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Games Journalist Lies and Smears Former GoG Community Manager

Well, Eurogamer admitted previously to try and blacklist Kingdom Come Deliverance and give artificially low review scores for adventure games like the Deponia series and Leisure Suit Larry to make these games tank in performance and "disappear" from the gaming landscape.
They admitted it wasn't because the games are inherently unplayable or buggy (in Kingdom Come's case, they lied about that point to shoo graphically-obsessed gamers away from a Bethesda-tier buggy mid-budget game fixed with updates and not the Ride to Hell Retribution buggy game they were making out to be)
They admitted it was because they hated the developers of the game or the concept of the game for purely ideological reasons, and thought that lies were justified for that goal.

Put into that context, it's no surprise they would run one of their character assassination hitpieces (it does seem to be a new shift in tactics, this is usually Kotaku's domain) to protect and justify their doxing friends from resetera's admin team and userbase. They doxed random members of the PR team and waited what would stick.

I will have to say for the sake of fairness this. The fired employee was very stupid to give them an interview so that they could fluff it with lurid details that hold together with half-truths. Never ever give those hateful people interviews.
There was one time a Kotaku journalist had a hatecrush on some evo player on twitter and would accuse him of all sorts of things, then had the gall to ask him for an interview about what team he intends to join next now that one sponsor let him go for unrelated drama. You probably have no illusions what he intends to do with that information, and so did the interviewee who told him rightfully to fuck off. The exact same modus operandi is at play here and for the same goal.

As for the choice to join this out of all sites, I don't think other game journalism websites would have welcomed him considering how enthusiastic they were to get him fired in the first place.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit

Apologies, Ibiza. I had completely missed this post. I asked the mods to merge.

Well, Eurogamer admitted previously to try and blacklist Kingdom Come Deliverance and give artificially low review scores for adventure games like the Deponia series and Leisure Suit Larry to make these games tank in performance and "disappear" from the gaming landscape.
They admitted it wasn't because the games are inherently unplayable or buggy (in Kingdom Come's case, they lied about that point to shoo graphically-obsessed gamers away from a Bethesda-tier buggy mid-budget game fixed with updates and not the Ride to Hell Retribution buggy game they were making out to be)
They admitted it was because they hated the developers of the game or the concept of the game for purely ideological reasons, and thought that lies were justified for that goal.

Put into that context, it's no surprise they would run one of their character assassination hitpieces (it does seem to be a new shift in tactics, this is usually Kotaku's domain) to protect and justify their doxing friends from resetera's admin team and userbase. They doxed random members of the PR team and waited what would stick.

I will have to say for the sake of fairness this. The fired employee was very stupid to give them an interview so that they could fluff it with lurid details that hold together with half-truths. Never ever give those hateful people interviews.
There was one time a Kotaku journalist had a hatecrush on some evo player on twitter and would accuse him of all sorts of things, then had the gall to ask him for an interview about what team he intends to join next now that one sponsor let him go for unrelated drama. You probably have no illusions what he intends to do with that information, and so did the interviewee who told him rightfully to fuck off. The exact same modus operandi is at play here and for the same goal.

As for the choice to join this out of all sites, I don't think other game journalism websites would have welcomed him considering how enthusiastic they were to get him fired in the first place.

Yep. There is so much evidence to show Eurogamer's shittiness and I just can't understand how or why people are trying to defend them at this point.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
fucking gross. these people are legitimately bad human beings but try and cover it up because "they are fighting the good fight against tyranny". there is truth to where they are bad people and this whole ideology lets them do bad things to people but they get away with it because they are on the right side. i hate this kind of behavior and it needs to be called out always

Those that virtue signal the most, seem to have the very same skeletons in their closet. Always.

Bunch of wanna-be PPWs (Personal Purity Warriors).

Yep. There is so much evidence to show Eurogamer's shittiness and I just can't understand how or why people are trying to defend them at this point.

Same reason they defend or criticize shitty political policies depending on what team they are on. Rules for thee...
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The title is fine. They deep dive into the incident in detail clearly state which tweet was and wasn't his.

