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[Cybit]

The context hardly matched up, this is not a review: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/depression-quest/

KK. I don't particularly see the problem about Depression Quest. Zoey Quinn might be a bad person / have done a series of bad things (was telling she never refuted her ex's claims) but that's not really relevant. There are a lot of bad people out there. One does not threaten their lives.

Alas, PAR (Penny Arcade Report) has been taken offline - but I know Ben would always put in a full disclosure about whether he was flown out by the company, hotel room paid for, etc, in each preview he did. I know Ben's not a popular person here - but I always thought that was the standard.

I tend to stick to Kotaku for reviews (I love the "should you buy this game or not" aspect of the review) as well as a personal liking of Stephen and Jason (I think I met you both at a PAX one year on different occasions, and I enjoyed our conversations). Also, Jason's been fairly good about piping in here, even though his potential gain is minimal and the risk for being yelled at is high.

 

[LiegeWaffle]

What are you arguing about exactly? I don't need to show my credentials like I'm on trial. I don't care if you're ok with the status quo. That's your own thing to deal with. If you're ok with good games getting buried by crappy ones that's not my problem. Good for you I guess? Enjoy that? I'm not ok with it, and I will voice it.

Ultimately, marketing is an essential feature of a game, not some extra "it would be nice to have". If nobody knows about a game, it is as good as not existing for anybody but its developers. And who but the creators of the game have the burden to spread the word?

So yes, a good game with poor marketing is not just crappy, it is as good as non-existent.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

That's a pretty dick-ish thing to say.

I don't have a lot of patience for people who act like these relationships are destroying journalistic integrity and ethics while developers' children and family are receiving death threats

 

[NoCryingUntilTheEnd]

Man, if you don't like reviewers being friends with devs, you're really going to hate Giantbomb - they had a guy from Rockstar hosting the podcast, regular guests from favourite developers like Dave Lang and Dan Rykerts face is in LA Noire and Infamous Second Son because he wrote the previews for those games from Game Informer.

I don't think he hates reviewers being friends with devs, but rather reviewers being friends with devs and not disclosing their relationships. Giant Bomb is fairly transparent with who they're in contact with.

 

[andymcc]

Even something in the article saying something like "I've been a fan of this for a long time" is nice, it doesn't have to be a big disclaimer in huge read lettering.

You usually would understand something like that in text of the review. For example, in the about the author score of Bayonetta 2 for Gamespot:

"Mark adored the original Bayonetta, but even all that time spent with Platinum Games' classic didn't prepare him for just how wonderful its sequel would be. He completed Bayonetta 2's story mode, beat all the challenges, and continues to try and uncover the game's many secrets."

see?

If you become familiar with reviewers that share similar tastes and sensibilities, it's very easy to ascertain if they too are fans of something you also like. the amount they may like something doesn't typically entail a sequel to a series is guaranteed a positive review, it's not a guarantee that because they normally love a band their newest record is going to get a good score. it's not really rocket science.

 

[marrec]

How the hell did I not know that.... (I haven't done much research).

Does he actually give a shit about games? This is the first I'm hearing about him and video games in the same conversation.

No he doesn't give a shit about games. He only wants to spread his backwards and hateful rhetoric to people who'll listen.

 

[Mael]

To be fair, usually, if the game is bad, people will not buy it regardless of how much coverage it has. Just think about all those "Let's Play bait" games.

The game need to be offensively bad for people to not buy it if the marketing effort is that huge.
I'm not talking about indie games here, these are so small as to be inconsequential in this industry.

Didn't I say exactly that, that how good your game is doesn't have bearing on public reception, and I believe that is very wrong?

What are you arguing about exactly? I don't need to show my credentials like I'm on trial. I don't care if you're ok with the status quo. That's your own thing to deal with. If you're ok with good games getting buried by crappy ones that's not my problem. Good for you I guess? Enjoy that? I'm not ok with it, and I will voice it.

This is not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that there's nothing you can do to change the fact that simply making a good game is good enough for it to be a success.
That's simply not how it works.
You were saying that you don't want to see crappy games pushed by someone with an agenda to succeed anymore, like that's something that is frequent and already happens.
I'm just asking for examples, if it's so prevalent surely you can point to some egregious example.

 

[jim2point0]

Seems like you aren't aware of what is going on. Here's a primer: http://gawker.com/what-is-gamergate-and-why-an-explainer-for-non-geeks-1642909080

Nope =(

I saw a post on twitter which linked to this thread. I did a little bit of thread skimming and saw that post about Adam Baldwin. Yikes...

I'll read the link you posted ^^

 

[Son of Cervantes]

I think we all (or at least most of us) agree that Hernandez should have disclosed the relationship. Kotaku has acknowledged this as well on a go-forward basis while stopping short of firing her. Obviously, there is a conflict of interest there, and writers should be upfront about disclosing such conflicts. I would really like to encourage that we move on.

Most of us, minus Lime and Labor who are being fairly insulting (basically implying "you have no social life," "you're dumb").

