Seconded.
I now know who I can trust in the gaming press, and it's a hell of a lot fewer writers than I thought it was.
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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos
- Thread starter papersleeves
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I now know who I can trust in the gaming press, and it's a hell of a lot fewer writers than I thought it was.
jim-jam bongs
Member
you really don't get it, do you?
it absolutely is an ethical question, because your job as a journalist is to strive to report objective truth. as soon as you publicly contribute to the marketing of products in that capacity you are a shill and a disgrace to your profession because you are allowing your reputation and the trust of your audience to be used to strengthen a brand which you are covering.
these aren't new ideas, these are the principles upon which consumer reporting is done by actual real journalists.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
I wasn't talking about ethics yet. Those are internal professional standards as far as I'm concerned. And I do not consider myself in a position to judge on that, although I fully agree that the picture that started all this is a ludicrous breach of the profession by PR 'necessities', to put it mildly and politely.
I'm just saying that the product comes before the job and that one should not directly judge people based on the product. It's not about individual reporters, but industry practices as a whole. With 'access' being the key word.
Alright. Now I have to ask it. Which gaming website or publisher do you work for?
Criticism of games press in this thread is more akin to asking questions about NeoGAF's registration or moderation policies than individual member's opinions.
Thanks for sharing that. I read through it. Wouldn't say I found it "edifying," as it doesn't really get at core issues of exactly what the ESRB is, how it makes its decisions, what its financial motivations are, etc. For my editorial, I did talk to Eliot Mizrachi, among many folks. I don't want to derail the thread with a conversation about the ESRB, but yeah, stuff like that is miles ahead of unboxing videos.
EternalGamer
Banned
To me, this semantic distinction is irrelevant as far as my criticism goes. All it would really mean is that I am criticizing the "product" rather than the person doing the job. It would do nothing in my mind to justify the end result. For example, it may be true that people who write for those vapid teen magazines are educated adults writing to an audience. That does nothing to stop me from calling it out as vapid nor does it do anything justify it's vapidity.
Uh, no, press should not be a place for marketing outside ad space. SK story being good is not dependent upon Kotaku also doing (intentional or no) marketing, so I don't see the relevance.
Haha, is that how you read this whole discussion as? Now that is insulting to all those who've put so much effort into elucidating their views.
And "haters gonna hate" is one of the stupidest things to say in any discussion.
Everything influences their opinion. Everything. People who claim they're not influenced by anything and can judge a game without the influence of any other factors but the game itself are straight up lying. The best you can hope for is that the reviewer takes the circumstances into consideration and is open about all of it. That's something Jeff does.
So why was there a Capcom event in Rome? Just for fun? Because they thought "Hey, lets waste some money" ?
I think you're making a little bit of an over-exaggeration. From a marketing standpoint, yeah, just the mere mention of your brand, staff and/or product could be considered a win. I'm saying things like unboxing videos have no real purpose outside of direct advertising.
A critique, well thought out review, editorial, etc., that's written without violating anything in say, the SPJ Code of Ethics, definitely has merit.
EternalGamer
Banned
The question you should ask him is this: does he think PR people and marketing divisions are just stupid and throw away a ton of money for no reason? Afterall that stuff is all miniscule in the large scheme of things. Nobody is influenced by it, right?
I dunno about east/west, but there is a difference between US and Europe. Having written for both US and UK outlets, I can say that dealing with UK PR can be shocking if you come from traditional US media.
While there are certainly grey areas on the US side, UK PR can be blatant beyond belief.
"Hi! Here's £100 spending cash in case you need anything while you're in town."
Yes, that's happened to me. The answer is you politely turn it down and tell them your credit card works fine, but the sheer straightforwardness of it can be surprising the first time you encounter it.
Is every UK PR rep like this? Nope. But its a different mindset to be sure. And I can see how media that has only ever dealt with US PR will have a different perception than readers from around the world.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Since when have sites like IGN, Kotaku, Gamepot, Destructoid ever led on that all they do is journalism?
I guess that's my big "huh?" to a lot of the discussion lately (which honestly has little do with what every says we are disucssing). I never looked at those sites as just one thing that they do, but a catch-all of gaming culture, previews, reviews, etc.
I once worked for free for a gaming website back in the late 90's. I got free games and was paid by the site owner to go to E3. It sounded like it'd be more fun than it was, but reviewing games like Rocket Power and Myst PS2 honestly wasn't as much fun as it sounded.
I have no connection to any of the people involved what-so-ever.
Again, I never knew that all they could do was serious journalism. I still look at games as toys, so keep that in mind when I say I don't need nor want all gaming sites to be free of stuff like un-boxing, previews, trailers, etc.
I'm smart enough as a consumer to separate content on my own. I think most gamers are as well.
APZonerunner
Member
I've worked in the UK industry for about five years and never encountered anything this blatant, so it's swings and roundabouts, as with all things.
papersleeves
Member
edit: answered
JonathanEx
Member
That games writing would be more interesting if writers could have time with the people who made various decisions on all sorts of aspects of products rather than just one salesman frontman or PR person.
jim-jam bongs
Member
okay so now they aren't journalists? or are they sometimes journalists who shill on the side because that's more entertaining than "serious journalism"?
help me out, here.
help me out, here.
