. You can like something without being 100% in lockstep with it. You owe creators a degree of respect, but not the mindless deference you're endorsing. As detailed above, I have my priors on this, but they're based on what's happened so far in the larger picture. Yes, the Bombcast has industry experience that should be considered...but if they're ignoring a big part of the picture in favor of a ridiculous complaint, I'm not going to follow them off the cliff.

I find it disturbing that your big takeaway here is "we should just think what they think." That never leads to anywhere good. (It seems to be an offshoot of the "disagreeing with the Bombcast is toxic and hateful, shut up!" mindset that's taking root on the subreddit and ResetEra, of which I'm also not a fan.)

(Also: no one has made any progress on what we're told is the real TLoU2 travesty, the Horrible Email Wording, so everything we've all posted above is irrelevant in any case.)

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@jedikv: As I've stated repeatedly: the emergence of the tactic of massive dev leaks itself is newsworthy. Even on the off chance that it's not motivated by worker abuse (and, again: I highly doubt that wasn't at least a contributing factor), this tactic is now on the table for an employee who is disgruntled and sees no other means of retaliation - it's something one dev can do that's actually damaging. It blows up the balance of power between employer and employees, which was previously near-completely tilted in favor of the former. Ignoring that in favor of a petty e-mail grievance is a bad call.

Also who's saying don't critique the products we buy?

I'm taking issue with the increasing tendency in certain areas of the gaming media to dismiss criticism of corporate decisions regarding content and labor on the basis that they don't fulfill some weirdly shallow idea of "positive." The Bombcast's treatment of the leak story seemed to hew to that; their main point of objection was that it was mean to the "team," ignoring that maybe human beings are liable to get angry and lash out if they're continuously mistreated, as numerous accusations and employee accounts from Naughty Dog have claimed. Again (I keep saying "again" in this discussion; it's almost as if I'm being willfully misunderstood): even on the off chance the leaking might not be fueled by that abuse, the possibility is too big to ignore - as is the tactic's potential use in the industry's numerous other instances of mega-crunch projects.

Dismissing the issue with "Hey, this might make people feel bad, and coincidentally gets in the way of me enjoying my game!" is faux-positive and self-centered (as is "hey, this line in this PR release wasn't suitably deferent to me, the consumer"). Taking into consideration working conditions that are making a lot of people feel real bad in a story where they're absolutely relevant - even if you come to the conclusion that the leaks were still a jerk move - would be more genuinely positive, albeit a tougher, less surface-sunshiny road.

You know what's also faux-positive? "Hey, they're ignoring the huge potential worker abuse angle in this story, so you should ignore it too, random internet commenter. Try not to think too much, and just enjoy! :-D" Blind deference is not a virtue. I've enjoyed a heck of a lot of stuff that's come out of Giant Bomb, and, as noted by my previous post, I respect the experience they have in the industry, but I'm not going to turn my back on a big problem just because they're weirdly distracted by an email.

(Also: Schreier is pretty tone-deaf himself with his "lol complain on GlassDoor" solution in that Twitter thread.)

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Edited By indigozeal

@jedikv: I stand by what I said: worker abuse is so probable a motive that if you don't discuss it, you're sticking your head in the sand. Listen to almost any other discussion of industry news on the Bombcast, and you'll hear plenty of speculation, proposed scenarios, and assertions regarding industry decisions and behavior that are Omigod Not Absolutely 100% Video-Evidence Certain!. (Why aren't you protesting, for example, the speculation over the reasons for the WWE's decisions regarding the 2K franchise in the previous segment?) That's why you have analysts in the first place - their experience and insight allows them to explain and provide educated speculation about industry trends and events where the circumstances and rationale for decisions may not be 100% clear. I don't buy your case for not discussing the angle at all.

Yeah, they've discussed worker abuse in the past - but stories develop, and this is a hell of a huge development. If stuff keeps happening, you have to keep talking about it. Them's the news. Plus: this decision looks particularly bad after the much-discussed omission of the numerous worker rights issues that happened in 2019 from GotY. Limiting your discussion of the worker-rights angle to "wow, what a nasty thing to do to the team!", then going on to latch onto one line in some who-cares PR statement - taking that as the focus of the entire story - is a really bad call.

(ETA: I understand that we're all running low over the quarantine, doubly so in California. That said: I don't understand this attitude of "don't ask questions; just consume product" that seems to taking roost in areas of the gaming community that consider themselves progressive, apparently based on the rationale that to express doubts about corporate decisions regarding content or labor isn't "positive." "I care about consuming the product and deference to the consumer; I don't care about the human cost" is an attitude that's been the province of...well, the worst in the gaming community. I shouldn't have to name names by now.)

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indigozeal

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@jedikv: Yeah, but it doesn't exactly take Scotland Yard to consider: "hmmm, these employees are working 16-hour days, are getting hospitalized from overwork, and aren't being paid as promised - could this be a factor in this massive leak of info to which only those employees have access?". No, it's not confirmed - but it's probable, and even if the primary cause is a different source of employee dissatisfaction (like the story that alleged an amount of internal dissent about a certain plotline), you can't tell me severe habitual mistreatment isn't gonna be a factor at all in lashing out to such a degree against your employer.

An employee leaking game info represents the next, significant step in this huge ongoing story about crunch and the awful work culture in gaming. Before, the companies held all the cards - yeah, unionization efforts are out there, but they're slow going. This is a tactic that one disgruntled worker could employ that could be significantly damaging to companies. There's a whole conversation that could be had here: Is using such a tactic appropriate, given the larger picture? Is it understandable? You could at least note that it's a bellwether of how far relations between management and labor have deteriorated. The crew seemed completely disinterested, though, and it's tough not to extrapolate that a lack of interest in the crunch story as a whole. Handwaving employee working conditions with a "yeah, what an asshole, how could they do that to the team?", then moving on to complain at length about a line in an email that possibly may be a little tone-deaf is just a bad call and completely missing the significance of the story here.

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Edited By indigozeal

I listened to the Twitch archive to hear their take on the Last of Us news, and considering the rampant worker abuse that the leak has spotlighted (and by which it may well have been prompted), having the most objectionable thing about the situation - the thing that sparks a Jeff rant - be "Hey, the greeting used in this PR statement to consumers was less than optimal" is headache-inducing.

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Edited By indigozeal

I don't see the value in the "u mad?" approach to criticism. Of course, video games have a huge problem with toxicity, but if you're reflexively branding every change that makes people upset as positive, you're no different from those who reflexively brand every change as negative.

And, *that* said, I will again note - having read the Big Spoiler, I would definitely want to know it going in to temper my expectations were I an FF7 fan. That is a huge bait-and-switch.