Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 08/22/2014

Will there be a video?

I guess they finally ditched Google Hangouts for whatever reason.

I've never been one to show how much I enjoy peoples content on the internet and especially not in a public comment section. But I think I need to give you my praise considering how much I think this one show did for me. I have just finished my 10th year of school in which I did my first big exams, I am painfully average (and sometimes worse) in terms of my performance at school and I tend to do minimal levels of work, however I began to start listening to this podcast and I decided I could do something useful while I was listening to it and turned to doing my school work. It was not too long after until it was crunch time to begin seriously revising for my upcoming exams. This podcast kept me going throughout this period as I used it to get used to (what seemed like) revising for extended periods of time. This worked and I was soon doing hours of revision at a time without needing the podcast to keep me going. I got my results yesterday (which were still quite low) and got what I need to go to college. I hope this podcast continues for a long time and you both have my thanks as I sincerely doubt I would of got the same results without this podcast. (Also Patricks introduction to me of Dark Souls 2 helped as well, but I've rambled enough in this fairly poorly constructed comment anyway). :)

Hey guys, I appreciate that you make these podcasts/videos and quite enjoy the rest of the content you put out. So thanks.

Sad thing about the social media is...People develop a follow the leader mentality...Even when the leader is a jackass

I hope I can go the rest of my life without people discussing certain groups of jackasses as "the internet".

Anyways good show guys.

@luck702: I think this is a situation where you would "prop up" a fellow human being against a torrential blast of inhumane internet behavior.

Also I think we continue to learn in this digital age how easy it is for peoples' personal lives to spill out or be dragged out into the online press sphere...TMZ is TMZ because they poke and prod and swarm and rip open a person's life.

Phil Fish seems...... constantly depressed, even when bad things aren't happening

This is like saying Jeff Gerstmann allowed himself to get fired.

"Allowed". That's fucking hilarious. The only people turning the games industry into TMZ and the shitheads that are poking into other people's private lives.

Too bad with Phil Fish, Fez is one of the best games of the last 5-10 years. Ugly situation for Zoe, sounds like an enormous mess that I don't really understand, but no one seems to.

@dan_citi: Oh there are plenty of explanations, some crazy and some believable, but because Giant Bomb has censored their whole forum of any mention of Zoe, and the fact no one in the media's speaking out on the issue, people are remaining ignorant on the whole mess.

One side of me is thankful that there is a gaming place on the internet that isn't covering that situation,

The other side of me, is kinda disgusted if GB is actually censoring, censorship is bad, just like poking into someones private life is bad.

I admit to casting stones, because as a human being i believe in morality. I also believe in shaming. As I would expect the same to be done to me. I do not believe in bullying, sexism, racism, or making threats to someone's life, family, or well being.

This entire situation is out of hand, and both sides need to stop.

Again, I am very thankful to find a place of peace. The internet can be a bad places sometimes.

I have no idea where I have been the past couple days because this was the first I heard of the Zoe/Phil stuff that has happened. I just spent the past couple hours reading about what the hell is actually going on...extremely interesting stuff.

I understand why I never saw a mention of this in the forums (and thus never saw anything about this) but its unfortunate we can't keep this discussion civil.

At this point I just want to know more about what is going on and it is a little weird how hard it was to find information about the whole ordeal.

@dan_citi: most of the tweets out there range from not helpful to pretty hateful. Both sides are really taking the low road when discussing stuff. The most reasoned stuff I've read has been Patrick's tumbler post and TotalBiscuit's twitlonger post. If we could step outside the hateful stuff there are some interesting threads that could be discussed in a respectful manner. Nepotism, opinion/gossip as news, etc which are long term issues in journalism not just game journalism. Unfortunately as Patrick states in his tumbler post at this point it seems like this could only happen in an alternate universe.

Definitely been a weird week. Especially with the whole doxxing incident where phone numbers all lead to places in Hawaii that most certainly aren't her or her family. It doesn't help though that the Alex Jones-type nutcases are screaming false-flag and treating this like a terrorist act.

OMG Patrick why are you putting Jay Cutler writhing in pain from last season in my safe place why oh why oh why

I know what this week needs.

@nightriff: Same here. I understand not digging into it. But I wish they had explained better what the situation was. (I still don't know.)

Usually just lurk but made this comment to say that I appreciate what you bring to the games industry, Patrick.

@memu: I SUGGEST digging into the situation, it is better to at least read everything from both sides to figure out what the hell is going on. Problem is people taking one person's opinion as FACT when that is obviously not the case. Which was my biggest problem with Patrick's tumblr...it is pretty one sided and doesn't address that at least some of the evidence put forth is worthy of looking into.

I just want more information to further figure out what the fuck is going on.

