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It's Time We Talk About Geoff Keighly And The Mainstream Gaming Media's Bias For PlayStation

Do you think Geoff's Retweet cutting out the Xbox marketing of Cyberpunk ad was intentional?

  • Yes

    Votes: 68 44.4%
  • No

    Votes: 33 21.6%
  • How many layers?

    Votes: 10 6.5%
  • Kojima

    Votes: 42 27.5%

  • Total voters
    153
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FunkMiller

Member
‘I’m going to jump up and down on Keighley despite having no real proof, because I don’t like what people are saying about Digital Foundry’.

...though, as stated, all video games outlets should really declare what freebies and perks they get, if any, from console manufacturers.
 

MoreJRPG

Suffers from extreme PDS
It’s obvious he’s in cahoots with Sony but I don’t get why that matters? Tom Warren, Jeff Grubb, Ryan McCaffery are all the same with Microsoft. Just the way the industry is sadly. Lots of bias and paid promotion.
 
Follow the money. It's Sony paying, so of course it's gonna be Sony getting the favorable coverage. Not too long ago we got:

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hqg-71.gif
 
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-Arcadia-

Banned
What are we doing here? Like is GAF really going to be "THIS" type of forum?

The sheer retardation is becoming entertainment of its own, but users really ought to look at what they're making here, and decide if that's the kind of place they want it to be, before falling prey to their worst impulses.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We've been handed the best forum on the internet. This is what we're choosing to do with it (at least on Gaming Side).
 

CAB_Life

Member
I chose “Kojima“, since picking random iconic answers in fanboy-riddled threads is usually a safe bet.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
He literally retweeted this like a few hours prior tho?


He also had plenty of great things to say about the Series X in his hands on. He is biased towards PS but I think he does a good enough job of being impartial when needed


Or maybe.................I don't know................................he likes Playstation consoles. Does that mean it's biased towards them?
 

CAB_Life

Member
The sheer retardation is becoming entertainment of its own, but users really ought to look at what they're making here, and decide if that's the kind of place they want it to be, before falling prey to their worst impulses.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We've been handed the best forum on the internet. This is what we're choosing to do with it (at least on Gaming Side).

It will calm down by 2021. This is 7 years of pent-up passion going off like a virgin in a whorehouse.
 
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Iced Arcade

Member
Geoff Keighley is highly biased towards Sony but I don't think this is one of those things. Ad started up with the Xbox logo/sound and ended with the Xbox logo/sound.
 

Hudo

Member
The Pope shills for everyone. Just recently, the dude shilled one of the new Xboxes. And before that, he shilled the fucking DualSense controller for Sony. I bet he'd shill those awful Game Gear Minis, if Sega gave him enough money to do it. His bias is for money, not Playstation.
 

Kdad

Member
Last night during the NBA Finals, MS rolled out an ad for Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most anticipated games of the year. At the end of the ad, was a four-second portion tying in MS's Xbox and Smart Delivery.

Now, guess who retweeted this ad? And conveniently cut out those last four seconds?

If your guess is "Geoff Keighly", you :messenger_clapping: are :messenger_clapping: correct! :messenger_clapping:

So let's not beat around the bush: Geoff has a bit of a hard-on for PS. Look, I like PlayStation. A lot, in fact. I'm still holding out for a Tomba 3 and UmJammer Lammy 2 in the future, as fruitless as that wish may be :( . However, even with that love for the brand and its legacy, if I were in Geoff's position, I would have been a lot more responsible and professional than to retweet an ad that had an obvious 4-second portion for Xbox, and somehow cut out those last four seconds for...whatever "reason".

Regardless if Geoff did this intentionally or not, or if he was tweeted an edited version of the clip by someone who did such a thing, the fact remains that as one of the biggest names in the games media side of the industry, he has a responsibility to be as professional with his discussion and reporting as possible. He failed that responsibility last night, and this isn't the first time he's done so this year WRT things coming off as sly backhanded slaps towards Microsoft and Xbox. Need we even bring up how Cyberpunk somehow won "Best PlayStation Game" at the Gamescon awards? 'Ya know, over actual well-received PS exclusives like Ghosts of Tsushima?

WHAT?!?!? WHAT THE FU--

...Anyway...

