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Giant Bomb #7 | Hey There, Small Business Owner!

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T

The Wizard

Member
Glad people are digging into Patrick's treatment of 2048. He touched on some interesting concepts in his article but has mostly mishandled the story due to personal involvement. It has been surprisingly unprofessional considering his usual standards.
 
A

Aaron

Member
Threes should have been free2play. The way IOS is now, you can only charge for content, not clever mechanics. If something is easy to imitate, expect it to happen almost immediately, while a game like Monument Valley is all content based, making it too much effort to rip off. Since people can't get that free, they'll pay for that sort of game.
 
F

Fox318

Member
Megasoum said:
I really wonder how far Patrick would have actually pushed the whole thing if the guy that made Threes was not sitting next to him at work...
Click to expand...

Wasn't that an original concern which readers voiced to Jeff before? That them getting closer to game devs that their site will become less about games and more about the people they like personally. I seem to recall hearing Jeff in a panel or podcast talking about how that was a concern about the direction of the site.

I don't think anyone would be shocked if the site had defended a game more from someone they have a relationship with or promoted it more. I remember the Dropchord quick look really feeling like they were doing double fine a favor with their video.

Lets say the Vita port of Borderlands 2 is a mess and in reviews people point out that the game appears to have been poorly developed, could you see an article where Patrick or somebody else writes something defending Iron Galaxy instead of talking about the quality of said game?

What about if Patrick had promoted threes or Unprofessional Fridays had featured an hour dedicated to it? Wouldn't that feel like a conflict of interest considering Patrick is practically working with the person who made it?
 
F

FStop7

Banned
Larsa said:
Except that the lady approached him first and freaked out when he told her about Threes. Come on man.
Click to expand...

kvothe said:
Did you actually listen to what he said? The woman playing 2048 saw him playing Threes and SHE was the one that instigated the conversation about it. Don't make it sound like he went out of his way to tell this woman she was doing something wrong, he didn't. She started the conversation and he, according to him, politely engaged with her and said that Threes actually came out first.
Click to expand...

So you're saying the part where he told her it was a "ripoff" and he literally moved to a different part of the bus because of her reaction didn't happen? That is some grade A creeper bullshit.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
kvothe said:
Did you actually listen to what he said? The woman playing 2048 saw him playing Threes and SHE was the one that instigated the conversation about it. Don't make it sound like he went out of his way to tell this woman she was doing something wrong, he didn't. She started the conversation and he, according to him, politely engaged with her and said that Threes actually came out first.
Click to expand...

thank you for saving me the trouble of writting this. this thread is getting so ridiculous

FStop7 said:
So you're saying the part where he told her it was a "ripoff" and he literally moved to a different part of the bus because of her reaction didn't happen? That is some grade A creeper bullshit.
Click to expand...

he moved because of the look she gave him when he said it was a rippof because he didnt want to get into shit with some random woman on the bus. I would move too, how is that creeper shit? he didnt move next to her lol
 
L

Liamc723

Member
FStop7 said:
So you're saying the part where he told her it was a "ripoff" and he literally moved to a different part of the bus because of her reaction didn't happen? That is some grade A creeper bullshit.
Click to expand...

How on earth is that creepy? The fact that it is a ripoff is true, and in him moving, he defused the situation.
 
K

kvothe

Member
Fox318 said:
Wasn't that an original concern which readers voiced to Jeff before? That them getting closer to game devs that their site will become less about games and more about the people they like personally. I seem to recall hearing Jeff in a panel or podcast talking about how that was a concern about the direction of the site.

I don't think anyone would be shocked if the site had defended a game more from someone they have a relationship with or promoted it more. I remember the Dropchord quick look really feeling like they were doing double fine a favor with their video.

Lets say the Vita port of Borderlands 2 is a mess and in reviews people point out that the game appears to have been poorly developed, could you see an article where Patrick or somebody else writes something defending Iron Galaxy instead of talking about the quality of said game?