No its not. How can you justify a strapline that is subsequently revealed to be misrepresentative within the body of the article? It literally conflates the subject of the piece with actions that weren't his.

That's not honest journalism, and neither is the "long pause" thing. That's narrative creation 101.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
No its not. How can you justify a strapline that is subsequently revealed to be misrepresentative within the body of the article? It literally conflates the subject of the piece with actions that weren't his.

That's not honest journalism, and neither is the "long pause" thing. That's narrative creation 101.
No it doesn't, the title is perfectly fine and honest. There were a series of tweets that to a lay person could be attributed to a singular person, I myself had assumed that GOG official Twitter account is managed by a singular person. To my knowledge, he was responsible for two of the three tweets. He is the focus of the article and It is also fair to say that his last tweet was the final straw as GOG had come under scrutiny for the previous tweets two of which were his.

There is no "long pause" in the article, there is however a "pause" in the article. The entire youtube dipshit argument on why this article is a smear campaign lies solely on the fact that the interview occurred over text and the writer uses the word "pause" for dramatic effect. And yes this can definitely happen over text. I don't know if you know this but when i'm conversing with someone over imessage, you can see when someone is typing and when they stop typing, this can be read as a pause. To my knowledge i'm not aware if the same thing can occur over android sms but i know for a fact that it occurs over skype, whatsapp, facebook chat, snapchat.
 
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Thiagosc777

Member
There is no "long pause" in the article, there is however a "pause" in the article. The entire youtube dipshit argument on why this article is a smear campaign lies solely on the fact that the interview occurred over text and the writer uses the word "pause" for dramatic effect. And yes this can definitely happen over text. I don't know if you know this but when i'm conversing with someone over imessage, you can see when someone is typing and when they stop typing, this can be read as a pause. To my knowledge i'm not aware if the same thing can occur over android sms but i know for a fact that is occurs over skype, whatsapp, facebook chat.

So reporting facts and doing journalism require theatrics. The more you know.
 

Ryuji Goda

Member
mtg-manic-hypocrisy-12-27-17-8.jpg

That's pretty funny
 

jonnyp

Member
Any other sources on this? It's a bit of a joke to attack a story with a Youtube video. Especially when it is politically loaded bullshit. Someone want to breakdown the issues with the claims or link to a legit source?

TheQuartering (Jeremy Hambly) is a scumbag. Literally. He harasses people online. Jokes about rape, see below. He's banned from some events. Picks fights with people in order to play victim.
mtg-manic-hypocrisy-12-27-17-8.jpg


Edit: Here's the original Eurogamer source https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...projekt-employee-and-the-spectre-of-gamergate

Jeremy is a completely fine person.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
Umm no not required but writers often employ words for dramatic effect and we often see them in journalistic writings.

Those "dramatic effects" are used to try and shape a particular narrative. It is a pathetic manner of which to do journalism, especially when they are used to colour the interviewee in a poor light. Not to mention, they were lies as stated previously.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Those "dramatic effects" are used to try and shape a particular narrative. It is a pathetic manner of which to do journalism, especially when they are used to colour the interviewee in a poor light. Not to mention, they were lies as stated previously.
The purpose of dramatic effect is to grab attention. It serves no other purpose but to catch attention, it does not shape a particular narrative, the journalist can already shape the narrative without employing dramatic effects.

The "pause" could be removed and it wouldn't change how readers react to the answer that he gave to the question.
With Pause
It leaves Halliday without a job and down in the dumps, but I'm confident he'll eventually shake it off. And, all things considered, you'd be forgiven for at least suspecting GamerGate sympathies, if not outright support. It's why I decide to stop dancing around the issue and come straight out and ask him: do you support GamerGate?

There's a pause while he thinks.

"I'm certainly of the view there is a discussion to be had about video game press and the industry," he answers, "but I disagree with how most of the GG crowd handle that - though I can say the same about the very liberal side of the culture too.

"I don't really subscribe to any group. I find the whole concept to be a little toxic in general. I'm a huge believer in just talking to people and understanding them, but some you simply can not do that with.

without "pause"
It leaves Halliday without a job and down in the dumps, but I'm confident he'll eventually shake it off. And, all things considered, you'd be forgiven for at least suspecting GamerGate sympathies, if not outright support. It's why I decide to stop dancing around the issue and come straight out and ask him: do you support GamerGate?


