Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[CrustyBot]

Video gaem journalism is srs business.

 

[DalekFlay]

Brooooooooofist.

Also that Eurogamer article was excellent, and the tears from fellow journalist on Twitter so telling.

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[Tommers]

Brooooooooofist.

Also that Eurogamer article was excellent, and the tears from fellow journalist on Twitter so telling.

One of them got legal. Column got amended. Columnist quit.

Robert Florence comes out of it well. Nobody else does.

 

[circ]

Video gaem journalism is srs business.

Not despairing enough. Needs moar something.

 

[Angthoron]

Funny how people suddenly notice there's corruption now, as if before it wasn't really anything, but hey, apparently GMA incest has been going on for ages, what's up man, why didn't you say anything like that before? Brave in a crowd, yeehaw.

Also, I guess the mountain of swag should've been larger, because really, with just that pathetic little pile of Doritos, it looks like the sponsors have pulled their support from whatever the fuck that guy whoever the fuck he is (I honestly don't know, he's a legend, what?) represents. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Now, if the room was piled with Pringles, Doritos, Mars bars, energy drinks, Mountain Dew, so much so that the background became a blur of subliminal messages, all whispering "Eat me" except maybe Domestos, nobody would probably even notice! It'd be part of the SWAG LOLS culture of today and be thought to be very meta.

 

[Angthoron]

Video gaem journalism is srs business.

Not despairing enough. Needs moar something.

Maybe if his torso was a Doritos bag.

 

[Black]

Welp

 

[DalekFlay]

Reading about this woman he mentioned threatening to sue, the article from Eurogamer being amended... Jesus Christ, this industry is such a shameful representation of humanity. Like every college frat in the country got together to form a culture.

 

[Dexter]

Apparently the EuroGamer guy "got" quit over his article or at least he was asked to change it, he didn't want to and now he doesn't work for EuroGamer anymore:

Here's the Original (pasted below): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-24-lost-humanity-18-a-table-of-doritos

There is an image doing the rounds on the internet this week. It is an image of Geoff Keighley, a Canadian games journalist, sitting dead-eyed beside a garish Halo 4 poster and a table of Mountain Dew and Doritos. It is a tragic, vulgar image. But I think that it is the most important image in games journalism today. I think we should all find it and study it. It is important.

This might be an image of Geoff Keighley if we're allowed to do that. If not, it'll be Dark Souls again.

Geoff Keighley is often described as an industry leader. A games expert. He is one of the most prominent games journalists in the world. And there he sits, right there, beside a table of snacks. He will be sitting there forever, in our minds. That's what he is now. And in a sense, it is what he always was. As Executive Producer of the mindless, horrifying spectacle that is the Spike TV Video Game Awards he oversees the delivery of a televisual table full of junk, an entire festival of cultural Doritos.
How many games journalists are sitting beside that table?

Recently, the Games Media Awards rolled around again, and games journos turned up to a thing to party with their friends in games PR. Games PR people and games journos voted for their favourite friends, and friends gave awards to friends, and everyone had a good night out. Eurogamer won an award. Kieron Gillen was named an industry legend (and if anyone is a legend in games writing, he is) but he deserves a better platform for recognition than those GMAs. The GMAs shouldn't exist. By rights, that room should be full of people who feel uncomfortable in each other's company. PR people should be looking at games journos and thinking, "That person makes my job very challenging." Why are they all best buddies? What the hell is going on?

Whenever you criticise the GMAs, as I've done in the past, you face the accusation of being "bitter". I've removed myself from those accusations somewhat by consistently making it clear that I'm not a games journalist. I'm a writer who regularly writes about games, that's all. And I've been happy for people who have been nominated for GMAs in the past, because I've known how much they wanted to be accepted by that circle. There is nothing wrong with wanting to belong, or wanting to be recognised by your peers. But it's important to ask yourself who your peers are, and exactly what it is you feel a need to belong to.

If I was to accept any kind of bribe to promote a game, I'd take the bribe to promote the amazing Hotline Miami.

Just today, as I sat down to write this piece, I saw that there were games journalists winning PS3s on Twitter. There was a competition at those GMAs - tweet about our game and win a PS3. One of those stupid, crass things. And some games journos took part. All piling in, opening a sharing bag of Doritos, tweeting the hashtag as instructed. And today the winners were announced. Then a whole big argument happened, and other people who claim to be journalists claimed to see nothing wrong with what those so-called journalists had done. I think the winners are now giving away their PS3s, but it's too late. It's too late. Let me show you an example.

