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[Quasicat]

“Multiple former Nicalis employees said Rodriguez pressured them to drink heavily...”

How is this possible? I would not even consider myself a social drinker, but when I go to a staff party and choose not to drink, that’s a choice I make. If I worked for someplace that pressured me to drink heavily, I could still choose not to do it. If I do start drinking heavily because of being pressured to do so, that’s on me for giving into whoever’s pushing me in the first place.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong; are they saying the pressures of work are leading to them to drinking heavily?

 

[petran79]

Can anyone tell me anything that was truly controversial in the gaming industry that warranted ANY kind of investigative journalism in the past 15 years? (That doesn’t involve Zoe Quinn)

Swatting is the only thing I could think of and that has nothing to do with game developers. Outside of that, I’d have to go all the way back to San Andreas’ hot coffee incident.

Honestly, only two events in the history of gaming I can see warranting true investigative journalism: the crash of 1983 and all the litigation and congressional hearings surrounding violent video games in the early 1990s.

Someone else here at GAF said it best when they said that the SJWs that graduated with a degree in journalism can’t all get paying jobs at whatever newspaper they want to write for so they look to an industry that is not well-established and is willing to hire people who have no real interest in gaming, but can write .

Unfortunately, they picked an industry where there is just not a lot of real controversy. In a gamer’s mind, controversy is something like what happened at No Man’s Sky launch or Konami releasing their next Castlevania as a fucking phone game. These are hobbyists’ concerns, not life-altering think pieces.

Sorry, my SJW comrades, but you picked a boring industry to write for.

Also Nintendo's price fixing in the 90s and the EU fine

EU fines Nintendo £94m for rip-off

Nintendo, the Japanese video games manufacturer, was yesterday found guilty of ripping off its customers in continental Europe for most of the 1990s and fined £94m by the European commission.

www.theguardian.com

 

[Hulk_Smash]

Also Nintendo's price fixing in the 90s and the EU fine

EU fines Nintendo £94m for rip-off

Nintendo, the Japanese video games manufacturer, was yesterday found guilty of ripping off its customers in continental Europe for most of the 1990s and fined £94m by the European commission.

www.theguardian.com

Yeah there’s probably a few things I don’t know about, but that’s still 20-25 years ago.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Why is the indie Dev community a cesspool of poisonous sludge?

 

[Sentenza]

“Multiple former Nicalis employees said Rodriguez pressured them to drink heavily...”

How is this possible? I would not even consider myself a social drinker, but when I go to a staff party and choose not to drink, that’s a choice I make. If I worked for someplace that pressured me to drink heavily, I could still choose not to do it. If I do start drinking heavily because of being pressured to do so, that’s on me for giving into whoever’s pushing me in the first place.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong; are they saying the pressures of work are leading to them to drinking heavily?

No, they are saying more or less that the guy, during their after-work social outgoings, sometime said to them things like "Come on, one more beer! Keep me company!" etc.
You know, *pressured* them. THE MONSTER.

Jesus Christ.

This is beginning to feel some sort of surreal "what if" scenario: what happens when you let the introverts and social misfits attempt to rewrite the rules of what's socially acceptable.
Every common social interaction becomes a form of oppression for them to bitch about.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

No, they are saying more or less that the guy, during their after-work social outgoings, sometime said to them things like "Come on, one more beer! Keep me company!" etc.
You know, *pressured* them. THE MONSTER.

Jesus Christ.

This is beginning to feel some sort of surreal "what if" scenario: what happens when you let the introverts social misfits attempt to rewrite the rules of what's socially acceptable.
Every common social interaction becomes a form of oppression for them to bitch about.

LOL

 

[Shmunter]

A small informal company with super casual culture VS a soul crushing giant corp where you’re just a faceless cog in the wheel expected to stay in a strict lane of bureaucracy.

People have no idea what they are fighting for.

 

[Ten_Fold]

If nobody called him out the first time he did the joke, they are just as guilty. At this point most people should assume gaming companies has a lot of sexism and racist people it’s been that way at a lot of companies.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Another spectacularly terrible Jason Schreier article.

I'll give him one good one (although way too long), the Anthem development issue post. Good read, but basically a Bioware bashing article.

Leave it to Schreier to dig up dirt. And some reason he wonders why some publishers avoid him and Kotaku like the plague.

"Hey Mike, your mom is a fat poor pig"

"Whatever Jason. Get lost"

"Hey Mike, just wondering.... can I come over one day after school and hang out? I heard you got some new games"

"No"

"Why not Mike? I'd like to try them. Be a pal. Oh, by the way I heard your dad is drunk too. Do you mind if I tell everyone at school?"

