"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[feelthedarkness]

i mean, you can just as easily read that as "there has been a lot of talk about the portrayal of women, and we don't think our game will sell well in that market" which is inherently political but not explicitly.

 

also, show the me company that won't sell a legal product they believe they will make a ton of money. it's so silly. 

[Mangela Lansbury]

to that end, what purpose does importing the game serve? They're providing market penetration for an unlocalized version of the game, further showing that localization is unnecessary since interested parties will buy import the niche game anyway.

I never understand the point behind behind all the grandstanding.

[Vainamoinen]

To my knowledge, it IS a version with english subtitles and screen text.
 
Meanwhile, the original Dead or Alive series creator Tomonobu Itagaki – who isn't part of the company any more – has stepped to facebook with a series of particularly difficult to decipher statements. One thing is clear: He doesn't exactly blame "Social Justice Warriors".
 

Guys, I don't know the truth, can't understand, and even estimate. Are they planning to sell DOAX3 only in Japan??? What the hell.....
 
Huh?? Why??? Are they chicken????
 
Okay, I understood. They're not only moron but also Galapagosian Lolita Complexed Chicken. That's the truth. Thanks

 

In the course of his postings, he focuses more on gameplay issues, with lack of innovation and the removal of the Jetski activity being his core criticism.

[Vainamoinen]

Thank you, Mr. JFSS. Your finest hour.

[Naldean]

Just catching up on the thread, so sorry if people aren't interested in returning to the Kotaku thing. Just a couple of things I wanted to respond to when reading through:

 

What is a corporation but a collection of authors (and managers and human resources and so on)? Why does an author's work lose the right to privacy because they're working for a company instead of themselves? If a two-person authorial team forms a company for tax purposes, is it suddenly different than a single author? How big does the company have to get before they lose the right to privacy? Three people? Four? Ten authors and a manager?

 

 

 

​So what you're saying is that people have no right to privacy of IP, and stopping violations of that privacy is the individual's ultimate responsibility. That's an awfully anarchistic view to take. If someone breaks into George R. R. Martin's house and steals his next book, is the public entitled to the leaked book and it's Martin's fault for not buying better locks? If you're not okay with that, why are you okay with someone leaking the Fallout 4 script? Is it just a matter of magnitude, the public is entitled to violations of IP privacy if it's not violated too much?

 

 

Holy shit that's entitled. You're proposing the argument that Bethesda's doesn't really own the Fallout 4 script because they owe part of their past success to modders. I can't even engage with that. I quit.

 

What you are talking about there is violating the author's copyright. Nobody is claiming that the company has no right to their copyright, and if this were something like distributing a build of the game or a copy of the script, you'd have an argument there. But it's not that. The articles which led to this blacklisting were nothing approaching that. They were "confirmation" of the existence of a product and a few high-level details.

 

To a point, the publishers need to do something right? If they want publications to adhere to review embargoes than they need to take some kind of action against publications that don't play along, if the leaked marketing stuff was set to be released to other people at different times. 

 

I think there is a real problem with the press functioning as a defacto marketing arm, and I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if there weren't embargoes. Let the people rush reviews to market, and let people develop real taste for writers who's opinion they value? That's what movies do, basically, right? 

 

Kotaku didn't break any embargoes or NDAs, though. If they did, it would be a different story.

 

For what it's worth, I agree with some others that it's sort of amazing to me that people think Kotaku was in the wrong here. I don't work in games, but I do work in the tech industry, and this kind of leak happens all the time. When it does people get upset, but with the leaker not with the publication.

 

I also think Bethesda and Ubisoft have the right to decide who gets access to their people and unreleased games, so I can't really say they are in the wrong (though it does sound like their behavior was pretty childish given the nature of the content which led to the blacklist, and their refusal to talk to Kotaku in any way). But this highlights the actual ethical issue in the industry which has been there all along and GG completely ignored (and in some cases supported) - a lot of games coverage relies on access and is therefore at the mercy of publishers. It's certainly possible to run a games site that doesn't rely on access, but it limits the types of content you can produce. This is not new or surprising, but it's something that consumers should be concerned about.

[Vainamoinen]

also think Bethesda and Ubisoft have the right to decide who gets access to their people and unreleased games, so I can't really say they are in the wrong (though it does sound like their behavior was pretty childish given the nature of the content which led to the blacklist, and their refusal to talk to Kotaku in any way).

 

Not to eager to get back to THAT topic, but it may boil down to this: If there is some kind of unwritten contract between publisher/developer and the press, a code of honor if you wish, I definitely think kotaku has broken it. But neither Bethesda nor Ubisoft can answer by breaking it themselves, because it would put other journalists at a considerable advantage, hence foster favoritism. The early access for journalists in itself isn't an exertion of power – yet limiting the access to the journalists you see fit, that's opportunist and possibly corrupt.

[Badfinger]

The reason Bethesda and Ubisoft want to blacklist Kotaku is precisely the same reason it's directly against their best interests to do so.