Because it's a large business with a large budget for PR. The press they show their games off to is international anyway, and they want to hold an event outside of E3 so they don't get drowned in all the other game coverage. They probably figure that if the press people are going to go through with the trip that the majority will write up some coverage, and assume the coverage will be positive. Not because of the free ride, but belief in the product.
I'd imagine it's not about influencing as getting one concentrated blip on the major gaming sites. Though I've never worked in PR so I can't say for sure.
That they're not in charge of major game company that people can't say no to.
What are the non-shitty places to go? Seriously, who do we trust?
They are journalists when there is prestige, recognition and awards at stake.
They are not journalists when it is time to take responsibility.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
Jeff has dealt with this on his Jar Time videos(which are unfortunately subscriber-only, it's usually the place he deals with issues such as these), he says it is more to do with spending the budgets they(PR) are given so they don't lose out on money for the next game they do PR for.
He has also said (on the Octoberkast yesterday) that he has been told by PR men that they(the PR men) have admitted buying magazine covers in the UK(add that to the allegations made by Stuart Campbell, & how people can claim that it doesn't happen is beyond me).
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
So a game writer can't write a serious piece and a fluff piece? They should only do one or the other?
EternalGamer
Banned
I don't even understand why the label that is applied to games media matters at all or why that conversation is getting so much attention.
Unless they are viewed and view themselves outright as extensions of PR then there is still the same conversation that is necessary about their relationship to PR and marketing.
jim-jam bongs
Member
if you can't see the difference between promoting a product and a fluff piece then we really are utterly fucked
Edit: also what Dennis and EG said.
EternalGamer
Banned
That kind of makes sense of a bureaucratic level. But honestly, there is a lot of psychological research that shows that it is effective. I am very suspicious of the idea that these big companies would just spend a lot of money on PR because that is what they always spent on PR or that this is what the PR people claim they need.
It also makes sense that a PR person would give that kind of answer to a journalist: "Oh, we just spend all this money on this stuff because we have it in our budget, it has nothing to do with trying to influence you." It certainly is the kind of answer that creates cognitive distance on both sides. It is an answer that makes it ok for journalist to take it because it is just a result of bureaucratic waste, not anything that is really designed or effective at influencing opinions or attitudes.
SolidSnakex
Member
If they're insulted by it then why aren't they doing more to get rid of those fears? There are plenty of examples in this thread of this stuff working. If it wasn't working then why would PR continue to do it? Why would companies continue to pay for having special press kits created specifically for journalists? Why would Capcom decide to schedule their major event in vacation destinations and pay for some journalists to go? In this thread you'll find a story about how PR took a group of journalists to a special dinner and they gave glowing previews of the games and had tidbits of info that other journalists didn't know about.
So with all of that, why aren't any major sites making this an issue? Why have some journalists told Rab to just let it go? That's what we're asking in this thread. The story is now 4 days old and hasn't appeared on the front page of a single major gaming site. Not one. The closest would be Giant Bomb, and that was just coupled together with several other stories, when this should be a big enough issue to have its own article dedicated to it.
For me:
RPS
Quarter to Three
Zero Punctuation
PA Report
Idle Thumbs
Gamers With Jobs
Gamasutra
Eurogamer
A Life Well Wasted if another one is ever released
The title of journalist implies constant professionalism.
chickdigger802
Banned
hmmm right now I pretty much just trust RPS, totalbiscuit. Giantbomb for big site.
If you can make me laugh, trust will probably be easily built
If you can make me laugh, trust will probably be easily built
More Fun To Compute
Member
So there is no problem at all for them when the awards and prestige are handed out by PR.
EternalGamer
Banned
This is a superb list of outlets that explore issues related to gaming culture in an intelligent but entertaining way. It is also worth noting that about half of them are not part of professional gaming media. I would say that none of them gets a "free pass," though. As should be obvious by the Eurogamer mess.
I would maybe add Rock, Paper, Shotgun to the list.
Also, everyone should read Old Man Murray. I don't care how old it is. Its content is timeless.
Ape Gone Insane
Member
I wonder, has there ever been a move to make a GAF review site where GAF members post well thought out and written reviews?
So what? This is what jim-jam referred to as "ethically bankrupt".
The guy didn't know how to roll until 12 hours in from what I heard. The less said about that terrible review, the better.
GAF threads are longform reviews with some schizophrenia
Some guy posted a thread about maybe making a project out of such a thing.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
That's not the way he justifies going on those trips, he has repeatedly complained about having to fly somewhere to play a game that he could just go down the road to play, but when it's a game that his readership would be interested in, he feels it is in their interest that he goes(& he usually mentions in his previews that he was on a junket, so at the least he is transparent about it).
I was pretty LTTP to OMM. But it was still a brilliant read.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
There is a general review thread somewhere, and there is a "steam sale specific" review thread.
