This ... this is kind of disingenuous. GAF is hostile to press. Or at least, a very, very, very, very vocal contingent of GAF is hostile to the press. Asking a group of people that GAF regularly shits on and makes personal attacks against to talk to GAF members as normal human beings is actually asking kind of a lot. You might not have said anything negative, ever. Most of the posters here haven't. But there's a contingent that sets GAF's tone as perceived by the outside, and that tone is, like I said, hostile.
You acknowledge that there's a tense relationship, but I don't see anyone at GAF that's particularly influential or with the ability to guide conversation making an effort on this end to make any sort of peace. Even those of us who are posters here suffer some pretty hateful personal shit at the hands of other members, but it's totally fine, because, you know, whatever. We're press. So we deserve to be called giant pieces of shit. Meanwhile, if we were to come here and point out when we are absolutely positive that someone is a PR plant or a schill for a game, we'd get banned.
That kind of behavior, which I've watched get more hysterical over the last five years, has made GAF a thing that most press avoid, and tell other members of the press to avoid, instead of engaging with the forum the way they used to. I don't think I should automatically have your respect because I get paid to write about games, but some decency from people here as a human being would be a good start. And I don't see that very often.
The funny thing is, with regards to this thread topic, I'm in the same camp as GAF. I think the shit that went down was gross, and that a great deal of the ass-covering is shameful.
Covering this story for most outlets is writing about the competition, which is a really difficult thing to navigate. Are you being too negative? Is it because it's to your competitive advantage to make another site look bad? Can you be a trustworthy source on another site? What if your report is wrong? Like, completely, 100 percent wrong? What are we actually exposing? This isn't dateline. We're not taking down a major corporation that's dumping chemicals into the river.
Going negative about other sites is toxic, and most readers don't like that kind of content. It's lose lose. None of which stopped me from going on an extended twitter tirade about it, which I still don't know if I should have done, because it's more complicated than "write the story idiot."
I admit, I sometimes or often don't agree with Arthur's statements but this one is right on the money.
There's a reason why not everyone of us is doing an expose or feature concerning what happened here. It's not as cut-and-dry as most people think. And before anyone assumes, no. It's not about money or bowing down to PR or whatnot. This"
Going negative about other sites is toxic, and most readers don't like that kind of content. It's lose lose. None of which stopped me from going on an extended twitter tirade about it, which I still don't know if I should have done, because it's more complicated than "write the story idiot." and the fact that reporting or talking about another site on the site you work for isn't really seen in a good light and whole ton of other factors play into it.
It's just funny that some pretty vocal people on GAF always assume that games writers are corrupt or easily bought. Since I started writing about games for a living, I've only seen one or two instances of shady practices and definitely less than what most people assume. Not everyone of us are corrupt and sellouts, y'know? But coming here talking about it, people are quick to judge.
Just like Arthur said, a big vocal majority of GAF hates "us" or what we do for some reason. Be it from reviewing games, writing news posts (that people think are always just PR), etc. People are quick to point out or say "X is an asshat Gaemz joornalizm!" without looking at everything first.
Case in point, Jason Schreier. He posted here not to be an ass, but people were calling him out as if not writing a piece about this was a sin against his profession...it's not.
Why the hate, GAF? I -- heck, "we" are one of you guys. I can't even count how many threads I started here and how many people I quoted or discussed gaming with. But the moment we talk about "gaming journalism," everyone suddenly hates us.
I think this is some of the reason why press or even devs are wary of participating in the discussion here. I admit, when it comes to stuff like these, I normally browse instead of participating even if I wanted to. Not because I don't have an idea to say, but due to the hostility that's not warranted.
One good example is a few devs I see here interacting with GAF on their upcoming games. I've seen posters cry out at these devs as "liars" or something more insulting. And people wonder they don't reply? If you were the dev, would you when you know it will create a chain reaction that will eat up a lot of your working time?
Sorry for the long post, but reading what Arthur posted stirred what I was thinking for a long time. =)
TL;DR: Arthur has a point, the cynical hate-filled people need to chill sometimes. Also, for the record regarding this MCV/Eurogamer fiasco, I side with GAF on how shitty MCV handled everything.