Conflict of interest in game journalism.

jruchko · Sep 7, 2014

Removed because it deserves it's own thread.

norseamd · Sep 7, 2014

Thankyou for spreading the word.

0roo0roo · Sep 20, 2014

Topweasel said:
Whats there to cover up. Said Journalist only ever mentioned her in one article. A single article and not a review. Even if he wrote that while inside her does it really make that big a difference. Mentioning a game......

You know what I thought it would be harder to hunt down the actual article. It's not that hard. I thought because maybe some people were right and maybe gawker was hiding it or something since no one had actually linked it before. Now I know why it's the "scandal pushers" that don't want people to actually read it.

http://tmi.kotaku.com/the-indie-game-reality-tv-show-that-went-to-hell-1555599284

It is slightly white knightish doesn't mention a game at all and is mostly about her and some other dev who thinks to highly of himself going head to head and them trying to turn him into some kind of bigot because he didn't get along with the Woman on the team.

This is the scandal? A slightly supportive take on a behind the scenes fight? One where no game was actually mentioned? We should be outraged.

futurefields · Sep 20, 2014

wow that's a lot of links

. . .

jruchko · Sep 20, 2014

futurefields said:
wow that's a lot of links

. . .

What do you expect? This thing has blown up and has been going on for over a month now.

ThinClient · Sep 20, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45H25Sc6fig

DominionSeraph · Sep 20, 2014

Nebor said:
No one is going to hire her knowing that she sleeps with coworkers and that 4chan has a lifelong vendetta against her. 4chan doesn't forgive, and it doesn't forget.

Nah, 4chan just said to the whiny, self-indulgent, anti-women SJW's: "This site's 18+."

We're not your personal army.

0roo0roo · Sep 21, 2014

DominionSeraph said:
Nah, 4chan just said to the whiny, self-indulgent, anti-women SJW's: "This site's 18+."

We're not your personal army.

That wasn't 4chan, that was unfortunately moot.

A Conversation with Davis Aurini
Sargon of Akkad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHXOUxSaxkk

Twitter: Criticize Anita... you're GONE!
Thunderf00t
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTSQbLt9DS8

A Gamer Debates a Social Justice Warrior: Jordan Owen and Evan Tognotti
jordanowen42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_n2ctR-JN8

DominionSeraph · Sep 22, 2014

0roo0roo said:
That wasn't 4chan, that was unfortunately moot.

You can't have one without the other. Moot's particular style defines a place for outcasts. 4chan is not a place for consumer drones. It's not your personal subreddit.

A bunch of white male junior high schoolers being faced for the first time with something in the world doesn't revolve exclusively around them and reacting with a SJW campaign to try to rectify this "terrible injustice to themselves," isn't Anonymous. If you can call up your local Republican politician and say, "I'm entitled to this because I'm white," and they're right there with you, it doesn't belong on 4chan.

Nebor · Sep 22, 2014

DominionSeraph said:
Nah, 4chan just said to the whiny, self-indulgent, anti-women SJW's: "This site's 18+."

We're not your personal army.

I don't know what you're trying to say.

SharpHawk · Sep 22, 2014

This was written 4 years ago. You might notice some parallels to many of the arguments that have been used for the past month.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122

Dumac · Sep 22, 2014

It has been obvious for a long time that 'game journalism' isn't trustworthy or worth crap due to conflicts of interests, corruption, or just plain incompetence. Stop going to those sites. When somebody links to them, leave a comment saying that you don't trust that source. Instead, find another way to get opinions about the quality of new games.

Tarvaln · Sep 22, 2014

Dumac said:
It has been obvious for a long time that 'game journalism' isn't trustworthy or worth crap due to conflicts of interests, corruption, or just plain incompetence. Stop going to those sites. When somebody links to them, leave a comment saying that you don't trust that source. Instead, find another way to get opinions about the quality of new games.

It has been obvious for a long time that 'journalism' isn't trustworthy or worth crap due to conflicts of interests, corruption, or just plain incompetence. Stop going to those sites. When somebody links to them, leave a comment saying that you don't trust that source. Instead, find another way to get opinions about the quality of life.

*Just wanted to suggest a small correction.

Tarvaln · Sep 22, 2014

Buying a good review is nothing new and not limited to this medium.
Sleeping with people for favor has been around as long as people have been around.

Anyone here buy a bad game based on a good Nintendo Power review?
So, you get burned. Then what do you do?
Ask your friends who have played a game you want what they think.
That is what youtube reviews do in a sense. You're asking people who have no monetary stake in how well this game does what they think about it.

I'm not saying youtubers are immune to this though. I know there are people who make money on their channels. And I'm sure if a game company contacted a reviewer and said "Here's money. Say game good!" They would. They're just people. Odds are they could use more money like most of us.

QuantumPion · Sep 23, 2014

The difference with youtube reviewers is that they are one-man operations whose revenue stream entirely depends on the perception of their personality and integrity. Where as game media companies like IGN could just hold out until an incident is out of the news and forgotten, a youtube reviewer would never be able to get their good name back. I think that makes them far less likely to be outright corrupt in terms of trading free stuff for biased reviews.

smackababy · Sep 23, 2014

QuantumPion said:
The difference with youtube reviewers is that they are one-man operations whose revenue stream entirely depends on the perception of their personality and integrity. Where as game media companies like IGN could just hold out until an incident is out of the news and forgotten, a youtube reviewer would never be able to get their good name back. I think that makes them far less likely to be outright corrupt in terms of trading free stuff for biased reviews.

