Hey, uh, has this ever happened? (McElroy: GAF has actively tried to fool the press)

games-journalismaf8t.gif


...all that needs to be said about this clown
 
He reminds me of Michael McIntyre and I feel a bit sorry for him having to go through life with such a burden to bear.
 
Jerski said:
Collusion implies some form of cooperation from both parties. In other words, "You give this game an 8.5 or above, and we will compensate you in some way."
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Alright, so forget collusion. Corruption, then. Or neither. It's not really the point -

When I, and many others on this forum, are looking to read a review for a game, we're interested in having the reviewer's opinions help shape our own purchasing decision. It is therefore in the professional interest of the reviewer to be as objective and unbiased as possible. This is all very easy for me to say, as I obviously am no games jounrnalist myself. Having a staff member of your site, particularly the one reviewing the title, have such a display in public removes credibility of the site.

I'm starting to feel like responding to you is feeding into a troll attempt, but I'm not entirely sure.
 
Jerski said:
but I think this thread is a prime example of why exactly the gaming press is fed up with GAF.
Click to expand...

Here comes the bizarre attitude again that the average joe should just shut up and consume the gaming media like good little boys. Ironically, GAF has more of a community spirit and more knowledgeable conversations that 99% of the gaming site communities out there.

The gaming press hate that their audience is ever growing up, and the status quo is failing to fly. They need to up their game. Shock horror, they're starting to get called to task. As consumers of media, they forget that we can do that.

Everyone loves "Social & Community" until it bites them in the ass.
 
What is this LOL ?

How is GAF responsible for a posted PDF of supposed 720 specs ?

It was just reported here and as rumor, so what is the problem ?
 
Mikor said:
Alright, so forget collusion. Corruption, then. Or neither. It's not really the point -

When I, and many others on this forum, are looking to read a review for a game, we're interested in having the reviewer's opinions help shape our own purchasing decision. It is therefore in the professional interest of the reviewer to be as objective and unbiased as possible. This is all very easy for me to say, as I obviously am no games jounrnalist myself. Having a staff member of your site, particularly the one reviewing the title, have such a display in public removes credibility of the site.

I'm starting to feel like responding to you is feeding into a troll attempt, but I'm not entirely sure.
Click to expand...

Game reviews are subjective.
 
Shurs said:
Game reviews are subjective.
Click to expand...

Around and around in circles we go!

Yes, that is the issue. Many game reviews are indeed subjective, and that's a problem. Not sure this needs to be continually explained, there's enough subtext in this thread and many others like it to come to this conclusion yourself.

EDIT:
Jerski said:
Stuff
Click to expand...

I think this is the real point of contention, here. Perhaps I'm in more of a minority than I assumed - am I alone in feeling like game reviews should be held to a certain standard of objectivity?
 
Mikor said:
Alright, so forget collusion. Corruption, then. Or neither. It's not really the point -

When I, and many others on this forum, are looking to read a review for a game, we're interested in having the reviewer's opinions help shape our own purchasing decision. It is therefore in the professional interest of the reviewer to be as objective and unbiased as possible. This is all very easy for me to say, as I obviously am no games jounrnalist myself. Having a staff member of your site, particularly the one reviewing the title, have such a display in public removes credibility of the site.

I'm starting to feel like responding to you is feeding into a troll attempt, but I'm not entirely sure.
Click to expand...


I promise I'm not "trolling" as you put it, but I think we fundamentally disagree on the function of a review. A review should be criticism and deconstruction, not a recommendation based on monetary value.

I am so uninterested in an entirely objective review, which is essentially a list of facts. I want to know how the reviewer engaged and interacted with this piece of media on a personal level. A review is inherently subjective, and colored by the character and tastes of the author.
 
Mikor said:
Around and around in circles we go!

Yes, that is the issue. Many game reviews are indeed subjective, and that's a problem. Not sure this needs to be continually explained, there's enough subtext in this thread and many others like it to come to this conclusion yourself.
Click to expand...

All game reviews are subjective. You said yourself you are looking for a reviewer's opinion. Their opinion is based on their experiences, likes, and dislikes. Therefore, their opinions are very much subjective.
 
Mikor said:
Around and around in circles we go!

Yes, that is the issue. Many game reviews are indeed subjective, and that's a problem. Not sure this needs to be continually explained, there's enough subtext in this thread and many others like it to come to this conclusion yourself.