"See you then" @alex? "SEE. YOU. THEN."? Wolves don't say "See you then". They howl and shit.

I don't like the nasty things being said on both sides but I think its very interesting topic if you wade through a few layers of shit.

@patrickklepek: Dammit, Patrick! I almost freaked out when I saw that thumb nail. I thought Cutty was injured again. ;_;

Okay, before this comments section gets any worse, here's a paraphrased note from Modmaster General Rorie:

"It's basically impossible to have a discussion on the games journalism aspects of this week's controversy du jour without also bringing in the fact that someone publicly published ostensibly private correspondence and all the personal relationship stuff. People have tried to discuss the topic on the site with varying levels of impartiality and a desire to simply concentrate on the journalistic side of the matter, and invariably those topics immediately became awful. As such, we've declared the topic off-limits and that's unlikely to change for the time being."

We'll also point out that it's against the forum rules to discuss the personal lives of others without their consent. It's also against the rules to discuss any moderations you have received, so don't do it. Contact the mods via PM if you have any concerns, and Rorie if you have concerns about a mod in particular.

Let's just leave this matter as a nebulous, "holy crap, this week has been a shitshow," akin to the statements made in the stream itself and look forward to PAX Prime instead. After that, maybe things will have died down enough to broach the broader topic of journalistic integrity without pages of scurrilous commentary, but that's a big maybe.

I'm... not entirely clear on what Patrick and Alex were referring to in their somber tone at the beginning of the podcast... I don't remember anything particularly vile happening on the internet this week and they dance around it so vaguely that it sounds like it could have been literally anything.

Someone mind bringing me up to speed?

Yeah I saw those two and a couple others, regardless of where everything stands, it is very messy at the end of the day.

Also I got even more sad that soon we will have a bunch of NFL talk on this show soon for like 5 months :\

The thing that gets me about this whole situation is something that has bothered me for some time now. When Giant Bomb was following the development of Bastion they went out of their way to make sure everyone knew what the conflict of interest was and had many discussions on why they wouldn't be reviewing the game. They handled it elegantly. They even went into detail discussing why it was ok to include the game on end of year lists. All was laid bare and out in the open. Not a single aspect of any of the developers personal lives were brought up or discussed by the staff. Staff kept relationships friendly yet professional.

Fast forward a few years and all of that has seemingly gone out the window. I don't care to know ANY details of anyones private relationships but my god does there seem to be a clique within certain groups of journalists and devs that goes well beyond having Cliffy B stop by for a podcast or Brad Muir show up for a UPF. To the point that journos and these devs have collaborated work together doing panels and gamejams, supporting devs on Patreon and giving them a megaphone directly to a large audience whenever they please. Entire articles and interviews discussing far too much of their personal life have been posted.

I get that this industry is super weird like that. I understand GB can potentially cover things much better by knowing these devs and having lines of communication with them. Hell, friendships are going to form. This just seems so much more personal now. Could you even imagine anything like that four years ago? I don't even necessarily mean this current ridiculousness. Look at the attention the last situation involving this person got.

Maybe the problem is that indie devs don't know how to handle themselves without a larger company and PR department behind them. Should I know of Phil Fish? Probably only slightly, he developed one game that was received well. Would he conduct himself as he does if he worked for Activision? Probably not lest he no longer have a job there. Think of how contentious David Jaffe can be for an example and then compare his actions with Phil Fish, now compare how journalists cover each of them and how the internet reacts to the whole situation. Combine that with small indie devs having complete control over what is released to the press and how its released mixed with far more time to interact with journalists and you end up with all of this. Journalists should know better, though. Some indie devs that appear to know members of this staff and other sites SEEM to get more than average coverage for their games and most importantly information released about themselves and their personal life BY THE STAFF. There will be an article about them on a Tuesday and then pictures of them having drinks together on a Wednesday. The whole thing feels really slimy to me. I'd almost rather see Jeff sitting next to a pile of Doritos and Mountain Dew because at this point even that seems more honest.

I don't care to know the personal details of an indie devs life, especially if they aren't known for actually developing much of anything yet. That means I don't want details into their sex life plastered all over the internet but also I don't need hour long interviews and entire pax panels about their personal life and experiences on this site either. You don't want to devolve into TMZ but you'll gladly turn into People Magazine for indie devs you personally know. Why did people know so much about this individual to begin with? Rhetorical question.