What about if Patrick had promoted threes or Unprofessional Fridays had featured an hour dedicated to it? Wouldn't that feel like a conflict of interest considering Patrick is practically working with the person who made it?
Click to expand...

You're getting ridiculous. Dedicating an hour to Threes? And have you, by chance, heard of Wreckateer? The game made by Dave Lang that GB always makes fun of?
 
B

Brakke

Banned
Fox318 said:
Lets say the Vita port of Borderlands 2 is a mess and in reviews people point out that the game appears to have been poorly developed, could you see an article where Patrick or somebody else writes something defending Iron Galaxy instead of talking about the quality of said game?
Click to expand...

What about Giant Bomb makes you think they would write any kind of story either way about the quality of a port of an old game none of them super cared for? Seems like something they just wouldn't cover either way.

What about if Patrick had promoted threes or Unprofessional Fridays had featured an hour dedicated to it? Wouldn't that feel like a conflict of interest considering Patrick is practically working with the person who made it?
Click to expand...

That's not really accurate at all. They sometimes work in the same office sometimes. Which is clearly more than zero relationship, but certainly less than "working with" someone. Really need some precision if we're going to talk conflicts of interest.
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
MiniBossBattle said:
Kinda crappy Patrick. Given your aversion to people getting harassed on twitter (Flappybird, phil fish, gamestop journo, zoe quin, leigh alexander, and yourself) you do know the consequences for writing:

"If you read my Threes cloning story yesterday, the developer of the 2048 iOS/Android app who refused to talk to me is:
@NotGoingToAddFuelToTheFirePatrick
"

Seriously dude.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why he's attacking that guy in the first place. The only way he linked that guy to the app was through him talking about it on Twitter, and being the co-founder of the company that published it on Google Play.

But the app has 10-50k downloads in the store. Compare that to this exact copy of the game, which has 1-5 million downloads. Why is Morcos getting singled out here?

But then Patrick mentions twice in the article that the guy wouldn't get back to him via email, and then tweets again a few days later on how Antoine "refused" to talk to him and here's his twitter handle, which was already in the article. Not to mention calling his previous games shameless and how the beautiful gift of open source games was "giftwrapped" for "someone like Morcos."

I mean holy crap man.
 
F

Fox318

Member
Xater said:
That's a huge assumption. I give it a shot time and time again and these games are not for me. I can get appreciate FIFA or PES but I played a lot of their iterations. I enjoy what I played of last years The Show somewhat but I never got a good grasp of the game to really love it. I might try again with the PS4 game this year but if it doesn't click again that's probably it for baseball games as well at this point.
Click to expand...

Fair point. I wonder if controller complexity or game complexity has lead to many to not follow sports games as much.

Also I wonder if we are grouping in competitive games and sports games together unfairly. A game like Sportsfriends may have more in common with couch competitive games or party games rather than sports games.
 
D

darkressurection

Banned
chubigans said:
I don't understand why he's attacking that guy in the first place. The only way he linked that guy to the app was through him talking about it on Twitter, and being the co-founder of the company that published it on Google Play.

But the app has 10-50k downloads in the store. Compare that to this exact copy of the game, which has 1-5 million downloads. Why is Morcos getting singled out here?

But then Patrick mentions twice in the article that the guy wouldn't get back to him via email, and then tweets again a few days later on how Antoine "refused" to talk to him and here's his twitter handle, which was already in the article. Not to mention calling his previous games shameless and how the beautiful gift of open source games was "giftwrapped" for "someone like Morcos."

I mean holy crap man.
Click to expand...

I mentioned this back when Patrick's Metal Gear stuff was happening last week, but he just seems to contradict himself so much lately in terms of how he thinks people should treat each other on social media and the internet in general. Hopefully he takes a step back and looks at how he has handled himself lately.
 
P

Patryn

Member
I understand that Patrick wants to be an activist journalist. He wants to make a difference and bring to light injustices that he sees in the gaming community.

I don't necessarily see a problem with that. The problem is that I think he's veering too far into the activist part of the equation, at the expense of the journalist part. I hope he steps back and realizes that he can still write the articles illustrating the problems with gaming without becoming part of the story himself.
 
