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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos
- Thread starter papersleeves
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crazygambit
Member
I have to second this. It's a fantastic read and I agree with every single point they make.
jim-jam bongs
Member
the trouble is that legitimacy can't be achieved in a broader sense without a legitimate press holding people and institutions responsible for dishonest behaviour. games absolutely are important as a medium, if only because they are one of the only truly interactive form of expression, which makes them uniquely suited for, as an example, examinations of how choice and consequences shape the world around us. even if you don't agree with that, they're also a huge business which is overtaking all other entertainment mediums in terms of popularity and revenue, so ensuring that they are covered appropriately is crucial.
EternalGamer
Banned
Zero apology necessary! I am 100% conscious of my shilldom. I took the paycheck, cuz I had to. (I'd have stayed in the press if there'd been a paying job for me.) My own internal policy is I just never shill something I don't believe in (I tried that once and, umm, it didn't quite work out for me.) I went to PopCap - one of only 2 or 3 companies on my short list - because I was always a fan, as anyone who read my columns/reviews/podcasts knows. It was NOT an easy decision for me, after my (first) stint at EA, because after a career lifetime of getting to say whatever the hell I wanted to, I wasn't sure I could - or wanted to - represent a company again. But my options were limited. And in negotiating the job, I made sure of two things: 1) My twitter feed stays MY feed, and I can continue to just do my own thing there, which I think it's obvious I do and 2) I never have to push a product I don't personally like. And they've been awesome about both since I started. And since buying us, EA has also been great about giving me the same space.
But yes I have now drank from the Game Company Money Teat, so you can take anything I say on this thread or elsewhere with that grain of salt. Hard for a guy to throw stones when he's sitting comfortably in ye olde glasse house.
Also: eat Doritos. They're awesome!
That is a pretty great deal you managed to negotiate, but how would that actually work? Let's say EA, in their infinite wisdom, decided to license Hooters Roadtrip 2: Ho-Bros Go Hootering and had Popcap develop it. Would you, like, not be required to hand out the titty funbags stress relievers at E3 2013? Would someone else in the company take over doing PR for it?
It's a multi-billion dollar industry which employs tens of thousands of people. It deserves better, more reliable coverage on all fronts, from content reviews to investigations of working conditions and of it's own media outlets. Whether games themselves are unimportant to you is neither here nor there. Art itself is unimportant to most people, so screw art, too, then.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
You disagree with people saying that people who claim to be journalists should aspire to having ethical standards?
Incendiary
Banned
As a whole, in the large scheme of things, video games are unimportant. However they ARE important to the people who love them as their major hobby. Just because Presidents and Prime Ministers and other leaders aren't going to discuss the future of video games at their next NATO meeting, doesn't mean that the people that do care about video games should suffer. Considering the amount of money that goes into creating video games and advertising, and how much money they expect the consumers to spend on them ($150 for a special edition of a game, for instance) why shouldn't we expect some sort of professional integrity when we go to look at previews or reviews of said games?
TunaMarshmallow
Member
Cerebral Assassin
Member
Indeed, therefore they need somebody to tell them that the title they have claimed comes with certain responsibilities, which is what this thread is about.
EternalGamer
Banned
Well said.
Auto_aim1
MeisaMcCaffrey
I think we have a bit more info on this. Via Penny Arcade.
More at the source. Good piece from Kuchera.
More at the source. Good piece from Kuchera.
You know some gaffers are gonna make a game out of that now.
TunaMarshmallow
Member
Sure. Remind them of what the real job looks like, just to help them realize that they don't have that real job (and never will!). I'm all for that. I'm just saying: don't tell them what the real job looks like with the hope of seeing them morph into the genuine article.
Posted? Ben Kuchera has another report:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...-libel-law-and-the-gaming-press-why-this-stor
Would advise you to click through so that we can 'reward' journalists covering it. But the article includes:
- Quotes from Tom Brambell regarding the legal threats received - basically it appears they came from Wainwright personally rather than Intent media. Intent did also contact Eurogamer, but separately.
