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[Jimmyfenix]

Brad no, there is a cat in the inn. Talk to the cat.

 

[Chuck]

What are you talking about?

GAF seems to love this guy and I don't get it

 

[Aaron]

Really like Rorie's RPG commentary. Would be interesting to see him sit on more QLs for hardcore RPGs.

Alpha Protocol endurance run!

 

[stump sock]

Exclusive to consoles is definitely a reasonable interpretation of that term.

Thank you. I think I'm a reasonably smart person, but that was my interpretation of the term for way longer than it should have been from a marketing standpoint.

Or more likely, they're totally okay with people misinterpreting it like that.

GAF seems to love this guy and I don't get it

I have no strong feelings either way, but he seems responsive to criticism, which I think can be an important part of being a journalist. I can respect that.

 

[Kerned]

Also. if you go back to Sony E3 2013, the phrase "console Exclusive Debut" used about 50 times (or near enough). There was no hate then. but somehow there is need for complaint now.

Coming from someone who has not had a bad word for Patrick sense he joind GB, I am actually weirdly hoping there is an article put up next week highlighting that opinionative (or whatever his current style is) can lead to more views and interaction, but is ultimately bad for end users, and the writer involved in the long run. That would mean his actions this week were a front to highlight this, and would be part of the article he writes.

His current output is just too "Un Scoops Like" to make sense - although I know I am stretching here.

I don't think you're stretching. Speaking as someone who has been overwhelmingly pro-Patrick over the past few years, I find his output to get more and more tiresome all the time.

 

[Tan]

I think "console exclusive to PS4" is enough considering they would never mention non-sony platforms in their own conference. In a perfect world they would mention Xbox One when announcing Diablo 3 for consoles and PC when they announced the new Grim Fandango, but that's just not happening.

 

[chubigans]

You know what really bothers me about that article Patrick wrote calling out sites that reported the no-dev-kit XB1 story? The fact that the stuff he's calling sites out on is something he's actually done in the past.

A segment of the story Patrick wrote calling out sites a few days ago: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/why-is-microsofts-plan-to-turn-retail-xbox-ones-in/1100-4953/

Digital Spy "broke" the news from the Develop conference currently happening in the UK.

"We were, in the early stages of Xbox One, looking at the idea of a retail kit that could be turned into a development kit, and vice versa," said Xbox Advanced Technology Group's Martin Fuller during a Q&A session. "In the end, although that was a very admirable goal, it hasn't happened unfortunately. Can't tell you the specifics of exactly why not. [...] "As far as I'm aware there are no plans. I'm not aware of the reason why we didn't manage to do that."

There are enormous red flags that reek of executive miscommunication here.

One, this happened during the Q&A, which means it wasn't part of Fuller's formal presentation, and he's speaking off-the-cuff. Should he be more informed about his company's policies? Probably, sure. But when Fuller says he's "not aware of the reason why we didn't manage to do that," that should sound some alarm bells, at least enough to send a simple email to Microsoft for press not liveblogging an event in real-time.

Even worse, Microsoft commented on the development kit situation yesterday at Develop, based on a report from Gamasutra.

"We have said that anyone will be able to use retail Xbox Ones to develop games," said head of ID@Xbox Chris Charla. "We're not there yet, so we need to send custom dev kits."

Oof.

As much as we'd love more companies to speak honestly, what happened next across a great many websites is why we don't see more of it. It doesn't help, of course, that several Microsoft executives are seemingly terrible at speaking openly, and it's hard to blame the press for wanting to report what a Microsoft executive says in public.

Still, a little caution--we had to wait less than two hours--would have save some headaches. Now, I'm faced with running stories like this, in which I have to consider publishing a news story to disprove a non-story?!

Now for that article Patrick wrote back in September: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/apple-denies-paying-ea-to-delay-plants-vs-zombies-/1100-4747/

Except in China, Plants vs Zombies 2 has only launched on iOS, and there is a very good reason for it: Apple reportedly paid for it.

This detail was revealed during an internal town hall meeting held earlier today for publisher Electronic Arts.

“Apple gave us a truckload of money to delay the Android version [of Plants vs Zombies 2],” said Frank Gibeau, head of EA Labels.

Giant Bomb confirmed the quote with several sources who watched the presentation today.

It is unclear what a “truckload of money” means, and we have no further details on the apparent agreement between Apple and EA. Apple has not yet responded to my requests for comment.

---

UPDATE: Apple is denying the substance of the comments made by Gibeau.

A company spokesperson described Giant Bomb's story as "not true" and said no money was exchanged.