F

FStop7

Banned
Liamc723 said:
How on earth is that creepy? The fact that it is a ripoff is true, and in him moving, he defused the situation.
Click to expand...

"The situation" - there shouldn't be a "situation" to start with when you're talking to a complete stranger about a topic as benign as a smartphone game.

Larsa said:
No, that's called a conversation.
Click to expand...

People don't react like that to "conversations."

I would suggest those who haven't listened to it go hear it for themselves and decide.
 
L

Liamc723

Member
FStop7 said:
"The situation" - there shouldn't be a "situation" to start with when you're talking to a complete stranger about a topic as benign as a smartphone game.


I would suggest those who haven't listened to it go hear it for themselves and decide.
Click to expand...

I have listened to it and I think the woman is in the wrong with her reaction, Alex was in the right to move to save anything else being said. Alex stated a fact, and I can't believe you really think he's in the wrong, he didn't do anything wrong.
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
darkressurection said:
I mentioned this back when Patrick's Metal Gear stuff was happening last week, but he just seems to contradict himself so much lately in terms of how he thinks people should treat each other on social media and the internet in general. Hopefully he takes a step back and looks at how he has handled himself lately.
Click to expand...

Huh I have to look back at that, I don't remember what happened.

But I think Patrick's tweet at deleting the comment is just as bad too:

Some seem to think this is a form of doxing, which I disagree. He's a public figure. But I'll delete the tweet, and note the response.
Click to expand...

-How is it not doxing? What purpose did that tweet serve when you had already put his twitter info in the original article?
-He's a public figure? What does that even mean? That because he's publicly listed on Twitter and Facebook that it's ok to post his info in that manner?
-"I'll note the response." That is such a politician statement, to dismiss the feedback without addressing it or acknowledging it's tone. Ugh.

Anyways, yeah, dunno what's been going on with Patrick but that was poor form in both the article and tweets. He has got to keep his personal investment in some of these stories in control.
 
X

Xater

Member
Fox318 said:
Fair point. I wonder if controller complexity or game complexity has lead to many to not follow sports games as much.

Also I wonder if we are grouping in competitive games and sports games together unfairly. A game like Sportsfriends may have more in common with couch competitive games or party games rather than sports games.
Click to expand...

It's combination of control complexity and control responsiveness. Technically you can make for example FIFA a two button game and fiddle with some sliders to make it less realistic. The problem is after that it still doesn't feel as responsive as these older games did, because it was built all around being a simulation. So you get lots of animations when players want to do quick turns etc.
 
K

Kerned

Banned
Patryn said:
I understand that Patrick wants to be an activist journalist. He wants to make a difference and bring to light injustices that he sees in the gaming community.

I don't necessarily see a problem with that. The problem is that I think he's veering too far into the activist part of the equation, at the expense of the journalist part. I hope he steps back and realizes that he can still write the articles illustrating the problems with gaming without becoming part of the story himself.
Click to expand...

I more or less agree with Patrick's viewpoints on most issues, but I am increasingly finding myself really turned off by the way he expresses those viewpoints. There is something about his approach that just rubs me the wrong way.

edit:

chubigans said:
-"I'll note the response." That is such a politician statement, to dismiss the feedback without addressing it or acknowledging it's tone. Ugh.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, that's exactly what I am talking about. This is the equivalent of saying "sorry that you were offended." There is a certain smugness and arrogance there that I just don't like.
 
C

CambriaRising

Member
Kerned said:
I more or less agree with Patrick's viewpoints on most issues, but I am increasingly finding myself really turned off by the way he expresses those viewpoints. There is something about his approach that just rubs me the wrong way.
Click to expand...

I don't feel like it was always like this, some of his mannerisms and the way he discusses things in the last few months have been pretty off-putting. Patrick is probably one of my favorite people in the gaming press, but I don't know if it will stay that way in the future. Maybe hes been having a bad few months, I don't know.
 