- Commentary on why this isn't being reported on in various quarters, and rebuttals to Stephen Totilo's position
... and various other bits of context.
edit - oopsies, beaten
http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...-libel-law-and-the-gaming-press-why-this-stor
Would advise you to click through so that we can 'reward' journalists covering it. But the article includes:
- Quotes from Tom Brambell regarding the legal threats received - basically it appears they came from Wainwright personally rather than Intent media. Intent did also contact Eurogamer, but separately.
- Commentary on why this isn't being reported on in various quarters, and rebuttals to Stephen Totilo's position
... and various other bits of context.
edit - oopsies, beaten
TunaMarshmallow
Member
Reporting on unimportant matter is part of journalism though. Features and sports writers are held to the same ethical standards as investigative journalists. Really, the vast majority of news is rather unimportant.
If there is such a pent up demand for mature game industry coverage, someone will fill it and it will be popular enough to sustain itself.
If there isn't, we'll continue with the current setup.
I don't think haranguing the current gaming press constantly is going to accomplish much except alienation. It's completely pointless to hold them up to some sort of journalistic standard if they aren't journalists. Video game news reporting is not investigative journalism. Getting mad that it isn't is sound and fury.
Mixed in with 'PR corruption! Scandal!' is sort of a tacit acknowledgment that basic gaming coverage is not rocket science.
When all the information is coming from THE SAME SOURCE, it's not too surprising that you see similar articles springing up at the same time on all the major news sites. Without PR access, these sites don't get access to the games.
That's not changing any time soon, I'm not sure how people expect them to write anything about a game if they can't get access to it. Ah, don't cover it prerelease you say - but people want prerelease information, and while you can certainly make a site that only covers games after the fact, you're not going to get that (sizable) traffic.
The rest of the time you get filler articles, press releases, and the usual news of the day. If that's not enough for you, there are already other sites that cover game industry news in general, with more focus on development and less on up to the minute release news.
I think it's wildly unrealistic to expect the 'mainstream' gaming press to hew to some ironclad code of ethics that prevent them from interacting with PR in any way, I do think it's realistic to want clear transparency about how they do interact with PR - but I remain unconvinced that such disclosure on a regular basis has enough of a business impact for the larger sites to care.
To some degree I almost feel I shouldn't be commenting in this thread, because as I've stated elsewhere, I gave up on the gaming press a long time ago, and fell back on forums for my gaming news and information. I use a few sites for the news of the day, the rest I can get from forum threads easily.
The only degree my participation is relevant in the least is if any of those sites care about why they lost my traffic. The list of 'crimes' is almost too long to list, it was one event after another that made me go 'I often can't trust what these people write, their behavior disgusts me, I'm not going to give them even the $0.000001 of ad revenue from my daily reading, much less pay for any sort of subscription'.
More, that previous point is only relevant to the bigger sites if there are a _lot_ of other people like me. I mean a lot. If we're a tiny disgruntled minority, there's no reason for them to change their behavior in the least. Why should they? A handful of annoyed forum dwellers who don't read their sites isn't meaningful. Maybe we'll get Geoff as a character in Halo 5!
And yes, I realize that's unfair to writers who do good clean work, who are good writers, and who do work for untainted sites, but the plain fact is that they generally don't provide enough value for me to care - I can find up to the second news and impressions on several forums, intelligent (and terrible) writing, and love letters to tons of independent and tiny games that the mainstream media either partially or totally ignores.
I will say that, beyond all the fuss over perceived corruption, it genuinely bothers me when consumer-impacting behavior by large companies is not called out harshly. That pisses me off when news breaks that seems like it should be covered by mainstream press, forget gaming press, and yet it isn't covered to any significant degree. And a voice at the back of my head looks at the Sony/Microsoft ads on the front page and goes 'well that's obvious'.
Information is really cheap these days. It's hard to make a business out of something that fans can and do write about for free. Some sites survive off close advertising ties, some because they belong to a larger parent company, and some because they aren't a sizable business, they're a few people with an internet connection and a keyboard.
