Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos

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P

papersleeves

Member
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-24-lost-humanity-18-a-table-of-doritos

kLHUo.png

Yup, it's real.

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?
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...


Youtube>GAF>Internet>GAF


Recap from shagg_187
I'll do a short recap:
-Keighley surrounded by doritos followed by gaming bloggers retweeting a hashtag for advertising to win a PS3 makes Florence of Eurogamer curious.
-Florence writes an article saying how things are shady and some sound like straight up PR e.g. Wainright orgasms for everything Squenix.
-MVC/Wainwright send libel threats to Eurogamer, at which the article was edited to remove mentioning of Wainright.
-Wainwright responds in twitter "Apology accepted" and something in the vain of applying her law classes to use.
-Florence either steps down or is forced to resign to avoid any libel threat.
-Both sides deny any threat or are not talking about it directly, but twitter posts hint that such threat existed. Florence is not confirming or denying whether he was fired or he stepped down.
-GAF and 4chan combine forces to see this "standalone complex issue" alongside digital protest from Penny Arcade and more, showing what happened.
-Wainwright's profile shows she is a freelancer for Square Enix. She admitted it and denied doing any reviews for Square Enix or shilling (she is wrong. She reviewed Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and did countless previews).
-All this fiasco is too much for her and she privatize her twitter account. Next thing you know, she starts deleting tweets, videos and articles, and edits her profile to remove any mention of Square Enix freelancing.
-People find some comments of her thanking someone called Korina that used to work at Ubisoft.
-Korina Abbot used to work at Ubisoft and is currently the marketing executive at...Square-Enix.
-David Jaffe offers Keighley Mountain Dew.
-Gaming journalism.
Click to expand...

(Thanks to Ledsen)
Current articles/videos/podcasts
Wings over Sealand (Stuart Campbell) articles (second article has early summary) 1 2 3
John Walker's (Rock Paper Shotgun) blog (start with Games Journalists, And The Perception Of Corruption, includes guest post by Rab Florence)
TotalBiscuit
Jim Sterling
Penny-Arcade 1 2
Gamasutra
Forbes
Worthplaying
GiantBomb
Jason Lauritzen editorial and GAF post
RPGCodex writes an excellent summary
Destructoid
BoingBoing
TheSixthAxis
EDGE article that was written a few weeks ago
PlayerOne Podcast
Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell (editor who edited Rab's column) about the last few days
Rock Paper Shotgun official stance
The Guardian and a funny thing related to the article
Giant Bombcast
VG247 on their new ethics statement
Video Games Interactive
Kotaku 1 2
Pocketgamer
Videogamer.com
Gamesindustry.biz 1 2

Old (but still relevant) articles/videos/podcasts
Rab Florence (the guy who started all this) criticizing games writing since 2008
An old episode of CGW Radio discussing Gerstmann-gate
Old Gamasutra article on the influence of PR
Old GFW radio bits
1up YoursShawn Elliot and Shane Bettenhausen

Comments from the industry
Shawn Elliot - 1 (aegies is Arthur Gies of polygon.com) 2 3 4 5 6 on the psychology of PR etc
and some more Arthur Gies - 1 2 3 4 5 and some replies 1 2 3
Jeff Green on the way it actually works, and another post, an another
ShockingAlberto on his view as a former games writer
Jason Schreier (Kotaku) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 and many more
N'Gai Croal initial reaction on Twitter
Chris Schilling (freelance) likes both people involved and so doesn't want to write about it
Danny O'Dwyer (Gamespot UK) on why his site won't cover this (audience is not interested) - 1 2 3
pastapadre on being shunned by the industry
Stephen Totilo (Kotaku) doesn't think this is an important story (has changed his mind about that part, read post 9). Wants to focus on good games journalism, this prompted a pretty funny picture and a comment about it, then Stephen Totilo enters the thread 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 (ignore the comment on 18, couldn't find a direct link to Totilo's comment) 19 20 (in reply to this
Weekend Confirmed 1 2 (these two are from the podcast) 3 4 (comments from Garnett) 5 (podcast #2)
Syriel on his experiences of PR
Jeff Gerstmann short comment on swag
Christian Donlan and Simon Parkin of Eurogamer want to change how they do things[/QUOTE]
Nert on his experience as PR in the tech industry 1 2
John Walker (RPS) on why the site won't cover it (they did anyway) like his blog did
Rab Florence tweets
Jeff Gerstmann 1 (1 is from Tumblr) 2 (2 via EternalGamer, highlights some other stuff) 3 4 5 (3-5 are comments by Jeff in this thread)
Christian Spicer
MaxwellGT2000 talks about his experiences as a writer for a small site that got bigger
Dave Long 1 2
Brad Shoemaker 1 (in reply to this) 2
Brad Lawrence (2K games UK PR)