 

[Clear]

Whenever I see Schreier's face, I'm reminded of the sort of mid-level civil servants that did the paperwork for transporting people to the death-camps in Nazi Germany. Weaselly, insignificant, chinless-wonders that were "just doing their job".

Human slime.

 

[Foamy]

Kotaku are the ReEra of gaming journalism.

 

[Dane]

The only thing i know Nicalis of, it's delaying over and over their games.

 

[Dane]

Nicalis sucks for taking so long with 90s Super GP/90s Arcade Racer and apparently the original dev wanting nothing to do with them/it any more

His next game has been in playable early access for a while now so we can't pin it on him (and it's been so long since Nicalis took over anyway).

Everything seems to be smooth sailing before they get involved then things grind to a halt. It's been happening since Cave Story iirc.

Dunno about any of the drama but they certainly don't appear too competent and I wonder why indies still get involved with them.

What bias, he's been shilling Epic Games (Store, they're not some indie underdog but billionaire owned and worth billions) hard and speaking ill of Valve over things like company-wide (so not just CEO/VIP bonuses) annual paid vacation (woo, go Epic with the Fortnite crunch instead, sweet!).

Speaking of 90s Arcade Race, what the hell happened with this game? Pelikan13 disappeared and suddenly came with The Takeover on steam, and even with that, no answer was made for the game, as if it suddenly ceased to exist.

 

[Insane Metal]

Remember when Kotaku was relevant?

Spoiler

Neither do I

 

[Shrap]

This article is so devoid of substance and full of hearsay it borders on defamation. Maybe Nicalis is as bad as this "piece" is saying but you need to gather far more evidence to backup such a bold headline.

A pathetic attempt at investigative journalism. The muckrakers are rolling in their graves.

 

[Komatsu]

Can anyone tell me anything that was truly controversial in the gaming industry that warranted ANY kind of investigative journalism in the past 15 years? (That doesn’t involve Zoe Quinn)

Swatting is the only thing I could think of and that has nothing to do with game developers. Outside of that, I’d have to go all the way back to San Andreas’ hot coffee incident.

Honestly, only two events in the history of gaming I can see warranting true investigative journalism: the crash of 1983 and all the litigation and congressional hearings surrounding violent video games in the early 1990s.

Someone else here at GAF said it best when they said that the SJWs that graduated with a degree in journalism can’t all get paying jobs at whatever newspaper they want to write for so they look to an industry that is not well-established and is willing to hire people who have no real interest in gaming, but can write .

Unfortunately, they picked an industry where there is just not a lot of real controversy. In a gamer’s mind, controversy is something like what happened at No Man’s Sky launch or Konami releasing their next Castlevania as a fucking phone game. These are hobbyists’ concerns, not life-altering think pieces.

Sorry, my SJW comrades, but you picked a boring industry to write for.

There's plenty of interesting stuff happening behind the scenes in the gaming industry, unfortunately due to how those things go we only see meaningful reportage about it years later. Blake Harris' Console Wars, for example, is an amazing book on the BTS of the 16-bit era console wars but most of what's in there would probably never be reported by Kotaku or other similar websites. The Untold History of Japanese Developers, written by one of the Retro Gamer guys, also does a lot of the oral history that Polygon and others tried to emulate.

So it's not that the industry is devoid of controversy - there's plenty, from how much Michael Jackson was involved with Sonic 3 to how Kutaragi was set up to fail after making the Playstation into the monster brand it is today - but it's not the kind of controversy that plays well in social media.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

There's plenty of interesting stuff happening behind the scenes in the gaming industry, unfortunately due to how those things go we only see meaningful reportage about it years later. Blake Harris' Console Wars, for example, is an amazing book on the BTS of the 16-bit era console wars but most of what's in there would probably never be reported by Kotaku or other similar websites. The Untold History of Japanese Developers, written by one of the Retro Gamer guys, also does a lot of the oral history that Polygon and others tried to emulate.

So it's not that the industry is devoid of controversy - there's plenty, from how much Michael Jackson was involved with Sonic 3 to how Kutaragi was set up to fail after making the Playstation into the monster brand it is today - but it's not the kind of controversy that plays well in social media.

They wouldn’t call that controversy. They wouldn’t understand it or care about it.

 

[NiiloPielinen]

Well... some of it's true. Complaining about ghosting is kinda weird - people are busy in the games biz, and not hearing back isn't super uncommon.

