|
Let us English posted:Games journalism is so much cleaner than it used to be. The 90s were insane, and though I wasn't there, I've been told by people who were that PR reps used to regularly sleep with journalists and that doesn't even begin to get into weird poo poo like the GameFan hookers, blow, and Donkey Kong stuff. Some of that's made up, some of it's not. A guy or two at Giant Bomb worked for GameSpot when it also housed EGM in those days and other than discussions about how Quartermann rumors were just made up bullshit a lot of the time, nothing really shattered your childhood. The console manufacturers actually owned their own Pravda-like publications to convince you to buy games for your systems, so most of the blow and hookers are probably based in the DOS world, since that's where most of the old Atari types who were used to their offices being a hippie drug den went to after the crash.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:13 |
|
|
# ? May 31, 2024 22:41 |
|
Exclamation Marx posted:The purpose of creating a new hashtag to support games journalism reform or whatever is to distance that movement from the anti-SJW harassment one. Yeah, but again that's really impractical. Effectively that's already done by consistently condemning people that are engaged in harassment. Exclamation Marx posted:You seem to have a really hard time understanding English dude. Actually I do, it's my second language. Sometimes I miss words with double meanings and sentence order. Although I'm pretty sure I can't possibly be taken as Lenin is the equivalent of gamergate. Edit: Also I really would like the explanation of how this theory of "out groups" and "privilege" makes gamergate inherently reactionary and misogynist. You keep referencing it and others keep alluding to it, but no one I've seen post yet has explained it or how it's suppose to work. It's clearly not a mainstream outlook of the world, so I think I can be forgiven for not knowing immediately what you're talking about. Shadoer fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jun 29, 2015 |
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:14 |
|
Unfunny Poster posted:How does that kind of coverage differ from Geek&Sundry, Twitch, and a bunch of other sites (as well as individuals) that have been doing that for a few years now? I don't know about Geek&Sundry, and I thought Twitch was just hosting streams from other sites, but at least the way it differs from the mainstream sites is that they don't actually show any of the floor demos. A lot of those demos are basically huge fabrications anyway (it's been known for years, but Patrick Klepek didn't a good rundown of this on Kotaku recently). The worst example this year that I saw was Just Cause 3, which instead of being played was just a choose your own adventure where the person getting the demo got to pick which pre-recorded outcome they wanted to see for how to blow up a narco-bridge or whatever. The head guy at Giant Bomb (Jeff Gerstmann) has talked a lot over the years about things he doesnt like about E3 and E3 coverage. Specifically, stuff like sites giving out E3 award badges to stick onto various booths, the issues with getting good preview content there (bad setups, but also total PR control, so they cant really get their own spin on stuff), and the ongoing identity crisis (ie, it's no longer really a show for retailers, but its not an enthusiast show like PAX, so its just an ambiguous Industry Show thats changed a lot over the years).