 

Kotaku is a large, basically reputable publication with broad reach. That is exactly the type of outlet you want reporting on the "good" stuff about your company and its games. Of course you can find information basically anywhere games are talked about, but many people know and choose to get it from Kotaku.

 

Restricting access isn't in violation of some sort of code, but it sure suggests you have something to hide and deserve additional scrutiny and a critical eye.

[Twig]

I'm pretty sure I'm still a dev?

[Vainamoinen]

Official Tecmo Koei reaction:

https://twitter.com/koeitecmoeurope/status/671690313912598528

No need to read the replies below. It's like gamergate's collective reading comprehension is on a preschool level. Tecmo: "This guy has nothing to do whatsoever with our company strategy" – comments: "NO BUT YEAH BUT NO BUT YEAH BUT SJWs DID IT".

[Goggles]

I read the first two. Couldn't read anymore. It's like walking into a weird parallel universe that I do not understand and never want to.

[Merus]

I'm pretty sure I'm still a dev?

 

thanks for the update?

[Twig]

np np

[Mawd]

Twig, we'll get you a hat that says DevVveloper on it so you won't feel confused any more.

[Twig]

It would be very helpful. ):

[Deadpan]

Does

help?

[Bolegium]

I read the first two. Couldn't read anymore. It's like walking into a weird parallel universe that I do not understand and never want to.

 

First comment: "don't let your feminist ideals get in the way of my income" - now deleted.

 

The fractal wrongness is unbelievable.

[twmac]

I ended up doing a deep dive Milo and his appearances on Sky "News", his stuff is just awful:

 

 

His counter point (Natasha Devon) in this video just demolishes him - in fact what has been really enjoyable is finding out about Devon, Grossman and a number of other academics and what they are doing. So, in a way, thanks Milo for signal boosting them with your terrible Boris Johnson impersonation.

[Tanukitsune]

I.... read the comments, it's full of MRA insisting Milo won the argument. 

[Vainamoinen]

Those are the same people insisting that Yiannopoulos should 'debate' Anita Sarkeesian... though Yiannopoulos' not exactly an expert in all the relevant topics: tech, media, games, narratology, sociology... we'd basically see a repeat performance of the Airplay strategy: DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL.

[Henroid]

Debates have lost their impact over the last decade, and I blame the media for this one (ironically as such since I hate "THE MEDIA" being a scapegoat). Because of all those goddamn "who won the debate" polls we've been seeing all these years, people think that debate winning is based on a matter of how loud one side's supporters are. Rather than, y'know, the actual substance of the debate. GG want their champions to "debate" because they want to arbitrarily declare victory.

[Henroid]

So I dunno if it's the actual American McGee but his sister has gone missing since November 10th. According to McGee, he receives death threats regularly because, y'know, people think that's normal on the net, but prior to her missing he received a threat from an anti-GG source that specifically named her and where she lives.

 

Here's a link to the Tweet which contains the appropriate FB links and info on sending relevant info to him or the police.

https://twitter.com/americanmcgee/status/672626146404524032

[Merus]

It has been fascinating seeing the increasing radicalisation of 'anti-GG' (although I like to call them GamerGhazi because they're also terrible). In defining themselves against GamerGate, they've taken on aspects of what makes GamerGate so goddamn terrible.

[Vainamoinen]

In all probability, the vanished sister has nothing to do with the prior threat, but it's still disheartening to see that these threats happen. Thankfully, I would assume that this guy will be thoroughly investigated by the police now, which is only fair and just.

 

I'd like to see what ideology the alleged extremist is ACTUALLY tied to though. If it's a form of feminism, it's a form feminism! If it's some kind of cry for social justice, so be it! If it's loosely tied to the 'black lives matter' hashtag, that's all possible and we desperately need to shed a light on these possible sources. But there is no "anti gamergate" as an ideology, that's just a stupid artificially constructed enemy identity like "SJW". Being against gamergate is incidental to your ideology, yet gamergate needs a nemesis to function.

[Merus]

I think there's something very interesting going on with groups that form as a reaction to totalist groups - New Atheism has something similar, I think, where what is ostensibly an independent movement ends up being so thoroughly consumed by the idea that they are the e.g. anti-fundamentalist Christian that they end up inverting many of the tenets but keeping the harmful operation. There absolutely is a cadre of people who are consumed with cataloging and challenging GamerGate to the point where they're incensed that most of the people closely affected by it would rather move on. Apple Cider's been attacked by one of them in the past for being insufficiently strident.

 

I don't know what causes it, but there's definitely something funny going on.

[Griddlelol]

Off topic, but I had the pleasure of watching a debate between Prof. Atkins (a 'New Atheist,' and writer of a great inorganic chemistry text book) and my undergraduate tutor, Prof. Fox (a Christian, and editor of The Journal of Nucleic Acids Research). Those guys get a bad reputation thanks to the activity of those on Reddit etc., but they're not irrational crazed anti-Christians. 

 

It was an interesting debate, because I really respect my old tutor, but I agreed with Prof. Atkins.