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[whalleywhat]

http://m.joystiq.com/2010/05/03/nier-review-fail/

Haha. Put this man on Dishonored. My apologies to his wife and cats.

 

[inky]

Maybe they should have kickstarted this documentary instead.

 

[The Faceless Master]

soooo... i guess they won't be covering the new Xbox 360 dashboard update when it releases... since that comes with *drumroll* INTERNET EXPLORER

 

[bodyofanamerican]

Are you arguing the documentary was necessary or could not in any form be completed without $750,000 from Microsoft?

It would have been completed one way or another with SOMEONE'S $750K. Again, this is an idea that was brought to Microsoft along with other advertisers.

MS is NOT paying them to make this.

 

[Durante]

I just realized that this is almost 70% of the budget Obsidian was asking for with Project Eternity.

Think about that for a moment.

 

[cackhyena]

Are you arguing the documentary was necessary or could not in any form be completed without $750,000 from Microsoft?

No, I definitely agree with you on that. I don't know why I read it as starting the whole site up with this money and not dealing with the doc exclusively. Mind is scattered today. My b.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Don't see a huge issue here if it was more or less ad money. Didn't agree with the documentary itself really, but getting ad money to make it is common.

When does the site even launch? Seems like they've been developing it forever now.

 

[Nibel]

I just realized that this is almost 70% of the budget Obsidian was asking for with Project Eternity.

Think about that for a moment.

REVOLUTIONIZING VIDEOGAME JOURNALISM COMES WITH A HIGH PRICE

 

[Fistwell]

Seems like they've been developing it forever now.

and so... what is it exactly that they're doing right now? Like, concretely? Does appearing on self-celebrating youtube videos constitute a full-time job nowadays?

Spoiler

and if so where do I sign to get MS to give me money to do that?

 

[AkuMifune]

REVOLUTIONIZING VIDEOGAME JOURNALISM COMES WITH A HIGH PRICE

I can appreciate an industry where accolades and accomplishment are awarded before any actual work has been completed.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

No, I definitely agree with you on that. I don't know why I read it as starting the whole site up with this money and not dealing with the doc exclusively. Mind is scattered today. My b.

It's cool, sometimes I'll misread things way more fundamentally than that after I have made long posts, so it could be way worse.

 

[7threst]

and so... what is it exactly that they're doing right now? Like, concretely? Does appearing on self-celebrating youtube videos constitute a full-time job nowadays?

Spoiler

and if so where do I sign to get MS to give me money to do that?

Their cover (mostly?) the gaming hub on the verge: http://www.theverge.com/gaming

 

[alr1ght]

i give this post

4 out of 5 McElroys

 

[Graphics Horse]

It would have been completed one way or another with SOMEONE'S $750K. Again, this is an idea that was brought to Microsoft along with other advertisers.

MS is NOT paying them to make this.

How did it come about?
"[We] were like, 'They want to sponsor a documentary series? Awesome," he said. "'But about us? Uh, interesting.'"

 

[RedNumberFive]

I love it!

 

[WrenchNinja]

i give this post

4 out of 5 McElroys

Fucking 7-10 scale at work right here.

 

[rakhir]

Whole Polygon site is a mess, I really don't know what the hell are they thinking making something non-existant so important.

The best thing out of this whole situation are the parodies of the documentary on youtube, like this one of Giant Bomb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3QAh_x_eW0

edit: and of course it was made by a GAF member, BigJiantRobut

How To Press Reset: The Giant Bomb Story

Unfortunately I didn't have time to do any color tinting in after effects or properly test the audio mix, but hopefully this is alright.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I see the Polygon folk are treating introspection as something you only do for the camera. Drop us a line if you ever manage to get the industry out of the ghetto, hmmm?

 

[FStop7]

They courted us.

And I know the definition of conflict of interest. I just don't think it is one. Newspapers have run ads for things they've covered for more than a hundred years. Go to nytimes.com. Right now, there's an ad for smart cars on the front page. Search the site for "smart cars" and find a ton of articles about it. CNN and MSNBC and Fox News are all "brought to you in part by" companies they have to cover eventually. A conflict of interest would be, say, being owned by a company we have to write about. But on the web especially, for sites that run ads, they'll be running ads about things they cover, because web advertising is hyper-targeted.

At least, that's the way I look at it. If you want a standard that eliminates all endemic advertising or sponsorship, then I think you're going to be consistently disappointed.

The New York Times, CNN and NBC news organizations have existed for decades. And they are constantly under fire and criticism for conflicts of interest between what they do or don't report pertaining to their advertisers. They fall back on years of credibility when challenged, and even then it does not satisfy every criticism.

On the other hand, your site hasn't even launched yet, it has zero credibility, and this comes out. It looks bad. Especially since it's enthusiast press and not real journalism, which means credibility is that much thinner.

 

[V_Ben]

I just realized that this is almost 70% of the budget Obsidian was asking for with Project Eternity.

Think about that for a moment.

Even more amusingly, Microsoft cancelled an Obsidian game.

