"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[thefncrow]

Reminds me of something I wrote a little while ago.

It's also similar to Rami Ismail's post on disclosure.

EDIT:

My favorite is probably this.

It is kinda scary to think that as bad as The Escapist behaved themselves over the last six months, that behavior was at least somewhat tempered by some good people who worked there, and that going forward those good people are gone and won't be able to even remotely moderate their behavior going forward.

Also, looking at Greg Tito's statement again, I like how he mentions how his heart goes out to the people laid off and the people left behind, but then wishes all of them collectively luck on finding a new gig. That burn's so subtle I didn't even notice it the first time.

[Deadpan]

It is kinda scary to think that as bad as The Escapist behaved themselves over the last six months, that behavior was at least somewhat tempered by some good people who worked there, and that going forward those good people are gone and won't be able to even remotely moderate their behavior going forward.

Also, looking at Greg Tito's statement again, I like how he mentions how his heart goes out to the people laid off and the people left behind, but then wishes all of them collectively luck on finding a new gig. That burn's so subtle I didn't even notice it the first time.

 

Hard to know exactly how it's all gone down without being privvy to the site's inner workings of course, but the inofficial official version is basically that Macris conducted the GG interviews himself and then dropped them in Tito's lap to publish, who was left doing damage control. After that fallout, word from above was apparently to not discuss GG at all.

 

I have a lot of respect for Tito. He went out of his way to establish a syndication deal with Critical Distance, like the one with Gamasutra, and to report from Critical Proximity himself. A lot of effort put into sharing more mature forms of criticism than the site's trademark angry Australian that, as he says, the community never really appreciated.

[Mawd]

They ask you log into to their comment section with a Steam account. Let's just say that's where I draw the line on journalistic integrity. That last part with the rolling in the grass... that may be figuratively true.

 

Huh that is pretty weird. I don't generally need to comment. I just need something to complement RPS with. Previously that was the Escapist for occasionally funny weekly segments along with more traditionally pop geek culture updates.

With the Escapist Imploding and my enjoyment of what pulled me into it on the decline for some months I'm looking to try out any recommendation really.

[marblize]

Complement how?

 

I'm pretty in love with Kill Screen.

[Mawd]

I'll check that out!

 

RPS was my introduction to for lack of a better term serious games criticism. I used to check read the Sunday Papers all the time and their features and article recommendations introduced me to very interesting sites like NightmareMode, How Games Saved My Life, Sirlin.net, Hellmode, and a few other sites I found that filled the void of talking about games in a way I'd never really encountered before at least from any of the mainstream gaming press (Australia's PCPowerplay did give me a small taste of it growing up as a young scrub). But I still wanted a site that was more to the centre of games press that also paid attention to traditional pop culture interests like tech updates, news on comics, books, tv, usually all with a pop scifi or fantasy theme.

I'm worried I'm not articulating this well enough but to use a possibly bad analogy; I still like to read one of the national newspapers even if I do frequently value Al Jazeera, ShortFormBlog, or even just /r/worldnews to a higher degree.

[Bjorn]

The piece where the new EIC of the Escapist introduces himself is a little weird.
 

Moving forward, The Escapist is eschewing the "curmudgeon" mentality that is so pervasive these days in favor of the "enthusiast" mentality that we want to foster among our community, and geek culture at large. We want to focus on finding the good in the geekspace, rather than focusing on the bad. We want to facilitate enjoyment, rather than disparagement. We want to talk more about the things we love, and less about the things we hate.

 

What does that even mean?  It reads kinda like the new Escapist attitude is to ignore any problems in gaming to focus on the fun factor of gaming and geekdom.  It's the kind of sentence that sounds good in a vacuum, but in the context of of the last 6 months and the Escapist's roll in it...

[Problem Machine]

"we aint gonna talk about none of that sjw shit here"

Does that mean they're getting rid of Yahtzee? Doesn't get much more curmudgeonly than that, but he's also pretty much the only reason the site became relevant at all in the first place.

[Bjorn]

Something else kind of odd about this is that I was pretty sure in the past when a high profile site has had major layoffs and restructurings, that the other high profile outlets have covered  it.  But there appears to be near total silence about these firings. 

[marblize]

I'll check that out!

 

RPS was my introduction to for lack of a better term serious games criticism. I used to check read the Sunday Papers all the time and their features and article recommendations introduced me to very interesting sites like NightmareMode, How Games Saved My Life, Sirlin.net, Hellmode, and a few other sites I found that filled the void of talking about games in a way I'd never really encountered before at least from any of the mainstream gaming press (Australia's PCPowerplay did give me a small taste of it growing up as a young scrub). But I still wanted a site that was more to the centre of games press that also paid attention to traditional pop culture interests like tech updates, news on comics, books, tv, usually all with a pop scifi or fantasy theme.