It's pretty hard to have an adult discussion when people are just trying to troll you for bringing up a breach of ethics that 1) you feel actually merits discussion, and 2) is being ignored by GamerGaters because, let's face it, for all their sturm und drang about ethics, they're mostly a group of angry misogynists. And the game journalism thread got locked, so I can no longer bring it up there.

 

[outunderthestars]

I don't think he hates reviewers being friends with devs, but rather reviewers being friends with devs and not disclosing their relationships. Giant Bomb is fairly transparent with who they're in contact with.

Only if you listen to the podcasts and watch their live streams. If you just read a preview or review, you'd have no idea. That said, I am a subscriber and love their content because of the friendships they have in the industry.

 

[Son of Cervantes]

Did I say that? The disclosure has been added. I agree it should have been there in the first place, but if you think it's a huge scandal that deserves firing and a public shaming, I don't know what to tell you. This is about a free indie game, not international politics. Are you also furious Roger Ebert was friend with moviemakers?

You said you totally disagree with me. Your exact words. Therefore, I obviously thought you didn't see anything wrong with what Hernandez had done. Now you're saying that you agree with me.

I'm confused.

 

[Lime]

So now that Sarkeesian has been genuinely censored because of terrorism, is there anyone left who really wants to support Gamergate? And how can those still perpetuating all this toxic garbage be stopped?

 

[Son of Cervantes]

So now that Sarkeesian has been genuinely censored because of terrorism, is there anyone left who really wants to support Gamergate?

Obviously there's still plenty of people who do, or the tag would have been dead weeks ago.

A better question to ask is, is there anyone left on NeoGAF who really wants to support Gamergate? And I doubt there is.

 

[RicoTheMad]

How would your ideal gaming journalism world work? Is every single game covered by all websites? Otherwise, what decides which games get coverage and which ones don't? It can't be "the best ones", because a game's quality is highly subjective; that's the "favoritism" you're decrying.

Who's decrying people having personal opinions or subjective analysis? When did I say that? I specifically named the example of "if your SO is the developer, maybe you shouldn't write or at least state the fact in your article".

There are many ways to discover games. Here's a few, despite your sarcasm:

- Gamejolt
- Indiegames.com (they cover a wide gamut of indie titles and from what I've seen, show no real favoritism)
- Indiestatik - Has writers like Chloi on staff who actively seek out indies and give fair coverage. Good writers overall and they cover a lot of different games.
- Reddit (gamedev, indiegaming, games, subreddits for other games if you are looking for a particular genre like creepygaming)
- Game engine, gamedev forums like Unity, UE4, TIGSource.
- Facebook has a group called Indie Game Promo (a lot of it is mobile devs and a lot of clones, but that's the nature of open groups, sadly)
- IndieDB.com
- Billions of other smaller game sites, youtubers, etc. Did you know that a lot of youtubers do Let's Plays of small indie games nobody's ever heard of? Markiplier did a let's play of one of my gamejam games. I discovered it after I saw a huge unexplained spike in my site's traffic. Know who told him? Nobody. His readers recommended it to him.

The fact is, there are a *ton* of places you can go to discover games, even if you ignore the fact that developers actively send their games to press for coverage, so they don't even *need* to go find them.

There is absolutely no *need* to rely on your friends to know that a game exists. This is the internet for crying out loud, you can find anything.

 

[Gutsy Frog]

Man, if you don't like reviewers being friends with devs, you're really going to hate Giantbomb - they had a guy from Rockstar hosting the podcast, regular guests from favourite developers like Dave Lang and Dan Rykerts face is in LA Noire and Infamous Second Son because he wrote the previews for those games from Game Informer.

How do you feel about Gone Home?

Not a fan of the creators (don't feel like going into this), but their work itself doesn't bother me at all despite not being my cup of tea. There's some content and substance to it which is more than I can say about something like Proteus.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

So now that Sarkeesian has been genuinely censored because of terrorism, is there anyone left who really wants to support Gamergate?

Likely the bulk of the same people that supported it before, unfortunately. The GG majority has been spoon-fed so much misinformation that many of them legitimately feel Anita and other critics are trying to take video games away from us and are likely to see this as a 'victory'. Either that or they'll continue to spout "false flag!" How many 'false flags' are raised before one realizes they are very much not false.

 

[Joeki11a]

What the hell is this shit?

Wow what was Druckmann doing in that mess?

Is this why TLOU was all about Ellie?

 

[NexusGamer]

Imagine if they applied the same rhetoric to game reviews of actual consumer products.

IGN would have to put an editorial note on every review of a WayForward game. "Hey, just so you guys know, the creative director of this company used to be an editor for us, we are all good friends that still hang out!"

Destructoid would have to do the same for Gearbox. "This game, even if not reviewed so positively, was written by one of our ex-staff! Please keep this in mind!"

Think if this was applied to film reviews.

"Even though we gave this film a positive review, it is worth knowing that our writer was flown to LA for the red-carpet premiere as to meet release-date review deadlines"

Or Music.

"Ed note: An engineering assistant once had a brief relationship with the writer of this review."

Those are poor examples...

