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[ClosingADoor]

I guess Rab wasn't the only person receiving suggestions to just sweet it under the rug.



It wasn't noticed by reviewers because apparently Bethesda refused to send out PS3 review copies. Of course that didn't stop reviewers from copy and pasting the 360 review as the PS3 review.

The Kotaku review has the following under it:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released on Nov. 11 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox, and PC. Bethesda Softworks provided Kotaku with a copy of the game. Played 20 hours of the game on Xbox 360 before switching to PC. Played through full single-player story on PC. Tested both melee and magic-only characters. Chased a hell of a lot of elk, moose, whatever.

Seems rather open and honest if you ask me. They tell the amount of hours played, the platforms and that they received the copy from Bethesda instead of buying it themselves.

 

[Victrix]

I'm not sure why Tom Bramwell is apologizing to his readers. His site gets threatened with a libel suit under those ridiculous laws and he removes two paragraphs while the rest floats around the internet?

I don't think he really did wrong by them, or Rab for that matter.

 

[RedNumberFive]

Kudos to the Player One crew for being one of the few outlets that "get it". The latest podcast was insightful and hilarious. Over the last week, we've seen far too many man-babies coming out of the woodwork defending their disgustingly unethical behavior. It's good to see that there are a few people out their whose opinions aren't bought and sold by gaming PR. If you haven listened to the latest podcast, do it!

 

[More Fun To Compute]

What surprises me is that people here are surprised by any of this. It takes very little deductive reasoning to piece together a general picture of what goes on. Not much has been uncovered during this discussion, rather people just looked things up or started to take notice of what was right in front of their faces. Perhaps people should take this stuff personally, but it doesn't make it any less comical when they suddenly start doing so in the extreme. It reminds me of the Bill Hicks JFK assassination bit, when the public freak out that the government might not be telling them the truth "... shit they're lying to us fuuuuucck".

There is a difference between having a general feeling that games publicity is disreputable and corporate and learning the details of what happens and more importantly how some people feel about it. Especially those who think that the whole thing is great and that anyone they see as being lower on the food chain than them is just an envy monster.

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Eurogamer have finally put up an Editor's column: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-30-editors-blog-lost-humanity-18-aftermath

John Walker has written for Rock Paper Shotgun with their position on the matter.

Edge just put up an article on their site which is from their latest mag but strangely relevant right now: http://www.edge-online.com/?p=70548&preview=true

For the new page.

 

[Ape Gone Insane]

Indeed. Reposting, and here's a quote:


I realise RPGCodex is a hole, but dammit they hit it out of the park with this one.

They really dislike their full stops/periods.

 

[Oxx]

Kudos to the Player One crew for being one of the few outlets that "get it". The latest podcast was insightful and hilarious. Over the last week, we've seen far too many man-babies coming out of the woodwork defending their disgustingly unethical behavior. It's good to see that there are a few people out their whose opinions aren't bought and sold by gaming PR. If you haven listened to the latest podcast, do it!

I haven't listed to it yet. I imagined that Mike would be loving this, but I wondered if the ex-Ziff Davis guys would share stories or be defensive. I'll listen on the way to the gym.

 

[SolidSnakex]

The Kotaku review has the following under it:



Seems rather open and honest if you ask me. They tell the amount of hours played, the platforms and that they received the copy from Bethesda instead of buying it themselves.

I wasn't saying that Kotaku did it, but several sites certainly did. The whole issue with Skyrim was and still is a mess and made Bethesda look really dirty. Josh Sawyer (Obsidian) explained some of the things that made Skyrim run so poorly. Pete Hines (Bethesda) then came out and said that he was wrong, that he didn't work on the engine and that the issues that he described were solved long ago. One of the issues that he mentioned was that adding DLC would make the lag even worse. Guess which platform has yet to receive any DLC for Skyrim?

 

[Lancehead]

It wasn't noticed by reviewers because apparently Bethesda refused to send out PS3 review copies. Of course that didn't stop reviewers from copy and pasting the 360 review as the PS3 review.

The second sentence probably has to do with Metacritic's ridiculous requirements.

 

[Victrix]

The second sentence probably has to do with Metacritic's ridiculous requirements.