I'm worried I'm not articulating this well enough but to use a possibly bad analogy; I still like to read one of the national newspapers even if I do frequently value Al Jazeera, ShortFormBlog, or even just /r/worldnews to a higher degree.

Ah I gotcha.

Kill Screen is not that, it's more... in-depth and arty I guess? Polygon fits what you're looking for a little bit better I think, if you don't already Polygon.

[Mawd]

Yeah I might have to give Polygon another go.

I do like Kill Screen though.

[Deadpan]

Does that mean they're getting rid of Yahtzee? Doesn't get much more curmudgeonly than that, but he's also pretty much the only reason the site became relevant at all in the first place.

 

That'd be interesting to see, but I doubt it'll happen. Plans they've announced in the past have also generally been "What we're going to do, except with Yahtzee" who is just an untouchable gold cow. They're honestly pretty starved for content at this point. Rob Rath continues his Critical Intel column, which is great, but feels misplaced at the site. Moviebob and that Loading Ready Run comedy troupe are also still around I guess, but besides that it's mostly been episode recaps for various geek shows and milquetoast game reviews over the last two years or so.

 

 

I'm pretty in love with Kill Screen.

 

I wish they'd get around to another full issue though. Not sure I like them getting into (scored!) reviews and conferences instead of more-long form work.

 

I'll check that out!

 

It's more of the same high-brow games talk and not general news, but I also recommend Unwinnable, the Arcade Review, Five out of Ten and generally browsing Critical Distance for interesting stuff.

[Apple Cider]

I suspect most places have abandoned long-form work because frankly, it's pretty expensive (if you even pay out that much to your writers) and it is hard to produce consistently that generates enough hits to pay for work like that. A lot of longforms are GREAT (see Polygon's history of games marketing creating the gender divide) but they don't drive traffic in the slightest.

I read Polygon, Kotaku, Unwinnable, Crit Distance, Five Out of Ten, Arcade Review, Haywire, etc.

[Deadpan]

I suspect most places have abandoned long-form work because frankly, it's pretty expensive (if you even pay out that much to your writers) and it is hard to produce consistently that generates enough hits to pay for work like that. A lot of longforms are GREAT (see Polygon's history of games marketing creating the gender divide) but they don't drive traffic in the slightest.

 

Yeah, it's hard to justify under an ad-revenue model. Kind of neat to see more of these digital magazines consequently, something like Five out of Ten's profit share model is fairer for writers than general freelance pay, at least when it goes somewhere. I recently translated something that ended up on Kill Screen and the author let me keep the payment. All twenty bucks of it.

 

 

I read Polygon, Kotaku, Unwinnable, Crit Distance, Five Out of Ten, Arcade Review, Haywire, etc.

 

One of these things is not like the others

[marblize]

I wish they'd get around to another full issue though. Not sure I like them getting into (scored!) reviews and conferences instead of more-long form work.

 

Yeah, I only just became aware of them recently but I mostly read their long features and their news when it's about weird stuff.

[Henroid]

This is an old tweet at this point but a friend of mine just shoved it into my feed. I dunno who Steve Hogarty is nor what publication / site he wrote for but I'm torn on this being brilliant and over the line.

https://twitter.com/misterbrilliant/status/483224360418041856
 

This is the review that got me blacklisted by EA. Some shitbag executive wanted me fired.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Also:

[Reyturner]

This is an old tweet at this point but a friend of mine just shoved it into my feed. I dunno who Steve Hogarty is nor what publication / site he wrote for but I'm torn on this being brilliant and over the line.

He's on the Regular Features podcast and making you feel as thought you're torn on whether something is brilliant or over the line is their whole thing.

[Pepyri]

What do you guys enjoy about Kill Screen? Generally when I've read it in the past, I've felt like I came away worse informed than I went in, confused, and annoyed by writing that seems to define pretentiousness. I tried really hard, because I'd heard such good things, but it felt like someone reaching for quality while being mangled in a mulcher.

 

Edit: I apologize, it's fairly off topic to the actual core of the thread.

[Merus]

This is kind of a middling article but it does contain a thought that hadn't occurred to me:

 

 

GamerGate also works to discredit the people who are scariest to AAA publishers; critics like Anita Sarkeesian who have managed to get their voices heard while remaining outside of the AAA PR ecosystem. Capcom can't fly Anita out to Hawaii and try to win her over. They can't slap a review embargo on her. She doing just fine without having to get involved with "hype-trains" or review events.