The article had examples of situations where an actual contract was made but the company stopped responding to emails / phonecalls

 

[Katsura]

The article had examples of situations where an actual contract was made but the company stopped responding to emails / phonecalls

But did it show proof of this happening? Kotaku employs people who are demonstrably liars and unethical ideologues so i don't believe a word they write unless they can show actual evidence

 

[NiiloPielinen]

But did it show proof of this happening? Kotaku employs people who are demonstrably liars and unethical ideologues so i don't believe a word they write unless they can show actual evidence

They named Enter the Gungeon dev and publisher and interviewed them in the article

Crooks, Rodriguez, and Devolver marketing boss Nigel Lowrie struck a deal: Nicalis would handle the PlayStation 4 port for Enter the Gungeon when it came out the following year. Crooks and his team had Nicalis sign a non-disclosure agreement and gave them access to their source code for Enter the Gungeon, then went back to work on the game. But soon after that, Crooks and Lowrie both told Kotaku, Rodriguez stopped responding to their calls and emails. Days, weeks, and months went by without a word.

 

[Katsura]

They named Enter the Gungeon dev and publisher and interviewed them in the article

That's not evidence though. That's something they claim someone have said. Even if the Gungeon devs said that it's still not proof of anything. In the world of football, there is a site called football leaks. When they leak something it contains signed contracts, emails etc. That's evidence. Is Kotaku even claiming they have seen the contract?

 

[NiiloPielinen]

That's not evidence though. That's something they claim someone have said. Even if the Gungeon devs said that it's still not proof of anything. In the world of football, there is a site called football leaks. When they leak something it contains signed contracts, emails etc. That's evidence. Is Kotaku even claiming they have seen the contract?

So you're saying that either Enter the Gungeon dev and Devolver marketing boss decided to lie to Kotaku about Nicalis or that Kotaku has faked their interview with them for the article unless you see the actual contract about it?

 

[Katsura]

So you're saying that either Enter the Gungeon dev and Devolver marketing boss decided to lie to Kotaku about Nicalis or that Kotaku has faked their interview with them for the article unless you see the actual contract about it?

Yup and so should everyone else. This is a site that is known for straight up lying whenever they feel like it. There is no reason to trust them. At all

 

[ClanOfNone]

Did they have a contract or did they not? If Nicalis is in violation of contract law, I'd assume the other party would seek legal redress.

"Regarding the companies under mutual NDA with Nicalis, Devolver (publisher of Enter the Gungeon) and The Game Bakers (developer of Furi), we can only comment that we do not have any signed publishing agreements with them and never have."


An NDA is not a contract. If these devs feel like a verbal contract was in place, then take em to court and let a judge figure it out.

 

[trikster40]

If nobody called him out the first time he did the joke, they are just as guilty. At this point most people should assume gaming companies has a lot of sexism and racist people it’s been that way at a lot of companies.

Yeah, when I see chat logs but the person who captured them’s comments are conveniently edited out, I’m 99.9% sure their comments were just as bad but they can’t be seen in a bad light when they’re accusing people of something.

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

Last time I checked game journalism is also about the game industry.

Then you need to check again.

Game journalism is about the game industry..

Except when the entire game journalism movement decides to bury the harassment campaign started by a so-called anti-bullying 'developer' drives a (proven, successful) developer to take their own life.

Except when that same anti-bullying 'developer' has been promoted incestuously by the very same journalists to acquire $85K of crowd-funding money for a Kickstarter project which has never materialised and is seemingly abandoned. But no, let's not do any games journalism on that. That's not what games journalism is about.

Then it's suddenly nothing worth reporting on. And smear and silence anyone who does.

And those are two VERY recent examples. Countless more exist.



Game journalism likes to screech and position itself as a moral gatekeeper for an industry and a culture.
Game journalism likes to silence and smear its critics - including the industry and culture it assumes authority over.
Game journalism refuses to ever hold itself accountable, favouring deflection and activism.
Game journalism is the lowest-bar of entry to a profession and entitles itself to absolute privilege and power over all it surveys. A toxic cabal of dishonest, integrity-free grifters, low-talent hacks, muck-rakers and crybabies and crybullies.

Game journalism, for the most part, can go fuck itself until it can do better. A lot better.

P.S.: Buy my book!

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Yup and so should everyone else. This is a site that is known for straight up lying whenever they feel like it. There is no reason to trust them. At all

I don't really think it's fair to completely discount any claims they make. I find it totally believable that Nicalis would stop responding to a dev even after a contract is signed. I've heard of them being shitty for devs to work with as far back as 5-6 years ago -- this isn't new. But as I said earlier, in the gaming space - especially with indies - this isn't unheard of. That doesn't justify it, but it seems a little silly to single Nicalis out for it like this. It's unprofessional at worst.

 

[Katsura]

I don't really think it's fair to completely discount any claims they make. I find it totally believable that Nicalis would stop responding to a dev even after a contract is signed. I've heard of them being shitty for devs to work with as far back as 5-6 years ago -- this isn't new. But as I said earlier, in the gaming space - especially with indies - this isn't unheard of. That doesn't justify it, but it seems a little silly to single Nicalis out for it like this. It's unprofessional at worst.