One games journalist, Lauren Wainwright, tweeted: "Urm... Trion were giving away PS3s to journalists at the GMAs. Not sure why that's a bad thing?"
Now, a few tweets earlier, she also tweeted this: "Lara header, two TR pix in the gallery and a very subtle TR background. #obsessed @tombraider pic.twitter.com/VOWDSavZ"
And instantly I am suspicious. I am suspicious of this journalist's apparent love for Tomb Raider. I am asking myself whether she's in the pocket of the Tomb Raider PR team. I'm sure she isn't, but the doubt is there. After all, she sees nothing wrong with journalists promoting a game to win a PS3, right?

Another journalist, one of the winners of the PS3 competition, tweeted this at disgusted RPS writer John Walker: "It was a hashtag, not an advert. Get off the pedestal." Now, this was Dave Cook, a guy I've met before. A good guy, as far as I could tell. But I don't believe for one second that Dave doesn't understand that in this time of social media madness a hashtag is just as powerful as an advert. Either he's on the defensive or he doesn't get what being a journalist is actually about.

I want to make a confession. I stalk games journalists. It's something I've always done. I keep an eye on people. I have a mental list of games journos who are the very worst of the bunch. The ones who are at every PR launch event, the ones who tweet about all the freebies they get. I am fascinated by them. I won't name them here, because it's a horrible thing to do, but I'm sure some of you will know who they are. I'm fascinated by these creatures because they are living one of the most strange existences - they are playing at being a thing that they don't understand. And if they don't understand it, how can they love it? And if they don't love it, why are they playing at being it?

And just in case we did use that image of Geoff Keighley, here's this week's Dark Souls repeat.

This club, this weird club of pals and buddies that make up a fair proportion of games media, needs to be broken up somehow. They have a powerful bond, though - held together by the pressures of playing to the same audience. Games publishers and games press sources are all trying to keep you happy, and it's much easier to do that if they work together. Publishers are well aware that some of you go crazy if a new AAA title gets a crappy review score on a website, and they use that knowledge to keep the boat from rocking. Everyone has a nice easy ride if the review scores stay decent and the content of the games are never challenged. Websites get their exclusives. Ad revenue keeps rolling in. The information is controlled. Everyone stays friendly. It's a steady flow of Mountain Dew pouring from the hills of the money men, down through the fingers of the weary journos, down into your mouths. At some point you will have to stop drinking that stuff and demand something better.

Standards are important. They are hard to live up to, sure, but that's the point of them. The trouble with games journalism is that there are no standards. We expect to see Geoff Keighley sitting beside a table of s***. We expect to see the flurry of excitement when the GMAs get announced, instead of a chuckle and a roll of the eyes. We expect to see our games journos failing to get what journalistic integrity means. The brilliant writers, like John Walker for example, don't get the credit they deserve simply because they don't play the game. Indeed, John Walker gets told to get off his pedestal because he has high standards and is pointing out a worrying problem.

Geoff Keighley, meanwhile, is sitting beside a table of snacks. A table of delicious Doritos and refreshing Mountain Dew. He is, as you'll see on Wikipedia, "only one of two journalists, the other being 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace, profiled in the Harvard Business School press book 'Geeks and Geezers' by noted leadership expert Warren Bennis." Geoff Keighley is important. He is a leader in his field. He once said, "There's such a lack of investigative journalism. I wish I had more time to do more, sort of, investigation." And yet there he sits, glassy-eyed, beside a table heaving with sickly Doritos and Mountain Dew.

It's an important image. Study it.

Here's also an Opinion piece by John Wanker on it again: http://botherer.org/2012/10/25/an-utter-disgrace/

 

[felipepepe]

I wish that something like this would bring some change, but It will probably ammount to nothing, like the Kayne & Lynch stuff at Gamespot... Seasons changes, "game journalism" still the same...

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Fuck.

 

[Jaesun]

I wish that something like this would bring some change, but It will probably ammount to nothing, like the Kayne & Lynch stuff at Gamespot... Seasons changes, "game journalism" still the same...

I would too. But it won't. The general public just does not care, or want to think. They let these Professorial Gaming Journalists do that for them, and happily slurp up the shit they are told to, and actually believe it tastes like delicious cake.

 

[Angthoron]

Maybe the management should invite the guy over to write an article or two for the Codex. Or just post angry rants.

Won't shower him in MNT DEW though.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

A shame.

Eurogamer was pretty much my last source for news of general gaming. The Codex is good for RPGs but for popamole stuff I liked going to Eurogamer. RPS lost me when they brutally raped Fallout: New Vegas. Destructoid has that unbelievably obnoxious trolling turd Jim Sterling. Gaming journalism has been turgid shit for a while now.

 

[groke]

Who gives a fuck, game journalism is a bloated, unskilled pimple that has yet to pop. The days of these assholes being necessary for the PR arm of publishers are numbered, who needs some college dropout vidya blogger telling you to play Angry Birds when TIME and shit are telling you to do it anyway.

