Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos
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Basically, Ben felt the original article encouraged piracy.
DirtyManos
Member
Holy hell this whole thing is a mess. I don't understand how these people believe themselves to be the professionals of the industry yet act so petulantly against Kain who is just being flat out insulted and attacked over something so minor.
Whatever "respect" Ben believes he's earned in the industry doesn't come off so well. Is there some axe to grind or something?
Jason Schreier is also coming off as pretty patronizing and passive aggressive. What is going on?!
Whatever "respect" Ben believes he's earned in the industry doesn't come off so well. Is there some axe to grind or something?
Jason Schreier is also coming off as pretty patronizing and passive aggressive. What is going on?!
What has he posted?
And did anyone notice our favorite Lauren Wainwrite favorited this tweet from Ben?
That's actually pretty funny. But Ben is being completely unprofessional, and frankly embarrassing about this whole thing.
DirtyManos
Member
I'm not exactly sure how to post pics of a twitter convo here, but in response to Kain wondering why Schreier joined in criticizing Kain over this:
Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier)
They've been painting Kain as basically a hack over this. Again, he apparently made a mistake, freely admitted it, amended the original article but that doesn't seem to be enough for the apparent cadre of game journalists.
Thanks. I agree; this seems way overblown.
Hi. Actually, I said "I don't think it's a huge deal," which is quite the opposite of painting someone as a "hack" because of this. I thought the Forbes update/apology was ridiculous, because it's ridiculous for a reporter to write something like "Does anyone know the laws behind this?" instead of actually going out and researching those laws, but I still don't think this is a huge deal. I really shouldn't have gotten involved at all. Sometimes I tweet something that I think is a harmless quip, but for various reasons, it winds up escalating into something more. Live and learn.
Clockblockers
Member
I think you summed up internet discussion as a whole
Perhaps you should threaten to sue him for libel!
The implications Kotaku made about Kamiya and Japanese developers were also false but that didn't seem to bother you. Strange. It's almost as if false implications are only bad when you aren't generating clicks from them.
He should clearly have investigated this to the same extent you investigated Versus XIII.
You guys are all so silly.
DirtyManos
Member
I don't understand this. I wrote that this whole thing is overblown. That it shouldn't be a big deal, but regardless it is. You must've known that this has been going on all day on both of their accounts, that both Ben and Erik have been going back and forth alongside many others, that there would be people paying attention and participating in discussion on different parts of the internet about this.
Yet you still decided to chime in?
I might be wrong, but I think you've commented on the fact that you believe you should be more careful about what you write on twitter or in public space about these events.
But you still did. You still decided to publicly comment that you believe what he did was lazy and naive, that his next article should contain "actual research".
I really don't think you're embroiled in this or a major part of this whole thing (or that you actually believe what he did was hack work), but I just can't help but find it incredulous that you didn't think someone would notice you decided to "quip" on this mess. Especially when that feeling of contempt had been oozing from both sides on this. Not that you shouldn't nor that you had any other intention, but you've been on this thread a lot and tbh the only reason I mentioned you was because of your very presence on this thread.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I actually do agree that the Forbes article was poorly thought out. It reeked of trying to fix something when you don't understand what's wrong.
I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise. The guy said to play it via the emulator he linked to instead of paying for it.
DirtyManos
Member
I think everyone agrees that he messed up, and it's just the public bashing that caught people off guard. He tried to amend his mistake, and the whole asking for readers help probably stems from the fact that because he got called out on his apparent mistake he assumed that one of those people who said he's wrong knew in what way.
Whether he should've done that before the fact is something else (that I think he wished he'd done anyway).
DirtyManos
Member
Apparently the company selling it do not even have the rights to it? I'm not sure about that however.
Honestly I bet that if it that article had been posted on say, Kotaku, this thread would be just filled to the brim with outrage.
The Forbes article was terrible, no doubt.
Ripping into the guy and openly hoping that he'll lose his career over it seems a tad silly coming from someone who wrote a shocking expose on 360 ads but doesn't know what an ad is. As is someone who works for Gawker calling Forbes a content-farm and bemoaning how Forbes-style content is dragging down games journalism.
Probably true. It's probably also true that jschreier would defend it to the end of the earth in that case.
I believe they do, and even if they didn't how does that excuse an article on Forbes saying to just play it (or infer the same about other $60 titles they don't think are worth it) on an emulator?
When he got called out on it, he started in on a ridiculous 'abandonware' argument...in his article about the game being released commercially. No idea about copyright law, no thought towards the ethics of linking to an emulator and telling people to play games that way instead of buying them, no clue about 'abandonware'...the guy should have done a whole LOT of thinking before hitting 'post' on that one.