When these deals are made in the games industry, it's often a co-marketing deal, not a briefcase full of cash. It's possible Gibeau meant this but chose his words poorly. When asked whether Apple and EA had brokered an agreement regarding iOS exclusivity, the company would not disclose any details on its relationships.

Giant Bomb stands by the original quoting of Gibeau's comments.

There's no timestamp of when the article was updated, however if we go by the first comment in the article (1:17pm) and the first comment that talks about the update (3:04pm) then it was less than two hours before Patrick got the official word from Apple. And then he still makes it sound like he sides with Gibeau's comments. (edit: I'm not thinking; he could have easily waited much longer for a response from Apple before posting the news. He was the first person with the "scoop" for this story.)

Compare that to the official word from Microsoft (which in itself is a bit hazy) that Patrick stands by instead of the original engineer of Xbox at the developer's conference, and not only that, but chides anyone for reporting the story in the first place. What.

I don't get it.

 

[demidar]

GAF seems to love this guy and I don't get it

He's done plenty of good work (and for a while too), that's all. It's not complicated.

 

[daydream]

Jeff Green showed up? Amazing, lol.

 

[shiftplusone]

Wasn't Grim Fandango announced as "console exclusive on ps4?"

Which is not very misleading

also considering they announced the vita version same time, meaning the "console exclusive means its exclusive to console" argument gets thrown out the window also

 

[Kerned]

You know what really bothers me about that article Patrick wrote calling out sites that reported the no-dev-kit XB1 story? The fact that the stuff he's calling sites out on is something
There's no timestamp of when the article was updated, however if we go by the first comment in the article (1:17pm) and the first comment that talks about the update (3:04pm) then it was less than two hours before Patrick got the official word from Apple. And then he still makes it sound like he sides with Gibeau's comments.

Compare that to the official word from Microsoft (which in itself is a bit hazy) that Patrick stands by instead of the original engineer of Xbox at the developer's conference, and not only that, but chides anyone for reporting the story in the first place. What.

I don't get it.

If confronted with this he would just pat himself on that back for being so good at learning from his mistakes.

 

[Chuck]

He's done plenty of good work (and for a while too), that's all. It's not complicated.

Guess I'll check it out then.

 

[Zaph]

Where did this love for Schrier come from all of a sudden? Last I checked, he was just a shitaku defender who sometimes asked the question GAF wanted asked. Now he's done this in depth crytek story which is great, but I must have missed the turning point somewhere.

Then again, I don't actively read that rag so I guess that makes sense.

Jason has been great for a long time, but too many GAFers got caught up in that Dragon Crown bullshit which gave him an unfair rep IMO. He does a lot of his own sourcing, follows journalistic standards (rather than this industry's joke standards) and is a great writer.

Also, during the whole Doritosgate mess, he was also one of the only industry folks who hung out in the thread frequently answering questions and talking about how he does things, where the industry is going wrong and how it can improve.

 

[Quentyn]

Where did this love for Schrier come from all of a sudden? Last I checked, he was just a shitaku defender who sometimes asked the question GAF wanted asked. Now he's done this in depth crytek story which is great, but I must have missed the turning point somewhere.

Then again, I don't actively read that rag so I guess that makes sense.

Crytek was not the first story like that. Schreier had at least 5 or 6 more like that. The Prey 2 thing for example. I don't visit Kotaku either, because 60% of their content don't interest me, but I do follow some of their editors on Twitter and they do have genuinely some good work on there.

 

[BTA]

I'm totally with Patrick on the "console exclusive" thing, but I'm not sure if Grim Fandango is the best basis for taking that stand, given that pretty quickly after the conference there were tweets clarifying that it was coming to other platforms.

 

[p2535748]

There's no timestamp of when the article was updated, however if we go by the first comment in the article (1:17pm) and the first comment that talks about the update (3:04pm) then it was less than two hours before Patrick got the official word from Apple. And then he still makes it sound like he sides with Gibeau's comments.

On this one point, I don't think the math is right. He says in the original article that Apple didn't respond. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt that he contacted them in advance of publishing the story. We don't know how long he gave them to respond, but for it to be less than two hours, he would've had to contact them and immediately post the story, which seems unlikely.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Jeff Green showed up? Amazing, lol.

I think he lost his way. Hopefully he gets home fine

 

[chubigans]

On this one point, I don't think the math is right. He says in the original article that Apple didn't respond. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt that he contacted them in advance of publishing the story. We don't know how long he gave them to respond, but for it to be less than two hours, he would've had to contact them and immediately post the story, which seems unlikely.

