Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
lol, these never get old
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Polygon, Eurogamer, Engadget et al are Wrong About Shenmue III and PayPal
- Thread starter Spaghetti
- Start date
YoYo Switch
Banned
it's because japanese developers are an easy target, because the narrative in games press have been so skewed against them
they're also an easy target, because journalists don't deal with them directly at press events, just the western rep. this goes for twitter, email, phone etc.
if someone in the press called kein levine a pretentious asshole who hates women, they'd actually have to face ken levine at one point in the year and defend what they said
remember when kamiya called kotaku out for saying disparaging ad hominem shit about him?
heck, i saw in a giant bomb quick look the staff were infantilizing Tomonobu Itagaki, implying that he's not very talented or has a limited understanding of thing because of a lack of intelligence
i'd never hear that shit outta them about anyone who wasn't down the street in their san francisco bubble
which brings us to shenmue. a lot of journalists just simply do not take japanese devs seriously. why?
"when HD came out, they all just forgot how to make video games! yep these developers who have been making games for 20 something years just up and got dumb all a sudden. no they were always dumb,"
also want to quote this because it's kind of funny up against what i just said above.
IrishNinja
Member
you're not wrong, and god knows id normally say just don't pay attention, but the whole narrative had some ugly times during the KS, even with records being broken.
on the other hand, anyone listening to Kuchera gets what they deserve, i figure
DannyDanger
Member
So glad this thread exists
I just hope Yu doesn't do anymore interviews. Not worth it at this point
As far as the misinformation goes... I'm mostly unaffected because i've been sticking to websites like kindafunny, dualshockers, and gametrailers
I just hope Yu doesn't do anymore interviews. Not worth it at this point
As far as the misinformation goes... I'm mostly unaffected because i've been sticking to websites like kindafunny, dualshockers, and gametrailers
potatohead
Member
It's even easier because the Japanese developers are less likely to read this nonsense and even respond.
These Western outlets can talk to their Western audience without any scrutiny.
I really do agree with this. Isnt there some way of properly calling them out on this? It's outrageous that they're persistently doing this and facing no consequences whatsoever.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in anyone getting fired or harassed on social media, it'd just be nice if we could get them to post correction articles or something, and to, you know, stop doing this.
I think you're overreacting. The media picks on many western games, mostly ones with bad PR. This one just happens to be a Japanese game with very bad PR.
The same Kotaku guy who attacked Dragon's Crown is constantly speaking in favor of Japanese games.
As for Giant Bomb, they were worse to David Jaffe about Drawn to Death.
I know, a simple edit would be fine. I was shocked to see the polygon article is from yesterday. I would assume someone had to have told the writer there info is wrong in that time right?
Movalpolos
Banned
Taking the FOX news approach it seems.
Laevateinn
Member
Did Suzuki san really sell his cars and motorcycles? What a shame.
bishopcruz
Member
I think what gets me is just how little scrutiny, other major kickstarters (those run by, or with links to major insiders) have gotten. I mean I'm a Schafer fan and all, but even I felt some of the stuff in the Psychonauts 2 Fig needed at least a little more attention, a grand total of 1 article I could find on it even discussed the realities of investing and how it would work compared to other stuff, and that was Game Informer. Polygon, Eurogamer. Engadget? Nothing but puff pieces?
Hell, has anyone even asked Schafer why $3.3 million was the goal? How he expects to be profitable, when in his own words, they never have been? How much is external funding, will the game happen either way? All of these questions were CONSTANTLY thrown at the Shenmue 3 KS.
Shenmue 3's KS was run by incompetents, given, but Ys.net is painted as greedy, or unable to deliver, or whatever.
The thing is, while yes, it is easy to attack popular stuff to get clicks, it is often even easier to attack niche, unpopular stuff to do the same. Shenmue is not a popular series. YS is a legend, but not one that has done much recently, and not one that a lot of the games media cares about. So he's a safe target, and Shenmue fanboys are a niche of a niche, so they are easy to attack as well.
I don't expect different, honestly.
Hell, has anyone even asked Schafer why $3.3 million was the goal? How he expects to be profitable, when in his own words, they never have been? How much is external funding, will the game happen either way? All of these questions were CONSTANTLY thrown at the Shenmue 3 KS.
Shenmue 3's KS was run by incompetents, given, but Ys.net is painted as greedy, or unable to deliver, or whatever.
The thing is, while yes, it is easy to attack popular stuff to get clicks, it is often even easier to attack niche, unpopular stuff to do the same. Shenmue is not a popular series. YS is a legend, but not one that has done much recently, and not one that a lot of the games media cares about. So he's a safe target, and Shenmue fanboys are a niche of a niche, so they are easy to attack as well.