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:16 |
|
Slanderer posted:A lot of those demos are basically huge fabrications anyway (it's been known for years, but Patrick Klepek didn't a good rundown of this on Kotaku recently). I thought that most of it was going behind closed doors, no appointment, no footage; and the stuff on the floor you could play takes so many hours to get a crack at that it isn't really a worthwhile goal for people who have appointments to make. That's been the case for almost 15 years. It's kind of odd, I can't think of any E3 demo that generated more excitement for a single game than this one, and it actually had to be snuck in and taken secretly without disclosure.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:24 |
|
Craptacular! posted:I thought that most of it was going behind closed doors, no appointment, no footage; and the stuff on the floor you could play takes so many hours to get a crack at that it isn't really a worthwhile goal for people who have appointments to make. That's been the case for almost 15 years. I think it's always been mixed on which of the private demos are allowed to be recorded (I think demos for that terrible Fantasia game were recorded, for example). The floorshow demos are more accessible when they're allowed to cut in line as press, but I think a lot of those are usually super limited in scope. That HL2 demo was mind-blowing when I saw it in high school (probably watched it through the magic of real player, too. But I think one of the things that came out out that Valve hack (where some guy guessed Gabe Newell's password and downloaded the source for HL2) was that all of the cool interactions between NPCs and enemies were 100% scripted. Of course, the end game ended up having a bunch of the stuff that they showed there, but that was only because they put in a ton of effort to actually implement those systems for real.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:35 |
|
For the most part, "games journalism" these days seems to be utterly useless thanks to the Goon invention of a Let's Play, YouTube, and Twitch.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:45 |
|
Unfunny Poster posted:For the most part, "games journalism" these days seems to be utterly useless thanks to the Goon invention of a Let's Play, YouTube, and Twitch. games journalism has always been useless, and people have relied on alternatives such as forum discussion, which is partially why nobody can take "ethics in games journalism" seriously. it's like a bunch of nerds claiming that they intend to restore fair mathematical odds at casinos or die, it so supremely misses the point that they just come out looking like clowns
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:54 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:games journalism has always been useless, and people have relied on alternatives such as forum discussion, which is partially why nobody can take "ethics in games journalism" seriously. it's like a bunch of nerds claiming that they intend to restore fair mathematical odds at casinos or die, it so supremely misses the point that they just come out looking like clowns Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? They're covering a major cultural industry worth billions of dollars, isn't it time it's taken out of the gutter?
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:56 |
|
Shadoer posted:Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? What does Wikipedia have to do with GamerGate's crusade towards better video game journalism?
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 06:59 |
|
Shadoer posted:Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? This is the 7th time you said "billion dollar industry" in this thread.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:05 |
|
Shadoer posted:Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? who cares? because it's not like all gaming journalism is corrupt, and ultimately, it doesn't matter one single bit of journalism is just PR so long as there are dozens of alternatives to 'gaming journalism' caring about corruption in gaming journalism is like caring about corruption in boating journalism. gaming is a niche hobby, gaming journalism is not the sole authority of information regarding video games, and some percentage of gaming journalism being corrupt is tolerable as more or less every aspect of human society has some tolerable level of corruption, as humans by nature are corrupt the only people who really care about gaming journalism at all, sincerely care, are incredibly pedantic nerds who have not yet figured out the nature of society as a relentless spiral of deception. it's like that one weird homeshcool kid who refuses to lie under any reason and can't figure out why he's unpopular
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:05 |
|
Shadoer posted:Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? Yes, and one way to do this is for people to not get all mad when reviewers are like "I didn't like thing x because it bothered me because y" and go BUH BUH BUH YER POLITICS OUTTA MUH GAMES like reviewers aren't allowed to say "hey this is a thing I didn't like' because it's not something "gamers" agree with Really this whole thing is the same thing as punk rock idiots lamenting that punk is dead because of the posers, which has been happening since approximately March 1976: A former out group is mad that other people are joining in because they based a large part of their identity on being an out group and if too many people join in it stops being an out group, and they throw a fuckin hissy fit.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:06 |
|
if you really, truly, give a poo poo about the nature of gaming journalism, how many magazines do you subscribe to? how many studio-owned websites do you frequent? or do you get most if not all of your information about games from talking about games with other gamers, on the internet? all of these arguments about ethics ring hollow for many many people who play games, and seem as a very obvious smokescreen for "we pretend to care about this really inconsequential thing, but really we care about harassing people under the umbrella of thing" it's obvious as hell and the only funny part of gamergate is how many people just cannot step outside of themselves for one second and realize how foolish they look to like practically everyone else
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:07 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:if you really, truly, give a poo poo about the nature of gaming journalism, how many magazines do you subscribe to? how many studio-owned websites do you frequent? or do you get most if not all of your information about games from talking about games with other gamers, on the internet? Similarly, comics journalism is also a joke, because the few dudes who were writing good stuff have gone on to other, better things (like working for the third biggest comic company in America), but nobody actually cares besides the morons who read comics news sites anyway because everyone else just shoots the breeze on the internet.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:08 |
|
Slanderer posted:This is the 7th time you said "billion dollar industry" in this thread. I know, it's a point I like to hammer a lot at to counter the sense that "gaming journalism is useless and always will be". An industry that size should be covered by something with a quality level above crap. Popular Thug Drink posted:who cares? because it's not like all gaming journalism is corrupt, and ultimately, it doesn't matter one single bit of journalism is just PR so long as there are dozens of alternatives to 'gaming journalism' Well yeah, really the only people who should care are people invested in gaming. The only reason you seem to care along with others is because the issue is framed as a "misogynist conspiracy to harass women".