Last thought on that note: if you aren't willing to put your money where your mouth is, you don't have a say in their behavior. If the value of a site or an individual to you is enough that you'll pay for what they do, sure, you're justified in being outraged if their behavior strays from what you were paying for in the first place, and you and every other paying customer can hit in the pocketbook by leaving.
But if their paycheck is coming from advertising dollars, their only concern is attracting more hits and more views, and unless their behavior causes large losses of traffic, they have little to no reason to listen to a minority - and I'm cynical enough to believe that ethics don't matter a whit in that calculation.
Kickstarter and a few other gaming blogs/sites/podcasts/etc have already shown that quite a few gamers are very willing to pay for a certain type of coverage, so perhaps it is possible that we'll see more such sites in the future that are inherently disconnected from the PR machine.
If there isn't, we'll continue with the current setup.
I don't think haranguing the current gaming press constantly is going to accomplish much except alienation. It's completely pointless to hold them up to some sort of journalistic standard if they aren't journalists. Video game news reporting is not investigative journalism. Getting mad that it isn't is sound and fury.
Mixed in with 'PR corruption! Scandal!' is sort of a tacit acknowledgment that basic gaming coverage is not rocket science.
When all the information is coming from THE SAME SOURCE, it's not too surprising that you see similar articles springing up at the same time on all the major news sites. Without PR access, these sites don't get access to the games.
That's not changing any time soon, I'm not sure how people expect them to write anything about a game if they can't get access to it. Ah, don't cover it prerelease you say - but people want prerelease information, and while you can certainly make a site that only covers games after the fact, you're not going to get that (sizable) traffic.
The rest of the time you get filler articles, press releases, and the usual news of the day. If that's not enough for you, there are already other sites that cover game industry news in general, with more focus on development and less on up to the minute release news.
I think it's wildly unrealistic to expect the 'mainstream' gaming press to hew to some ironclad code of ethics that prevent them from interacting with PR in any way, I do think it's realistic to want clear transparency about how they do interact with PR - but I remain unconvinced that such disclosure on a regular basis has enough of a business impact for the larger sites to care.
To some degree I almost feel I shouldn't be commenting in this thread, because as I've stated elsewhere, I gave up on the gaming press a long time ago, and fell back on forums for my gaming news and information. I use a few sites for the news of the day, the rest I can get from forum threads easily.
The only degree my participation is relevant in the least is if any of those sites care about why they lost my traffic. The list of 'crimes' is almost too long to list, it was one event after another that made me go 'I often can't trust what these people write, their behavior disgusts me, I'm not going to give them even the $0.000001 of ad revenue from my daily reading, much less pay for any sort of subscription'.
More, that previous point is only relevant to the bigger sites if there are a _lot_ of other people like me. I mean a lot. If we're a tiny disgruntled minority, there's no reason for them to change their behavior in the least. Why should they? A handful of annoyed forum dwellers who don't read their sites isn't meaningful. Maybe we'll get Geoff as a character in Halo 5!
And yes, I realize that's unfair to writers who do good clean work, who are good writers, and who do work for untainted sites, but the plain fact is that they generally don't provide enough value for me to care - I can find up to the second news and impressions on several forums, intelligent (and terrible) writing, and love letters to tons of independent and tiny games that the mainstream media either partially or totally ignores.
I will say that, beyond all the fuss over perceived corruption, it genuinely bothers me when consumer-impacting behavior by large companies is not called out harshly. That pisses me off when news breaks that seems like it should be covered by mainstream press, forget gaming press, and yet it isn't covered to any significant degree. And a voice at the back of my head looks at the Sony/Microsoft ads on the front page and goes 'well that's obvious'.
Information is really cheap these days. It's hard to make a business out of something that fans can and do write about for free. Some sites survive off close advertising ties, some because they belong to a larger parent company, and some because they aren't a sizable business, they're a few people with an internet connection and a keyboard.
Last thought on that note: if you aren't willing to put your money where your mouth is, you don't have a say in their behavior. If the value of a site or an individual to you is enough that you'll pay for what they do, sure, you're justified in being outraged if their behavior strays from what you were paying for in the first place, and you and every other paying customer can hit in the pocketbook by leaving.