 

[Deleted member 20415]

The New York Times, CNN and NBC news organizations have existed for decades. And they are constantly under fire and criticism for conflicts of interest between what they do or don't report pertaining to their advertisers. They fall back on years of credibility when challenged, and even then it does not satisfy every criticism.

On the other hand, your site hasn't even launched yet, it has zero credibility, and this comes out. It looks bad. Especially since it's enthusiast press and not real journalism, which means credibility is that much thinner.

I say this in all seriousness, is there a news organization that you trust? I'm not sure I do.

I worked in games press for a little while, know quite a few writers and personalities and follow all the organizations pretty closely. Like my news consumption, I look for specific writers or names that have proven themselves over time, rather than trust the blanket organization. Games writing (I refuse to call it Games Journalism) is no different than the conflicts and difficulties of general news reporting. Some writers go soft on some companies and hard on others, other writers are more into genres or developers... you will never 100% get rid of bias, so why hold someone to some ridiculous standard that doesn't exist? You can only do so much as a human.

Trust specific proven writers - and give every writer a shot until they're proven that they can't be trusted.

 

[chickdigger802]

We at WAHP has been doing that for years now thankyouverymuch!

What's a wahp?

Give me a name if ya trying to sell me your podcast!

 

[mclem]

As they said, they're doing something that's never been done before.

Would the thing in question be "getting away with it"?

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

I love how every person at this site is utterly awful and can now be easily avoided. Not to mention the pre-launch stuff is such an embarrassing car wreck and ever so amusing to follow thanks to GAF.

Hopefully the site tanks and everyone involved leaves the industry as a result.

 

[Marcel]

I wish there were a video game enthusiast press equivalent of http://shameproject.com/. You could spend months (maybe years) on Kotaku and Polygon alone.

 

[snoopeasystreet]

I love how every person at this site is utterly awful and can now be easily avoided. Not to mention the pre-launch stuff is such an embarrassing car wreck it's ever so amusing to follow thanks to GAF.

Hopefully the site tanks and everyone involved leaves the industry as a result.

New guys will just take their place. It's less about the people and more about the nature of the industry.

 

[Foxtastical]

Well, no. It is technically news brought to you by Microsoft. I suspect this is a phrase you will have to get used to typing in the future.



I agree, advertising does drive the industry. It is unfortunate, but journalism is ultimately a business. But I'd like to point you to one of the SPJ guidelines regarding ethics:



And hell, let's throw the part about accountability in there, too.



Can you honestly say Polygon is exemplifying all of these? Or even most of them?

Let's break this down - you received three quarters of a million dollars to produce a documentary about yourselves, something that has no journalistic benefit to anyone and exists only to advertise the now kind of funny notion that you are a new, revolutionary game journalistic outlet, and you received this money from a company you directly cover, ostensibly criticize, and have free reign to editorialize. Ignoring protests over the word "funny," am I correct that this is the reality of the situation? To put it simply, $750,000 were paid to your organization, from Microsoft, in order to subsidize your advertising?

Now, I don't know how much you know about the code of ethics, but I'm not an expert, and even I know this is grey at best. This is not a banner ad on your website to keep the lights on. This is a website that does not exist yet, taking money from one of the companies it covers, to advertise its impending existence. To compare this to coverage of CES sponsored by Ford misses so many rather important details that I am shocked you are either missing them or shocked that you would attempt to throw that ball over our heads and hope we don't notice. Either way, shame on you, seriously. Name-dropping advertisers as if the situations are comparable in an attempt to confuse the situation (or in an attempt to seriously argue it, in which case I don't even know how to respond to that level of fallacious assertions) isn't cool.

If you want to say, hey, we're not beholden to those rules. We just do games journalism. You know what? Go for it. More power to you. You are doing nothing out of your station, nor does anyone expect you to. But if the irony of producing a documentary about how you're raising game journalism out of the ghetto directly subsidized by a company who will be using you for box-quotes in the future is lost on you, then I feel you probably have more problems than simply how much said documentary costs.

Alberto continues to be a GAF member that I thoroughly respect. Cutting that shit like butta.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

New guys will just take their place. It's less about the people and more about the nature of the industry.

I'll take my chances with their replacements since some of these names are so goddamn awful it would be hard to imagine someone worse popping up.

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

Would the thing in question be "getting away with it"?

If by it you mean a big wad of cash, then yes

 

[ThatObviousUser]

I love how every person at this site is utterly awful and can now be easily avoided. Not to mention the pre-launch stuff is such an embarrassing car wreck and ever so amusing to follow thanks to GAF.

Hopefully the site tanks and everyone involved leaves the industry as a result.

Phil Kollar is pretty awesome, don't know the others but some of the stuff I've read ITT has been embarrassing.

 

[Wuthering_Heights]

I wouldn't be shocked if sales had to beg the editors to do it in order to sell ad space.

Yeah....

Whole Polygon site is a mess, I really don't know what the hell are they thinking making something non-existant so important.