I don't expect different, honestly.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
kamineko
Does his best thinking in the flying car
I've stopped reading any press about Shenmue. I don't usually like to complain about/speculate about this or that outlet having an.... animus, but it seems like there's been at least a couple instances of shit not even being news (or true, for that matter).
I don't get it. Not even Obsidian (who I love but lets face it, there's a rich history of problematic project management history there) was subjected to this kind of snipe-y, nickel and dime bullshit for their KS
I don't get it. Not even Obsidian (who I love but lets face it, there's a rich history of problematic project management history there) was subjected to this kind of snipe-y, nickel and dime bullshit for their KS
Good post, OP. You spoken the truth. It's just so sad that your words will not spread and teach the unacknowledged for these ill medias will reach those readers that will end up responding negatively to Shenmue III. They are attempting to make the product dead on arrival even though they have seen NOTHING. This is just another nail to my decision to why I stopped reading most of these medias, they are disgusting and vile.
Not many other games have had this level of misinformation and negative press thrown its way though. From the whole Sony is funding the game BS to this.
"Shenmue 3 PayPal backers denied Kickstarter-exclusive reward options "as originally promised""
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/posts/1457889
what's the problem here?
Laevateinn
Member
Reread that statement. They originally promised that they would not open up the rewards not that they promised to open up the rewards to paypal users. It's awkwardly written but what else could you expect from something that was either written by a non-native English speaker or an obnoxious stoner.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm assuming the original promise was that the items would remain exclusive, which makes more sense with the kickstarter quote from the OP. Simply having the title like that would suggest the original promise was that the rewards would be available, so is misleading.
Literally every single one of those questions are answered in the video on the Fig page.
breakYODAy
Member
I think Shenmue 3 should go radio silent until it's ready for reveal at trade shows, when Sony and Shibuya Productions can handle the PR moves. Otherwise, sites like Polygon will keep checking each Kickstarter update for something they can spin into a negative article for more manufactured controversy.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Yep, the whole thing has been incredibly half arsed and embarrassing. The media really has it out for this game, for reasons I can't comprehend. I think Yu Suzuki is owed a suite of apologies for their attempts at sabotaging his attempts to resurrect an obviously much-loved franchise.
He'll get none of that... Yu and team can find comfort in the many thousands of supporters that are cheering/funding a dream project of his and its fans and filter out the noise and respond accordingly.
I don't think people should be too puzzled as to why outlets behave the way they do...there are several reasons one can ponder as to why. Whether one reason applies, several apply or some selectively apply on a individual basis per outlet it's really of no consequence. It's not so much a mystery of "the why" as much as not being able to tag them accordingly per outlet - which drives controversy when someone tries. It's an accusation after all, requiring proof. Thus, filter out the noise and respond accordingly.
bishopcruz
Member
How he expects to be profitable is sure as hell not answered. Especially considering that Psychonauts has been in humble bundles and often for sale for about $1 and goes for about $10 normally. It's an argument I would have expected to be brought up.
As for the others, he says that no single stream of revenue will allow the game to happen, but them together would, but he's not particularly specific, and no, asking for $3.3 million because that is what he got last time doesn't scream this is the minimum we need from fans to make the game. In fact its kinda the opposite, it looks a lot more like we're asking for this because we think we can get it.
The Shenmue stuff was answered within DAYS, and people still ran with the narrative that Sony was funding the majority of the game, and the kickstarter funding was just to test the waters. They called him at turns unrealistic for saying how much he thought the game would cost, or greedy for asking for so much.
Hell, Shenmue was expensive to make no doubt, but Suzuki had an unlimited budget to work with, other than that he was always profitable and he didn't go over budget much if at all. Shafer went over budget on a kickstarter that gave him roughly 8x the budget he asked for. There were reasons, clearly, but you'd figure questions on whether or not DF can deliver a game on a budget would be in a bunch of articles. They aren't.
I'm hoping for the success of the Psychonauts project, the original is one of my favorite games of all time. But there is a clear double standard when it comes to the reporting of Shenmue vs Psychonauts. And it's BS.
YoYo Switch
Banned
yes, there are many western figures that get ridicule. Peter Moleyneux, David Cage
i was actually thinking about their weird dog piling of david jaffe when i heard about it on that podcast. i'm glad someone else noticed. it's like jaffe slept with all their girlfriends or something.
if i may move my goalposts. if i may clarify: western figures, developers etc, are always even at least a chance. their treatment of the japanese side of things are always sweeping generalizations, cynicism etc. shit is never given a second glance, shit is always snubbed.
i hate that i'm making this east vs. west
but, in my extensive experience in taking in western games journalism: western devs and figures are always given a chance to fuck up. japanese devs are almost always assumed to be fuck ups.
LelouchViBritannia
Member
Good lord the gaming media has gone straight to hell.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
Pffffffft ahahahaha.