F

Fox318

Member
kvothe said:
You're getting ridiculous. Dedicating an hour to Threes? And have you, by chance, heard of Wreckateer? The game made by Dave Lang that GB always makes fun of?
Click to expand...
They make fun of the game now but they didn't really have an in depth review or a non EX quick look to discuss the game. Don't forget Jeff's Gaming Minute where he praised the game. All other Kinect games they covered they obliterated because of the shit controls and stuff.

Brakke said:
What about Giant Bomb makes you think they would write any kind of story either way about the quality of a port of an old game none of them super cared for? Seems like something they just wouldn't cover either way.
Click to expand...
That was just an example I came up with but wouldn't you say that game would be qualified as a big release? And its not as if Jeff hated Borderlands 2 he just enjoyed the first one more or he only wanted that experience once. Not to mention the game has had a rocky development and I'm sure it would lead to an interesting discussion the the Vita.

Brakke said:
That's not really accurate at all. They sometimes work in the same office sometimes. Which is clearly more than zero relationship, but certainly less than "working with" someone. Really need some precision if we're going to talk conflicts of interest.
Click to expand...
It is kinda weird though that Patrick has an office with a company like that. If Patrick had not mentioned his relationship with Wohlwend wouldn't people have an issue with that?
 
D

darkressurection

Banned
chubigans said:
Huh I have to look back at that, I don't remember what happened.

But I think Patrick's tweet at deleting the comment is just as bad too:



-How is it not doxing? What purpose did that tweet serve when you had already put his twitter info in the original article?
-He's a public figure? What does that even mean? That because he's publicly listed on Twitter and Facebook that it's ok to post his info in that manner?
-"I'll note the response." That is such a politician statement, to dismiss the feedback without addressing it or acknowledging it's tone. Ugh.

Anyways, yeah, dunno what's been going on with Patrick but that was poor form in both the article and tweets. He has got to keep his personal investment in some of these stories in control.
Click to expand...

My main issue with it was that after people began to be assholes to him (as people on the internet usually are) instead of going out of his way to engage with people that disagreed with him but were willing to have a discussion he instead tweets: "No comment brings more people out of the woodwork than daring to not like something about a Metal Gear game." and "Bummer part is there's plenty to like. But, hoo boy, try to knock it down a peg, as though all art has faults, and watch it, mister."

He then preceded to retweet someone who was being an asshole to him, which in my opinion is basically the Twitter version of "release the hounds" because no doubt plenty of people who support Patrick went to that guy's twitter and have him shit, then the cycle begins anew.

Edit: added links to his Twitter posts.
 
K

Kerned

Banned
CambriaRising said:
I don't feel like it was always like this, some of his mannerisms and the way he discusses things in the last few months have been pretty off-putting. Patrick is probably one of my favorite people in the gaming press, but I don't know if it will stay that way in the future. Maybe hes been having a bad few months, I don't know.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds his recent attitude "off-putting."

SlowRevolution said:
That's not what apologizing for distributing personal information looks like, Patrick.
Click to expand...

Well played.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
giancarlo on 2 back to back quicklooks... signs of something?

It means nothing, I know I know, let me dream :(
 
P

Patryn

Member
Rhaknar said:
giancarlo on 2 back to back quicklooks... signs of something?

It means nothing, I know I know, let me dream :(
Click to expand...

It's a sign that GB has a very light bench. I don't think it's been a total coincidence that Danny has been on the last few UPFs, as they've desperately needed bodies.
 
R

RepairmanJack

Member
chubigans said:
Huh I have to look back at that, I don't remember what happened.

But I think Patrick's tweet at deleting the comment is just as bad too:



-How is it not doxing? What purpose did that tweet serve when you had already put his twitter info in the original article?
-He's a public figure? What does that even mean? That because he's publicly listed on Twitter and Facebook that it's ok to post his info in that manner?
-"I'll note the response." That is such a politician statement, to dismiss the feedback without addressing it or acknowledging it's tone. Ugh.

Anyways, yeah, dunno what's been going on with Patrick but that was poor form in both the article and tweets. He has got to keep his personal investment in some of these stories in control.
Click to expand...