This I feel is worth bringing up because it's showing yet again that there's a disdain within pretty prominent parts of the mainstream games media (Geoff, IGN etc.) towards Xbox. No, you never have these figures come out and straight up say they hate the brand, but it's the small things they do which reveal their true intent. This is very irresponsible of these types of media; it's one thing to have a preference, but to then let that preference transform into a strong bias against what you perceive as an "enemy" towards that preference, to the point where it subconsciously negatively influences your reporting on things falling outside of that preference...reeks of an abuse of power.

We already have to suffer from extremely biased, near propaganda-tier reporting from political MSM who are highly compromised by financial interests (corporate, foreign governments, etc.), and we deal with the same thing with modern-day film reviews (just look at the access media who caped for Disney when backlash towards The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel came through)...why must yet another medium suffer the same fate? Granted, I know of plenty of gaming spots that have actual neutrality and fairness to their discourse, reporting you name it.

The problem is, a lot of those respectable spots have much less influence than an IGN or Geoff, so it's on the shoulders of the IGNs, Geoffs etc. to attempt being fair and balanced with their reporting. Last time I checked, Geoff never retweeted an ad for a game with PlayStation marketing and cut off the portions of the ad specifically mentioning that, did he? Where were the IGN articles taking back the harsh words they threw at MS for supporting cross-gen after Sony did the surprise reveal of several of their once-assumed PS5 exclusives also coming to PS4 (and one in particular to PC, but that's a different discussion)? Is cross-gen suddenly a good thing now because Sony Too™, mainstream gaming media?

At the end of the day, these massive gaming sites and types are after popularity, clicks, and revenue. However, the fact they're willing to compromise on journalistic integrity, ethics, and balance in reporting in order to placate to the toxic elements of console warring (likely due to the fact some of the same sites/people are fanboys/fangirls themselves), is not only disgusting but also damaging. It's only helping to further binary extremes, echo chambers, and safe spaces for console fanboys/fangirls to congregate so they can pretend reality only works on their terms. It would be nice if more genuine gamers, the sorts who game on a range of platforms and ecosystems, stood up against this type of stuff.

Doing so would not equate to disliking PlayStation as a gaming brand; if anything, it shows you have genuine appreciation for the brand because it makes it harder for media to obfuscate things from you, the customer, that companies like Sony would rather you be ignorant about. If you see media of prominent positions shilling or showing strong biases for Xbox or Nintendo, they deserve the same type of treatment. However, I think it's no open secret that when it comes to a lot of the high-tier gaming personalities and media, there is absolutely a bias towards reporting on things in a way almost as if to "protect" the PlayStation brand, even if it comes at the expense of the other two (Xbox mainly, but sometimes Nintendo, too).

At the very least, I know for the time being Geoff is one less gaming personality I need to bother paying attention to. I will most likely skip The Game Awards this year as well, if he has any involvement in it. I think people like Geoff need to either be forthright with why they have a habit of doing "certain" reporting and engagement on social media the way they do, or just be acknowledged for the negative biases they regularly perpetuate towards a certain gaming brand, which really puts things sour with those of us who actually enjoy all three of the platform holders (and even other gaming sectors like PC, arcade etc.).

TL;DR: Geoff, you're going back in the box.
Jesus Christ on a pogostick
 

Kerotan

Member
Mainstream media bias? I'm sorry mate but MS PR campaign has a paid off half the sites on the Internet. A company willing to spend over €10BN on acquisitions is more then willing to spend a few million paying off sites and forums to lean in their direction.

Do I care? Not really because just like last gen PlayStation will rightfully outsell xbox. Anybody remember the anti playstation is doomed campaign leading into last? That was another failed attempt by the media to paint a narrative with the average consumer.
 
What are we doing here? Like is GAF really going to be "THIS" type of forum?
I hate to lock threads like these.

The reality is I rather allow the community to decide what is being discussed. Even if that discussion is "bitching about the OP bitching".

If the community decides not to engage, then the thread dies quickly and gets buried. If the OP or a single user keeps bumping because engagement is lacking, locking it is just doing what the community has more or less decided.
 

Andodalf

Banned
He goes were the money is.

PS4 was super popular and has a ton of fans. Fanboying for it gets more clicks.
 
What are we doing here? Like is GAF really going to be "THIS" type of forum?

What type of forum? I'm just trying to hold gaming journalists accountable for abuse of power, that's all.

