Vainamoinen

Yes, "theft" was too much. As was fencing. The idea of creative property published without consent of rights holders stands. ...I'd really like a developer's view on this. Any around?

Promotional material is only promotional material after it has been declared free to be published, right? In this case, it's especially relevant how it looked, because naturally the company wouldn't declare bad looking screenshots promo material. These are still all calls for the developer to make. Sorry, I really can not agree here (I usually like to agree with you!). This is creative property being handed out freely by people to whom it does not belong. Not 'the source', not kotaku. Sure, kotaku didn't 'steal' directly from Ubisoft. They just took information from the thief, knowing full well that it was stolen, then disseminated it for their personal gain. Fencing. That's... really not that much better...?! (Will repeat at this point: Ubisoft's reaction still was immature)

Ethics and journalistic integrity. Oh, and a sense of self-preservation would be nice.

Wait a minute. The kotaku article wasn't a "report on a leak that had occurred". That article in itself was the leak! And, man, that casual pride because of the inside source. As to leak ethics... sure, tough call. But it is a tough call because you always want the scoop, but you never want to be the snitch. Thanks, I visited that country before. Seeing some ethical stuff there! Bottom line, how paranoid do we want our developers to be? Do they just have to accept that there are journalists around who are more than ready to publish their creative property without any kind of permission? Is an army of lawyers the only way to keep the journalists at bay? Are they supposed to establish actual anti espionage measures in AAA companies, segregate their dev teams, have the budget skyrocket every step of the way? Just because kotaku can't keep it in their pants?

"Here's the manuscript for the next Harry Potter we've gotten our hands on, but don't forget it's all preliminary and may still change. We've asked the publisher for further detail but have somehow not heard back from him". Okay, I concede that's a massive exaggeration. But by kotaku logic, still ethical. It's leaked, it's real, it's game, our readers want it, why not.

That, for example. I find this is a crude posture from kotaku, wannabe rogue and Robin Hood for the consumer, pretending that the very real interdependency between game journalism and the game industry doesn't exist. If game journalists break the non enforcable laws of the trade – like review embargos – heck, what do they expect? Pissing on the game industry (the advocacy of which game journalism was literally born out of) always comes with a great risk. There should be a damn good reason for taking that risk, because of course these reports burn bridges necessary to survival. If a developer releases a sub par product to the public, that's a good reason for a burning bridge. Verified knowledge of immoral and illegal processes in the company, that's a damn good reason to make a really big dent into the relationship to a developer. "We have just gotten game footage no one else has", that's a joke of a reason.

They're reporting on games and games culture. That means a whole lot of things, and I'm not drawing lots of random lines in the sand for them. It's obviously hard enough for them to find purpose at the present time of cultural war. My only 'line' here is clear enough. If they need an inside source in order to gain information and write articles, it'd better be coverage about something illegal or otherwise really troubling going on. Something the public actually needs to know. Their sources violate their non-disclosure agreement, risking to never work in the industry again, and for what? For kotaku to be the first to report on the next Assassin's Creed, really? ...and then brazenly sending an email to Ubisoft asking them for a time frame and platforms for their decidedly unannounced game? "Tehehe, we have some great footage here, care to comment?" That's just far too yellow pressy for me. If a company like Konami treats their employees like living shit, I really want to hear about it. And the company needs to own up to their behaviour. But if kotaku fucks up a million dollar Ubisoft marketing campaign for their own glorification? Thanks, but no thanks. (Mind you: There are other segments of the article where I'd agree with kotaku's publication of the info at hand, but Assassin's Creed is kind of their central example for Ubisoft's embargo. I still don't agree with the way Ubisoft handled things here! It was frankly immature.) You're right, and maybe kotaku didn't exactly 'fuck up' Ubisoft's marketing plan. As I said before, kotaku published marketing material ahead of the time it was supposed to be published. This control should still have been Ubisoft's, really. There was no reason to wrench this control out of their hands.

I'd rather say: It's a weird situation where no one's really in the right. If there's something wrong in the industry and their info and source is credible (i.e. not Escapist "credible"), sure they can report on that. But the video game press isn't there for the 'scoops' of the new game in the works. That's just silly.

Ubi and Beth are shitbags for just cutting kotaku off for years, without comment even. But that doesn't mean kotaku gets to report on 'leaks' and gets celebrated by 'gamers' for 'whistleblowing'. Totilo writes: Screenshots, however, aren't "what's really happening in gaming". It's essentially marketing material, so kotaku isn't just messing with a marketing plan – they're using the screenshots for their own marketing. And now they're framing it as some kind of martyr video game age 'muckraker' journalism. And that's just... not OK.