Ah you're probably right, wasn't thinking at all. I'll edit my post.

 

[TharpDaddy]

Jason "Eagle Eyes" Ostreicher to the rescue in this quick look when they were looking for the pouch.

 

[Lonestar]

I stopped awhile ago, didn't realized they're still going. 2 hour quicklook, huh ;P

 

[p2535748]

Ah you're probably right, wasn't thinking at all. I'll edit my post.

And to be clear, I get the gist of your statement, and think it's a reasonable point. I don't actually have a problem with the Apple story, and he could write a story about the MS stuff that touches on the initial reports, but to call people out when he has no evidence whether they tried to contact MS or not seems unnecessarily confrontational.

I do think there's an article about how the need to push out news as fast as possible can lead to these sorts of confusions, and he could point to his own article as evidence of that.

 

[Zaph]

You know what really bothers me about that article Patrick wrote calling out sites that reported the no-dev-kit XB1 story? The fact that the stuff he's calling sites out on is something he's actually done in the past.

When you're directly quoting a senior employee talking publicly about their own product, there's nothing wrong with publishing the story while waiting for comment from their employers. The sites that reported it did nothing wrong because either way there's a story - either the employee is right, or there's obviously internal conflict about the feature.

It's such a weird thing for Patrick to take issue with because there are so many other things done almost every week by the enthusiast press which are far worse.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I stopped awhile ago, didn't realized they're still going. 2 hour quicklook, huh ;P

Cant Stop.
Wont Stop

Dan is probably very confused.

 

[a secret-boss]

Brad is pretty bad dragging a QL.
I know one QL where Jeff told him to move on already

 

[Harlock]

I didn't look at it that way...but yeah, I can see how someone could interpret it in that sense.

Also,

Scoops is way off with this one. There's nothing confusing about console exclusive. Stretches the definition?

Patrick,

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

Is Patrick having a brain fart?

whats going on here.

I don't know what the hell happened with Patrick, but this and the X1 dev kit story was just...something else.

 

[bigwinnerx]

John Drake say where he's heading yet? Still following him on Twitter like he's going somewhere productive.

 

[Megasoum]

Hahaha oh Dan

https://twitter.com/DanRyckert/status/487324799006281729/photo/1

 

[Brakke]

I don't get it.

“Apple gave us a truckload of money to delay the Android version [of Plants vs Zombies 2],” said Frank Gibeau, head of EA Labels.

That statement is emphatically not vague. The Xbone one was.

In the end, although that was a very admirable goal, it hasn't happened unfortunately. Can't tell you the specifics of exactly why not. [...] As far as I'm aware there are no plans. I'm not aware of the reason why we didn't manage to do that.

"I don't know if we're doing this" doesn't mean "we're not doing this". "Apple gave us money" means "Apple gave us money". In the first case, Microsoft was clarifying; in the second, Apple was contradicting. We still don't know if Apple gave EA money to delay PvZ, we do know Microsoft plans to make good on retail dev boxes.

But yeah, Patrick's story is still vapid.

 

[Backfoggen]

Imagine TV Guide people walking by where Vinny played that "game"

 

[danserv]

New Jars video is just called "Jars" and that makes me sad.

 

[chubigans]

And to be clear, I get the gist of your statement, and think it's a reasonable point. I don't actually have a problem with the Apple story, and he could write a story about the MS stuff that touches on the initial reports, but to call people out when he has no evidence whether they tried to contact MS or not seems unnecessarily confrontational.

I do think there's an article about how the need to push out news as fast as possible can lead to these sorts of confusions, and he could point to his own article as evidence of that.

Indeed, that would have made for an interesting article. But yeah, that article ended up being one of the more hostile ones I've seen. What a strange write up.

When you're directly quoting a senior employee talking publicly about their own product, there's nothing wrong with publishing the story while waiting for comment from their employers. The sites that reported it did nothing wrong because either way there's a story - either the employee is right, or there's obviously internal conflict about the feature.

It's such a weird thing for Patrick to take issue with because there are so many other things done almost every week by the enthusiast press which are far worse.

Very weird. And as someone pointed out, very un-scoops like.

 

[Brakke]

New Jars video is just called "Jars" and that makes me sad.

Because "Jaws".

 

[Keyser Soze]

Because "Jaws".

"Mars"

 

[daydream]

New Jars video is just called "Jars" and that makes me sad.

It's a reboot.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

New Jars video is just called "Jars" and that makes me sad.

Because "Jaws".

"Mars"

This full-length, non-animated feature continues with another batch of your questions.