Subtext to this thread: Burn Metacritic and any attempted replacement aggregator site to the ground

 

[ClosingADoor]

I wasn't saying that Kotaku did it, but several sites certainly did. The whole issue with Skyrim was and still is a mess and made Bethesda look really dirty. Josh Sawyer (Obsidian) explained some of the things that made Skyrim run so poorly. Pete Hines (Bethesda) then came out and said that he was wrong, that he didn't work on the engine and that the issues that he described were solved long ago. One of the issues that he mentioned was that adding DLC would make the lag even worse. Guess which platform has yet to receive any DLC for Skyrim?

I understand. The stuff with the reviews shouldn't have happened (and in all honesty, my website is guilty of it as well, although the readers still voted Skyrim as their Game of the Year at then end). But I feel the DLC stuff has been widely covered already and is brought up from time to time. There just isn't any news value in it anymore, since really nothing is happening and Bethesda (the only source for more info on it now) isn't talking.

 

[Antiwhippy]

The second sentence probably has to do with Metacritic's ridiculous requirements.

Looking at metacritic though quite a number of the PS3 reviews comes from playstation dedicated sites and playstation dedicated magazines. There aren't actually that many PS3 reviews compared to 360.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/critic-reviews

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/critic-reviews

Whoops, wrong link.

 

[PaulLFC]

Assuming I'm very late on this but...

The first is that a lot of people want to know more about why I made the changes and issued an apology. The answer is that Lauren Wainwright threatened us with legal action and made it clear she would not back down, at which point we took legal advice and ultimately made the decision to remove the paragraphs.

So it's confirmed. Disgusting. I'm angry that another journalist has lost his job through her threatening legal action with no basis.

 

[Ape Gone Insane]

What we need is a website dedicated to exposing and critiquing these practices and events in the gaming industry.

A website which can also highlight reliable reviewers and websites, and serve as a repository for past scandals.

 

[Victrix]

What we need is a website dedicated to exposing and critiquing these practices and events in the gaming industry.

A website which can also highlight reliable reviewers and websites, and serve as a repository for past scandals.

Like say, this one

Scandal is only interesting for a week or two, then people get bored and go back to mountain dew games as usual

edit: Rephrase - scandal is always interesting or celebrity rags would all be out of business. Boring gaming journalism scandal is not :>

 

[Ledsen]

Update: Added Tom Bramwell, TheSixthAxis, RPS, Stephen Totilo 19, EDGE article, PlayerOne Podcast, Wings over Sealand 3, BF3 questionnarie, The Guardian

Current articles/videos/podcasts
Wings over Sealand (Stuart Campbell) articles (second article has early summary) 1 2 3
John Walker's (Rock Paper Shotgun) blog (start with Games Journalists, And The Perception Of Corruption, includes guest post by Rab Florence)
TotalBiscuit
Jim Sterling
Penny-Arcade 1 2
Gamasutra
Forbes
Worthplaying
GiantBomb
Jason Lauritzen editorial and GAF post
RPGCodex writes an excellent summary
Destructoid
BoingBoing
TheSixthAxis
EDGE article that was written a few weeks ago
PlayerOne Podcast
Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell (editor who edited Rab's column) about the last few days
Rock Paper Shotgun official stance
The Guardian

Old (but still relevant) articles/videos/podcasts
Rab Florence (the guy who started all this) criticizing games writing since 2008
An old episode of CGW Radio discussing Gerstmann-gate
Old Gamasutra article on the influence of PR
Old GFW radio bits

Comments from the industry
Shawn Elliot - 1 (aegies is Arthur Gies of polygon.com) 2 3 4 5 6 on the psychology of PR etc
and some more Arthur Gies - 1 2 3 4 5 and some replies 1 2 3
Jeff Green on the way it actually works, and another post, an another
ShockingAlberto on his view as a former games writer
Jason Schreier (Kotaku) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
N'Gai Croal initial reaction on Twitter
Chris Schilling (freelance) likes both people involved and so doesn't want to write about it
Danny O'Dwyer (Gamespot UK) on why his site won't cover this (audience is not interested) - 1 2 3
pastapadre on being shunned by the industry
Stephen Totilo (Kotaku) doesn't think this is an important story (has changed his mind about that part, read post 9). Wants to focus on good games journalism, this prompted a pretty funny picture and a comment about it, then Stephen Totilo enters the thread 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 (ignore the comment on 18, couldn't find a direct link to Totilo's comment) 19
Weekend Confirmed 1 2
Syriel on his experiences of PR
Jeff Gerstmann short comment on swag
Christian Donlan and Simon Parkin of Eurogamer want to change how they do things[/QUOTE]
Nert on his experience as PR in the tech industry 1 2
John Walker (RPS) on why the site won't cover it (they did anyway) like his blog did
Rab Florence tweets
Jeff Gerstmann 1 (1 is from Tumblr) 2 (2 via EternalGamer, highlights some other stuff) 3 4 5 (3-5 are comments by Jeff in this thread)

