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[KevinKeene]

Fellow user MrTickles posted this in another thread, but I believe it's worth its own topic. This is what Jeff Gerstmann said when asked about Giant Bomb's lack of coverage for Kingdom Come Deliverence:

"It didn’t come up during the call-in show yesterday. Saw a few people talking about this off-site and thought it might come in the chat room.

Anyway, a couple of us looked at it around the time it came out and didn’t find it interesting enough to pursue. The head guy’s shitty views certainly don’t help, but I doubt we’d have covered it either way."

https://archive.is/HSt9G

One of the biggest surprise hits of the year, made by a small eastern European developer, that goes for a very unusual gameplay focus, and that most people who played it really enjoy - 'not interesting enough to persue'.

This is just my opinion, but it definitely feels like GB is punishing the game only because of the slander against Vavra. To not report about this game, and for that reason, too, feels off.

If Gerstmann has gone full-resetera, he should just openly say so.


Edit: Oh man, could a mod please add 'Kingdom Come' to the title. Thx

 

[VertigoOA]

It's pretty popular it seems. Lack of coverage is just a failed attempt for giantbomb to get some more traffic. Their loss.

I don't remember the last time I took any critics' opinion seriously. It's all agenda these days or they're bought and paid for, and it's not just gaming. So be it.

 

[Toe-Knee]

It's pretty popular it seems. Lack of coverage is just a failed attempt for giantbomb to get some more traffic. Their loss.

I don't remember the last time I took any critics' opinion seriously. It's all agenda these days or they're bought and paid for, and it's not just gaming. So be it.

Just because it's popular doesn't necessarily mean it's interesting to them though.

I would much rather only hear people talking about things they have a real passion for.

I tried the game myself and it definitely isn't for me.

 

[OH-MyCar]

If James Rolfe Jeff Gerstmann didn't want to drive attention to the fact that he wasn't interested in reviewing Ghostbusters Kingdom Come Deliverance, he would've kept his mouth shut and never mentioned it at all.

 

[Woffls]

If they aren't interested enough in the game to cover it, then they shouldn't feel compelled to do so. I'm not interested enough in the game to read or listen to anything about it and GB half-heartedly talking about it isn't going to change that. I'm sure there are folk in the GB community who want to hear about the game, but just get info about it from another outlet.

I really don't think this is some sneaky way of hating on the studio lead or whatever his job is.

 

[InterMusketeer]

I don't really watch Giant Bomb anymore (though I did listen to their recent GotY podcasts which had their own issues) but I feel like in the past, they would have definitely covered a surprise hit like KCD, even if they personally were not all that interested. I mean, even if the game doesn't appeal to you, you have to admit there's some interesting mechanics and ideas there. Weren't they sceptical of the idea of PUBG at the start? But they did that video anyway and now they love it. So this popularity is something I think GB would want to look into, but apparently not. I think it's too early to say why they decided not to cover this game, but it does come off as a bit suspicious.

 

[llien]

That's pretty sad.

Anyhow, being high in Steam ranks is perhaps the best coverage it could get.

 

[Shifty]

Doesn't seem like an absurd perspective to me, I feel like Kingdom Come flew under a lot of radars- the only thing I've seen of it is the GAF threads, and even then I haven't been bothered enough to click through because medieval stuff just doesn't interest me.

It's pretty popular it seems. Lack of coverage is just a failed attempt for giantbomb to get some more traffic. Their loss.QUOTE]

"[Thread Topic] is a failed attempt by [Subject] get more clicks/traffic/views [delete as appropriate]."

Zero effort post. How is inaction an attempt to generate traffic?

If James Rolfe Jeff Gerstmann didn't want to drive attention to the fact that he wasn't interested in reviewing Ghostbusters Kingdom Come Deliverance, he would've kept his mouth shut and never mentioned it at all.

He was asked. Would you prefer that he simply responded with a stare instead of explaining GB's position? Potentially opening it up to misinterpretation by crazy people on the internet?

I'm guessing the answer is "no, but posting a copypasta hot take took priority."

 

[Bryank75]

I used to give GB a look now and then, mostly because I thought what happened to Gerstmann was unfair... back in the day.
I eventually grew tired of the sleepy and uninterested coverage and I felt it put a dampener on any excitement I might have for a game.
As a gamer, I would give almost anything a try but anyway Giantbomb know their audience I'm sure...

 

[blacklotus]

I fail to understand what's wrong with a private gaming site choosing not to cover a game.
Even being upfront about not being interested in the game and Favra's "trollish" nature not helping, seems commendable in terms of honesty.