EDIT:


I think this is the real point of contention, here. Perhaps I'm in more of a minority than I assumed - am I alone in feeling like game reviews should be held to a certain standard of objectivity?
Click to expand...

A review is the reviewer's opinion of a product. Whether it be games, movies, books, music, or whatever. A review is in of itself a subjective and based on the reviewer's opinions and preferences.
 
Jerski said:
I don't think that's a productive comparison. GAF and say, for the purposes of this discussion, Polygon, serve completely different purposes.
Click to expand...
Is the purpose of Polygon to show how to make the worst layout possible for a game site? I mean they managed to top Kotaku.

But then to be fair, they are on the verge, so they probably have to use that layout till their real site goes up online.
 
Crewnh said:
Is the purpose of Polygon to show how to make the worst layout possible for a game site? I mean they managed to top Kotaku.

But then to be fair, they are on the verge, so they probably have to use that layout till their real site goes up online.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't like the lack of hierarchy on their homepage either, difficult to navigate. But they've gotten a lot of shit about their review layouts, which I unabashedly love.
 
Shurs said:
All game reviews are subjective. You said yourself you are looking for a reviewer's opinion. Their opinion is based on their experiences, likes, and dislikes. Therefore, their opinions are very much subjective.
Click to expand...

Then I used a poor choice of words. I'll elaborate:

Game reviewers play games and criticize them for a living. Gamers like myself read game reviews to get an idea as to what to expect from the product I'm considering purchasing. Game reviews are (or were) taken seriously because you were receiving an objective analysis of the title, as written from a person who spends more time playing a wider variety of titles than any other working adult possibly could. Reviews are oftentimes broken down into categories, such as graphics, sound, gameplay, story, etc. Most, if not all of these categories can be weighed objectively against other titles.

I hope this is sufficient clarification for you, Shurs.
 
Crewnh said:
Is the purpose of Polygon to show how to make the worst layout possible for a game site? I mean they managed to top Kotaku.

But then to be fair, they are on the verge, so they probably have to use that layout till their real site goes up online.
Click to expand...

I don't think Polygon's site has launched yet.
 
My goodness that was quite the Sunday morning read. In the end, my conclusion is that all the people on twitter fluffing McElroy's ego were the only one's that actually annoyed me.

Happy Father's Day!
 
Kinyou said:
lol, what the hell? It's like reversed roles. A user that behaves calm and sensible, and a journalist that rages and curses inappropriately.
Click to expand...

FollowSmoke even got blocked for that. Not so sure why. If you gotta block based on that, it's time to get off Twitter for a while.
 
Mikor said:
Game reviews are (or were) taken seriously because you were receiving an objective analysis of the title, as written from a person who spends more time playing a wider variety of titles than any other working adult possibly could.
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this is actually the one reason i don't take any review seriously in the slightest. why should i trust the opinion of someone who barely has time to play a game, let alone play many games of it's ilk or play the one game in question for a sufficient amount of time? this would be like grading 3-course meals by eating only small bits of each course and assuming you've had roughly the same experience as someone who ate the entire meal.

you hear this all the time in gaming podcasts. journalists can barely remember names of games, characters, or even CONTENT in a game unless it's something they played before their career started. people are quick to judge that these people don't care because they can't remember the last stage of game X, but the reality is that they're overloading their brains with so many GAMES that hardly anything takes root in their mind. it's like asking someone with short-term memory loss to review a movie they saw a week ago.
 
Mikor said:
Then I used a poor choice of words. I'll elaborate:

Game reviewers play games and criticize them for a living. Gamers like myself read game reviews to get an idea as to what to expect from the product I'm considering purchasing. Game reviews are (or were) taken seriously because you were receiving an objective analysis of the title, as written from a person who spends more time playing a wider variety of titles than any other working adult possibly could. Reviews are oftentimes broken down into categories, such as graphics, sound, gameplay, story, etc. Most, if not all of these categories can be weighed objectively against other titles.

I hope this is sufficient clarification for you, Shurs.
Click to expand...

As the market for games expands, attempts to answer the question of "should I buy this game?" have become far less meaningful. The audience's taste has already splintered a great deal, and it's getting more and more scattered as time goes on. Attempting to weigh a game and write out some sort of recommendation for every possible audience leads to phrases like "If you're the sort of person who likes this sort of thing, this game's for you!" It's like having a person with no kids review a kids game and attempt to guess if a game would be good for children or not. Or having your flight-sim guy review Ico. Or having someone who's a lifelong Madden fan make educated guesses about the game's approachability for non-fans.
 
