@Deleth said:
@Korwin said:
@CaptainCody said:
He loses me near the end when he talks about how Dirge of Cerberus was a piece of shit. That game was alright in my book and certainly not broken, this guy (who just sounds like another journalist whom no one heard of so he's all buttmad about it) is amazingly bitter.
Hmmm...
"You also don’t want to read that your favorite game sucks, that its features were stolen wholesale from another better game that didn’t sell. You will get angry at me if I would dare trash MGS4 and call it a pile of pretentious bullshit, you simply do not allow us to have an opinion that might stray too far from yours." - " No you just want us to validate your own opinions and if they differ too much from yours we are clearly WRONG."
Heh.
This.
You know, the overarching structure used to describe gaming journalism in this .. article, I guess, sounds a lot like an oligopoly. The thing that caught my eye, that I'm assuming many of you glossed-over as a minor detail, is that IGN is owned by Fox. This in turn means IGN is, at the top of things, owned by Rupert Murdoch. If that doesn't raise flags for you, a quick reminder about RM; In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption in the UK and FBI investigations in the US. If RM is an active and hidden opinion leader, I certainly wouldn't be shocked to learn that some form of data manipulation was going on.
I don't know what the writing being "bitter" has anything to do with anything. It's like saying someone sounded agitated after getting kicked in the dick behind closed doors, who then showed a recording of the person getting kicked, who then had to stomach people asking him if he was really kicked the dick or if it was just his groin.
The gist of what he's saying is that gaming journalism isn't and hasn't been quality investigative work due to venture capitalists, who are apolitical one way or another, and has instead turned into sensationalized media that sings the tunes of "he who has the gold." .. Just like every form of mass media today. Hell, even Blogs are sensationalized based on a market demographics, catered to sell products to said demo's. Think Kim Kardashian's Twitter feed, which is a massively profitably marketing outlet for those blessed to be positively endorsed by KK.
I imagine smaller blogs, those ran by individuals who aren't professionally linked to larger conglomerates, are truly "honest." But they form their opinions through their personal lenses, inherently injecting bias. And what's more, those people aren't getting invitations to E3 and other exclusive conferences, soo who cares? It's an opinion, not the unabridged truth about whether a game is the quality tittle it's claiming to be. It's also not a full-featured analysis of larger producers working their employees grossly beyond overtime without pay; in fact, that very same scenario is only ever exposed over a big lawsuit.
This guy's "angsty" because his research didn't coincide with the opinions of the powers that be, who then promptly blacklisted him, which then cost him his passion and likely his livelihood for a bit. He is, by definition, a muckracker. And muckrackers are the one's who'll blow whistles and expose corrupt systems for what they are, and are heavily ostracized for it. The issue here is, honestly, that nothing can be done. When you expose a corrupt system as the lone ranger, no one wants to believe you, because A) they're too skeptical to concern themselves with it, or B) the boys holding all the cards tell everyone else, except the lone ranger, what to do and say.
Cool piece. Gonna see if I can validate his claims when I have free time.
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