itsamoose

Yeah that came off wrong, I clarified the post. Sorry about that.

I agree it isn't necessarily a binding agreement, but then again a bribe never is. Isn't this the kind of thing an ethics statement should address? If in your ethics statement you say you are willing to accept gifts of a certain value, shouldn't you be as clear as possible in what you mean by that? There could easily be some language that says cumulative gifts of greater than 50$ will be given away on the site, donated to charity, etc.

I haven't been able to find any examples just by searching the site but then again I don't know what I'm looking for. However, even if that is the case I still think the contradiction exists. They are ostensibly not comfortable making money on a piece written by a staffer that has a conflict of interest because this represents an ethical breach, but they are fine making that same ad revenue if the piece is written by a contributor or temporary worker of some description with a clear conflict of interest. Since they don't have any language in the statement regarding how ads are handled in this case, I'm assuming their advertisement policies are the same for contributors as staffers.

Based on the language of the ethics statement, they seem to define a staffer as a full time employee but a contributor as a part time or contract based worker who may or may not be paid.

Maybe not that specific example, but at what point does the line get crossed? If I attend 10 events put on by Activision all regarding the same game, and eat 10 sandwiches from them valued at 6$ each, is that a violation of the ethics code? If not, how much time need pass between the giving of gifts for their value not to be considered cumulative? Even in the conflict of interest section, they say that they "Polygon staffers do not cover companies (1) in which they have a financial investment, (2) that have employed them previously or (3) employ the writer's spouse, partner or someone else with whom the writer has a close relationship." then in the very next sentence go on to say "When a Polygon contributor has affiliations of prior employment experience that would represent a material conflict of interest with their reporting, that information will be disclosed in context or footnotes of that piece." Am I reading that wrong or is that a direct contradiction? They say they will not do something, but then say if they do that thing, it is fine because they will tell you about it. Or perhaps they are fine publishing articles where a conflict of interest exists, but only if they employ that person on a part time/contract basis.

In the Product samples for reviews section they say they take samples, just not on a precondition of a review. If they send it back afterwards I have no problem with this section, but it wasn't clear that is what they do in the ethics statement.

They won't accept accommodation, but food and drink doesn't count. This seems legitimate for a reporter being sent off to a third world country somewhere (working for the guardian, for example) who has no other option but to eat food provided to them, but it isn't like the reviewers are being sent to places like that, and bringing or paying for your own lunch is not out of the question. The entirety of Polygon's statement seems to be geared toward not upsetting the status quo and pushing the limits of what is acceptable. I'm not necessarily regarding ethics as all or nothing, but the Polygon ethics statement in particular seems just like a way for them to justify bad behavior. Granted I've never been in the press so I'm assuming a lot here, but it just feels dirty. Edit: Clarification

I've never worked in the the press but it is my understanding that companies will send journalists/reviewers free stuff all the time, and not just the game itself for review purposes. It's odd that Polygon has said paying for some advanced tier on kickstarter is a violation, but accepting similar rewards from traditional publishers for free isn't. Then there is the bit about not accepting travel or accommodations, but excluding publisher sponsored events from that list. That whole ethics statement just stinks to me, the whole thing is littered with if-else statements about their so-called integrity. Can someone explain how this is a legitimate ethics statement to me? When I read it, this is what I get: We don't accept gifts, unless they are less than 50$ in value, We don't accept accommodation, unless it is a publisher sponsored event, We don't cover companies where a conflict of interest might exist, unless we put that information on the writer's profile page (this section isn't worded clearly), We don't write about advertisements on our site, unless they are "affiliate marketing links", then we do and even take a commission in some cases, We will devote a page of our site to giving away a product, but this is not an endorsement of that product because we say so, We accept free samples, which are somehow different than gifts, even if those samples would have exceeded 50$ in value. It sounds more like people trying to justify their getting free stuff than a statement about their integrity. The theme of the statement seems to be that breaking their code of ethics is fine, so long as they tell you they are doing it.

Scenes like the ones depicted in the video are part of the reason I don't play shooters much any more. It felt like every single game I played had some bit in the beginning where a woman was either killed or hurt, each new game being more graphic than the last but somehow treating the event more casually than before. I can't even imagine what is going through the developers' heads spending day after day implementing that stuff.

This article really puts the NT times one in perspective.

One thing I noticed regarding metacritic is the way the site itself determines what is a good (green background on score), average (yellow background on score), or bad (red background on score) score. The scale for video games is 70+ is considered good, 69-50 is average, and everything below that below average. However for Movies, TV, and music 60+ is considered good, 59-40 is considered average, and everything below is bad. I've heard a number of similar stories of bonuses being tied to metacritic as well as other incentives, which seems to me like little more than an excuse for the publisher to keep more of the potential return for themselves. What bothers me most is that I have heard of so few reimbursement schemes that seem fair, such a certain score gets a certain bonus, and more often than not the agreement is either hit this metacritic score (I've never heard of a value lower than 85 as the target) or you don't get bonuses.