Kuchera didn't say he hopes he'll lose his career at all. What he said was something about how he wished posting bad articles full of bad information would hurt people's careers. The exact same thing a whole lot of people have said in this very thread about more than a couple writers.
You mean like what Kotaku did to Kamiya's tweet?
Oh snap.
Lol expect him to come back and say it was all a misunderstanding. That it wasn't mean to get hit hits/reactions, just a misstep in wording.
Then he'll talk about how Forbes is farming for hits yada yada.
Now I kind of feel a little bad for beating up on jschreier. Have I grown soft?
Dude...you need to stop defending Kotaku on Neogaf, stop getting into Twitter battles and just let your work speak for itself. The more you come to Gaf and defend yourself and Kotaku the more it looks like they need defending.
If you want to change people's minds about Kotaku or game journalism or whatever change them by producing undeniably good content.
Godspeed!
Dude...you need to stop defending Kotaku on Neogaf, stop getting into Twitter battles and just let your work speak for itself. The more you come to Gaf and defend yourself and Kotaku the more it looks like they need defending.
If you want to change people's minds about Kotaku or game journalism or whatever change them by producing undeniably good content.
Godspeed!
If that shit article was posted on kotaku they would call gafers entitled manchilds on twitter and deflect the situation.
Pretty ironic for you of all people to write this after the kind of controversies you help create in your stories.
idlethreats
Member
This seems to be Kuchera's MO when something really gets under his skin. I used to quite enjoy his work a few years back, but after watching him go on multiple frothing Twitter tirades against that silly 'Game Journalists are Incompetent Fuckwits' guy (like, seriously, he just totally lost his shit over that tumblr guy, it was disturbing), I just couldn't read his stuff anymore w/o getting a bad taste in my mouth. When Penny Arcade poached him from Ars Technica, I had to laugh. An unprofessional asshole working for other unprofessional assholes? There's a fitting team.
Don't see what the big deal about Schreier's tweets is though. Totally innocuous compared to Kuchera.
Tumblr guy?
Man, game journalists really need no help with publicly demonstrating just how top-to-bottom immature this entire industry is, do they? These are grown ass men smelling blood in the water and then spending all day on twitter embarrassing themselves.
Yes, that Erik guy posted a dumb article, but it's obvious as day a few so-called journo's have an axe to grind with him.
Erik, next time instead of linking to an emulator, just link to one of a dozen of Lifehacker's detailed how-to piracy guides. Gawker has you covered.
Yes, that Erik guy posted a dumb article, but it's obvious as day a few so-called journo's have an axe to grind with him.
Erik, next time instead of linking to an emulator, just link to one of a dozen of Lifehacker's detailed how-to piracy guides. Gawker has you covered.
idlethreats
Member
Game Journalists are Incompetent Fuckwits. It was a silly site that was sometimes spot on and amusing but more often than not just stupid. It was several years ago so I don't want to go digging for Twitter links and it looks like some of the posts about it on GJAIF have been removed, but for some reason Kuchera just got really pissed off at this guy and would go on obscene Twitter rants at him. He even went so far as to send multiple emails to the GJAIF guy, wherein Kuchera mocked and insulted the guy for being unemployed. It was gross, ridiculously unprofessional and all completely unprovoked (GJAIF never really featured anything written by Kuchera, IIRC).
Oh, that's right, Kuchera would do that quite a bit. To be fair, the GJAIF articles were sometimes inflammatory, but mocking someone for having no job isn't much better.
He's probably pissed inexperienced people have a voice thanks to sites like Forbes. I agree he went overboard on this - could've just ended it after calling the guy out and left it at that.
I really liked that site, if anything for how it unrestrictedly shat on everyone.
Also it was kinda funny reading him ridicule a site I worked at heh.
Erik Kain is the savior of games journalism and is the only English speaking writer who puts out content worth reading. Ben "Moral High Ground" "Ulta-Butthurt" whatever his name is wrote an extensive article about the challenge of creating an emulator. A tad hypocritical, though most consumers in the gaming world think it isn't really a big deal to emulate really old games anyway. Most people do it on their phones or handhelds. You really think they bought all those NES games or even owned an NES? Is anyone ever actually outraged? No.
The only people who are pretending to give a shit are the people attacking him.
The only people who are pretending to give a shit are the people attacking him.
Trickytoon
Neo Member
When I read twitter 'exchanges' from these writers i often find myself thinking 'would I hire these people?' 'How would i react if a member of my team behaved in this way to other people in my industry?' I know if I behaved in this way towards fellow professionals and competitors in my field, even on my personal account, it wouldn't be tolerated as it reflects poorly on me and the standards of the company that employed me.
sonyinsider
Neo Member
I sat down at a dinner with Kuchera pre-PA and we spoke a long time about everything and nothing. He's a very down to earth guy, humble, and didn't come off like this whatsoever. We all get a little overzealous about something we're passionate about, but then again, I've learned its best to stay on the fence rather than jump it and try to provoke the other side.