 

[Honey Bunny]

"The head guy’s shitty views certainly don’t help, but I doubt we’d have covered it either way."

I find it hard to believe they aren't interested due to the nature of the game, this is exactly the sort of 'eurojank' oddball they love. I'd rather Jeff were completely honest about their reasons for not covering it.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Not surprising in the slightest. Waypoint and Giant Bomb might as well merge.

 

[MayauMiao]

Doesn't matter. KCD continues to sell well and Giant Bomb will become irrelevant the more they ignore gamers.

 

[Dr. Claus]

If James Rolfe Jeff Gerstmann didn't want to drive attention to the fact that he wasn't interested in reviewing Ghostbusters Kingdom Come Deliverance, he would've kept his mouth shut and never mentioned it at all.

I am not sure about Jeff Gerstmann, but I know the reason James Rolfe had to talk about *why* he wasn't reviewing Ghostbusters was due to the fact that his fans continuously asked if he was going to review it.

 

[OH-MyCar]

He was asked. Would you prefer that he simply responded with a stare instead of explaining GB's position? Potentially opening it up to misinterpretation by crazy people on the internet?

I'm guessing the answer is "no, but posting a copypasta hot take took priority."

No I don't prefer that he stare, because that would've been insane; much like how insane it is that Rolfe's silence led to all of these weird accusations, which he met with a similar response which ultimately crucified him. The only difference with the two is that Rolfe took a lot of prodding and made a public, indirect statement and Gerstmann made a direct reply to someone (ostensibly also after a lot of prodding).

 

[Jack Videogames]

I agree that they should be able to cover only what they feel important, but still considering the studio owner's recent online activity and the fact that KCD is one of the few big-ish february launches. this feels agendaic as hell. I'm all for allowing boycotts, if they clash with the views of a private company - free press after all. But have the guts to be frank about it.

 

[Old Empire.]

I hope the game sold millions of copies by the end of the year. The game is trying to capture historical accuracy. Adding black people to the game is nonsense. Only doing it to please idiots online who are clueless about the past.

 

[Revolutionary]

I mean, Brad was one of those people gleefully proclaiming that he made the switch to resetera as if it was something applaudable, so you guys telling me that GB fell for their antics hook, line and sinker isn't particularly surprising to me.

 

[Dunki]

That's pretty sad.

Anyhow, being high in Steam ranks is perhaps the best coverage it could get.

Nah thats twtich and youtube. When people like Lirik with 30k plus viewer re playing and enjoying it I think this counts more than any "professional" reviews these days

Also really strange how they love elder scrolls and fallout series but giving this a pass even tough it is Obilivion just in good.

But yeah right now I do not not know what keeps me my premium. They canceled Yakuza for stupid sims shit. The dating sim corner has probably the worst ones in its genre and since the goty podcasts I unentional can not listening to anything with abby in it. I think I will rather give this money a nice streamer on twith like Cohcarnage^^

I even can not stand their negativity E3 coverage anymore.... I rather watch Twitch people getting excited about announcements^^

 

[TheSadRanger]

I hope the game sold millions of copies by the end of the year. The game is trying to capture historical accuracy. Adding black people to the game is nonsense. Only doing it to please idiots online who are clueless about the past.

Why did this game become such a huge target though for not having black characters when there's literally been hundreds of other games that have done the same and received zero flak for less of an excuse?

 

[JORMBO]

They are free to cover what they want. It seems strange to ignore this game though.

 

[Ridaxan]

I guess they're free to cover whichever games they want, but the rationale seems a bit odd considering that hype train in general.

People should review the "art", not the "artist".

 

[prag16]

Ok Jeff, sure.

If James Rolfe Jeff Gerstmann didn't want to drive attention to the fact that he wasn't interested in reviewing Ghostbusters Kingdom Come Deliverance, he would've kept his mouth shut and never mentioned it at all.

Not a valid comparison at all. Rolfe was very vocal in his love for Ghostbusters for years and years prior to that. He of course was getting asked ad nauseum about what he thought about the new one etc etc. He made video to make his stance clear. That's it. I hope you're not one of those "duh he obviously made that video because he's a disgusting sexist" people.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

They are free cover what they like. The game has been very successful, regardless, so I doubt the developers are overly bothered.

 

[OH-MyCar]

Rolfe was very vocal in his love for Ghostbusters for years and years prior to that. He of course was getting asked ad nauseum about what he thought about the new one etc etc. He made video to make his stance clear. That's it. I hope you're not one of those "duh he obviously made that video because he's a disgusting sexist" people.