 

[Jaesun]

The days of these assholes being necessary for the PR arm of publishers are numbered,

You actually believe that?

 

[tuluse]

What the fuck, how do you get fired for an article like that?

 

[Dexter]

These are some articles, by the writer who threatened to sue:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/4375406/Gamings-killer-double-act.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/4354817/Let-sleeping-dogs-lie.html
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2011/11/04/the-redemption-of-lara-croft
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/3769932/Lab-rat-revolution.html
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/07/cloud-nine-mitsunori-takahashi-on-dissidia-012/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/02/the...bata-i-dont-believe-survival-horror-is-dying/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/17/interview-tactics-ogre-director-hiroshi-minagawa/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/11/interview-lord-of-arcana-producer-takamasa-shiba/

(Notice how they're all PR-pieces on Square Enix games)

http://www.gatheryourparty.com/articles/2012/10/25/eurogamer-contributor-robert-florence-steps-down/

He also included a section about a certain writer named Lauren Wainwright, a freelance contributor for The Sun, IGN, GameSpot, and VG247. He cited some tweets she made about the upcoming Tomb Raider game, and said that they made him wonder about whether she was “in the pocket of the Tomb Raider PR team.” Maybe it was being a little disrespectful to make an accusation like that in a public place, but there are good ways to handle it, and the following is not one of them.She threatened legal action, and, understandably, Eurogamer took down and revised the article to not include the part about Lauren Wainwright. Really, all she did was solidify the opinion by over-reacting so much to it. Another bit of evidence to heap on is on her is that her Journalisted profile also lists Square Enix (the publisher for Tomb Raider) as a current employer. Sure, it isn’t proof, but it’s pretty bad.

http://journalisted.com/lauren-wainwright

Current

• Video Games Consultant at Freelance
• The Sun - Games Critic at News International
• Freelance (IGN, Future Publishing, Uncooked Media, PlayBoy, Square Enix, News International, CBS,)

Experience

• Future Publishing
• CBS Interactive
• Barrington Harvey
• Consolemonster.com
• Destructoid.com

Twitter

• @atheistium

IncGamers apparently pulled one of her reviews: https://twitter.com/Valdestine/status/261494985952722944

 

[Angthoron]

What the fuck, how do you get fired for an article like that?

By implying that your colleagues (see: some colleagues received awards), and "friends" of your colleagues (see: everyone's a buddy) are involved in a corruption ring.

Also, he might have actually left on his own, a normal human being that hasn't entered the mafia yet would do that. After all, you wrote an article exposing (very mildly) some direct examples freely available in public view - and yet the editor removes this part on the first request of the person that's being in question. You can either stay, knowing you're working with people that are directly or indirectly corrupt, or you can leave. Seeing as Eurogamer isn't the guy's only source of income, and he still has some sort of integrity, he may have simply opted to quit - even if simply not wishing to be judged by association.

 

[DalekFlay]

The only gaming journalists I have ever respected are all up in arms today (John Walker, Ben Kuchera, Stuart Campbell). Great to see.

In the end though, who can really take journalism seriously in this medium and why bother doing so anyway? Find like-minded people, share thoughts on games, end of story. Everything else is just press releases.

 

[groke]

The days of these assholes being necessary for the PR arm of publishers are numbered,

You actually believe that?

I think it'll be a different and larger group of assholes.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Aaaaaaaaand Rex Exitium has joined the fray, white knighting Wainwright.

Lot's of big names have spoken out against her already though, which is nice to see.

 

[Jaesun]

The days of these assholes being necessary for the PR arm of publishers are numbered,

You actually believe that?

I think it'll be a different and larger group of assholes.

Nothing is going to change. There is no need to form some new and larger group. The turd slurping general public still happily laps up all the bullshit "reviews" (while under a contract with Publishers they they must post favorable reviews for their games in order to receive ad dollars on sites). The system is working perfectly, and the general public don't think and/or ask questions. Hell look at ANY RPS article, where they have had HUGE Publisher ads on the site, and then post a "favorable review", not one person, not one single person even has the intelligence to ask Hey! There are gigantic ads from this publisher on the site, and every single game with these publisher ads always has a favorable review? Could their possibly be some bias in these articles? Gosh! What am I thinking! These are Professional Gaming Journalists with 100% integrity.

 

[felipepepe]

In the end though, who can really take journalism seriously in this medium and why bother doing so anyway? Find like-minded people, share thoughts on games, end of story.

Yup, I just search the Codex for a "X game is a MASSIVE Y" thread. Most of the times the TL;DR are more informatives than entire reviews from IGN and such...

Aaaaaaaaand Rex Exitium has joined the fray, white knighting Wainwright