John Rabbit said:
this is actually the one reason i don't take any review seriously in the slightest. why should i trust the opinion of someone who barely has time to play a game, let alone play many games of it's ilk or play the one game in question for a sufficient amount of time? this would be like grading 3-course meals by eating only small bits of each course and assuming you've had roughly the same experience as someone who ate the entire meal.

you hear this all the time in gaming podcasts. journalists can barely remember names of games, characters, or even CONTENT in a game unless it's something they played before their career started. people are quick to judge that these people don't care because they can't remember the last stage of game X, but the reality is that they're overloading their brains with so many GAMES that hardly anything takes root in their mind. it's like asking someone with short-term memory loss to review a movie they saw a week ago.
Click to expand...

Excellent points, John. I don't claim to know the magic solution to fixing the problem with games journalism and reviews, but at least I'm comforted knowing that I'm not the only one who understands the dilemma.


Jerski said:
As the market for games expands, attempts to answer the question of "should I buy this game?" have become far less meaningful. The audience's taste has already splintered a great deal, and it's getting more and more scattered as time goes on. Attempting to weigh a game and write out some sort of recommendation for every possible audience leads to phrases like "If you're the sort of person who likes this sort of thing, this game's for you!" It's like having a person with no kids review a kids game and attempt to guess if a game would be good for children or not. Or having your flight-sim guy review Ico. Or having someone who's a lifelong Madden fan make educated guesses about the game's approachability for non-fans.
Click to expand...


You're dead on the money, Jerski. Being a fan of a genre and a fan of a dev house/specific franchise/publisher are two very, very different things, though. Having your flight sim guy review Ico would be silly, as he has no personal basis for objective comparison. Having your flight sim guy review MS Flight Sim X after proclaiming to the public at large that he's a diehard MS Flight Sim franchise fanboy is equally as silly.


Shurs said:
You think of games as products, and want them reviewed as such.

Got it.

We differ in what we want and expect from game reviews and how we view games, in general.
Click to expand...

You got it! We'll agree to disagree on this topic, then. Thanks for being civil with me :)
 
Jerski said:
As the market for games expands, attempts to answer the question of "should I buy this game?" have become far less meaningful. The audience's taste has already splintered a great deal, and it's getting more and more scattered as time goes on. Attempting to weigh a game and write out some sort of recommendation for every possible audience leads to phrases like "If you're the sort of person who likes this sort of thing, this game's for you!" It's like having a person with no kids review a kids game and attempt to guess if a game would be good for children or not. Or having your flight-sim guy review Ico. Or having someone who's a lifelong Madden fan make educated guesses about the game's approachability for non-fans.
Click to expand...
Or having McElroy review Nier?
 
Felix Lighter said:
I honestly don't think it's fair to hold it against a game reviewer for openly being a fan of a franchise. I'm not familiar with the source video for that .gif. Maybe he crossed a line, but I don't think the simple fact that a reviewer openly gets excited about certain games is a credibility destroyer. If they are open about it or not, they are human beings and gamers and they are going to become fans of certain franchises and developers. It's there job to look past that though.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Also "OMG SKYRIM" was basically a meme for a while, starting with that animated YouTube video that got tons of hits after the first trailer. Justin leaned into that on Joystiq podcasts being a big Oblivion fan, but for the comedy rather than raving fanboy nonsense. I never really got why that .gif was elevated so when it all seemed to be a culmination of that joke more than anything else. His GOTY was Saint's Row 3.

Backing out of this thread now.. the relationship between press and GAF is interesting and sometimes entertaining, but no one comes out looking great in these kind of mud slinging fights.

Except for Tom from The Verge, with his classy post and clarification.
 
Mikor said:
Then I used a poor choice of words. I'll elaborate:

Game reviewers play games and criticize them for a living. Gamers like myself read game reviews to get an idea as to what to expect from the product I'm considering purchasing. Game reviews are (or were) taken seriously because you were receiving an objective analysis of the title, as written from a person who spends more time playing a wider variety of titles than any other working adult possibly could. Reviews are oftentimes broken down into categories, such as graphics, sound, gameplay, story, etc. Most, if not all of these categories can be weighed objectively against other titles.