"I'm certainly of the view there is a discussion to be had about video game press and the industry," he answers, "but I disagree with how most of the GG crowd handle that - though I can say the same about the very liberal side of the culture too.

"I don't really subscribe to any group. I find the whole concept to be a little toxic in general. I'm a huge believer in just talking to people and understanding them, but some you simply can not do that with.
Does that change anything?
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
These are reporters/journalists (or supposed to be) not screenwriters.

Report the facts, period. Save the theatrics for Hollywood.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
No it doesn't, the title is perfectly fine and honest. There were a series of tweets that to a lay person could be attributed to a singular person, I myself had assumed that GOG official Twitter account is managed by a singular person. To my knowledge, he was responsible for two of the three tweets. He is the focus of the article and It is also fair to say that his last tweet was the final straw as GOG had come under scrutiny for the previous tweets two of which were his.

No.

3 Tweets total. So if the last one was the final straw, and he wasn't responsible for the second*, only one of the previous Tweets could have been his, contrary to your ill-worded argument.

*Verbatim from the article:
"The Cyberpunk [tweet] isn't anything to do with GOG," he says. "CDP Red have their own social media team - there's five or six of them. The Cyberpunk tweet, the 'Did you just assume their gender?' one: GOG has nothing to do with that. It's a whole CDP Red thing. They have their own PR plans, their own staff."

The whole trifecta of "problematic" tweets relies upon conflating CDPR and GOG's media messaging as being the work of the same organization, which according to the article itself, is untrue.

The title even misattributes which side of the CDPR/GOG dichotomy he falls on by specifying in the fucking strapline: "a fired CD Projekt employee"!

There is no "long pause" in the article, there is however a "pause" in the article. The entire youtube dipshit argument on why this article is a smear campaign lies solely on the fact that the interview occurred over text and the writer uses the word "pause" for dramatic effect.

What is "dramatic effect" if not a device to shape narrative?

I stand by my original opinion, and as to the rest of the "youtube dipshit argument", I couldn't give a toss. Because the 2 things I cite are verifiable within the article itself. Whether the "pause" happened face-to-face or over text, its an obvious ploy to create a certain impression. Particularly among numbskulls who think "gamergate" was the worst thing since the Holocaust, and not the lame-as-fuck internet spat it was in the first place.

Gamergate was nothing. That its name is used to invoke dread and opprobrium years after the fact proves only that its a useful tool to parties wishing to push agendas of their own.
 

danielberg

Neophyte
Well, Eurogamer admitted previously to try and blacklist Kingdom Come Deliverance and give artificially low review scores for adventure games like the Deponia series and Leisure Suit Larry to make these games tank in performance and "disappear" from the gaming landscape.

They must be pissed that it all backfired and basically ensured that Kingdom come deliverance was a success, "journalists" like this cant disappear fast enough.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
No.

3 Tweets total. So if the last one was the final straw, and he wasn't responsible for the second*, only one of the previous Tweets could have been his, contrary to your ill-worded argument.
I literally said, he was responsible for 2 of the 3 tweets.
There were a series of tweets that to a lay person could be attributed to a singular person. To my knowledge, he was responsible for two of the three tweets. He is the focus of the article and It is also fair to say that his last tweet was the final straw as GOG had come under scrutiny for the previous tweets two of which were his.

*Verbatim from the article:
Incident one: the Postal 2 tweet
This was Halliday's fault. "It was me who posted the tweet," he admits.
Incident three: the #WontBeErased tweet
It's the evening of 22nd October and busybody Sean Halliday is doing a final tweet before bed. "I'll do one more tweet," he tells himself, flicking through European Twitter trends for a hashtag to piggyback. And he finds one: #WontBeErased. "I clicked on it and it was just people talking about their favourite games or films or music they wouldn't get rid of," he tells me. "I was like, 'OK, this fits perfectly with what GOG does,' so I put the tweet out.