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:08 |
|
Shadoer posted:Well yeah, really the only people who should care are people invested in gaming. Define "invested in gaming" No, seriously, what does that mean, because gaming is hardly a niche hobby that you have to put effort into. Does it mean basing your identity around conspicuous consumerism? Because then you got bigger problems than who's just regurgitating press releases.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:09 |
|
Shadoer posted:Well yeah, really the only people who should care are people invested in gaming. The only reason you seem to care along with others is because the issue is framed as a "misogynist conspiracy to harass women". i'm invested in gaming, and i do care about weirdos harassing women on the internet. there are many people just like me, who are people who play games who do not identify as gamers, because for like at least a decade a 'gamer' is someone who gets all weird at women on the internet if you have any thoughts at all that i'm not someone who pays attention to and thinks about video games, then you're just defining anyone who doesn't think exactly like you as being not really a gamer and thus someone who isn't worth listening to the other side of your answer is "only gamers should care about gaming journalism" which is a weird assertion given that you keep commenting on the extreme social importance of gaming while also claiming that gaming is a small little thing that nobody should care about really boner confessor fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Jun 29, 2015 |
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:10 |
|
Shadoer posted:Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? Specialty journalism in general is pretty much always garbage. There are automobile journalists with exactly the same type of morals and writing styles as the video game stuff we rage about here. If there's some actually important issue it's probably reported on by real journalists (for example, auto journalists are not the ones detailing GM's latest recall).
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:13 |
|
Literally The Worst posted:Define "invested in gaming" Well generally speaking people who are involved or read gaming journalism, invest in the industry, and work in the industry. And if it wasn't framed as a attempt harrass women, no one outside of that including myself would have cared. Popular Thug Drink posted:i'm invested in gaming, and i do care about weirdos harassing women on the internet. there are many people just like me, who are people who play games who do not identify as gamers, because for like at least a decade a 'gamer' is someone who gets all weird at women on the internet Except sexism is a problem that isn't even confined to gamers? And that gamer just means you play games? Popular Thug Drink posted:the other side of your answer is "only gamers should care about gaming journalism" which is a weird assertion given that you keep commenting on the extreme social importance of gaming while also claiming that gaming is a small little thing that nobody should care about really No, I meant that in regards to ethics in game journalism under normal circomstances it's something people in the industry should care about and those who observe the industry. As i think the industry is important, I find it rational to care about it and I also am completly okay with people criticizing it on social grounds. Continuing to define people who care about ethics in game journalism as worthless idiots and implying the real reason is to harass women, I have a problem with that. Shadoer fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Jun 29, 2015 |
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:17 |
|
Shadoer posted:gamer just means you play games ahahahahahhahhahahahahah edit: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaahahahahahahhhhahahaha (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:18 |
|