Comments from others
GillianSeed79 and firehawk12 on how journalist do criticize their peers
voodoopanda highlights that the issue is not in any way black or white
Snowden's Secret comments on gaming press reactions
Zissou weighs in

Other relevant/interesting links and examples of PR
Examples of various press kits
The 3DS comes to GiantBomb
Letter sent to reviewers from UbiSoft along with their press copy of Assassin's Creed 3
How Rockstar handled the reviews for GTA4
Battlefield 3 review questionnarie

 

[wackojackosnose]

Edge just put up an article on their site which is from their latest mag but strangely relevant right now: http://www.edge-online.com/?p=70548&preview=true

I quite liked the final paragragh of the article. It does feel a bit dirty when you realise the line between games journalist and salesman has been blurred to such an extent that the journalists don't realise that they're doing the PR job for whatever companies accidently.

But perhaps I can suggest one small conceptual realignment. When I’m writing book reviews, I am not part of the publishing industry; I’m on the side of the readers, squinting through the hype-smoke. Similarly, though it’s nice to feel you belong, a videogame journalist should always remember that they are not in the videogame industry. They’re a member of the global republic of letters. That ought to be a source of sufficient pride in itself.

 

[RedNumberFive]

Ledsen, thanks for keeping an up-to-date record of everything. It's reassuring to know that we'll have this as a future resource of who has been bought and influenced by PR. As usual, GAF does better journalism than actual journalists.

 

[SolidSnakex]

I understand. The stuff with the reviews shouldn't have happened (and in all honesty, my website is guilty of it as well, although the readers still voted Skyrim as their Game of the Year at then end). But I feel the DLC stuff has been widely covered already and is brought up from time to time. There just isn't any news value in it anymore, since really nothing is happening and Bethesda (the only source for more info on it now) isn't talking.

Well, the issue has passed which is what many feared in that thread (the Digital Foundry Skyrim thread). Very few even attempted to do anything. It's being brought up in this thread as something that should've been covered more but was just pushed aside. Some sites would only report on it when Bethesda released a comment saying that they were looking into a patch. They wouldn't actually talk about how Bethesda released a game that would frequently drop to 0fps after the save filed reached a certain size.

 

[grimshawish]

So Wainwright DID use libel. She shouldn't be working along side anyone reporting on news.
Disgusting to use it against another journalist. Dreadful stuff.

Only further reinforces how devastatingly truthful and perceptive the column was.

Quite.

 

[Ledsen]

Ledsen, thanks for keeping an up-to-date record of everything. It's reassuring to know that we'll have this as a future resource of who has been bought and influenced by PR. As usual, GAF does better journalism than actual journalists.

No problem. I wasn't planning on doing it myself, but no one else stepped up I'm sure it's not complete by any means, although I have been reading every post in this thread since a few days ago and trying to keep it as up-to-date as possible. Suggestions are always welcome.

 

[Corto]

What we need is a website dedicated to exposing and critiquing these practices and events in the gaming industry.

A website which can also highlight reliable reviewers and websites, and serve as a repository for past scandals.

That should be our individual work/responsabilty. Or else we would need a watchdog to the watch dog to the watchdog to the watchdog. Transparency, disclosure and auto regulation from your peers (a professional association of video games writers, not specifically an union). The readership/audience could then make a choice on the source of their news/entertainment on good bases.

 

[Jubbly]

Assuming I'm very late on this but...

So it's confirmed. Disgusting. I'm angry that another journalist has lost his job through her threatening legal action with no basis.

But she did a law module during her journalism course, that's as good as being a lawyer!

 

[Anteater]

Rab Florence tweets

Thanks for the updates

Rab Florence seems like a really cool guy, I would probably follow whatever site he decided to write for, I also just noticed he's the dude that did that funny god hand video review

 

[Eighthours]

Has anyone posted Stu Campbell's latest article on this yet?: http://wosland.podgamer.com/the-players-and-the-game/

Lauren's LinkedIn profile (http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/wainwrightli.htm) shows that she worked for Barrington Harvey as a junior publicist for 4 months in 2010. Barrington Harvey is one of the biggies in videogames PR in the UK, and I'm wondering whether this is the reason she deleted her profile.