Dude, you are taking this console shit way too serious.

Go outside and read a good book.

I write books.

This is such a Reeeeset kind of title, heh.

The pope of doritos has a definite Sony bias, but he is entitled to his preferences. It's best not to take any games "journalists" too seriously, most of these guys are more like product marketers than anything else.

To be honest, the problem's not having a preference. That's never been the problem. The problem is guys like Geoff have a tendency to let that turn into a bias and they end up doing/saying questionable stuff. He's not the worst at it honestly, but he's one of the biggest names.

There's a LOT of gullible kids out there who look up to people like Geoff for gaming opinions; whether he likes it or not he has a responsibility to try not letting his preference turn into a bias that colors his actions in irresponsible ways. Comes with the territory.

O Orky Exactly. It's a double-standard and a childish one IMHO, kind of exposes some of the toxic immaturity in the hobby still. I hate using these terms btw because I know they make me kinda look like some sperging out on Reee, but I'm just talking ethical games journalism here. Figure that aughta be something all gamers would be in support of.

Guess not xD.

Funny thing is I've heard Ryan's more of an Xbox guy; I don't know if that's the case and I don't really care if it is as long as he doesn't do to Sony what Geoff does to Xbox sometimes. Kinda feel he might've just been trying to ride a wave when he wrote the earlier articles because it was the trendy thing the mainstream journalists were doing at the time.

If you want real media bias, visit Playstation Universe

Were they making that up? First time I heard of any PS version of that game.
 
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Orky

Banned
The biggest bullshit was this Ryan McGuffey guy complaining about tomb raider being exclusive and then praising ps5 timed exclusive FF XVI



fucking ridiculous.

or when people were going batshit insane, when MS announced crossgen games and when Sony did the same afterward almost NO ONE GAVE A SHIT, just look what happened after MS announced crossgen games, at the same time they even PRAISED Sony, fucking ridiculous.


 

cireza

Member
The bias is pretty obvious. Just like Nintendo get a pass for whatever they do. That's just how it is.

I just get the info from the source and from forums, and ignore the "professionals", they don't add anything of interest and don't deserve my time and money.
 
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Threads like this stay open but if someone ask about seeing some Xbox Series X gameplay of new games it get shut down

Because I'm actually trying to discuss a legitimate issue that's affecting a larger slice of gaming, and have evidence of it.

I can't keep track of what threads get shut down but I'm almost certain whatever one asking XSX gameplay of new games that get shut down are just the troll threads with obvious flaming to bait memes.

They are biased toward money.

It's like complaining about Game Informer review scores. 🤷‍♀️

But I liked Game Informer review scores. Now my perception's ruined :pie_disappointed:

Mainstream media bias? I'm sorry mate but MS PR campaign has a paid off half the sites on the Internet. A company willing to spend over €10BN on acquisitions is more then willing to spend a few million paying off sites and forums to lean in their direction.

Do I care? Not really because just like last gen PlayStation will rightfully outsell xbox. Anybody remember the anti playstation is doomed campaign leading into last? That was another failed attempt by the media to paint a narrative with the average consumer.

This is a bad conflation. If it were true we wouldn't seen even a fraction of the articles cutting into MS for their cross-gen messaging that we ended up getting. And (maybe a more controversial opinion), we would've seen higher review scores for mediocre games like Crackdown 3 and the new BattleToads.

Clearly, that didn't happen, so it's foolish to say they're paying off the media to favor them just because they spent $7.5 billion on Zenimax. Your last paragraph literally is proving my entire point: that there is definitely a bias among the mainstream gaming media in favor of PlayStation, and that is most likely due to their market dominance this gen.

Last gen going into this one it was MS with the market dominance (much moreso in terms of overall clout than raw hardware sales, where they virtually tied with Sony), especially in America, and a lot of the gaming press (which is Western) played right along into that hence those "Sony are doomed" articles (plus tbf Sony were in really shitty position financially at that time).

Maybe we should start asking why the average maturity level in games journalism has degraded so far that they "follow the leader" to the point of almost antagonizing the underperformer at any given time. It's always kind of been a thing in the industry tbh but it got a lot worst in the 2010s and it's only gotten even worst now. Standards have dropped off the cliff, so where are the gamers demanding better?
 