 

...and then it tries to claim that Anita is bad at her job without any backup so fuck that guy, but it's an interesting point: Rockstar must shit themselves every time a new Tropes vs Women game comes out because here is someone who has a critical viewpoint who doesn't care in the slightest about the game's scope or ambition or fidelity or fun factor in her critical work. I wonder if Tropes vs Women has had a measurable effect on sales figures of certain games.

[Problem Machine]

Well it says she might be. Which I read as "she might as well be, it doesn't matter one way or the other", but yeah dunno.

[Gaizokubanou]

This is kind of a middling article but it does contain a thought that hadn't occurred to me:

 

 

 

...and then it tries to claim that Anita is bad at her job without any backup so fuck that guy, but it's an interesting point: Rockstar must shit themselves every time a new Tropes vs Women game comes out because here is someone who has a critical viewpoint who doesn't care in the slightest about the game's scope or ambition or fidelity or fun factor in her critical work. I wonder if Tropes vs Women has had a measurable effect on sales figures of certain games.

 

Extremely doubtful given Rockstar's long history with controversy (they seem thrive on it, or fare well regardless of them).  Also doubtful on second part but that's more of personal hunch, having hard time imagining large sizable portion of customer base who would have gotten say, GTA5, but then sees TvW (which is doubtful in the first place) and then decides not to buy one.  Again, just a hunch here but my thinking is people who would agree with TvW were already grossed with aspects of games (or any other popular entertainment format that convey these tropes) and either don't buy them or buy them while understanding them... and those who don't agree prior to the video probably won't agree cause of the video (otherwise she probably won't get the amount of hate that she gets in the first place).

[Merus]

Rockstar has a long history of controversy, but it's largely been from people who don't play the games, while they're used to the idea that they get great reviews and everyone's hyped. If people are ambivalent about Rockstar games, if they don't have the cultural cachet that 2K relies on to sell its games, things get more interesting.

[Denial]

I think that article overstates the case hugely, to be honest. Feminist Frequency only matters to the games industry when it damages their larger reputation, and it only does that when there are sustained, visible campaigns of harassment against Anita Sarkeesian, because that starts to raise questions about regulations, retail stocking and fund allocation. It would probably take a lot for funds to start treating video game publishers as a bad-news sector, and there are other good reasons not to invest in games publishers.

 

Cultural critique of games in general is going to be as impactful on games as it is on movies, i.e. not really very much at all. The people who do care are often game developers, because they often want to make better games. There's a reason Bungie and DICE got Sarkeesian in to talk to them, and not Activision or EA corporate, although - rather wonderfully - GamerGate may well change that, as Intel has demonstrated.

[Vainamoinen]

I don't think there actually is any kind of effect feministfrequency has on the sales of those games. The gaters would rather buy twice the amount of games while especially the most avid Sarkeesian fans understand that it's OK to buy and enjoy a video game which contains misogynist tropes.

And sure enough, "the Badger" is well aware how the gater backlash to TvW videos works in favor of the AAA industry:
 

I know that certain parties at certain AAA game publishers are fucking thrilled with GamerGate, and have actively worked to keep that shitstorm going under anonymous accounts, not unlike this one that I'm using right now. And why wouldn't they? GamerGate distracts from the real ethical issues in game journalism while bringing hits to the blogs that are basically working as unpaid PR for whatever cookie-cutter, "must-have" game of the week that they're hocking that day. It inflates the importance of game bloggers, and as a result, the importance of the games they blog about. 99% of the time, that's one of their games.

Gamergate threatens journalists, who become more dependant on publisher money as a result.

 

And gamergate threatens indie developers with diversity on their flags, who are a political enemy to gamergate's ample ultra conservative forces.

 

Sarkeesian takes a look at AAA games mostly, and gamergate is a big fucking present to AAA developers.

[Vainamoinen]

Sickening proceedings again.

 

Gamergate figurehead – naturally, 'cause female – lizzyf620 (recently featured in a reaxxion interview) was doxxed, and quite impressively so.

 

The data was posted by a /baphomet/ community member on that forum.

 

And Lizzy's out of the whole gamergate issue, protesting the innocence of both sides.

 

For /baphomet/, the guy naturally wasn't "one of them", and lizzy wasn't "a lolcow worthy of raiding".

 

The revolution devours its children, chewing on their bones and spitting them in a dumpster.
 

Okay, moving on.

 

All the best to Lizzy, of course.