 

[Ape Gone Insane]

Like say, this one

Scandal is only interesting for a week or two, then people get bored and go back to mountain dew games as usual

edit: Rephrase - scandal is always interesting or celebrity rags would all be out of business. Boring gaming journalism scandal is not :>

That's true in a way but I don't know, if this thread can generate 6,000 replies based on this, I think it would be worth it.

It's also been partly fuelled by the idea of having an independent review site along with the satirical and insightful take on scandals (yeah, another one in the masses) run entirely by Gaffers. I look at some of the quality levels of opinion here and in many cases, it surpasses what you see on these large gaming sites. But then some might say you would eventually end up in the same place and why bother if you can't get the same level of previews or early reviews as other prominent sites.

Alas, I have no time at the moment to start such a venture anyway. Nor do I think there would be a whole lot of interest or long term commitment.

 

[Kenshin001]

I just read in the comments section of the Eurogamer blog Microsoft give journalists access to Xbox Live for free. Is that true?

 

[Victrix]

I just read in the comments section of the Eurogamer blog Microsoft give journalists access to Xbox Live for free. Is that true?

Many journalists get Steam accounts with, well, basically everything

 

[RedNumberFive]

I just read in the comments section of the Eurogamer blog Microsoft give journalists access to Xbox Live for free. Is that true?

Yes. They also get free consoles, and priority service for those consoles when they break.

 

[Kenshin001]

Many journalists get Steam accounts with, well, basically everything

Thanks, but that didn't answer my question.

 

[mbmonk]

I think free XBL has been admitted by "journalists". I think I remember Garnett speaking about it long ago on a podcast, before weekend confirmed.

 

[NaviLink]

I just read in the comments section of the Eurogamer blog Microsoft give journalists access to Xbox Live for free. Is that true?

For selected outlets, yes it's true. They're given Gold and points codes by the PR agency in charge. Sometimes they also have access to PartnerNet, for example to play a game that is not out yet or still in development.

Yes. They also get free consoles, and priority service for those consoles when they break.

The biggest outlets get debug consoles, and these guys indeed have assistance in case of problems.

 

[Ath]

Has anyone posted Stu Campbell's latest article on this yet?: http://wosland.podgamer.com/the-players-and-the-game/

Lauren's LinkedIn profile (http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/wainwrightli.htm) shows that she worked for Barrington Harvey as a junior publicist for 4 months in 2010. Barrington Harvey is one of the biggies in videogames PR in the UK, and I'm wondering whether this is the reason she deleted her profile.

Reading Stuart Campbell's stuff reminds me how much I miss Digitiser

 

[Victrix]

Restates some stuff already gone over in the thread, but one more voice:

If you're a website whose revenue is entirely based on pageviews and clicks, you need to spew out content round the clock to survive, and you can't produce that volume of copy just from interesting, informed features and in-depth reviews. You need filler, and tons of it, and since you're not going to be able to afford to send staff out to source it for themselves, you need to have it spoon-fed directly from the horse's – well, "mouth" seems a bit too dignified for what we're shovelling here.

Games journalism is terrible because gamers are getting what they're prepared to pay for. As we said a year ago, games journalists are merely serving the people who pay the bills, and that isn't the readers any more, because they demand all their journalism for free. If you're not even prepared to pay peanuts, you're going to get something less than monkeys.

(On the upside, you'll get a near-infinite supply of them, prepared to hammer away at their infinite typewriters for the sheer thrill of a review copy and a free t-shirt or two until they either get their own PR job or burn out, to be replaced from a willing cast of millions of fresh faces.)

Until that changes, Intent Media and their ilk will own all of it, and no criticism from naive outsider idealists like Robert Florence will be permitted.

From http://wosland.podgamer.com/the-players-and-the-game/

 

[Ledsen]

Has anyone posted Stu Campbell's latest article on this yet?: http://wosland.podgamer.com/the-players-and-the-game/

Lauren's LinkedIn profile (http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/wainwrightli.htm) shows that she worked for Barrington Harvey as a junior publicist for 4 months in 2010. Barrington Harvey is one of the biggies in videogames PR in the UK, and I'm wondering whether this is the reason she deleted her profile.

Added this, thx

 

[Kenshin001]

Yes. They also get free consoles, and priority service for those consoles when they break.

I wonder how many indignant games journalists are in on that sweet little deal then.