But if their paycheck is coming from advertising dollars, their only concern is attracting more hits and more views, and unless their behavior causes large losses of traffic, they have little to no reason to listen to a minority - and I'm cynical enough to believe that ethics don't matter a whit in that calculation.
Kickstarter and a few other gaming blogs/sites/podcasts/etc have already shown that quite a few gamers are very willing to pay for a certain type of coverage, so perhaps it is possible that we'll see more such sites in the future that are inherently disconnected from the PR machine.
Kudos to Penny Arcade. Good article.
faceless007
Member
There are lots of fields that are basically unimportant except as a form of entertainment, yet there are nevertheless ample professional and credible sources of journalism surrounding those fields and investigating pressing issues within them without falling into the traps of being enthusiast media -- namely, the entertainment industry, and professional sports. If it can exist for them, why are games unworthy?
It is kind of amusing watching you expend so many words insisting that you really, really don't care about this subject and trying to convince us that we shouldn't care either.
Lord_Nergal
Member
So it looks like Kuchera has confirmed Wainright threatened legal action.
She just keeps digging the hole deeper.
It'll be interesting to see how long this follows her.
She just keeps digging the hole deeper.
It'll be interesting to see how long this follows her.
Schrödinger's cat
Banned
This has been a fascinating discussion to read, participate in and observe. Thanks to all participants for such stimulating debate, opinion, fact-hunting, .gifs and views. Thanks also to any games writers that have contributed and offered their view on the topic. It may not match my view but I appreciate the effort to engage with your audience on such a prickly issue. Finally, thanks to the individuals that have been providing updated summaries and reposting quote-worthy posts from earlier in this topic. I certainly missed some of them the first time around and have really benefited from them being pointed out to me.
This is a great topic and shows just what value talking something through can do. It's really a credit to this community.
OK, enough with the gushing. I just needed to get that off my chest.
In spite of some comments made suggesting lack of interest I think that scale and pace at which this discussion grew really shows just how much interest there is. The number of comments on the original Eurogamer article also show this. As does feedback from some of the other handful of articles published on this issue in the last few days.
So can we, as consumers, capitalise on this momentum in any way? Get some traction?
A naive thought occurs to me that perhaps some sort of idealistic charter could be drawn up by gamers. Maybe even hammered out with some of the writers that have participated in this topic. To manage expectations on both sides of an article and to make a straightforward point of reference for what an upstanding gamer/consumer/customer would expect. I dunno, I'm just spit-balling here.
And if such a charter existed, maybe even as a type of petition - to have those in favour of it say so. So that if someone else comes along and asks "but does anyone really care?" then there's evidence to say, yes - all these people care.
And if money talks then, ok, let's incorporate it. If people care, let's have them pledge a buck to show they care. Real money. From the audience - not from a publisher or an advertiser. Money matters to these games media sites and to us as well - so if we care let's really make it clear we're not just a bunch of conspiracy theorists with an entitlement complex. Put the money in a pot, give it to a charity like Child's Play.
I dunno. Maybe we, the ones who seem to be the most impassioned on this topic, can capitalise on this episode in some practical way.
Feel free to mock.
This is a great topic and shows just what value talking something through can do. It's really a credit to this community.
OK, enough with the gushing. I just needed to get that off my chest.
In spite of some comments made suggesting lack of interest I think that scale and pace at which this discussion grew really shows just how much interest there is. The number of comments on the original Eurogamer article also show this. As does feedback from some of the other handful of articles published on this issue in the last few days.
So can we, as consumers, capitalise on this momentum in any way? Get some traction?
A naive thought occurs to me that perhaps some sort of idealistic charter could be drawn up by gamers. Maybe even hammered out with some of the writers that have participated in this topic. To manage expectations on both sides of an article and to make a straightforward point of reference for what an upstanding gamer/consumer/customer would expect. I dunno, I'm just spit-balling here.
And if such a charter existed, maybe even as a type of petition - to have those in favour of it say so. So that if someone else comes along and asks "but does anyone really care?" then there's evidence to say, yes - all these people care.
