JonCole

Systemic corruption is defined as the following: So let me get this straight. You're saying that corruption is the rule rather than the exception, that corruption is the primary if not only method by which things are reported at all in the games industry? That companies regularly bribe journalists/reporters to present gaming news exactly how they wish it to be presented?

The casual use of "corruption" to describe any kind of bias for any reason is really bothering me.

I get Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulroney confused quite often.

I got in a discussion with some guy quite unhappy with Anita Sarkeesian and have come to the conclusion that people really think she's saying that all patriarchy is deliberate and as a result she's accusing everyone of being blatantly misogynistic. I bring this up because I read Denial's statement that "words mean things" from the ethics thread. It's quite an annoying conclusion, considering the fact that her whole premise is the opposite - namely, that many game design choices are tropes that we've gotten used to but aren't right even though there may be some contrived explanation that could make them "reasonable". I don't really know how to combat them reaching this conclusion, because it seems a fundamental misunderstanding of patriarchy; they seem to be making patriarchy out to be some sort of cult that they're not a part of, but it's a social system that we're all vulnerable to in some capacity.

I think Kietner and Kavanaugh from the DLC look particularly odd in the facial modeling/body proportion sense. I dunno, it didn't bother me all that much but it is definitely something that ages the game.

I see your point, but people also seem to want "unbiased" things that actually do state an opinion, as represented in the "demands" of #GamerGhazi people in many instances. Unbiased reviews in this case just seems to be a super lazy, awful shorthand for "reviews biased in favor of the typical gamer demographic".

I think there's a difference between historical accuracy as a somewhat unattainable complete goal and what's going on here. Historical accuracy as it pertains to games set in periods tens or hundreds of years in the past seems just as pointless as is suggested by a couple of you. Considering a completely accurate depiction seems impossible and some aspects like language would actually make a game harder to understand, it makes less sense to endeavor to capture that chimera. But historical context in more recent games has a lot more value in setting a place with more convenience and allowing the player to fill in story/context using memory. I mean, Gone Home was a great example of this - the context was fairly contemporary, so I could relate to the setting and recognize things in the environment that were familiar and thus more inherently appealing and attractive. I don't really know where I'm going with this, aside from the fact where historical context is less valuable as it turns into actual History with a capital H.

Can you explain what's corrupt about that? I guess GameSpot is paid by Target for that content, right? If so, I suppose it's some form of corruption that the content may then be tailored to sell goods that are available at the store. Sure reviews can be read as buyer's guides, but it does seem less scrupulous to have the reviews (if you can call them that) directly influence buying in the buying environment. That said, I don't really know who this hurts. Having an established editorial outlet give buying advice to people looking to buy games (unless the commercial was being shown somewhere away from the games area) seems preferential to me as a consumer than getting it from some "Target Gaming" advertorial front.

This is an interesting point. I don't really know what that has to do with objectivity in a direct sense, but I do think it is a problem that AAA games are massively over represented in games coverage. That said, like clickbait or other distasteful practices I'm sure that writing about AAA games is getting them traffic and coverage of indie games is getting them proportionally less otherwise they wouldn't do it. I mean, it's not like indies aren't trying to get their games covered. Either way, I think this is something that bigger websites are becoming more aware of and they're adjusting their approach as time goes on. Jeff Gerstmann at GB has never been shy to say that the marketing departments of the AAA companies are starting to get largely autonomous and are doing a much better job than ever covering their own stuff. With video streaming of stuff like Nintendo Direct, events like Blizzcon and Call of Duty XP and company blogs like the PlayStation Blog and Major Nelson, there are lots of direct methods of communicating to gamers and thus gaming websites have a shrinking role in that process.

I don't really see how posting press releases as news is corruption, it's not uncommon in mainstream press and is more prevalent in other kinds of enthusiast press outside of gaming. Also, that kind of coverage is exactly what the seemingly non-conspiratorial branch of #GamerGhazi is asking for - completely unbiased content that isn't garnered from personal relationships within the industry. I saw a "list of demands" going around where people were literally asking that reviews only cover topics that were less likely to be "infected" by "bias", like performance and graphics. The most prescient comments I've seen yet is that the real corruption is the stuff that would never get any kind of play in some Twitter hate campaign - namely, the stuff that goes on where payola is actually a thing because there is actual money involved instead of meager sums of Patreon monthly funding and so on. Also, in my opinion your posts continue to be shotgunning completely unconnected ideas together to somehow attempt to get at conclusion that "corruption is a thing". I still don't see anything convincing in what you're saying that corruption exists in indie/journalist relationships. And really, there's no convincing evidence that there's any corruption in press for bigger games, because someone would have to do some real, actual, journalistic digging to get it.