Comments from others
GillianSeed79 and firehawk12 on how journalist do criticize their peers
voodoopanda highlights that the issue is not in any way black or white
Snowden's Secret comments on gaming press reactions
Zissou weighs in

Other relevant/interesting links and examples of PR
Examples of various press kits
The 3DS comes to GiantBomb
Letter sent to reviewers from UbiSoft along with their press copy of Assassin's Creed 3
How Rockstar handled the reviews for GTA4
Battlefield 3 review questionnarie
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
The image really, truly is hilarious, and very telling. Rab Florence wrote a solid article but nothing even necessarily had to be written about it. The image completely speaks for itself.

kLHUo.png
 
T

TheOddOne

Member
Hearing Geoff speak on the Giantbomb E3 podcast really suprised me, I thought the way he acted was just for show... then found out that he is that way. Like half of the people there were all looking at him like "This guy must know he is a joke, right?".
 
O

Omikaru

Member
What's even worse is Rab has been taking a lot of flak for this over the last 24 hours.

@robertflorence said:
I'm a "piece of shit", an "arrogant troll" and will have to be wary of "enemies" if I attend any games PR events. A disappointing 24 hours.
Click to expand...

It was a good read, and a necessary article. It's sad that the inner circle of games press has rounded on him for calling it as it is.
 
L

Larsen B

Member
The article is not so much about Geoff Keighley as how the lines between journalists and PR have become so blurred that it means impartiality will always be called into question.

Games journalism is a circle jerk. Friends with PR, friends with other journalists, friends with developers.
 
A

aeolist

Banned
To be fair Keighley has written some really good stuff.

But that doesn't excuse shit like promising every single year than the VGAs will be better and they've heard and taken into account criticism about the show.

I don't even blame him for the VGAs being shit, God knows they'd make it the way they want to with or without him, but lending his name to it and publicly backing it every year just makes him a joke.
 
A

Aegus

Member
Omikaru said:
What's even worse is Rab has been taking a lot of flak for this over the last 24 hours.



It was a good read, and a necessary article. It's sad that the inner circle of games press has rounded on him for calling it as it is.
Click to expand...

Not surprising at all. Need to keep that Mountain Dew flowing.

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
Click to expand...
 
M

madmackem

Member
That covers about 90% of air quotes journalists in the games media, its what i hate that and the hive mind that seems to cover alot of the games media. You can almost see the weaker ones waiting for the bigger ones to ok a score for them to follow.
 
O

Omikaru

Member
CrunchinJelly said:
Read it bottom up. They should have stuck with the original article, IMO.

rvzhX.png
Click to expand...

Jesus fucking Christ.

Here's what they've added to the story as an "Editor's Note".

Following receipt of a complaint from Lauren Wainwright, Eurogamer has removed part of this article (but without admission of any liability). Eurogamer apologises for any distress caused to Ms Wainwright by the references to her. The article otherwise remains as originally published.
Click to expand...
 
E

Empty

Member
what the fuck eurogamer. pathetic.

honestly that the article caused such a reaction is more damning than the original article itself.
 
A

Ath

Member
OK I take back my previous statement about Eurogamer being brave. They should have stood by the article and Rab Florence. What the hell are they doing?
 
P

PaulLFC

Member
What was originally written that led to the complaint(s)?

Shame that he won't be writing any more articles, I enjoyed that one.
 
E

Empty

Member
rab just tweeted that eurogamer pulled it because they faced threats of legal action

jesus christ. the people named and shamed in his article are ridiculous.
 
I

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
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.

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.
2

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?
3

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.
Click to expand...

That's the original article, pretty sure the bolded was removed.
 
O

Omikaru

Member
Apparently, it wasn't just a "complaint", but a threat of legal action.

https://twitter.com/robertflorence/status/261434116224974848

Also, don't blame Eurogamer for this. The threat of legal action brings unbelievable pressure. I am clear on who the bad guys are in this.
Click to expand...

John Walker (from RPS) is less ambiguous about who made what threats:

https://twitter.com/botherer/status/261433971878031361

Wainwright threatened Eurogamer for quoting her, and making an observation. Utterly astonishing. Utterly pathetic. Wretched.
Click to expand...

So now we have game journalists threatening to sue other outlets for quoting them. What the fucking fuck?

This is an absolute fucking disgrace.
 
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