I hope this is sufficient clarification for you, Shurs.
Click to expand...

You think of games as products, and want them reviewed as such.

We differ in what we want and expect from game reviews and how we view games, in general.
 
Painraze said:
games-journalismaf8t.gif


...all that needs to be said about this clown
Click to expand...

Yeah, he is pretty funny. That MBMBAM is a laugh riot.

I'm still not getting how a tongue-in-cheek video showing someone excited for game "hurts their credibility". Clearly he's being paid off by the publisher to do that, right? That's asinine. In that case I shouldn't most of Gaf believes something so stupid...
 
bananas said:
Where did Patrick get that Fez shirt?

:O
Click to expand...

The polytron site's store. They have other colors too.

Anyway, in regards to this thread: good on Patrick, I think he places a good emphasis on making sure stories are legit. I remember him being fairly pissed at... some fakeout about a Metal Gear game or something, last year? That's what you want in a guy doing news.

The only thing I wonder is when he sometimes goes along with any GB cynicism about GAF. He seems to be respected here, and wasn't he a mod here back when he was Exxy?
 
EricDiesel said:
Yeah, he is pretty funny. That MBMBAM is a laugh riot.

I'm still not getting how a tongue-in-cheek video showing someone excited for game "hurts their credibility". Clearly he's being paid off by the publisher to do that, right? That's asinine. In that case I shouldn't most of Gaf believes something so stupid...
Click to expand...
Looked very much like he scored it top marks before the disc entered the console.
 
Anyone know where I can find an affordable copy of Mega Man Legends 2? I see a bunch on Ebay, but I just can't afford forking over that kind of dough. It's a shame too, because I really enjoyed the original.

As an aside, has Capcom ever issued a statement as to whether or not they were going to continue development of 3?
 
DaveVoyles said:
Anyone know where I can find an affordable copy of Mega Man Legends 2? I see a bunch on Ebay, but I just can't afford forking over that kind of dough. It's a shame too, because I really enjoyed the original.

As an aside, has Capcom ever issued a statement as to whether or not they were going to continue development of 3?
Click to expand...

This is either a misfire or a brilliant comment about something that I haven't grasped yet.
 
EricDiesel said:
Yeah, he is pretty funny. That MBMBAM is a laugh riot.

I'm still not getting how a tongue-in-cheek video showing someone excited for game "hurts their credibility". Clearly he's being paid off by the publisher to do that, right? That's asinine. In that case I shouldn't most of Gaf believes something so stupid...
Click to expand...

What if you were in court and you caught the judge doing that with a picture of the person that sued you?

You probably wouldn't like your chances of him being unbiased after that right?

:P
 
DaveVoyles said:
Anyone know where I can find an affordable copy of Mega Man Legends 2? I see a bunch on Ebay, but I just can't afford forking over that kind of dough. It's a shame too, because I really enjoyed the original.

As an aside, has Capcom ever issued a statement as to whether or not they were going to continue development of 3?
Click to expand...


Try the weekend box office thread in the OT. That's where all the good gaming deals get posted.
 
JohngPR said:
What if you were in court and you caught the judge doing that with a picture of the person that sued you?

You probably wouldn't like your chances of him being unbiased after that right?

:P
Click to expand...
I don't think any game was going to be SLAMMED just because of that dance. It's probably more like if he was going to interview someone and was doing that with their pic-yikes, nevermind, that'd be REALLY creepy.
 
nasos_333 said:
It was just reported here and as rumor, so what is the problem ?
Click to expand...

This is what I really don't get. How are members of the forum responsible for "fooling the press with fakes" when it was clear that this is an unconfirmed rumor. The word is right there, in the title: "rumor". It was his job as a journalist to check whether the rumor is true or not.
 
Wow, and I actually stuck up for Justin during the Skyrim thing.

Don't forget that it was also Justin who came onto GAF, hat in hand, begging for Joystiq to be unbanned. He got his way and then promptly vanished, never to actually contribute anything.
 
FStop7 said:
Don't forget that it was also Justin who came onto GAF, hat in hand, begging for Joystiq to be unbanned. He got his way and then promptly vanished, never to actually contribute anything.
Click to expand...
Was this before or after the Nier debacle? Because he did try to defend himself in the thread, too.
 
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