It's "Cars"

 

[LeBart]

"Mars"

Cars.

edit: goddammit...

 

[infinityBCRT]

You know what really bothers me about that article Patrick wrote calling out sites that reported the no-dev-kit XB1 story? The fact that the stuff he's calling sites out on is something he's actually done in the past.

A segment of the story Patrick wrote calling out sites a few days ago: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/why-is-microsofts-plan-to-turn-retail-xbox-ones-in/1100-4953/




Now for that article Patrick wrote back in September: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/apple-denies-paying-ea-to-delay-plants-vs-zombies-/1100-4747/



There's no timestamp of when the article was updated, however if we go by the first comment in the article (1:17pm) and the first comment that talks about the update (3:04pm) then it was less than two hours before Patrick got the official word from Apple. And then he still makes it sound like he sides with Gibeau's comments. (edit: I'm not thinking; he could have easily waited much longer for a response from Apple before posting the news. He was the first person with the "scoop" for this story.)

Compare that to the official word from Microsoft (which in itself is a bit hazy) that Patrick stands by instead of the original engineer of Xbox at the developer's conference, and not only that, but chides anyone for reporting the story in the first place. What.

I don't get it.

The difference is that Frank Gibeau is THE guy at EA (or at least one of THE guys outside of the CEO). Him saying something that huge means it has merit.

 

[Piston Hyundai]

I'm totally with Patrick on the "console exclusive" thing, but I'm not sure if Grim Fandango is the best basis for taking that stand, given that pretty quickly after the conference there were tweets clarifying that it was coming to other platforms.

I look forward to a generation filled with Sony causing confusion due to them pretending they have exclusives that they don't actually have. They've been championing that shit for a good while, now.

Hahaha oh Dan

https://twitter.com/DanRyckert/status/487324799006281729/photo/1

Stuff like this is funny and all, but no matter how funny these Dennys/Doritos/etc. Twitter accounts are, they are never going to get over the whole "your only purpose is to advertise to me so you can go fuck yourself" hurdle for me.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Having a layman asking questions about a subject he knows little about can help with content. For the Tested Podcast, Gary Whitta did this for years. He was inquisitive about tech, but did not know everything about it. He kept the podcast from getting to "techy" when he was there, and made Will/Norm explain what they were talking about. The podcast is kinda out of control with techiness now.

It helps have someone like that onboard.

The problem is that Dan isn't behaving like a layman, at least in the Divinity: Original Sin QL. Throughout the entire thing, he's just been quiet and (presumably) disinterested in the entire affair. I'd reckon he's been silent 95% of the time, throughout the entire ~90 minutes. There were times I forgot he was even there.

If this is how he's going to be during QLs of games he has no interest in, then why have him sit in on those games at all? He's not asking questions, he's remaining silent or making little quips, sometimes right after Rorie or Brad himself did or said the same thing. His presence, at least in the Divinity video, has added absolutely nothing. It was like having someone in the chat be physically present, complete with an astronomical chat cooldown.

Maybe he just felt out of his depth or something, looking at a game so foreign to his interests, but if that's the case he should try to at least relate to it or ask questions about it - anything other than abject silence.

I guess it could just be a warming-up period for the quick look method. Hopefully he improves in the future.

Jason "Eagle Eyes" Ostreicher to the rescue in this quick look when they were looking for the pouch.

Jason's saved a lot of time with his eagle eyes. He's been a real great addition. The Forest QL was his defining moment, so far!

 

[Chuck]

Jason has been great for a long time, but too many GAFers got caught up in that Dragon Crown bullshit which gave him an unfair rep IMO. He does a lot of his own sourcing, follows journalistic standards (rather than this industry's joke standards) and is a great writer.

Also, during the whole Doritosgate mess, he was also one of the only industry folks who hung out in the thread frequently answering questions and talking about how he does things, where the industry is going wrong and how it can improve.

Crytek was not the first story like that. Schreier had at least 5 or 6 more like that. The Prey 2 thing for example. I don't visit Kotaku either, because 60% of their content don't interest me, but I do follow some of their editors on Twitter and they do have genuinely some good work on there.

Ya know, I take that back since I forgot that excellent Human Head reporting was his too. I guess he has his own site where he links all his kotaku stories so I added that to my RSS.

 

[Zaph]

The difference is that Frank Gibeau is THE guy at EA (or at least one of THE guys outside of the CEO). Him saying something that huge means it has merit.