I agree with that (well, the first part) so how is it not a valid comparison? Two guys get continuously poked to give their opinion on something and they make a statement that they won't. I'm on Rolfe's side here (despite not caring for his Youtube persona), and I suppose by proxy I'm also in support of Gerstmann having the right to not review any game he doesn't want to.

To me, what's delicious are the parallels here: The people who were outraged at Rolfe are generally in support of Gerstmann doing the same thing because of politics and the people outraged over the treatment of Rolfe risk being hypocrites if they start a big shit-storm over this one.

 

[ph33rknot]

I used to love giant bomb

 

[TheSadRanger]

Doesn't matter. KCD continues to sell well and Giant Bomb will become irrelevant the more they ignore gamers.

TBH how much pull does GB even have these days outside of their hardcore audience? They're all pretty damn old at this point and most of them look it, I mean yeah eight or nine years ago while they were still somewhat young and energetic they were drawing people. But they've been getting overshadowed for years by yt/twitch personalities.

I mean it seems like they're way past the point these days to draw in much of a new audience these days with youth. They're pretty much stuck with what they got.

Alexis made the right call when he sold Whiskey Media at it's peak.

 

[sublimit]

Oh wow what a catastrophe!! I hope Warhorse will be able to sleep at night... lol

 

[Evil Calvin]

Every developer has some sort of skeletons in their closets so that thought is BS. Plus, dozens of other programmers put years of work into this as well. Seems petty to brush it off. I guess because it's not Monster Hunter World or a fighting game they don't want to take time away from those.

 

[EBE]

What's with the dig at resetera?

 

[LukeSkywater]

Yeah because endlessly drolling on about fighting games on the Bombcast is so much more interesting. /jerkoff motion

 

[Croatoan]

Gerstmann is a tool. Can't stand that guy or his smugness.

What's with the dig at resetera?

I imagine because it is a regressive shit hole.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

What's with the dig at resetera?

Probably because it's quickly becoming an echochamber laughing stock to practically every other community outside of their clique. It took less than a month for it to recreate the same issues GAF had.

 

[Senua]

Yeah because endlessly drolling on about fighting games on the Bombcast is so much more interesting. /jerkoff motion

Bombcast has been zzzzzzz for years now.

 

[EBE]

But why continue to turn this is into an 'us versus them' thing? I see the OP is banned now but this anti-resetera (read liberals?) turn at every thread topic opportunity just seems in poor taste

Anyway, I suppose that gb can decide not to cover the game if they really aren't interested in it. Whether or not a game has turned out to be surprise hit is not grounds for a site or publication to cover it if the staff don't feel it's worth it. We implicitly understand that different tastes and interests dictate what one covers so why shouldn't that be the case.

Maybe it's a bit odd to not do so, sure. But it's fine, isn't it?

 

[Kotzen Ducha]

Jeff is one of the sloppiest journalists in gaming and this stance is totally transparent.
In general, video game "journalism" is an absolute joke with no code of ethics.

In what universe is the best-selling game of 2018 not interesting enough to cover?

 

[drotahorror]

Just because it's popular doesn't necessarily mean it's interesting to them though.

I would much rather only hear people talking about things they have a real passion for.

I tried the game myself and it definitely isn't for me.

Sure but have you seen some of the stuff they cover? Giant Bomb is just going to follow in the footsteps or agree with Vice Waypoint and co. Even Polygon is putting out articles about KCD. Granted they know it will bring hits and $ because the game is popular. Giant Bomb has truly been converted. It's sad they have to lie to have a reason to not cover KCD. Anyone with half a brain know's why they're not covering it. To say no one is interested is a straight up lie.

 

[pj]

lol what a bunch of babies in this thread.

They didn't cover it because it looks boring as fuck. Like Skyrim made entirely by and for people "on the spectrum". If they covered games based on popularity it would be nonstop Fortnite BR and PUBG. They don't want to play the boring game you like, get over it.

 

[Kotzen Ducha]

Bombcast has been zzzzzzz for years now.

bombcast is a bunch of guys trying to make their voice deeper than the next guy's

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Can someone please fix the spelling of 'pursue' in the thread title? It's winding me up. lol

 

[mckmas8808]

I fail to understand what's wrong with a private gaming site choosing not to cover a game.
Even being upfront about not being interested in the game and Favra's "trollish" nature not helping, seems commendable in terms of honesty.

What did this Favra person do that's caused an issue?

 

[Kotzen Ducha]

lol what a bunch of babies in this thread.