That fucking polygon pie chart article is the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah, when I made the thread about that I misread it as well. I can't really blame writers for initially misreporting it cause of the weird wording, but they should have corrected their articles by now.
Yeah but look at their writeup of the whole Peter Molyneux debacle. The guy seriously fucked up with that stupid cube game thing, and rightfully got lambasted for it. The article I read was thousands and thousands of words long and WELL RESEARCHED. With Yu, they are anything but well researched, and instead twist words and are intellectually dishonest.
I think this chain of comments refers to the Eurogamer article which did report correctly (and buried the parts that would throw water on this fire at the bottom of the article), but used an alarmist title which most of their comments section seem to have only read.
There are a lot of problems with gaming journalism in general, but I'm not sure that poor reporting on Shenmue III is the hill to die on regarding this issue considering how poorly run the customer facing communication has been for this campaign from the start. Could outlets do a much better job researching facts before reporting? Absolutely. Is the communication from the Shenmue III camp to the media and fans alike confusing and poorly planned? Without a doubt. So while supporters of the project are understandably frustrated when the media misrepresents stuff and creates negativity for the campaign, maybe they should also be far more critical of the poor PR handling from the developers themselves. It's certainly not doing anyone any favors.
Oh believe me, I made it clear in the post that there being a lot of bad reporting around Shenmue III was just the catalyst for noticing how fucking lazy games journalism can get.
While the poll result was confusing (and again, a majority of the Shenmue community would very much agree), the problem is now that a story has been manufactured or inferred that PayPal backers will not get the items they paid for, which is false, and as I showed could easily have been dismissed with about a minute of research from games journos.
Even worse in the case of Eurogamer where they did know the truth of the matter, buried it in the article, and opted for an alarmist title. How could anybody trust Eurogamer again with such obvious manipulation of its audience? This isn't the first time they've done something like this either - see my example from their great Yu Suzuki interview.
RichiRamjag
Member
I expect this kind of shit from polygon, but not Eurogamer. I read that article and I was able to locate the truth shortly after. Sadly, most folks won't do that. The reporting on shenmue has been a shitshow from day 1. I don't understand it at all.
Well, that was interesting.
PdotMichael
Banned
The random hate Shenmue 3 gets is some crazy shit.
Nah, people are upset because the Shenmue PR people ran a poll asking "should we let Paypal funders get kickstarter rewards?", most people said yes or didn't care, and then they basically said "well it wasn't unanimous so let's be jerks to the Paypal funders."
DICKS AHOY
Banned
I imagine it's just some slightly confusing messaging from Awesome Japan's side of things snowballing out of control when western game news sites want to report on things ASAP and don't bother looking too deeply. Echoing other people's sentiments that it's weird Eurogamer would fuck this up too though, I generally expect a bit more out of them.
Regardless, 2015 was the year of dreams and Shenmue III played a big part in that. Haven't had any reason to doubt the game or its KS so far and I'm hoping this dumb PayPal drama doesn't derail things.
Regardless, 2015 was the year of dreams and Shenmue III played a big part in that. Haven't had any reason to doubt the game or its KS so far and I'm hoping this dumb PayPal drama doesn't derail things.
I think their rationale makes sense, it was just very poorly communicated. The poll should have been very clear that they were asking "Would you as a backer be upset if Kickstarter exclusive rewards were extended to Paypal contributors as well?" and it should just be two options - Yes or No. That way as long as there is a decent level of response for Yes, even if it is not the majority, they can explain the situation better.
it's really dumb to throw in an neutral answer to that poll and then combine that with the negative answers. idk who thought of that and it should rightfully be lambasted.
Brad Grenz
Member
It's hard to be effective with you messaging when the media apparatus you are counting on to amplify your voice is inexplicitly peopled with individuals who've decided to deliberately misrepresent your words.
Again, as a reminder - this thread is not about the poll or the results of the poll (you can jump into the Shenmue III KS thread or the community thread if you wanna talk turkey on that), but instead the misrepresentation of the story that came after "OMG THEY'RE TAKING OUR REWARDS AWAY", and how certain games media outlets inferred or outright stated this despite it taking maybe a minute tops to investigate and determine it not to be true.
And yet many many other studios/publishers manage to communicate far more effectively.
Edit: And it is not the job of games media to "amplify your voice". That is the job of marketing/PR.
The point is, really, is that (again, completely ignoring the poll results) certain aspects of the media ran away with a story that takes less than a minute to discover isn't true. That's not okay at all.
Weirdly enough the hack-job version of the story broke on a number of small po-dunk sites first, and I honestly believed it wouldn't rise up to weightier sites in that way, but it did. So what's the difference between these lazy hole-in-the-wall games sites and the big players like Polygon, Eurogamer, and Engadget if they all botch the story in pretty much exactly the same way?
Brad Grenz
Member
It's not their job to spread misinformation, and yet they seem to do so with glee in this case.