A senior engineer talking at a public conference also carries merit - I'd argue even more so because you're getting a direct opinion, rather than one massaged by layers of PR. If anything, his comments and the exec tweets that followed proved there is most definitely a story here worth reporting, regardless of what MS's official stance is.

 

[chubigans]

A senior engineer talking at a public conference also carries merit - I'd argue even more so because you're getting a direct opinion, rather than one massaged by layers of PR. If anything, his comments and the exec tweets that followed proved there is most definitely a story here worth reporting, regardless of what MS's official stance is.

Pretty much, and what I was basically getting at was that Patrick was in the right to report on that EA story, every bit as much as sites reported on that MS story. For him to write an article on the fundamentals of reporting for other sites to learn on was just strange.

 

[LiK]

New Jars video is just called "Jars" and that makes me sad.

Jeff doesn't give a fuck anymore.

 

[Piston Hyundai]

Jason's saved a lot of time with his eagle eyes. He's been a real great addition. The Forest QL was his defining moment, so far!

One thing I noticed from his time at GI is that Jason doesn't have that whole "devolve into a senseless infant when being recorded playing video games" trait that seems inherent to games journalism as a whole.

 

[TharpDaddy]

The problem is that Dan isn't behaving like a layman, at least in the Divinity: Original Sin QL. Throughout the entire thing, he's just been quiet and (presumably) disinterested in the entire affair. I'd reckon he's been silent 95% of the time, throughout the entire ~90 minutes. There were times I forgot he was even there.

If this is how he's going to be during QLs of games he has no interest in, then why have him sit in on those games at all? He's not asking questions, he's remaining silent or making little quips, sometimes right after Rorie or Brad himself did or said the same thing. His presence, at least in the Divinity video, has added absolutely nothing. It was like having someone in the chat be physically present, complete with an astronomical chat cooldown.

Maybe he just felt out of his depth or something, looking at a game so foreign to his interests, but if that's the case he should try to at least relate to it or ask questions about it - anything other than abject silence.

I guess it could just be a warming-up period for the quick look method. Hopefully he improves in the future.

I think because Rorie and Brad had so much to say about the game he probably didn't feel there was much he could add. Rorie especially has a ton of love and experience with RPGs and as a result there was very little dead air. Dan isin't a big RPG player so i can imagine he didn't want to cut off Rorie or Brad when he didn't really have anything to say. I think that quick look could easily have just been Brad/Rorie but i think they're trying to have Dan be in as much content as possible so he can build up some synergy and become more comfortable. I do think if he had spoke more he could have asked newbie questions that someone who is not familiar with RPGs may find very useful to have answered.

 

[komplanen]

One thing I noticed from his time at GI is that Jason doesn't have that whole "devolve into a senseless infant when being recorded playing video games" trait that seems inherent to games journalism as a whole.

If most of the games journalists devolve into senseless infants then what does Brad devolve into? A single cell organism?

 

[daydream]

The problem is that Dan isn't behaving like a layman, at least in the Divinity: Original Sin QL. Throughout the entire thing, he's just been quiet and (presumably) disinterested in the entire affair. I'd reckon he's been silent 95% of the time, throughout the entire ~90 minutes. There were times I forgot he was even there.

If this is how he's going to be during QLs of games he has no interest in, then why have him sit in on those games at all? He's not asking questions, he's remaining silent or making little quips, sometimes right after Rorie or Brad himself did or said the same thing. His presence, at least in the Divinity video, has added absolutely nothing. It was like having someone in the chat be physically present, complete with an astronomical chat cooldown.

Maybe he just felt out of his depth or something, looking at a game so foreign to his interests, but if that's the case he should try to at least relate to it or ask questions about it - anything other than abject silence.

I guess it could just be a warming-up period for the quick look method. Hopefully he improves in the future.

You just described Brad's behaviour in most Live QLs. As long as two people are talking, he (or Brad, in the past) doesn't need to be as talkative. Also, the last few days have shown that he needs zero warm-up for the QL format, the vids he's been in have almost all been fantastic.

 

[JonCha]

To be fair to Patrick, you're comparing him to pretty much the best journalist in the industry - one of the few who don't warrant quotation marks around the word.

But yeah, since he left SF, I'm not sure exactly what his role is. I really like him as a dude, but aside from the video essays and morning show (when they have guests), I rarely consume his content.

I was wondering this myself. Perhaps he has sole things in the pipeline, who knows.

 

[SuperSonic1305]

I look forward to a generation filled with Sony causing confusion due to them pretending they have exclusives that they don't actually have. They've been championing that shit for a good while, now.

If someone gets confused by the term console exclusive then they have larger problems to think about.