The best thing out of this whole situation are the parodies of the documentary on youtube, like this one of Giant Bomb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3QAh_x_eW0

Also that, was amazing. I couldn't stop laughing.

 

[The Albatross]

I like when videogame journalism threads pop up and they discuss advertising dollars. I completely agree, that it's really shady (yet necessary) practice to get a large amount of funding from the companies and products you're covering. The sad truth, though, is that they have to do that because every time a non-gaming website comes out with content about gaming that is not, supposedly, written by somebody "in the industry" we lambaste them.

Case in point, the WSJ coverage from last week. Everybody lost their shit and got mad because the guy did not have gaming cred and he said such "mainstream" things as holding games like Gears of War or CoD as examples of what game companies should do (Shun! Shun! If you're in the industry then you should KNOW that CoD is BAD.. BAD!).

Whenever an unaffiliated, legitimate opinion from mainstream press comes out about gaming, we all jump up and down criticizing them and mocking people who would ever get game news from something like the NYT or Wall Street Journal ... and this reinforces the problem with videogame journalism and fund raising.

 

[John Rabbit]

did eggies seriously just compare polygon/the verge to CNN and MSNBC?

 

[jacksrb]

Laughed a little when this thread first popped up, but the documentary has been interesting to me as much of it has revolved around designing for different devices and parts of building the site that don't have anything to do with games coverage, per say.

 

[LuchaShaq]

And then you have situations where publisher invite you to Italy and you can stay there for a week more on their dime if you choose to. (Assassin's Creed 2)

Or they do a lottery and everyone that participates has the chance of winning a 60" LCD TV, among other things.

Of course this is done to potentially influence the score. The only way you can avoid this is by having the person previewing the game and the person reviewing the game be a different person and not accept any gifts at all.

And pay for your own travel like I think GameSpot used to do and GameTrailers.com still does.

There is a conflict of interest and you can state that it doesn't matter and there still needs to be demonstrated that actual impropriety has/is taken place. But there is still the issue of seeming impropriety, as you can clearly see from the responses in this thread.

Or only read people you enjoy and trust. There are plenty of writers I don't care if they paid for their travel or not because I don't enjoy their writing or agree with them almost ever on games.

There are also press people I would trust opinion wise even if they posted a video of them doing coke off the ass of a hooker with the publishers logo tatted on her chest.

 

[SuperSonic1305]

Isn't that more than Microsoft spent on the Kinect launch?

 

[cackhyena]

Isn't that more than Microsoft spent on the Kinect launch?

Funny

 

[Graphics Horse]

Isn't that more than Microsoft spent on the Kinect launch?

lol no the marketing budget was said to be half a Billion.

Which is going live first anyway, is it Polygon or IE9 on XBOX 360? Or will they both launch together?

 

[njean777]

I love how every person at this site is utterly awful and can now be easily avoided. Not to mention the pre-launch stuff is such an embarrassing car wreck and ever so amusing to follow thanks to GAF.

Hopefully the site tanks and everyone involved leaves the industry as a result.

Arthur isn't to bad, he may seem a bit arrogant and up his own ass at times but he is a good writer IMO. Everybody else is meh, although Justin is funny.

 

[akidnamededdy]

In an industry where it's already pretty heavily suspected (if not an unspoken truth) that developers are basically paying for good reviews with their advertising dollars, this kind of thing just raises all kinds of red flags. You can talk about how Microsoft's different divisions are basically different companies and all that as much as you like, but the damage is done. This is going to color pretty much everybody's perception of the site for years.

Spoiler

Though to be honest most people knew it would be garbage when they announced the staff anyway.

 

[Barkley's Justice]

I hate the fact their podcast is called the Besties.

#1. That's just a dumb name

#2. No matter how many times I see it in my Twitter feed, I think it says Beasties. As in The Boys that are Beasties.

 

[JaxJag]

Since the site hasn't even launched, what if Polygon is never a success? Will the title change of the documentary that fits a little more aptly?

 

[kadotsu]

Since the site hasn't even launched, what if Polygon is never a success? Will the title change of the documentary that fits a little more aptly?

Vox Media has about $40M in VC. They should be good for a while.

 

[whalleywhat]

Which is going live first anyway, is it Polygon or IE9 on XBOX 360? Or will they both launch together?

ahaha

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Cuil: Video Game Edition

 

[Zaventem]

Isn't that more than Microsoft spent on the Kinect launch?

No it isn't.I know you're looking to make a joke somewhere but they spent $500 million advertising kinect.

 

[Kinyou]

Can't wait for the Voxel reboot

 

[mattp]

This is going to color pretty much everybody's perception of the site for years.

will be forgotten in 3 months

 

[brotkasten]

lol no the marketing budget was said to be half a Billion.

Which is going live first anyway, is it Polygon or IE9 on XBOX 360? Or will they both launch together?

New Xbox 360 dashboard to launch with Polygon web app as replacement for Inside Xbox.

 

[Vyse The Legend]

will be forgotten in 3 months

Along with the site, a hodge-podge of bad decisions and hated gaming enthusiasts.