We can sit here and act like the only problem in this whole situation is just the ugliness that can get released on an anonymous internet. We have entire articles devoted to that on this site and others about that already. It's what so goddamn many games journalists have tweeted about this past week. We have entire PAX panels devoted solely to that subject even though it has so little to do with video games. I get it. We all get it. Most of us already agree on that, it's a disgusting problem. Not addressing the concerns that strike to the core of this profession isn't going to make any of this go away. You can't manufacture an e-celeb of a friend that almost no one had heard of beforehand for doing something little were aware of and then dismiss the blowback for leaked transgressions being brought up on this site without acknowledging the role of journalists. That level of dissonance may be expected and accepted from a youtuber but not a duder. Personal lives and professional lives aren't being handled appropriately and kept separate where needed. Again I can't really blame a small indie dev for not knowing how to do that very well or even know that it is unacceptable and ill advised to begin with but again, journalists should know better.

P.S. This site used to be more fun before opinion-piece blog posts about superfluous things in this industry were posted on the front page. The door was opened for all of these types of discussions here and it sure as hell wasn't the user base that did it.

Didn't even know anything was going on until I saw it appear on other websites a few days ago. I imagine FEZ 2 will appear again and get cancelled again.

@tomtomthepirate: Beautiful post. It encapsulates my opinion on the issue and a lot of the problems I've had with GB and it's community in the past several years. I just want GB to go back to being a bunch of people playing video games and having fun. Enough with the social issues and taking games/things surrounding games so seriously (my main problem with Patrick.) Just have fun. Luckily, with the addition of Dan and Jason as well as the establishment of GBEAST, it seems like things are heading back in that direction.

Seriously these guys need to act more like Derek Jeter or MIchael Jordan. Never say anything controversial or stir the pot. Basically don't have an opinion. Treat twitter and social media like a business tool and act like a business. I guess its nice to connect with true fans of your work/art but if you are sensitive as someone like Phil Fish seems to be then you absolutely should just use the system as a marketing tool. This is not discussing the hack or anything as that was obviously wrong and I hope whomever did that is found and prosecuted.

In regards to the Zoe stuff, do we really care? I literally read the synopsis on it and decided yeah i don't care about this. I don't take games journalism seriously no offense to the GB crew as this is the only site whose credibility I don't question. But even then with all the lets play and videos online who needs reviews anymore? The rest of that garbage news story about who slept with who and jilted excess who cares. That sounds like nonsense best left for reality tv. The harassment is just embarrassing for those people doing that. I don't surround myself in anyway with that sort of negativity virtually or in real life.

Oh and Patrick & Alex I enjoy your work. Keep it up.

If you haven't seen it yet, you should see this. It's probably one of the best interpretations of Phil Fish, internet fame, and why/how this all sort of transpired:

@tomtomthepirate: Eh I don't see the problem with it, really. Like with anything, lets say there's some singer you think is hot, you do not have to like or support their music at all to still think they're attractive. Or if your friend is in a band that sucks, chances are you are not going to say how great they are, you're going to be critical. And I don't know what you mean about this site never having "opinion pieces" because that's what all of the content is that isn't the wiki, an interview, or QL EX. The Quick Looks are, in a lot of ways, opinion pieces. Countless times people have complained about what they have or have not done or said in a video since forever. They have complained about their stances and actions. To say it was introduced at some point is silly. Giant Bomb was always scrappy, opinionated, and all that.

Jeff, and everyone else gives everything done by Iron Galaxy or Double Fine an even shake for what it's worth. Even stating they don't like things they've done. They react pretty honestly and realistically to the games Johnny V has been a part of, and so on.

That being said, I think both Phil (and Zoe) have handled their careers quite poorly, especially since Fez totally knocked it out of the park.

@tomtomthepirate: I agree with you on a lot of points. It does start to feel gross when relationships between devs and journalists go beyond the camera or microphone. Seeing a tweet from Adam Sessler yesterday with some journalist and Zoe Quinn at a bar just made me think "Jesus, has nobody learned anything from this besides the thought that people from the internet are evil?" This entire situation should have both developers and journalists questioning how close is too close. Instead, it's turned into a flame war between two sides. In the 2 years I've been a part of Giant Bomb, I've realized that the duders have my trust. I know Patrick had ties to Ms. Quinn on multiple occasions, but I completely trust in his journalistic integrity to the very end. Unfortunately, there are audiences of certain journalists that had similar trusts betrayed this week.

@anjon: Probably the whole Zoe Quinn issue with her ex basically airing out all their dirty laundry. Pretty nasty stuff all around. Just be sure where you get your news about it though because there's a lot of exaggeration and lying going on about it. I believe it's also tied into what happened with Phil Fish.

That was surprisingly not the 19 minute character assassination I was expecting and infact worth watching and sharing. Has helped me be a little less upset and angry about the internet this morning thanks.

@tomtomthepirate: Great post, that's all I wanted to say.

And, when they do this, it always sends me to google to find out what I can for myself. I'm pretty sure that says some negative about me.

e: ah they weren't using cloudfront in the way I expected

We all enjoy and love developers, just..