The whole trifecta of "problematic" tweets relies upon conflating CDPR and GOG's media messaging as being the work of the same organization, which according to the article itself, is untrue.

The title even misattributes which side of the CDPR/GOG dichotomy he falls on by specifying in the fucking strapline: "a fired CD Projekt employee"!
CD Projekt is GOG, as is CD Projekt Red, in the same way PlayStation is Sony and Naughty dog is PlayStation and Sony. GOG is the digital distribution platform of CD Projekt. If you're working for GOG, your're working for CD Projekt. Not a very hard concept and a flimsy bases for why the article is untrue.


What is "dramatic effect" if not a device to shape narrative?

I stand by my original opinion, and as to the rest of the "youtube dipshit argument", I couldn't give a toss. Because the 2 things I cite are verifiable within the article itself. Whether the "pause" happened face-to-face or over text, its an obvious ploy to create a certain impression. Particularly among numbskulls who think "gamergate" was the worst thing since the Holocaust, and not the lame-as-fuck internet spat it was in the first place.

Gamergate was nothing. That its name is used to invoke dread and opprobrium years after the fact proves only that its a useful tool to parties wishing to push agendas of their own.
The two things you cite are flimsy arguments and do not support your claim. He was responsible for 2 of the tweets that put CD Projekt/GOG under scrutiny which is covered by the article. The article is points out he was not responsible for the second tweet.

As for your claim that the "pause" is used to create a certain impression, prove it.

The "pause" could be removed and it wouldn't change how readers react to the answer that he gave to the question.
With Pause
It leaves Halliday without a job and down in the dumps, but I'm confident he'll eventually shake it off. And, all things considered, you'd be forgiven for at least suspecting GamerGate sympathies, if not outright support. It's why I decide to stop dancing around the issue and come straight out and ask him: do you support GamerGate?

There's a pause while he thinks.

"I'm certainly of the view there is a discussion to be had about video game press and the industry," he answers, "but I disagree with how most of the GG crowd handle that - though I can say the same about the very liberal side of the culture too.

"I don't really subscribe to any group. I find the whole concept to be a little toxic in general. I'm a huge believer in just talking to people and understanding them, but some you simply can not do that with.

without "pause"
It leaves Halliday without a job and down in the dumps, but I'm confident he'll eventually shake it off. And, all things considered, you'd be forgiven for at least suspecting GamerGate sympathies, if not outright support. It's why I decide to stop dancing around the issue and come straight out and ask him: do you support GamerGate?


"I'm certainly of the view there is a discussion to be had about video game press and the industry," he answers, "but I disagree with how most of the GG crowd handle that - though I can say the same about the very liberal side of the culture too.

"I don't really subscribe to any group. I find the whole concept to be a little toxic in general. I'm a huge believer in just talking to people and understanding them, but some you simply can not do that with.
Does that change anything about the narrative?
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
No, you actually wrote PREVIOUS tweets, when talking about the third.

Precision in language is important to meaning, which is why you... (long pause) apparently don't understand the issues I find problematic.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
No, you actually wrote PREVIOUS tweets, when talking about the third.

Precision in language is important to meaning, which is why you... (long pause) apparently don't understand the issues I find problematic.
Fascinating, (shakes head), it is actually good to read the whole sentence rather stopping just shy of the last few words.
GOG had come under scrutiny for the previous tweets two of which were his.
Precision is not the only important factor, context and proximity to other words are also important. (smiles with a shit eating grin).
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Fascinating, (shakes head), it is actually good to read the whole sentence rather stopping just shy of the last few words.

Precision is not the only important factor, context and proximity to other words are also important. (smiles with a shit eating grin).

Great, I at least managed to get you to provide your own, admittedly crude, examples of how you can apply tone and meaning to otherwise blunt statements through editorializing.

And once again, you are persisting in conflating GoG and CDPR Twitter accounts. Which you know are separate entities, right? (Or didn't you read the article you are so vehemently defending?)
 