And if money talks then, ok, let's incorporate it. If people care, let's have them pledge a buck to show they care. Real money. From the audience - not from a publisher or an advertiser. Money matters to these games media sites and to us as well - so if we care let's really make it clear we're not just a bunch of conspiracy theorists with an entitlement complex. Put the money in a pot, give it to a charity like Child's Play.
I dunno. Maybe we, the ones who seem to be the most impassioned on this topic, can capitalise on this episode in some practical way.
Feel free to mock.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
That's fair, but at least a couple of writers have decided to possibly change they way they handle PR, so that's a start.
That was a good article, I found this particularly interesting:
MCV are a fucking disgrace.
The problem, though, is in how gaming sites try to speak out of both sides of their mouths. If all they reported on was information handed to them by publishers and through PR, I'd agree with you. If all they reported were release dates, trailers, collector's editions, etc., I'd agree with you.
The problem--and the heart of why games journalism is experiencing an ethical crisis--is that they also do the work of journalism proper: industry shake-ups, investigative work, profiles of under-appreciated talent and work, reviews/criticism, editorials/features, etc.
Mixing the two has led them to this point of an ethical crisis. They want to do both. And to be fair, readers also want them to do both. So journalists are faced with a decision: either gaming sites are just a way for readers to get an organized and marginally digested series of press releases from publishers, or they are the taste makers and watchdogs of the industry. I honestly don't see how they can do both without compromising their ethics. But almost every gaming site attempts to do both.
And this just comes down to personal philosophy. Either you believe that institutions are capable of change or you don't. History suggests that institutions are, in fact, quite capable of change. In fact, those that don't change generally don't last.
The question isn't whether institutions change, but how. I'd like to think that the more attention that this issue gets, the more likely game journalists will change for the better rather than for the worse. If journalists are unconsciously complicit in crass consumerism and publisher marketing, then we readers are, too. The sooner we recognize our own complicity, the sooner journalists will, too.
This is the difference between morals and ethics. Morals are relative, ethics are codified. I don't think anyone believes journalists are generally doing anything morally wrong. Some are. And they will hopefully be taken to task for it. But many of the rest aren't doing anything morally wrong. However, they are complicit in a culture that is in need of an ethical wake-up call.
Having revised ethical codes about how writers are allowed to interact with PR, publishers, and developers means that they don't have to make individual judgment calls about the seeming "morality" of their decisions. Because in almost all cases, they'll believe (rightly) that they are acting morally. Ethics codes exist so that industries don't have to rely on those individual judgment calls.
TunaMarshmallow
Member
Two points. First, sports are culturally and historically significant in a way that games are not. (We can't really argue that point out here, though.) Second, the actual sports media (the part involving research, interviews, editorials, fact-checking, etc.) operates in a fundamentally different way than does the so-called games "media," in terms of its procedures, its hiring practices, its organizational structure, and its relationship to the subjects of its criticism and assessment. So my point about the unsalvageability of the games "media" stands. You could not, I believe, turn the games "media" into something resembling the legitimate media surrounding sports.
EternalGamer
Banned
Yeah, she even gloated about it. This is her tweet:
http://wosland.podgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wainwrightmedia.jpg
Also that is a great article. One of the best yet. Everyone should read it. I not only clicked through, I refreshed the page and clicked on several ads.
RedNumberFive
Banned
Bravo PA Report. It's reassuring to see that there are a few legitimate journalists left.
Schrödinger's cat;43742695 said:This has been a fascinating discussion to read, participate in and observe. Thanks to all participants for such stimulating debate, opinion, fact-hunting, .gifs and views. Thanks also to any games writers that have contributed and offered their view on the topic. It may not match my view but I appreciate the effort to engage with your audience on such a prickly issue. Finally, thanks to the individuals that have been providing updated summaries and reposting quote-worthy posts from earlier in this topic. I certainly missed some of them the first time around and have really benefited from them being pointed out to me.
This is a great topic and shows just what value talking something through can do. It's really a credit to this community.