@tomtomthepirate: I totally agree. I fully understand the discussion of "why people are so awful on the internet," but you're absolutely correct that it can only go so far, and at a certain point becomes unhelpful. And I also agree that it's hard to take journalists seriously when they not only get so personally involved with the people they are supposed to be covering, but get involved in their defense as well.

I am certainly happy with the general stance GB takes on not covering issues like this, but it does, at the same time, feel weird. It's uncomfortable for me to know that they have a vested interest in one side over the other. That the things that they say about this situation are not necessarily to be trusted. It's an unfortunate situation, and it could be avoided by not getting as involved in the first place as they have - or creating that much-needed personal life/professional life separation that you're talking about.

Not to mention that it feels like a lazy deflection at this point to start talking about how the internet it "so awful, you guys" - this is not novel information. If you make yourself a public figure, you expose yourself to backlash. That's just the shitty tradeoff you get for the benefits of fame. Certainly that doesn't justify harassment, by any means. But it seems like perseverating about how to "stop" or "overcome" it just serves as a way to avoid addressing whatever kernel of legitimate problem exists under the sea of blind hate-tweeting. Because in this case, it feels like there is one.

I hope when "the history books are written about the internet" we remember Twitter for having a stupefying effect on important discourse, making nearly every side of the controversial issue of the week into reductive caricatures. Someone is a fallen hero, their holy all-encompassing goodness besmirched by unrepentant, vile monsters, or basically Hitler, holding vast power in society and in need of being wiped off the face of the Earth. There can be no in-between with 140 characters.

When Patrick said he "Didn't want to get into the nuances of it" I understood entirely what he meant by that, and I understand why he felt no need to lay everything out on the table in a show like this. But "not getting into the nuances" is part of the problem. The nuances are important, necessary aspects of any debate, if we're trying to come to an intellectually honest conclusion. It becomes hard for communities to work these problems through when evidently incomprehensible notions like "I don't like this person, but that doesn't excuse ___ at all" or "This individual not being a good person doesn't excuse ___ in any way" become punishable offenses for not being sufficiently black or white.

Civility is very important, and what all forms of moderation should be there to encourage, but it's important to note that civility does not mean agreement, or even personal respect. It just means not being an outright dick and listening to what the person has to say.

In the games press, there is conspicuously very little diversity of opinion on these issues, and others. The closeness you all inhabit contributes to a large part of this, and it's understandable from a sociological standpoint why that would come about, and why a certain groupthink and defensiveness to "outsiders" would form, but that doesn't excuse it entirely. There are very few geographic hotbeds for game development and the games press in this country; nearly all of you inhabit the same spaces, are familiar with each other on social media, go to and cover the same events, and the same games, at more or less the same times, and for many people there seems to be a revolving door from publication to publication to game dev job. Many in the press are not trusted, usually because examples like this are pointed out on a weekly basis. This is a problem people should be making more of a direct effort to solve, and yet it seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

In Patrick's Tedx talk about internet discourse, he said some really awesome things:

"Social media trains us, is built upon, us having emotional, knee-jerk reactions and not thinking about the consequences. Everytime we do this, we turn the dial up on dialogue on the internet, just a little bit. It happens incrementally over time. The one person does it, another person does it, another person does it, and even though I know better, I did it anyway too." ...

"We've seen what happens when we go off to our own private echo chambers. It's happening on cable news right now. It's pretty ugly. It doesn't help anyone, there's no actual discourse, it's just a lot of "Rah! Rah! Don't you feel good about your pre-existing viewpoint?"" ...

"We can't control what other people do on the internet. You can introduce tools, but ultimately we're responsible for what each of us contributes, what each of us contributes to the noise, and if all of us can dial it down, over time maybe the volume comes down with it."

What's important to note about all of the excerpts is that you don't use them to make yourself feel better about yourself and bash other people over the head with concerns about dialogue on the internet being toxic if you are going to contribute to the toxicity. It's not fair to have your cake and eat it too. People in the games press should be held to the same standards, and unfortunately some people in the gaming Twitterati get away with shit that would be called out if they were anyone else. Stuff they would not be associated with, if they were anyone else. If the gaming press were a little more self critical in the way they tell others to stand up to toxic behavior in their personal (and professional) lives, the mistrust might not have gotten this bad.

Also @tomtomthepirate's post is pretty good.

I had no idea what the guys were talking about for the first five minutes of this show. I watch the Friday show to get caught up on the week's news but when they dance around an issue without providing any background it's very confusing and a little frustrating.

I just wanted to say I appreciate everything the entire Giantbomb crew does and I'm glad I stumbled upon your podcast a couple years back. Thanks for everything guys