They must be pissed that it all backfired and basically ensured that Kingdom come deliverance was a success, "journalists" like this cant disappear fast enough.
They sure are trying their best. Now that they have sycophants in Valve and Sony's game approval pipelines who act on their recommendations, they truly have shown their anti consumer colors, whether it's lies by omission, or pretending it doesn't happen at all, or finally recently stanning for the censorship, claiming it only happens to the pedo loli games.

Game censorship drives that prevent games like Super Seducer (a visual novel with no explicit content, in some ways tamer than Leisure Suit Larry, but apparently "problematic" because the developer is a pick-up artist which is a sinful expression of toxic cihet masculinity, not the game mind you) from releasing are framed as "rejecting sex games featuring little girls" by the likes of Kotaku when it has already claimed a bunch of high profile games far removed from that "description". You can also find tweets and sentences in any articles outraged by Valve's content policy loosening from earlier claiming it would allow "problematic developers a platform".
Which is really what this is all about, the right for game journalists to snuff a game they don't like out of existence, exactly what happened to Super Seducer on PS4 which made it to retail, and what they wanted to happen to its PC version by going directly to Valve to ask it to "explain yourselves". Next time someone asks a developer to remove a voice actor, they can just go to Sony "asking for comment" and get the release shut down, is their ideal scenario.
 
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Tripolygon

Banned
Great, I at least managed to get you to provide your own, admittedly crude, examples of how you can apply tone and meaning to otherwise blunt statements through editorializing.

And once again, you are persisting in conflating GoG and CDPR Twitter accounts. Which you know are separate entities, right? (Or didn't you read the article you are so vehemently defending?)
But that is not the argument. You said "pause" a descriptive word used for dramatic effect, was used to create a tone or narrative. I asked you to prove it and quoted both paragraphs with and without the pause. Asked what narrative changed in the absence of that sentence with pause in it. And yes those words in parenthesis were intentional, as in my literal reaction put in parenthesis.

You keep missing the point that CD Projekt is GOG and CD Projekt Red. A tweet on either's account affects their parent company as a whole. In the same way a private tweet from your own private account can get you fired from a company as Albert Panello and countless others in the industry have experienced.

There are many things in the article that can be attributed to shaping the narrative of the article, the title and pause are not one of them.

Edit: Actually scratch that, the title can but pause cannot.

Here is an example of a sentence from the article that shapes the narrative

And, all things considered, you'd be forgiven for at least suspecting GamerGate sympathies, if not outright support. It's why I decide to stop dancing around the issue and come straight out and ask him: do you support GamerGate?
The author is already of the opinion that Sean is either a part of or supports gamergate, asking him the leading question was not even necessary at that point. The fore mentioned pause after that sentence did not change anything.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The author is already of the opinion that Sean is either a part of or supports gamergate, asking him the leading question was not even necessary at that point. The fore mentioned pause after that sentence did not change anything.

This makes GamerGate sound like the Illuminati or something! Which is another giant red flag as far as I'm concerned. There's a clear conflict of interest in that cronyism in the games media was at least some part of the origins of GamerGate, and the way that its now solely presented as a misogynst hate movement is suspiciously convenient for these same media-types.

I say this not out of support or admiration for the whole GG shit-show, but because I know for an absolute certainty that elements within the games media had far too cozy relationships with major publishers PR departments. No joke, I've actually had the experience of a producer on a major title I've worked on, ask bluntly would you like a 10/10 review in a certain "official" magazine, because he could "make it happen, no problem". We of course said yes, and (to paraphrase Jim Cormette) guess who won the pony... Funny thing, its a title that we were all proud of, but this was the sole 10/10 we got...

I say this to give you a flavor of why I'm exceedingly doubtful of the flawless integrity of the games media. Because its just one of many incidents over a long career in the business.

So, if I see something and it strikes me as skewed or somehow hinky, I'm not likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'm being unfair or needlessly cynical, but to me the whole business is kinda low-value and scuzzy. So the occasional review gets bought, or some journo decides to act out vindictively for career, politics or personal satisfaction... in the end its just games not cancer cures.

The hypocrisy and sophistry does get on my tits though.