So many awesome kills. The double-melee knockouts/kills are so satisfying and I do them at literally every opportunity.

Yeah, the whole "historical context" thing aligns with what you're saying - it's a bad excuse when it's... an excuse and not actually history. Assassin's Creed seems to be the best example because AC is proudly sci-fi alternate history, so claiming that certain things have to be a certain way because of "historical context" is a little crazy because there was no massive Templar conspiracy and no aliens trying to stop a seemingly inevitable apocalypse in real life. If you're actually presenting a historically accurate setting, you would have to contrive reasonable context for unusual design choices unlike in AC where everything is contrived so one arbitrary choice is more or less equivalent to another arbitrary choice.

Here's a good example of false balance -

Thanks for making this Undermind! I made my first event and everything seems to be working fine. Crossing my fingers to get some company in Destiny this week!

Considering the goal (in my mind) is not only to make a calendar for Steam games but also PC games on other platforms like Origin or UPlay as well as on consoles I don't really see using Steam as practical for this. Also, as far as I know everyone would have to be an admin for anyone to add events to that calendar.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut - this game is still super good and holds up quite well! There are a few places where it shows signs of age, mostly including pre-rendered cutscenes and some mediocre facial modeling stuff. I started out the game non-lethal stealth, but they really didn't do much to make that very fun considering there are still a lack of non-lethal weapons and only the tranquilizer is upgradeable. As a result of switching to lethal stealth, I ended up beating the bosses the old-fashioned way and didn't get to see the changes they made to the boss battles to make them supposedly beatable without combat. I did like the addition of an item that automatically hacks any terminal/panel in no time flat. I ended up fully leveling my hacking, but it was still nice in a pinch when I didn't have much time to hack. I imagine it's even better if you choose to skip hacking stuff for the most part. Only major complaint is the Missing Link DLC - it feels super clunky as part of the main game. Wiping you clean made a lot of sense when it was a standalone campaign, but as part of the main campaign they had to add some contrivances to make it fit that really just felt sloppy. I played The Missing Link about a year ago and it was really good on its own, but this integration or lack thereof was poor. Anyways, it's still a super fun game. Probably one of my favorite this generation, so I was happy to have another excuse to play it. Square-Enix damn well better create a sequel this generation.

Undermind has been chatting me up about a potential way to do this without needing a Google account login and it's looking good. Just want to iron a couple things out and we'll make a thread in the Multiplayer subforum.

Swimming through those tweets, probably my favorite thing is #GamerGhazi people demanding that Zoe release "full logs" so that they don't look like total idiots for following 4Chan. The irony of asking Zoe for evidence that exonerates their gullibility is so tasty.

I feel a bit vindicated in putting ethics and journalistic integrity in quotes.

I use an app called Unfollowers, the website is https://unfollowers.com It notifies me of follows and unfollows daily, and the website gives some interesting following/follower stuff that helps me manage my feed. The most useful thing it does it tell me who on my friends list hasn't been active for a while, which seems the best way to trim it down if not the most efficient in terms of the volume of my feed. The site also lets you sort followers/following by various statistics, I like sorting following by tweets per day so I can see who's tweeting the most and unfollow people who are filling up my feed with stuff that's relatively low value.

This is kind of a deal - if you buy last-gen Destiny digitally, you can get a free upgrade to next-gen - http://www.destinythegame.com/digital-upgrade So, for instance if you've yet to buy a PS4, buy it for PS3 on the PSN store and you can eventually download the PS4 version at no cost (granted you do whatever steps are necessary to redeem the offer in the provided window).

Jim has been relatively active in this continuing saga, especially since he was "targeted" on that list of SJW's to avoid. I think he's quieted down a little since #GameGhazi but I wouldn't count him out.

Adventure Mode is indeed new to RoS, as far as I know.

I kinda wish I skipped X/Y and got back into it with this. X/Y was kind of mid-cycle on my excitement curve and I lost Steam on it really fast. Now I'm still a little burned out and probably won't play these either. Maybe I just need to power through and play X/Y in the coming year at some point.

Part of my job is calling the relatives of refugees living in the US so we can arrange reunification living with or near them. It's one of the last things that's done before they can actually travel away from the horrible countries they're stuck in. Today I had to call the son of a 90-year old man and was notified by the him that his father (the client living overseas) had already passed away. The guy was from of Middle Eastern descent and was openly crying on the phone with me. This is literally the worst thing that I've had to deal with in this job. FML