WrenchNinja
Member
Kuchera blocks you for even disagreeing with him on twitter. He's really silly.
To where do I ship this high-five
idlethreats
Member
Yeah, GJAIF was pretty inflammatory and plenty worthy of derision, but Kuchera went waaaay overboard. His work was never even featured on the site to begin with, but even if it had been, there was no real cause for the way Kuchera acted. I mean, GJAIF was just some poor jobless guy posting snarky shit on tumblr; Kuchera - a successful, professional writer - going out of his way to try and tear this nobody down just really speaks to his awful character. We all make mistakes sometimes and say things we later regret, but how we treat the people that we don't like says volumes about the kind of person we are.
It was pretty funny for a while! But the schtick got old and the site never grew up or took the subject very seriously, so it's not something I'd particularly want to defend but for the fact that Kuchera went insane over the the site.
EDIT:
Exactly. It kind of blows my mind that he sees nothing wrong with his public temper tantrums. But then again, you look at the people he works for and it makes a rather depressing sense.
You know what's up!
I'd really like to see those tweets, haha.
But yeah, even the site wasn't very serious, it provided hundreds of examples of the daily real issues with game journalism, so I think it's a worthy cause and I'm sad he's not updating it anymore.
idlethreats
Member
Trying to track down tweets that are more than a few months old is an exercise in futility, but I did a quick search of GJAIF and came up with these two posts. Ugh, completely forgot that Kuchera shit on him for using donated money to buy his girlfriend's mental health medication. Unbelievable. I know GJAIF used to have the emails that Kuchera sent him up there, but seems like he took them down at some point - can't find em anywhere. Vaguely recall that, in them, Kuchera gloated about being successful and being able to provide for his children, while insulting GJAIF for struggling to find a job and not being able to afford his gf's mental healthcare.
rumbalumba
Banned
lol gaming "journalism".
i've never seen any of these "journalists" try to question devs at all. did any of these "journalists" even asked Rockstar about the whole Red Dead wives fiasco? no.
in terms of asking questions about the game and its gameplay, Ricardo Torres of Gamespot always struck me to have the most sensible questions.
i've never seen any of these "journalists" try to question devs at all. did any of these "journalists" even asked Rockstar about the whole Red Dead wives fiasco? no.
in terms of asking questions about the game and its gameplay, Ricardo Torres of Gamespot always struck me to have the most sensible questions.
toymachine
Member
The only time Kuchera ever answered me on twitter was to tell me that everything Guitar Hero did was a rip off of Rock Band, basically writing off Neversoft's entire contribution to the genre.
Then after his Rocksmith review (a giant piece of shit on ArsTechnica that should be removed for misleading people) I asked him "Have you tried BandFuse yet? Are you interested?" through formspring and his reply was:
"Every company that has attempted that kind of thing has failed, and I still love Rock Band. I'm kind of over trying new takes on the same theme."
He is completely biased and hypocritical and I'm glad he's finally been exposed. Good work
Then after his Rocksmith review (a giant piece of shit on ArsTechnica that should be removed for misleading people) I asked him "Have you tried BandFuse yet? Are you interested?" through formspring and his reply was:
"Every company that has attempted that kind of thing has failed, and I still love Rock Band. I'm kind of over trying new takes on the same theme."
He is completely biased and hypocritical and I'm glad he's finally been exposed. Good work
DICKS AHOY
Banned
can you guys be quiet for a minute, I'm trying to learn how to play Skyward Sword on my PC here
thanks eternalb
Mike of PA will do it too. They're not much far apart in maturity level.
If they didn't have their lawyer Khoo reeling him back in, Mike would have burned down PA just to win an internet argument multiple times. Dude goes full zealot on some shit.
When you've reduced one of them to just saying "deal with it" over and over again, you know you're not going to get a debate or even discussion. They either see you as one of them, or just consider you one of the "peons".
They get away with it too because they just play to their marks over and over again. I mean shit, they're pretty blatant about trying to force memes these days.
rumbalumba
Banned
lmao you jumped in on him as if he committed a crime as large as Kotaku does every day. he merely suggested that the game has been available through emulators. At the very least, his titles aren't misleading or click-baits. Kain summed it up nicely, "Gawker Media calling Forbes a content farm is good material for a stand up routine." ROFL.
Edit: http://kotaku.com/5866481/how-to-play-wii-games-in-high-definition-on-your-pc
PWAHAHAHA oh gawd.
MachoSuave
Neo Member
For those who take issue with giving Kotaku clicks
Comments retained for the authentic Kotaku experience.
edit: New page, what a waste.
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