People lose interest in these things fast. That's also why so many small "we're gonna start a gaming website" projects fail. It is a job, and a fairly 9-to-5 one at that, from what I know.
(I should note that I've never moved beyond 'gonna start...' type of writing. Games journalism is very, very dull to me)
Yeah, I don't buy that. I would never watch an unboxing video, but I wouldn't ever assume they were wholly without merit or that they were of no value to anyone.
lazer_bean
Member
I used to read kotaku on a daily basis.
i dont read it anymore because i was really annoyed at the copying and pasting from other magazines, or other sources. I know that all magazines do that but it's not a good reason to do it yourself. Also there's no fact checking in this case, which is despicable.
also, i hated seeing several articles (like 3-5) on the same day about a game that just released. I dont think a publisher orders an article on kotaku like he would a pizza at domino's but sometimes i really wondered why kotaku insisted on a single game when there are other games to cover.
some articles were stupid and sometimes not even related to gaming and the excuse most commonly found was "hey it's a blog, not a website" (although when Totilo became editor in chief he pretty much dismissed that in his editorial). I think there is kotaku.com/core now if we want gaming only news but some of the articles, i find, are still silly on the main site. (well at least at the time at stopped reading kotaku)
if you see a journalist who specializes in finance on tv and who gives his opinion about a bank and you later find out that he is a consultant for this bank or that he gets anything from it, would you still trust what he says, even if he assures you he's a totally ethical guy?
my point is a journalist should never be in a position that could be perceived as a conflict of interest
i used to work for a gaming site as an unpaid reviewer (i was told i could keep the games i reviewed (i was the one who chose which games i wanted to review) I also wrote articles (=copied and pasted) and after a few weeks i just quit because i didnt like the way this gaming website worked. It seemed wrong to me.
After a while i realized that most gaming websites work the same way
im just a guy who likes video games but what made me quit (see above) doesnt seem to worry professional journalists or critics in the slightest.
well, at least im glad to see that some of them think it just makes for a good debate
a lot of NeoGAF threads have become kotaku articles ("source: NeoGAF"" lol). You seem a lot more reluctant with this one though
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
There's a lot of money spent by McDonalds on advertisements, doesn't mean I eat there.
We have to assume at some level people are smart enough to still attend a press event and maintain some level of integrity.
Does it mean all of them do, of course not. Yet, we don't paint all writers as plagiarists even though there are very high profile cases of it happening.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
I used to read kotaku on a daily basis.
i dont read it anymore because i was really annoyed at the copying and pasting from other magazines, or other sources like NeoGAF. I know that all magazines do that but it's not a good reason to do it yourself. Also there's no fact checking in this case, which is despicable.
also, i hated seeing several articles (like 3-5) on the same day about a game that just released. I dont think a publisher orders an article on kotaku like he would a pizza at domino's but sometimes i really wondered why kotaku insisted on a single game when there are other games to cover.
some articles were stupid and sometimes not even related to gaming and the excuse most commonly found was "hey it's a blog, not a website" (although when Totilo became editor in chief he pretty much dismissed that in his editorial). I think there is kotaku.com/core now if we want gaming only news but some of the articles, i find, are still silly on the main site. (well at least at the time at stopped reading kotaku)
if you see a journalist who specializes in finance on tv and who gives his opinion about a bank and you later find out that he is a consultant for this bank or that he gets anything from it, would you still trust what he says, even if he assures you he's a totally ethical guy?
my point is a journalist should never be in a position that could be perceived as a conflict of interest
i used to work for a gaming site as an unpaid reviewer (i was told i could keep the games i reviewed (i was the one who chose which games i wanted to review) I also wrote articles (=copied and pasted) and after a few weeks i just quit because i didnt like the way this gaming website worked. It seemed wrong to me.
After a while i realized that most gaming websites work the same way
im just a guy who likes video games but what made me quit (see above) doesnt seem to worry professional journalists or critics in the slightest.
well, at least im glad to see that some of them think it just makes for a good debate
Just a point on the copy/paste.. most stories on newspaper and news stations websites are nothing but copy/paste AP/Reuters stories.
Filling a site with all in-house is pretty expensive, and sure a site like PA Report can do it, but look what it is attached too and you understand why they can do it.
I would add Kill Screen to that list. Not coincidentally, they were one of the first sites to come out forcefully on this issue.
ZanzibarBreeze
Member
As far as I'm concerned, that unboxing video is just a ten-minute advertisement for Microsoft. I don't know how others feel, but that's my problem with it. Compound upon that the posts Shawn wrote, and you've got a problem of some magnitude.
Uh YES. You ever work in a marketing department? End of the year/quarter? Better spend whatever budget you have or you'll get less next time. Ask most reviewers at big outlets and they would tell you they'd be way happier with an event down the street in san fran than the travel hassles just to see a game with pretty shit out the window in the exact same boring conference/hotel room they would get in the middle of iowa.
For the fringe fansites/blogs on metacritic? Yeah they might get swayed but most of them do this game shit as a hobby along with their real job so I have no ill will towards them.
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