Wow, didn't even see the second tweet. That makes it even worse.

This guy is ok to get it but the people who have gotten it in the past, who Patrick has made whole articles about, was completely wrong? Just bizarre...
 
BennyBlanco

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
Fox318 said:
Wasn't that an original concern which readers voiced to Jeff before? That them getting closer to game devs that their site will become less about games and more about the people they like personally. I seem to recall hearing Jeff in a panel or podcast talking about how that was a concern about the direction of the site.

I don't think anyone would be shocked if the site had defended a game more from someone they have a relationship with or promoted it more. I remember the Dropchord quick look really feeling like they were doing double fine a favor with their video.

Lets say the Vita port of Borderlands 2 is a mess and in reviews people point out that the game appears to have been poorly developed, could you see an article where Patrick or somebody else writes something defending Iron Galaxy instead of talking about the quality of said game?

What about if Patrick had promoted threes or Unprofessional Fridays had featured an hour dedicated to it? Wouldn't that feel like a conflict of interest considering Patrick is practically working with the person who made it?
Click to expand...

Divekick being a top 10 game of the year cemented that for me.
 
M

MiniBossBattle

Member
I agree with chubigans on this one.

You write it like this: "X developer was contacted about this piece via, twitter, facebook, e-mail, and phone but was unavailable for comment. " Not refused or declined; unavailable.

Then you present your argument. To speculate in Bombin' is just poor form.
 
Z

Zaph

Member
So what's the difference between a 'private' and 'public' figure? If you have to go through domain registration to find someone, isn't that pretty private?
 
eot

eot

Banned
BennyBlanco said:
Divekick being a top 10 game of the year cemented that for me.
Click to expand...

I generally agree with the concern (though I don't care that much because I don't really go to GB or any other site for buying advice), I think Jeff just really liked Divekick. He also had to fight pretty god damn hard to get it on there.
 
B

Brakke

Banned
Zaph said:
So what's the difference between a 'private' and 'public' figure? If you have to go through domain registration to find someone, isn't that pretty private?
Click to expand...

Domain registration is publicly available, and you can register a domain anonymously if you wish to stay private. He didn't make any effort to request anonymity or indicate that that's what he wanted. That's why sharing his name is not doxing, it's reporting.
 
R

RepairmanJack

Member
Brakke said:
Domain registration is publicly available, and you can register a domain anonymously if you wish to stay private. He didn't make any effort to request anonymity or indicate that that's what he wanted. That's why sharing his name is not doxing, it's reporting.
Click to expand...

Reporting his name was what he did in his article. Reiterating the point that "he refused to talk" to him after the point had already been made multiple times is going a little past reporting.

Edit: Also many things can be found publicly and legally, that doesn't make it any more public.
 
F

Fox318

Member
Brakke said:
Domain registration is publicly available, and you can register a domain anonymously if you wish to stay private. He didn't make any effort to request anonymity or indicate that that's what he wanted. That's why sharing his name is not doxing, it's reporting.
Click to expand...

I would think that a person in the public life is one who markets himself as part of a product or service.

When I think of somebody going through Whois and searching database information I start to think of somebody who thinks himself a Bob Woodward instead of researching a public figure.

But you do make a fair point about anonymous hosting.
 
B

Brakke

Banned
FStop7 said:
When 60 Minutes does an expose they don't publish the phone numbers of people they failed to contact.
Click to expand...

That's a real straw man of an analogy. Antoine Morcos's twitter is literally @AntoineMorcos. Which is publicly searchable. Any arbitrary person was like 0.5 seconds from finding that twitter after reading the name. Patrick even did him a favor by misspelling his name "Antonie" in the article, which made it take me a full second to find him!
lol

I really don't want to be the Patrick Defense Force here, but I think we oughta be precise in our criticisms.
 
K

komplanen

Member
I haven't been to this thread for a while so can someone summarize to me which GB member do we hate this week and why? It's obviously either Patrick or Brad, as always.
 
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