OK, enough with the gushing. I just needed to get that off my chest.
In spite of some comments made suggesting lack of interest I think that scale and pace at which this discussion grew really shows just how much interest there is. The number of comments on the original Eurogamer article also show this. As does feedback from some of the other handful of articles published on this issue in the last few days.
So can we, as consumers, capitalise on this momentum in any way? Get some traction?
A naive thought occurs to me that perhaps some sort of idealistic charter could be drawn up by gamers. Maybe even hammered out with some of the writers that have participated in this topic. To manage expectations on both sides of an article and to make a straightforward point of reference for what an upstanding gamer/consumer/customer would expect. I dunno, I'm just spit-balling here.
And if such a charter existed, maybe even as a type of petition - to have those in favour of it say so. So that if someone else comes along and asks "but does anyone really care?" then there's evidence to say, yes - all these people care.
And if money talks then, ok, let's incorporate it. If people care, let's have them pledge a buck to show they care. Real money. From the audience - not from a publisher or an advertiser. Money matters so if we care let's really make it clear we're not just a bunch of conspiracy theorists with an entitlement complex. Put the money in a pot, give it to a charity like Child's Play.
I dunno. Maybe we, the ones who seem to be the most impassioned on this topic, can capitalise on this episode in some practical way.
Feel free to mock.
No I'm with you, whatever we can do. Charter, list of sites/people to boycott, whatever. I'm feeling the need to follow up my disgust with actions that can evoke change.
In the meantime I'm done with gaming sites, period. I'd like to give GB the benefit of the doubt, but even patrick annoyed the piss out of me with his "response." And I like the CAG guys too, but they didn't do their homework and just shot off at the mouth about this topic like everyone else. I'm tired of being more informed than the people I listen to, and I'm tired of everyone telling me it's no big deal.
This doesn't feel like the 100 other times this story has come out to me, this feels like a tipping point. Maybe (as others have insinuated) I'm being melodramatic, but I'm not putting up with this garbage anymore.
The line must be drawn here! picard .gif
TunaMarshmallow
Member
Team Filler
Member
And to think that some of Wainwright's peers were actually defending her. What a bunch of fucking tools.
I feel the same way.
grimshawish
Banned
I do feel the biggest thing is her using libel against another writer. Shes obviously not a nice person and whilst not too bright she is at least trying to be calculating.
TunaMarshmallow
Member
I will bet you $500 that things will be not be meaningfully different in five years. Five years.
PastorOfMuppets
Banned
I would agree with this.
I distinctly remember CGW magazine attempting to emulate Sports Illustrated's model for a magazine a couple of years ago by cutting back on things that are readily available on the internet and trying to do more indepth stories. They stopped handing out review scores and instead just provided people with a list of scores from other outlets for a given game and they would focus on breaking down the game like a feature story. Instead of previews, they attempted to run features on the wider gaming culture like gaming in the middle east.
It failed. People clamored for the return of review scores and hot previews. The cover of the last issue of GFW was a hot new preview for Sims 3.
See, as terrible as sports journalism is - and there is a lot of shitty writers, commentators and journalists out there (look at ESPN) you can very easily find a lot of gems in the sports media. ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary series is a pretty good example of this. When I think games media, I see anything being produced out of it beyond reviews and previews which only touch the surface of what is a huge cultural driving force. It would be like if ESPN only covered the NFL by publishing Power Polls, scores and game recaps.
WrenchNinja
Member
It's been pretty much five years since Gerstmanngate. Thinks aren't going to be different, you're right.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
Only a fool would take that bet.
This whole issue has to do with pointing out what's wrong with the gaming press, making this information more widely available to those who otherwise mistakenly believe everything's peachy. It's about opening their eyes to what is obvious to most GAF users, but not necessarily to them. Honestly, I don't see the harm in wanting to expose the matter to a broader audience. If things actually get better or not as a result isn't the point.
No doubt. I think this puts TruthJunky's posts into perspective. Glorified fans throwing toys out of the pram.
It's going to get worse.
The libel laws in England are a scandal. She's probably too dense as to understand why, though.
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