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Njocky

Banned
Not many people cared to address the actual points you made because they can’t. What they find easy to do however is ridicule you and your thread because that takes the focus away from the facts that you denounced. its very hard to prove bias from one individual, that’s like trying to prove racism. Unless they say the N-word and you recorded it, they can make you look foolish for even saying they are although they well might be. So I won’t go down the Geoff is biased route.
what I think is undeniable though is the double standard towards Microsoft regarding the cross gen stuff. I mean Sony ended up having a lot more cross gen games than Microsoft in the end and MS is the one that has had all the “is MS foolish?”articles written about it strategy. Just yesterday I rewatched the PS5 reveal showcase (I preordered the system and am still debating whether I should get both consoles at launch) and I discovered that Jim Ryan says at the end of the show: “Welcome to ps5. You have seen a set of unique games which features are only possible on the new PlayStation 5”.
When a company easily gets away with misleading the public and another creates week long controversies simply by being honest about their strategy which happens to be the same for both, yes I would agree with you that there’s a media bias on that specific part.
 

Fbh

Member
I'm 99% sure people like Geoff don't give a shit about console wars.
Wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these personalities that have been around for long are secretly kinda sick of games and gaming "culture" in general but they have to stick to it because it's the career they've made and it pays the bills.

I seriously doubt Geoff gets home, puts some coffee in a playstation mug, moves his Ratchet and Clank pillows out of the way to sit on his blue and white couch, moves a bit closer to his chimney with a big framed Nathan Darke painting on top of it and is like "damn those stupid M$ bastards and their shitty xbox. Let me cut this trailer so I don't have to post shitty xbox stuff on my twitter"
 

Concern

Member
This is no better than when the sony team cries "ms shill" for any positive Xbox news op. So please lets not.

Already more than enough threads/posts like this just about df alone.... (except when it's positive for ps)
 
OP spent a whole lotta words to tell us that he's very sensitive Microsoft fanboy

You're being ridiculous if you think that. Check my post and thread history. I've had lots of good things to say for both Microsoft and Sony (and Nintendo, but I follow them less so). And will continue to do so.

Lord forbid people call out bias in gaming journalism and get called a fanboy for it :S

what I think is undeniable though is the double standard towards Microsoft regarding the cross gen stuff. I mean Sony ended up having a lot more cross gen games than Microsoft in the end and MS is the one that has had all the “is MS foolish?”articles written about it strategy. Just yesterday I rewatched the PS5 reveal showcase (I preordered the system and am still debating whether I should get both consoles at launch) and I discovered that Jim Ryan says at the end of the show: “Welcome to ps5. You have seen a set of unique games which features are only possible on the new PlayStation 5”.
When a company easily gets away with misleading the public and another creates week long controversies simply by being honest about their strategy which happens to be the same for both, yes I would agree with you that there’s a media bias on that specific part.

This really just shows a huge part of mainstream gaming journalists have an attention span shorter than a goldfish. And that they're suddenly too lazy to do basic research if it involves anything possibly remotely holding Sony accountable.

They love to work themselves into a sweat when it comes to holding Microsoft accountable, though. And that's fair; hold these companies accountable. But hold ALL of these companies accountable. Don't make exceptions for one but not the other. Where's the fair and balanced perspective in that?
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best
0a1.jpg


Seriously if you think there's a real media "bias" to anybrand outside of sites that clearly show the brand loyalty in their name (I.e Nintendo Life, Push Square, etc) than i'm sorry to say but you're either a "biased" idiot, have memory problems or you haven't been reading these sites before 2013.

The fact of the matter is they're always in the corner of the generation's clear winner in the USA and who the publishers have a marketing deal with, that's why last gen each and every game was reviewed on Xbox360 even if the PS3 version was better, these sites always go for the largest potintial audience and where's that audience this gen? It was on PS.

Go back to the 90's in the 16 bit era it was the SEGA Genisis, in the 32bit era it was N64 (hell IGN's original name was N64.com!) even though the PS1 was outselling it worldwide 3-1 N64 was more popular in the US.

Bottomline don't give a shit about MSM form your own opinion and follow the official channels of your chosen brand, stop being a sheep who gives in to peer pressure.

And most importantly PLEASE stop with the console war threads it's shitting up the gaming section, don’t go into threads about games or consoles you've no interest in and shit it up for those who are, pick your console of choice and be satisfied by your choice and don't look at others to validate it.
 
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