Highly unlikely. As the youtube reviewer gets more and more popular, they will want to get the game first. A lot of review sites get games early, so they can have the review out on or before release day. Give a bad review? That publisher ain't sending your early games anymore. Being second, or third, or last, or whatever out isn't going to help, as a lot of people are going to go elsewhere and you lose that release day crowd that just want validation to spend money. A reviewer like Yahtzee (whom I trust far more, even if his shtick isn't the best) doesn't get any preferential treatment, and it is evident in how long it takes him to get reviews out.

Nebor · Sep 23, 2014

smackababy said:
Highly unlikely. As the youtube reviewer gets more and more popular, they will want to get the game first. A lot of review sites get games early, so they can have the review out on or before release day. Give a bad review? That publisher ain't sending your early games anymore. Being second, or third, or last, or whatever out isn't going to help, as a lot of people are going to go elsewhere and you lose that release day crowd that just want validation to spend money. A reviewer like Yahtzee (whom I trust far more, even if his shtick isn't the best) doesn't get any preferential treatment, and it is evident in how long it takes him to get reviews out.

And yet the publication that Yahtzee works for is deeply entrenched on the "bad guy" side of Gamergate.

0roo0roo · Sep 28, 2014

6 weeks boiled down ...

GamerGate Part 1_ The Path We've Taken
InternetAristocrat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dbi-8rPShE

Lazy Thursday Stream
Internet Aristocrat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS8bjnMlR5A

Sargon of Akkad DiGRA livesteam and Baitfest with Jenni Goodchild #GamerGate #NotYourShield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNAwHrTowO0

Sargon of Akkad The Feminist Ideological Conquest of DiGRA (Part 1) #GamerGate #NotYourShield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28D6_8KuIpc

ThinClient · Sep 28, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45H25Sc6fig

pathos · Sep 29, 2014

Tarvaln said:
It has been obvious for a long time that 'journalism' isn't trustworthy or worth crap due to conflicts of interests, corruption, or just plain incompetence.

pretty much this

Once upon a time, journalism was about impartially getting the unbiased facts of a story out to their readers/listeners/watchers, depending on the medium, and letting the "end user" make their own conclusions. Or, at least that's the perception. It was in a time when the world didn't know what kind of toe fungus cream someone bought 30 seconds after they bought it (yes, there are down sides to living in this kind of instant gratification, social world). So, who knows what the actual reality was back then.

But, do you actually know of a news site that does that anymore? Most are either so far right or left wing, they wouldn't know what unbiased meant if you gave them a dictionary. Most have poorly disguised op/ed pieces masquerading as actual news stories, or worse yet, public relations releases, from the government, big business, or special interest groups, masquerading as news stories. Most likely, even if you have a news site you think is out there without some type of axe to grind, you're probably just wrong.

And, then we have all these specialized news sites, for particular types of products. Gaming news sites. Entertainment news sites. Hobbies news sites. Exercise news sites. Knitting news sites. Heck, if you can think of something, there is probably a news site for it.

How did they start? Well, someone had a keyboard, and an internet connection. That's pretty much it. That's all it takes to start your own news site. Go ahead, start your own blog. You are now a gaming journalist. You can have as much, or as little, integrity as you want, provided you don't get caught. And, even if you do get caught, the public has around 30 seconds in their long term memory, so if you ride it out, people will already have forgotten by the time that you've managed to warm up last nights left overs in the microwave.

Am I condoning anything that was done, or might have been done, in this little fiasco? Certainly not. Does it surprise me? Obviously not, sadly :\

0roo0roo · Oct 1, 2014

Critical Distance's Modern-Day Book-Burning of GTA V #GamerGate #NotYourShield
Sargon of Akkad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51McaZrra7w

Nazis and social justice
https://twitter.com/Instig8iveJourn/status/505827228815749120
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Justice_(periodical)

0roo0roo · Oct 1, 2014

ThinClient said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45H25Sc6fig

Hm decent summary actually...

DominionSeraph · Oct 1, 2014

Nebor said:
I don't know what you're trying to say.

If you didn't know MRA's are SJW's, you're pretty slow.

0roo0roo · Oct 1, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrQ-10Bxx0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWFkORH20yw
There are no limits on the behavior of these people, they are going after the patreon of the documentary.

BrightCandle · Oct 2, 2014

Total Biscuit in his WTF is Shadow of Mordor review said some quite interesting things about review copies. When he first approached the publisher for review game code they wanted to pay him for an early review and do some sort of advertising deal, they were not providing just review code. Its only in the final day before release did they finally give out review code without some sort of advertising deal. He had to search far and wide to get that as well, it wasn't easy to get.

So if you saw a review of Shadows of Mordor before release day you know that website is corrupt, it was a paid advertising piece and it came with handcuffs that thankfully some critics refused to even entertain the notion of. Its just another example of the type of corruption and lack of integrity that the companies and reviewers are entering into with each other to feed hype and advertising and making it look like reviews.

Conflict of interest in game journalism.

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