Isn't this just nepotism in a different direction? Wouldn't you be more willing to hire or work with someone who shares those views? I certainly would, I am guilty as hell of that in the past. It seems to be the problem with nepotism isn't that it exists, but that it can lead to the creation of a sort of landed gentry within an organization or industry with problematic worldviews. Just based on the views expressed in threads like this I'd be more likely to work with or for someone who is active in this community. I've even read a number of Danielle's articles, became aware of Olly Moss's work, etc all because of being a member here. I'm not really sure I have a point here, I just feel like this whole situation in the games industry at large has been two groups of people talking at each other rather than to each other.

I've noticed discussion about this topic seems to paint nepotism as a negative thing, but isn't it just the way our society functions? Fraternities and sororities advertise themselves based on this, Whenever I have a job I need to be done I put out a call on facebook first, virtually every job I've ever had has been the result of some social connection. Even the jobs I've had where I didn't have someone giving me an in, I became friendly with the interviewers prior to being hired. It seems as though some of the reaction and discussion around this is people realizing that we don't in fact live in a meritocracy, and who you know matters. Hell it even works the other way. There are people I know of who I could hire or work with, but since they used racial slurs against some friends of mine I never will. It seems like the outrage from all this could be explained to these people in a sociology 101 class.

I can't decide if this is just the last bit of a dying story, or if it is taking a turn. We're unlikely to get much more information on the case until the Grand Jury process is over (I'm not a legal scholar, I don't even know how much will come out after), so I really hope we don't start seeing a series of stories like this. It seems like the outlets reporting this story are really only interested in starting a new fight or further inflaming racial tensions.

I get the same feeling. I go to Jezebel every now and then for the occasional insightful article, but most of them come across as pretty juvenile.

Fark has decided to add Misogyny to it's list of bannable offenses. Has anyone ever used this site before? Until this story I had never heard of it.

I think in part you are correct that the timing is the big difference here, as well as the proximity for some. Just take Halo for example. A game about an American super solider that defends all of humanity from a race of religious, fanatical aliens that became incredibly popular partially because it released a few weeks after 9/11 when emotions were still flaring. In some respects you are seeing the same thing here, albeit in a different direction. In regards to the deluge of military shooters we've seen in the last decade, while many are just facsimiles of more popular games and illicit largely the same response as seen here, I have played a few that I thought had some interesting things to say. For example, in Modern Warfare: The Modern Warfare series has quite a cynical opinion of war, as does Spec Ops: The Line. I'm not saying that all these games are worthy of praise, but some certainly are. What personally gets me about Battlefield: Hardline is the way that EA/Dice/whoever writes these things has handled the subject matter in the past. I recently completed Battlefield 3's campaign, and it is just a smorgasbord of cliches and chest thumping. A few levels in Modern warfare felt like commentary, but every level in BF3 felt like it was focus tested into Oblivion. In other words, they do what they do because people like it, and damn the consequences. This game frustrates me because I can imagine a game where something like this is explored intelligently. I just can't imagine that game being made by EA. I still would like to see games made regarding this subject matter, just not ones where the setting is treated as frivolous.

In more positive news, this is happening.

Do you have a link for this? I can't seem to find one.

In general the recent uptick in Support Darren Wilson (the officer who shot Mike Brown) type campaigns have made me a bit uneasy. All the people you'd expect seem to be clinging to the bad egg narrative, despite all the evidence to the contrary. At least the guy is being reprimanded for doing this. How many people do you think this guy has personally put at risk, just because he wanted to make a point? If there is a perfect metaphor for police overreach or over reaction, this is it.

Good point, I let myself get caught up in the wave a little bit.

It seems to me that any accusation made against a woman is somehow seen as worse than that same accusation made against a man. Most of the time, those kinds of criticisms aren't even leveled at men.

It seems to me the only solution, if one even exists to all this, is to stop treating it on a case by case basis. Sure, if a twitter user is harassing someone banning their account for a day is a reprieve, but little more. If a twitter user says something horrible, why not ban all accounts that follow that person for some amount of time? Maybe it isn't the greatest idea, but at least it is one that addresses the community rather than just the particular instance. Social media companies certainly have the power to make changes like this, but not the courage. They talk so much about changing the mindset of the community, but don't seem to actually address the community in doing so.

Man, that kind of logic makes my blood boil. It is insane to me that a reasonably educated, well adjusted human being hasn't moved past the out of sight-out of mind stage of their development. It represents this not in my backyard kind of philosophy where problems are only relevant based on one's proximity to them, or even don't exist if they themselves haven't perpetrated them, as evidenced here.

I just came across this on facebook http://www.vox.com/2014/8/15/6005587/ferguson-satire-another-country-russia-china