just as an example, i have been someone who plays video games as a hobby since like 1993, and i do not care one single bit about ethics in games journalism, because games journalism itself is stupid garbage. it always has been and it always will be. there is no way to fix it, it is intrinsically trash, because it's not possible to get cutting edge information and beat your competitors without being in bed with one or more major studios. that is just the nature of the business so when someone tells me "i care about ethical considerations in gaming journalism" it sounds just like an amway pitch, or a mormon knocking on my door, or any other number of obvious indicators that this person is either a kool aid drinker or a manipulator
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:18 |
|
Shadoer posted:And that gamer just means you play games? No it doesn't. "Gamer" as an identity hasn't meant that in a minute. It is increasingly a group of people who define themselves by the fact that they do a thing that a huge percentage of people also do.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:20 |
|
Shadoer posted:Well generally speaking people who are involved or read gaming journalism, invest in the industry, and work in the industry. And if it wasn't framed as a attempt harrass women, no one outside of that including myself would have cared. so you only care about gamergate, because some people said that gamergaters attempted to harras women, and you see this as a slander against gamers that will not stand? Shadoer posted:Except sexism is a problem that isn't even confined to gamers? so what? this isn't a thread to talk about sexism as it exists everywhere else. this is a threat to talk about gamergate, which is an organized group of sexist nerds that hate women Shadoer posted:And that gamer just means you play games? i have some very uncharitable opinions of you because of this statement, which i will not type. but this statement alone seriously damages my willingness to speak to you as if you're a normal human adult with a sound mind
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:21 |
|
Well let's turn things around a bit? While there's real harassment against women, it's a reasonable assertion that continuing to frame gamergate as a "misogynist cover to harass women" and "the industry isn't worth caring about" is a cynical PR ploy to escape criticism and oversight. So what does it say about people who basically are shielding corrupt companies from criticism and oversight because they have to same women from harrassment. (Not the women who are stumping for gamergate though, just the perceived targets)?
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:24 |
|
HOw does randos on the internet saying that the industry sucks by its very nature come out to being a PR ploy, man, come on
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:25 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:so you only care about gamergate, because some people said that gamergaters attempted to harras women, and you see this as a slander against gamers that will not stand? No as stated before, my main personal concern is censorship. I haven't found evidence of a misogynist conspiracy outside a fringe part of it that is routinely condemned. Popular Thug Drink posted:so what? this isn't a thread to talk about sexism as it exists everywhere else. this is a threat to talk about gamergate, which is an organized group of sexist nerds that hate women Well again it's not organized to hate women, and I think talk about sexism is fine as well as racism and a bunch of other issues. Framing gamers as specifically misogynist and more misogynist than anything else is wrong, ignorant, and doesn't mean much Popular Thug Drink posted:i have some very uncharitable opinions of you because of this statement, which i will not type. but this statement alone seriously damages my willingness to speak to you as if you're a normal human adult with a sound mind My message box is open.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:27 |
|
Literally The Worst posted:HOw does randos on the internet saying that the industry sucks by its very nature come out to being a PR ploy, man, come on No the PR ploy is "hey people are saying the industry sucks, let's keep calling them misogynist so we don't have to do anything".
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:28 |
|
Shadoer posted:No as stated before, my main personal concern is censorship. Well I've got good news for you
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:28 |
|
Would you accept a new term for a gamer who isn't OK with being assholes to women? Perhaps "Gamer+"?