It's hard to wrap one's mind around the idea that inside the group, people are doubting the connection. Meme-ification is their sole and most liberally used weapon to the point that knowyourmeme.com now is nothing but a political vehicle of gamergate (a damn shame). And while newly emerging, in no way less repulsive memes are universally cheered at in gamergate circles, it's just this single one seasoned little photoshoppery of horrors that's in need of a bit of disassociation with "the movement" because of its sudden popularity with corrupt mainstream media. Like the works of Milo Yiannopoulos and Elizabeth Finnegan, this picture was manufactured to elicit validation from and acceptance in the one and only group that would ever harass the guy who invented the hashtag #stopgamergate2014. And just like Yiannopoulos and Finnegan, an active association with the mob isn't really necessary to identify their core ideology. The photoshopped image is based on gamergate methods and transmits gamergate agenda, hence the maker supports gamergate. Direct logical deduction here. His disassociation with gamergate is nebulous at best while his deeds speak the loudest language imaginable. We don't say gamergate member, the movement doesn't hand out ID cards and badges. The term chosen by the movement is gamergate supporter. That means, support the mob and you're in, folks. No continuous pledge of allegiance necessary.

As always, KiA's quick to name instances of the guy's disassociation with gamergate. But, yes, of course he was part of the gamergate mob. That's the thing with the leaderless movement... no one's throwing people out with any kind of authority. This is gatergate.

Sssssstop right there. Who did? Who exactly, or is this at least traceable to the activist gg alliance (4chan/8chan)? The way Breitbart reacted, of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100% traceable. /edit: Been googling around. Even been to voat for the first time, well that's not happening again I tell you. The amount of gamergate supporter gloating I find is absolutely repulsive. But, hey, they have Breitbart to point to (though that article is 70% defamation). "Our guys were against this". Nope, whoever is at actual fault, gamergate supporters were not "against this". They're pulling a weird kind of told you so now – "see what happens when you rely on mainstream media, Jubbal?".

I know

Tracklist leaked!!

I'm aware of those pitfalls, if only because I follow the noble pursuits of John Green. Thankfully, it's easy to judge the finished movie product on the basis of next year's book. To which I am looking forward a good bit more than the movie...

Scarlett doesn't have a twitter or facebook account... she's a really smart woman.

Zoe seems to be quite convinced about that movie. And the rumor mill suggests 'keen interest' from a certain S. Johansson for the lead role.

I've always wished that instead of dozens of Iron Men and Avengers and shit, we'd get four sequels to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Curse you, Robert Downey jr.!

Good writeup on the matter. http://nymag.com/following/2015/11/this-the-perfect-insane-anti-feminist-rumor.html I get a distinct 9/11 truther vibe from gamergate these days.

So how's Mr. Yiannopoulos, Esquire's great Breitbart tech offspring going? Ahhh, fabulous, just fabulous. There's this guy who said this guy he knows said that feminists were framing men in tech at conventions so that they can cry rape afterwards, and they're going after Linus Torvalds (that's some other guy Yiannopoulos only recently learned about when people asked him about his competence in tech on reddit, so maybe he thought, fuck it, just stick with that Peanuts name person). Yeah, yeah, I know how this sounds, but this source guy really trusted this other guy and even had a third guy present. So of course Milo can report that. I mean, he's basically got three sources in one here.

I love Raiders to pieces in almost all its aspects, but the movie still has a god awful literal deus ex machina ending. If Jones and Ravenwood never existed, the story would have ended the very same way. Indiana Jones as a character, of course, I'd defend to death. Of course he's "incompetent" to a degree, that's where the humor comes from. If you want a perfect hero, go watch Banzai Buckaroo, one of the most boring pieces of shit that ever became a classic. Indy succeeds as often as he fails, but he always persists, and that's his heroic trait. If Indiana Jones dodged every punch, we couldn't even see how brilliantly relatable Harrison Ford takes those, particularly in the face. Indy was one of the last great heroes allowed to show pain. I'm really missing the hell out of that in modern popcorn cinema. Dammit, let's hope someone punches Han Solo in December.

Remember that piece of excrement who used leaked patreon data to threaten Randi Harper's supporters? He is right now trying to establish contact to SXSW PR in order to spam that lady with Yiannopoulos "research" as well. Or rather with accusations that even Yiannopoulos described as being without evidence. You guys? You need harassment laws. Proper harassment laws. 'Cause that is exactly it, and lawyers who do that need to be disbarred.

Unfortunately, reaxxion didn't 'fail', and Douche didn't make a financial mistake, I think. He created the site when the mob centered on this particular hashtag, and when the mob turned their attention away, Douche closed the site down. I don't think there are losses involved here. Of course, if reaxxion really was a success for some time, the concept can not be copied today, yet I don't think that's what Breitbart is doing. Today, gamergate is a fairly unpopular label. It justly stands for the harassment that was its key founding principle. So Breitbart doesn't focus on gamergate or game culture. They focus on tech culture. Content wise, there's no difference of course. It's the same far far far US political right "the SJW is taking [insert crap of your choice here] away from us" whining that reaxxion did for months. Only now it's directed at a larger audience than just gamergate. And that, as much as it pains me to say, could work out financially.

Time for a repost.

The situation is fairly obscure right now, but as I understand it, there were more than just one panel by gamergate proponents, of which only one was cancelled.