Anyway, look, its been fun arguing the toss with you over this stuff, but I sense we are just going to have to agree to disagree over the merits of the specific phrasing and verbiage employed in the piece. I have my stance and I'm sticking to it.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Snip
Anyway, look, its been fun arguing the toss with you over this stuff, but I sense we are just going to have to agree to disagree over the merits of the specific phrasing and verbiage employed in the piece. I have my stance and I'm sticking to it.
Likewise mate, its been fun and cheers.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Well, Eurogamer admitted previously to try and blacklist Kingdom Come Deliverance and give artificially low review scores for adventure games like the Deponia series and Leisure Suit Larry to make these games tank in performance and "disappear" from the gaming landscape.
They admitted it wasn't because the games are inherently unplayable or buggy (in Kingdom Come's case, they lied about that point to shoo graphically-obsessed gamers away from a Bethesda-tier buggy mid-budget game fixed with updates and not the Ride to Hell Retribution buggy game they were making out to be)
They admitted it was because they hated the developers of the game or the concept of the game for purely ideological reasons, and thought that lies were justified for that goal.

Put into that context, it's no surprise they would run one of their character assassination hitpieces (it does seem to be a new shift in tactics, this is usually Kotaku's domain) to protect and justify their doxing friends from resetera's admin team and userbase. They doxed random members of the PR team and waited what would stick.

I will have to say for the sake of fairness this. The fired employee was very stupid to give them an interview so that they could fluff it with lurid details that hold together with half-truths. Never ever give those hateful people interviews.
There was one time a Kotaku journalist had a hatecrush on some evo player on twitter and would accuse him of all sorts of things, then had the gall to ask him for an interview about what team he intends to join next now that one sponsor let him go for unrelated drama. You probably have no illusions what he intends to do with that information, and so did the interviewee who told him rightfully to fuck off. The exact same modus operandi is at play here and for the same goal.

As for the choice to join this out of all sites, I don't think other game journalism websites would have welcomed him considering how enthusiastic they were to get him fired in the first place.
Where and when did Eurogamer admit to purposely tanking games?
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit


Absolutely disgusting. A man who lost his job, forced to decline another job all over continued harassment and false claims. The fact that people are *defending* these jag offs is even worse. "Well sean had made two tweets I didn't like!" Fuck that. Grow a thicker skin and get over yourself. Good lord.
 
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H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Football365 has a section called MediaWatch, which regularly does a wonderful job of skewering the football media and it's really quite enlightening. Or course football365 does all the things MediaWatch accuses other sites of doing, but that one shining light offers some really useful content. As you start looking at other media you see the same patterns emerging albeit not quite as inane as the football press which really is hopelessly dumbed-down trash.

Moving into the newspapers in the UK we have the tabloid trash like The Sun, the Daily Mail, etc peddling their agendas in the most incredibly transparent fashion on the right, with historically The Mirror doing that job on the left (though typically the socialist left rather than the social justice left - that may have changes, I've not seen the paper in quite a while). TV news has the same problems. Stories are selected to fulfil an agenda, a narrative which must be followed, and without explicitly lying, selection of stories and framing of content creates a narrative. It's really fucking insidious and I can see why people lose faith. I certainly have, though I don't regard the likes of infowars or whatever else as any kind of alternative. In fact, I have yet to find a good source of global news.

Moving to the gaming press, Eurogamer have largely mirrored the path taken by RockPaperShotgun. For a long time they had excellent articles, well-written by people who cared about gaming. Some pro-consumer ranting about DLC and microtransactions, etc. All good stuff. RPS would take the piss out of female armour and its general ridiculousness, and that worked as a tool to get most of us who might actually be persuaded to think that "yeah this is kinda odd". The slow approach would have been effective long term, but unfortunately they ran out of patience, and now both sites are super-woke to the point that I can't find a meaningful difference between them. Their journalistic standards are below even The Sun these days, with blatant misrepresentation of facts, bullshit, lies, I just can't give them clicks without going through archive.org any more tbh. Utterly cunty in every way.

As some have observed, these stories generate a lot of clicks, I suspect the proper gaming content does not, and that's because their coverage has become increasingly poor. We'll see a lot more of this click-bait shit as the meltdown continues. For me, this is the last dying embers of a press that is fundamentally broken.
 
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