They didn't cover it because it looks boring as fuck. Like Skyrim made entirely by and for people "on the spectrum". If they covered games based on popularity it would be nonstop Fortnite BR and PUBG. They don't want to play the boring game you like, get over it.

Honestly, I can't get enough coverage of 'Dream Daddy' and 'Speed Dating for Ghosts'.
I loved the 30 minutes they spent seriously considering one of those for Game of the Year 2017.

 

[TheShadowLord]

What did this Favra person do that's caused an issue?

nothing people thought the game was racist because there were no minorities.

 

[nowhat]

On a personal level, it seems really interesting. Like really - the political views of a single dev, whether I agree with them or not, don't deter me from playing a game.

What deters me though is the performance, which at the moment on consoles (which concerns me - I'm a proud peasant, so sue me) absolutely sucks balls. In every way that is not pleasurable. I just watched the PC vs Pro video from DF, and oh my deity. It's not just the wildly inconsistent frame rate, but that pop-in (especially of assets, seriously it was embarrasing - at times higher quality textures pop into view, just to get the blurred version again, and then the "proper" textures, which are of quite low quality on consoles).

So technical issues, as of now, make this certainly a no-go currently. But if they improve on it, I may very well get this. I'm intrigued by the concept.

 

[pj]

Honestly, I can't get enough coverage of 'Dream Daddy' and 'Speed Dating for Ghosts'.
I loved the 30 minutes they spent seriously considering one of those for Game of the Year 2017.

It sounds like you don't like anything they do, so why do you care if they cover this particular game?

I'm not defending the quality of their content and I have no interest in a lot of the crap they choose to cover. "The Exquisite Corps: X-Com: Enemy Within - Part 20" zzzzzzzzzzzzz

I think they are pretty lazy and low energy/effort in general, especially the GB West people. They should be putting out 5x the content they do with the number of people employed there. However, even if they did have a lot more content I still wouldn't care if they ignored this ugly and deathly boring looking game.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

On a personal level, it seems really interesting. Like really - the political views of a single dev, whether I agree with them or not, don't deter me from playing a game.

What deters me though is the performance, which at the moment on consoles (which concerns me - I'm a proud peasant, so sue me) absolutely sucks balls. In every way that is not pleasurable. I just watched the PC vs Pro video from DF, and oh my deity. It's not just the wildly inconsistent frame rate, but that pop-in (especially of assets, seriously it was embarrasing - at times higher quality textures pop into view, just to get the blurred version again, and then the "proper" textures, which are of quite low quality on consoles).

So technical issues, as of now, make this certainly a no-go currently. But if they improve on it, I may very well get this. I'm intrigued by the concept.

I just started playing on a Pro and aside from some slight pop in it runs way fucking better than I expected.

 

[mckmas8808]

On a personal level, it seems really interesting. Like really - the political views of a single dev, whether I agree with them or not, don't deter me from playing a game.

What deters me though is the performance, which at the moment on consoles (which concerns me - I'm a proud peasant, so sue me) absolutely sucks balls. In every way that is not pleasurable. I just watched the PC vs Pro video from DF, and oh my deity. It's not just the wildly inconsistent frame rate, but that pop-in (especially of assets, seriously it was embarrasing - at times higher quality textures pop into view, just to get the blurred version again, and then the "proper" textures, which are of quite low quality on consoles).

So technical issues, as of now, make this certainly a no-go currently. But if they improve on it, I may very well get this. I'm intrigued by the concept.

But we should be fair and say that if someone else doesn't want to play a guy due to someone's terrible politics then that's fine too. Is the worse thing he did really that the game doesn't have people of color in it? Or is it worse than that?

 

[pj]

But we should be fair and say that if someone else doesn't want to play a guy due to someone's terrible politics then that's fine too. Is the worse thing he did really that the game doesn't have people of color in it? Or is it worse than that?

he's a gamergater, which is the reason some people are pretending it's good, and the reason other people are pretending to believe you're a nazi if you buy it

 

[Dunki]

But we should be fair and say that if someone else doesn't want to play a guy due to someone's terrible politics then that's fine too. Is the worse thing he did really that the game doesn't have people of color in it? Or is it worse than that?

privately yes. If you cover games as journalist or like GB does then you should inform your viewers. Thats the big difference for me at least.

Again the excuse that it does not look interesting is really strange coming from the people who really love the elderscrolls and fallout series.

 

[Kadayi]

Honestly, I could easily see this being right up Vinnie or Brads street. The fact that they've passed on it smacks of pandering to the SF game Journo scene. Disappointed.

he's a gamergater, which is the reason some people are pretending it's good, and the reason other people are pretending to believe you're a nazi if you buy it