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:29 |
|
Unfunny Poster posted:Would you accept a new term for a gamer who isn't OK with being assholes to women? Perhaps "Gamer+"? Perhaps Gamergate should have also divorced itself from the misogynist assholes with #GamergatePlus to really demonstrate how much it was against harassment as well
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:32 |
|
OMGVBFLOL posted:ahahahahahhahhahahahahah gamer SHOULD mean you just play games there you go, i fixed it
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:36 |
|
Unfunny Poster posted:I mean people who want to point out that PC Gamer had a reviews editor writing about Ubisoft games while his partner worked for Ubisoft in a community management/PR role. To be honest, you really need to keep an eye out on major review sites. Kotaku had a whole huge thing on the rise and fall of Doom 4 (old doom 4) and the aftermath of the closure of Silicon Knights. This was before it became completely clickbait poo poo and just regurgitating poo poo from the web. That sort of investigative, behind the scenes stuff is hard to find. Game developers typically don't want to speak out for fear of being black-listed with stories like that, as a lot of times after development is done sometimes teams are shunted around and people are laid off. Nobody wants to be labeled as a whistle-blower or risk their job. So unless something is particularly outrageous, hearing about it is hard. For example, when there was the scandal at EA with insane deadlines and poo poo pay compared to other jobs, it wasn't an employee that did it, but an employee's wife. Slanderer posted:There are tons of people clamoring for "real videogames journalism" (and yet somehow end up latching on to people on twitter who rely entirely on tweet screenshots and doxx pastebins), but all of the good stories come from people who are either embedded with developers, or have great relationships with them to get leaks. But unlike movies, it's harder to sneak onto a set to take pictures of an unreleased film, or give an unpaid production assistant $20 and a muffin to find out what racist things an actor said today. Most games journalism ends up being regurgitating press releases, because other than getting an inside source (through unethical collusion!!!) or tricking a PR rep or dev into revealing something they shouldnt (potentially getting you blackballed in the future), there are no other sources of information on upcoming releases. That's why I found all the people complaining about the Rock Band preview on polygon to be hilarious---I don't go on Polygon often, so I just find it amusing that a preview writer recognized that every other site would be writing the same preview anyway, so he just hosed off and wrote whatever. It never really mattered what he wrote at the end of the day, because he couldn't possibly add anything new or unique. That's part of the philosophy of Giant Bomb that I like--they know previews are bullshit, so they rarely write about upcoming stuff (only if they actually have something to say). They'll host trailers that come out, but only generate videos of their own once they can play the game (pre-release or final), or (less often) interview a dev about the game as the dev plays it in their office(while avoiding game-breaking bugs). Pretty much, yeah. It is way harder and jobs might be at risk. Collusion! Having coffee! The scandal! And yeah, getting black-balled is always a huge risk, but typically that is only if you break embargo. I haven't heard of being blackballed for anything else, except maybe Jeff Gerstman from Game Spot. Really. I mean, who cares, it is Polygon? I just found it was hilarious that this guy basically admitted he wasn't going to do his job and proceeded to write a really pretentious blog post that was the equivalent of him telling the editor and the company to go to hell. Despite previews being full of poo poo, I mean, it is still your job after all. Find some way to make it work. But like I said, I don't really care. I just found it funny, which is why I don't want it to change. Giant Bomb is pretty decent, though that new guy they hired is meh.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:37 |
|
Shadoer posted:While there's real harassment against women, it's a reasonable assertion that continuing to frame gamergate as a "misogynist cover to harass women" and "the industry isn't worth caring about" is a cynical PR ploy to escape criticism and oversight. people's opinions, individually or in aggregate, can never be a cynical PR ploy. you're jumping at shadows here. you're afraid of monsters under the bed Shadoer posted:No as stated before, my main personal concern is censorship. I haven't found evidence of a misogynist conspiracy outside a fringe part of it that is routinely condemned. i don't believe you when you say that your main personal concern is censorship, when not even a half hour ago you were complaining about how some elements of hobbyist journalism might be corrupt. corruption in journalism is nowhere near censorship. it's such an absolute shift in argument and tone that i can only assume you're on the defensive, and rationalizing Shadoer posted:Well again it's not organized to hate women, and I think talk about sexism is fine as well as racism and a bunch of other issues. Framing gamers as specifically misogynist and more misogynist than anything else is wrong, ignorant, and doesn't mean much it very much appears to be organized to hate women, given that the catalyst of gamergate was a slutshaming campaign around a female game developer and the main targets of gamergate are women who have opinions about games, some of whom aren't even games journalists but social critics. the only common thread is women, and the only common action is to attack those women. this strongly implies that dislike of women is the main thrust of the movement Shadoer posted:My message box is open. i've already said i do not think you are a credible or worthwhile person to speak to individually, so i will not private message you. i will instead ask questions in a public thread, where your responses are visible to everyone who cares to read them
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:40 |
|
Until I found out about gamergate I always just assumed that gamer just meant "someone who plays games as a hobby". I considered myself to be a gamer because I occassionally played video, computer and tabletop games, though not as much as used to when I was younger. Yes it was part of my identity, but it wasn't my entire identity. Was I naive to think this?