 

[Zeliard]

Thanks for the updates

Rab Florence seems like a really cool guy, I would probably follow whatever site he decided to write for, I also just noticed he's the dude that did that funny god hand video review

"If I could remove any website from the internet it would be Metacritic. It's a poison."

The man is right about everything.

 

[j0hnny_385]

Yes. They also get free consoles, and priority service for those consoles when they break.

The biggest outlets get debug consoles, and these guys indeed have assistance in case of problems.

I think RedNumberFive was referring to that "Stepto (former XBL security head honcho) helps Geoff Keighley get his account back 'cuz they'rz pals".

 

[Antiwhippy]

I wonder how many indignant games journalists are in on that sweet little deal then.

Some of them are debug consoles though, which are necessary to play preview/review codes that can't be played on normal consoles.

 

[Dennis]

If you're a website whose revenue is entirely based on pageviews and clicks, you need to spew out content round the clock to survive, and you can't produce that volume of copy just from interesting, informed features and in-depth reviews. You need filler, and tons of it, and since you're not going to be able to afford to send staff out to source it for themselves, you need to have it spoon-fed directly from the horse's – well, "mouth" seems a bit too dignified for what we're shovelling here.

This is in a nutshell the problem for many of the sites we (justifiably) are criticizing.

Filler article after filler article. Look at Joystiq and Kotaku for prime examples.

 

[Ledsen]

I wonder how many indignant games journalists are in on that sweet little deal then.

I don't really have a problem with either that or free games to be honest. Consoles and games are tools they need to do their job. There are far bigger problems being discussed here.

 

[RedNumberFive]

The biggest outlets get debug consoles, and these guys indeed have assistance in case of problems.

Well they all received free slim 360s a few years back, an if you think they're talking to CSRs in India like you and me, you're crazy. Remember back when 360s were dying left and right? You can be sure that game journalists weren't waiting 1-2 months for their console to be "repaired." It should be no surprise as to why they are so out of touch with their audience.

 

[Victrix]

Plus most debug units can't even run retail code - they're solely for playing developer builds, with a few extra tools built into the hardware

^^^^: Not that they don't get free hardware to review and keep of course. Death of a thousand ethical compromise cuts! Doesn't even rate on my scandal-meter at this point.

 

[RedNumberFive]

I think RedNumberFive was referring to that "Stepto (former XBL security head honcho) helps Geoff Keighley get his account back 'cuz they'rz pals".

That was one of the first instances that popped in my mind. It's easy to be dismissive and call your audience entitled when you're getting a different level of service.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

Assuming I'm very late on this but...


So it's confirmed. Disgusting. I'm angry that another journalist has lost his job through her threatening legal action with no basis.

The thing that gets me is...this is somebody who called herself a professional game critic yet apparently didn't even have the money to scrape together for a PS3. As if she was actually going to be able to mount a legal campaign.

 

[Kenshin001]

I don't really have a problem with either that or free games to be honest. Consoles and games are tools they need to do their job. There are far bigger problems being discussed here.

This whole ruckus started over journalists tweeting to win a PS3 and the cosy relationship between the companies and jounalists. Obviously they are going to get review codes/discs. They don't need to get free XBox Live Gold, they can pay for it themselves like everyone else.

 

[McBradders]

The thing that gets me is...this is somebody who called herself a professional game critic yet apparently didn't even have the money to scrape together for a PS3. As if she was actually going to be able to mount a legal campaign.

No win, no fee.

 

[HoosTrax]

We had previously considered the story to be one of internal wrangling amongst games journalism, and RPS is primarily about games.

Oh John, meta stories about Zynga, the company, and what new hot water they've managed to land themselves in are barely relevant to your PC gaming audience, which considers Facebook/mobile gaming a bit of a joke. Ah well, no one's perfect...

 

[Ledsen]

This whole ruckus started over journalists tweeting to win a PS3 and the cosy relationship between the companies and jounalists. Obviously they are going to get review codes/discs. They don't need to get free XBox Live Gold, they can pay for it themselves like everyone else.

Well yeah, I'm talking about the basic stuff, getting a console and review code to play on it.

 

[Ape Gone Insane]

The thing that gets me is...this is somebody who called herself a professional game critic yet apparently didn't even have the money to scrape together for a PS3. As if she was actually going to be able to mount a legal campaign.

Did she actually get legal advice or was this purely stemming from her media law module? If the latter, then it's fucking hilarious how she thinks she's qualified to claim something after having learnt a couple of legal principles in an academic law module once upon a time.