Why is it not fair? There is no evidence. Without evidence we have to take their word for it and they have proved, time and time again, that their word is worth nothing. In fact, i'd say it's the other way around - It's not fair to judge Nicalis based on something written by Kotaku with zero evidence

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Whilst it's probably not appropriate for work channels nothing about those (probably ancient) Skype messages tell me he's actually racist, homophobic or anti-semitic. Without some wider context of hatred they come off as the sort of edgy jokey remarks one might make amongst close friends. Highly inappropriate for work and insensitive? Yes, absolutely. Definitive evidence of him actually being a racist? No.

 

[lock2k]

"Ableist"

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Tyrone Rodriguez sounds like a made-up name.

Never thought I'd see that combination in my lifetime, yet here we are. Keep thinking of the I'm Tyrone Youtube dude but he's wearing a sombrero instead of a du-rag.

...but yeah, there's a time and place for certain kinds of jokes. This dude didn't get the memo.

 

[Big-ass Ramp]

You know what I miss? Joystiq. Remember Joystiq? Writers excited about video games, no strange political agenda being funneled through video game fandom, easy to read blog format.

Anyway, where's this guy live? Let's burn down his house or whatever.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Never thought I'd see that combination in my lifetime, yet here we are. Keep thinking of the I'm Tyrone Youtube dude but he's wearing a sombrero instead of a du-rag.

...but yeah, there's a time and place for certain kinds of jokes. This dude didn't get the memo.

Dude stop being a racist and get an avatar weirdo.

 

[ClanOfNone]

I know fuck all about game development or programming, so maybe somebody that knows can answer this question.
Doesn't source code contain proprietary data? Is it normal to fork over your source code without any kind of contract with agreeable terms for both parties?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

So the biggest gaming scandal the past month is Alec H committing suicide and Zoe Quinn behind the scenes causing trouble, and so-called video game journalist Jason Schreier (who puts a banner half the screen length on his Twitter to promote his 3 year old video game book) spends time writing an article about corporate culture at an indie dev most people have never heard of (who's biggest games lately are a racing game and Streets of Rage knock off on hiatus) as opposed to digging into the trenches for Alec and Zoe info.

Top notch journalism.

 

[SegaShack]

Why does every article now seem like a hit piece on someone.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Why does every article now seem like a hit piece on someone.

Easy to do, easy to hide, and the chances of someone doing anything about it is low. A lot of the people involved in these situations that get publicized in Twitter battles seem fucked up already so nobody gives a shit about ethics, privacy or going through the legal process. Most of these people are losers and think Judge Judy screaming at people is the best representation of legal justice. When you got a bunch of people doing stupid shit on their own (as opposed to doing something dumb on company time), you can get away with more because you have nothing to offer anyway.

It's like when I was a landlord. Person screwed me over a month's rent since I was a nice guy letting it delay. What am I going to do? Go through the hassle of taking them to landlord/tenant court to get a couple grand back? Forget it. You run the risk of asshole deadbeats, and the person was probably half broke already. Nothing to squeeze from that turd. Unknowing to her, I still made over $100,000 flipping it later, so fuck that deadbeat.

On the other hand, I work in an office with 150+ people. The total company has maybe...... 6,000 employees? I'd like to see someone publicly CC everyone on email someone sexually assaulted them.

Whether you are right or wrong, you will get sued no problem by the person you accuse. Depending on the company, HR will probably get rid of you too for creating a big debacle across the company,

 

[Scopa]

Why does every article now seem like a hit piece on someone.

Because social rejects like Jason Schrieier are playing out a fantasy of being someone important.

No one paid him any attention in high school, but now he has his blog, his keyboard and the wonderful land of the internet in which to larp.

 

[Petrae]

Why does every article now seem like a hit piece on someone.

Controversy brings the traffic, and hit pieces either create or amplify controversy. Writing about actual video games apparently no longer pays the bills for what’s left of the gaming press, since video content creators have stolen the baton from “games journalism” and aren’t ever giving it back. Therefore, in order to keep the lights on, these remaining sites go to the well and dig up controversy.

 

[Katsura]

I know fuck all about game development or programming, so maybe somebody that knows can answer this question.
Doesn't source code contain proprietary data? Is it normal to fork over your source code without any kind of contract with agreeable terms for both parties?

In the vast majority of cases all the code except perhaps 3rd party libraries would be proprietary. Obviously open source games do exist but i can't recall an open source game that had a publisher. That's not to say they don't exist but i imagine it's pretty rare. You're right to question why anyone would hand over source code without any kind of contract. It seems unlikely