The list goes on and on. And if you were to get a list of blacklists and threatened blacklists from smaller sites, you'd quickly have a list longer than this thread.And SCEA San Diego blacklisted 1UP for giving MLB 07 on PS3 a low review score.
The list goes on and on. And if you were to get a list of blacklists and threatened blacklists from smaller sites, you'd quickly have a list longer than this thread.And SCEA San Diego blacklisted 1UP for giving MLB 07 on PS3 a low review score.
They've written us off as whining children for so long that they have convinced themselves that whining children are all that remain.
Perhaps the saddest thing about this - this being every time the question of gaming journalism ethics comes up - is that they genuinely believe we're all angry conspiracy theorists because any attempt at walking in front of a mirror will ruin the fantasyland they currently live in.
"I am furious. I am furious because yesterday the games PR and marketing men flung a few people under a bus, and today they’re probably sipping drinks" -Robert Florence
All the defensive posturing and 'conspiracy theorist' labeling going on isn't exactly helping the game media's case here. It just shows the contempt they have for their audience, not to mention a serious lack of introspection. How about quelling people's concerns without talking down to them? If we can't have an open discussion about it, then what else are we to assume but that these concerns are in fact founded in reality?
I do have a question for people here though: What would happen if all the major news outlets, IGN, GS, GI, Kotaku, etc all stopped 'playing ball' with press. I don't know what that would involve since they need to talk about something.
N'gai is the enemy.
Former 'games journalist' turned consultant.
"We prefer to operate in the shadows, and our clients like it that way as well"
This should be discussed more.
The not so subtle contempt that games "journalists" and the games media hold their audience and gamers in. When you think you are far above the people you are addressing....
If you think so little of gamers why are you in this business?
What's your view on this as a former games journo?
Like Jeff Green says, I don't think the point is to stop "playing ball." The point is to revise the rules. Sites want pre-release material and developer access. Publishers want to control that access. Fine. But game sites need to set some hard-and-fast (and clear) ground rules for what they will and won't do for that access.I do have a question for people here though: What would happen if all the major news outlets, IGN, GS, GI, Kotaku, etc all stopped 'playing ball' with press. I don't know what that would involve since they need to talk about something.
This should be discussed more.
The not so subtle contempt that games "journalists" and the games media hold their audience and gamers in. When you think you are far above the people you are addressing....
If you think so little of gamers why are you in this business?
Instead of 'Brevity is the soul of wit', Twitter should erect a statue of Polonious :|
Wretched medium.
We're not in a crusade. Those always go wrong.
I'd love for someone to maintain a list of all the great replies and arguments in this thread by people who know what they're talking about. That way they won't get lost in the shuffle. I don't want to usurp these people's posts and use them as ammo in a shit-flinging contest, but simply keep them easily accessible since they're very much worth reading for anyone involved in the discussion.
I'll start, point me towards posts and I'll add them:
Shawn Elliot 1 2 3 4
Jeff Green
ShockingAlberto
I take it you haven't been following AAA gaming this generation. It seems like the console manufacturers, publishers, developers as well as their PR departments, don't think too highly of their audience either.
I agree so much with this perspective.It was business-as-usual until someone lost their job.
Then it made me sick and the cover-up just made it worse. That woman should have left it alone after the article was edited, everything beyond that was digging her grave deeper. It offended me as a practitioner and consumer of journalism. It wasn't enough to just get away with it, she wanted to do a victory lap, which, fuck you, seriously. You got someone fired (or asked to step down or what the hell ever) for something that did not demand that level of conflict.
Each time these ethical debates come up, I keep hoping this will be the time it sticks, this will be the time where journalists and PR people don't circle the wagons to keep their concept of "normal" going indefinitely. Maybe we can get a real conversation about why game criticism differs so much in terms of ethical quagmires from any other kind. Maybe we'll get people to cop to the fact that, hey, this is sort of fucked up, but this is the way it works and I doubt anyone capable of changing it is amenable to doing so. That's at least honest, you know?
