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Polysoft: Polygon exposed

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maverick40

Junior Member
So Cliff Bleszinski just posted this link from his twitter profile. Intersting read I think.

The article is from a website called FuriousFanboys.com (I am not kidding)

This article was written by Jeremy Conrad, former IGN editor.

polysoft.png


So yesterday’s little Twitter kerfluffle between Polygon’s Editor and Chief and myself pretty much exploded. A lot of people have complained about me calling the guy a liar, however someone edited together an awesome Youtube video containing the actual comments by Polygon spliced with ownage in the form of a video showing Xbox One and PS4 voice commands as well as my video of the remote with the PS4. When viewed in context you can see that they were willfully lying about one console to help the other. The video will be embedded at the end of this article.
And there’s a reason why Polygon does that.
Lets start back at the beginning of the site. When the site launched, an innane self-fellating documentary about Polygon was created to introduce the site to the Internet. It was naturally done with their soft-light filming, which is probably due to whoever makes their stuff watching a few too many X-Art videos. But the big thing about this documentary is that it was funded by Microsoft to the tune of $750,000.
Ask any Polygon staffer about this on Twitter and they’ll snark back to you saying you don’t know what you’re talking about and then block you, but Arthur Gies admitted to it when asked and that Tweet is preserved forever:

polylol-ms.png


Why would a seemingly neutral site do this? Well it’s a two pronged reason. The first reason is because of Vox Media, the company that owns Polygon, is run by a self-admitted Xbox fanboy. Here is just a selection of his Tweets from over the last year:

Vox-CEO-Xbone-01.png


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Vox-CEO-Xbone-03.png


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Remember, this is the guy who owns Polygon.
The second reason is because Polygon is “respected” enough that they can affect Metacritic scores with their reviews. Jason Schreier at Kotaku did an amazing job pointing out just how important Metacritic is to the gaming industry and how the whole thing pretty much revolves around the review aggregate site. By “pooh poohing” a non-MS platform and praising the Xbox, Polygon can positively affect Microsoft’s Metacritic scores and make Vox’s CEO happy, after all he’s the one signing their paychecks.
Polygon gave the PS4 a 7.5, and spent 12 hours trying to convince people it wasn’t worth buying because of no good games. People went out and bought 1 million systems anyways.
The same site gave the Xbox One an 8, and then spent 12 hours demonstrating a system that didn’t resemble their gushing review in any way. Towards the end of their stream, they even ditched Kinect controls for the controller because it was seriously making Kinect look bad.
As for the video I mentioned earlier, here it is. Again, when viewing their comments in context, it makes it very clear they were intentionally mis-leading (i.e. lying to) their viewers about the PS4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-IXV7SG26E


nQ7yf4n.gif
 

BitStyle

Unconfirmed Member
I think Cliff might be trolling us into a large GAF reaction.
I mean, I do think there is a Microsoft bias present in some of the Polygon staff, but mainly from usual suspects like Geis.
 
Video game sites are run by NERDS. What do you expect? I stopped visiting sites like that years ago. Forums give more than enough news, especially since I don't really follow gaming all that much, just play games
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
TIL: Cliffy's brother is the founder of Vox Media

Had no idea.

Also, to be on topic. Polygon is where I go for features mainly. Their feature section is pretty awesome. For reviews I've never really been on board. I do think people freak out over scores too much, though, and not enough people actually read the review to see if it contains solid reasoning (i.e. Last of Us review).
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
This is a serious stretch though. Nothing concrete. I'm no fan of Polygon but it's all really tenuous.

EDIT: Oh, Manabyte. I think I remember his last thread on gaf. I think.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
I thought this was known when the $750,000 documentary happened.

You can't trust anything Polygon says won't have a MS tint to it. Just like Slate or whatever that one site MS has as well.
 

FStop7

Banned
No. He [CliffyB's brother] does not [own Polygon].

He is a founder of SB Nation and Vox Media though!

Oh REALLY? I had no idea about this and suddenly so much of the past 6 months' worth of Twitter defensing of every Microsoft misstep makes so much more sense. CliffyB's bizarre rants included.
 

jaypah

Member
A month ago I would have been in "dis gun b gud" mode. Now? I'm just starting to get numb to all of this. Another console launch has broken me. Womp womp.
 

Nerokis

Member
Conrad lost a lot of credibility in my eyes when he rushed to write an article calling Polygon liars. The line of thinking that goes, "Something incorrect was said. Someone lied. Hey, so why did you lie, you liar?" is typically reserved for political fanatics, and I found it surprising to see Conrad display it.
 
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