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:41 |
|
Dapper Dan posted:To be honest, you really need to keep an eye out on major review sites. Kotaku had a whole huge thing on the rise and fall of Doom 4 (old doom 4) and the aftermath of the closure of Silicon Knights. This was before it became completely clickbait poo poo and just regurgitating poo poo from the web. That sort of investigative, behind the scenes stuff is hard to find. there's this repeated focus on what people on kotaku say, and what people on polygon say, and what people on twitter say, but not so much what people in game informer or pc gamer or gamepro or whatever say. are we really worried about games journalism as a whole, or a subset of gaming journalism on the internet that has a certain lefitst demographic? Gianthogweed posted:Until I found out about gamergate I always just assumed that gamer just meant "someone who plays games as a hobby". I considered myself to be a gamer because I occassionally played video, computer and tabletop games, though not as much as used to when I was younger. Yes it was part of my identity, but it wasn't my entire identity. Was I naive to think this? in my opinion, it is naive to think this. i've been someone who plays video games for a couple decades now, and i've always identified a 'gamer' as tantamount to 'basement dwelling nerd', if only because identifying as a gamer is like identifying as a movie watcher or a music listener or some other person who defines themselves in terms of which media they consume. i've always thought of myself as more than just a person who likes playing video games boner confessor fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Jun 29, 2015 |
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:43 |
|
Shadoer posted:Alright so wouldn't bringing game journalism out of being useless actually good? Games journalism is hobbyist/consumption orientated, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. This is mostly due to the size and demographic of gamers. There isn't enough interest to financially support long form/investigative journalism. Amusingly this was a major component of Polygon's vision, until they discovered that they made more money on articles announcing the release date and trailer for a game, and that they can get a bunch of articles for the price of a single day of journalist field work. There are other reasons for why this won't happen but the audience/money factor makes it a non-starter.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:46 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:
Well it's kind of like saying "I'm a guitarist" because I can play the guitar. There's different levels of playing the guitar. There's the guy who plays the guitar for a living and it's his professional identity, the equivalent would be the gamer who plays starcraft professionally in competitions, and then there's the guitarist who plays at open mics at Joe's pub after he gets off of work, this is like the guy who plays starcraft online in his bedroom after he gets off of work. Both are guitarists and both are gamers respectively, it's just that one is more "hardcore" than the other.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:51 |
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:in my opinion, it is naive to think this. i've been someone who plays video games for a couple decades now, and i've always identified a 'gamer' as tantamount to 'basement dwelling nerd', if only because identifying as a gamer is like identifying as a movie watcher or a music listener or some other person who defines themselves in terms of which media they consume. i've always thought of myself as more than just a person who likes playing video games It's an old gamer vs. young gamer mentality. Young people want to reclaim gamer, whereas the old gamers shun it as if it were a life or death situation. So what I'm saying is gently caress "gamers" and get off my internet lawn.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:51 |
|
*in Dr. Evil voice* 'One billion dollar industry
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:52 |
|
|
# ? May 31, 2024 22:41 |
|
Craptacular! posted:Some of that's made up, some of it's not. A guy or two at Giant Bomb worked for GameSpot when it also housed EGM in those days and other than discussions about how Quartermann rumors were just made up bullshit a lot of the time, nothing really shattered your childhood. Journalists don't let those kinds of things slip on podcasts. The real dirt on other journalists is saved for drunk laughs.
|
# ? Jun 29, 2015 07:54 |