It's not all game journalists that play the "I'm not touching you!" game with their hand an inch off your face and it's not all PR people that gleefully celebrate the murkiness of the waters that we all find ourselves in now, but stuff like that N'Gai Croal twitter conversation up above somehow manages to make me sick all over again. We can talk about the abstracts of journalism, and if you want to sweep those under the rug, at least no one's getting hurt. But now real people are suffering from this circus that's been set-up for pointing out how comical the whole thing is and that's when trying to just "move on and forget it" or joking about it until it's gone becomes wildly offensive.
Definitely not attempting to incite anything. Just saying that his motivations are very much contrary to the spirit of this thread no matter what kind of cachet he retains from his time as 'one of the good games journalists'.
Pretty girl + "TIME'S RUNNING OUT!" + "How much would YOU pay?". Holy shit that is some QVC shit.
This is the first episode too. Amazon have terrible timing this week.
It's like i'm watching a gaming version of the Home Shopping Network.
Not to be too voyeuristic into Twitter (I abhor its quality of discourse), but since people are mentioning N'Gai Croal so much:
Arthur Gies' take on interactions with PR: 1 2Reposting for people to read:
Cupcakes,
Not to be too voyeuristic into Twitter (I abhor its quality of discourse), but since people are mentioning N'Gai Croal so much:
http://www.abload.de/img/deflectingdek96.png[IMG]
He can't possibly be this dense.[/QUOTE]
You should've directed him to Green and Elliot's posts.
Might've been useless, though.
Not to be too voyeuristic into Twitter (I abhor its quality of discourse), but since people are mentioning N'Gai Croal so much:
He can't possibly be this dense.
Can someone please give me a quick summary of what happened here? 60 pages of thread is alot to read
Not to be too voyeuristic into Twitter (I abhor its quality of discourse), but since people are mentioning N'Gai Croal so much:
He can't possibly be this dense.
He can't possibly be this dense.
He can't possibly be this dense.
Can someone please give me a quick summary of what happened here? 60 pages of thread is alot to read
That was, like, yesterday evening. Nothing much has happened since. Maybe read Sterling's piece here, and the latest from Florence himself here.I'll do a short recap:
- Keighley surrounded by doritos followed by gaming bloggers retweeting a hashtag for advertising to win a PS3 makes Florence of Eurogamer curious.
- Florence writes an article saying how things are shady and some sound like straight up PR e.g. Wainright orgasms for everything Squenix.
- Eurogamer/Wainwright send libel threats to Eurogamer, at which the article was edited to remove mentioning of Wainright.
- Wainwright responds in twitter "Apology accepted" and something in the vain of applying her law classes to use.
- Florence either steps down or is forced to resign to avoid any libel threat.
- Both sides deny any threat or are not talking about it directly, but twitter posts hint that such threat existed. Florence is not confirming or denying whether he was fired or he stepped down.
- "GAF and 4chan combine forces to see this standalone complex issue" alongside digital protest from Penny Arcade and more, showing what happened.
- Wainwright's profile shows she is a freelancer for Square Enix. She admitted it and denied doing any reviews for Square Enix or shilling (she is wrong. She reviewed Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and did countless previews).
- All this fiasco is too much for her and she privatize her twitter account. Next thing you know, she starts deleting tweets, videos and articles, and edits her profile to remove any mention of Square Enix freelancing.
- David Jaffe offers Keighley Mountain Dew.
- Gaming journalism.
Willfully dense I am sure.
No, that's just overgeneralization. By your logic, it is impossible to write a negative review/article if the PR gifts/food/whatever was excellent? Because, we've had plenty negatieve reviews about bad games, even if the PR was good. I remember getting a very cool Brink PR package, but that game was awful. Thus it received an awful review. PR gift was cool, but that's it.
The reason you feel sports journalism is nothing like games journalism is because sports journalism is simply so much better.