Getting flown to an event to meet a deadline? That's impersonal. It doesn't add any expectations like a pre-existing relationship does.

Similarly, an engineering assistant probably doesn't really care about how the review turns out. Unless he was actually fully involved in creating the album at a higher level (as a producer or something). In that case yeah, that relationship should absolutely be disclosed.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Obviously there's still plenty of people who do, or the tag would have been dead weeks ago.

A better question to ask is, is there anyone left on NeoGAF who really wants to support Gamergate? And I doubt there is.

There are people in this thread still trying to defend it, and in OT now as well since someone made a thread there about the Utah State cancellation

 

[Deleted member 126221]

You said you totally disagree with me. Your exact words. Therefore, I obviously thought you didn't see anything wrong with what Hernandez had done. Now you're saying that you agree with me.

I'm confused.

I see it as a very minor error/omission that has been dealt with adequately, I completely disagree with the fact that the writer should be fired or that there's been a huge breach of ethics. It's a storm in a teacup, like most of gamergate.

 

[Oersted]

Obviously there's still plenty of people who do, or the tag would have been dead weeks ago.

A better question to ask is, is there anyone left on NeoGAF who really wants to support Gamergate? And I doubt there is.

Giving the thread in Off-Topic and some of the horrible posts... I have my doubts.

 

[Gutsy Frog]

Likely the bulk of the same people that supported it before, unfortunately. The GG majority has been spoon-fed so much misinformation that many of them legitimately feel Anita and other critics are trying to take video games away from us.

I started disliking Anita in 2010, before 4chan even knew of her existence. I found her channel and left her four comments in her approval queue: two positive, two negative (yet nicely-worded). She approved the positive ones but not the negative.

 

[KingGondo]

Obviously there's still plenty of people who do, or the tag would have been dead weeks ago.

A better question to ask is, is there anyone left on NeoGAF who really wants to support Gamergate? And I doubt there is.

At least not openly.

There are a couple of posters in this thread who are pretty happy that she was silenced.

 

[Joeki11a]

Why nobody talks about Zoe injecting microchips in herself and making that seem like its cool?, hovering her hand over the phone to log into twitter.....really?.

 

[Dr_LucienSanchez]

http://kotaku.com/video-game-asks-players-to-bake-real-cakes-for-virtual-1183623826

Christine Love's VNs aren't free and she literally said "buy them"

Hahahah. Once again, your usage of literally leaves something to be desired. Nowhere in that article you linked does she say BUY THESE GAMES. She writes at the end:

You can check out Hate Plus here, although I'd suggest playing through Analogue: A Hate Story first.

Or am I reading something incorrectly here? The whole article seems relatively tame, certainly nothing to warrant your exaggerated reaction.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I started disliking Anita in 2010, before 4chan even knew of her existence. I found her channel and left her four comments in her approval queue: two positive, two negative (yet nicely-worded). She approved the positive ones but not the negative.

Thanks for the completely irrelevant and totally unbiased information?

 

[Vlade]

So now that Sarkeesian has been genuinely censored because of terrorism, is there anyone left who really wants to support Gamergate? And how can those still perpetuating all this toxic garbage be stopped?

It seems like it would be foolish to come out in favor of a movement that talks a bit about the unfair pro-women bias that games media sometimes displays while it's actions amount to something I hope the fbi is taking care of.

 

[Hemi-PoweredDrone]

I think we all (or at least most of us) agree that Hernandez should have disclosed the relationship. Kotaku has acknowledged this as well on a go-forward basis while stopping short of firing her. Obviously, there is a conflict of interest there, and writers should be upfront about disclosing such conflicts. I would really like to encourage that we move on.

Yeah, they took probably the best course of action. She didn't deserve to be fired, but this shouldn't be ignored and used as a learning experience.

And yeah, it does seem like this argument is just going in circles, especially since everyone sort of agrees with each other anyway.

How the hell did I not know that.... (I haven't done much research).

Does he actually give a shit about games? This is the first I'm hearing about him and video games in the same conversation.

I'm not entirely sure myself, but he's been getting involved in Gamergate ever sense he started the hashtag.

https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/504801169638567936

Well, now that I've looked at his IMDB, he has done voicework for a few games, most notable from just a quick glance looks like Dutch in ODST and Superman in DC Online.

If you become familiar with reviewers that share similar tastes and sensibilities, it's very easy to ascertain if they too are fans of something you also like. the amount they may like something doesn't typically entail a sequel to a series is guaranteed a positive review, it's not a guarantee that because they normally love a band their newest record is going to get a good score. it's not really rocket science.

Yes, but if you were already a fan of something, you're opinion can be coloured by that. A good recent example would be with Hyrule Warriors, the opinion of someone who already liked Musou games is completely different than someone who doesn't or has not really played them before. Things like this aren't a guarantee for anything, but because they could colour their opinion, it does matter.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

I started disliking Anita in 2010, before 4chan even knew of her existence. I found her channel and left her four comments in her approval queue: two positive, two negative (yet nicely-worded). She approved the positive ones but not the negative.

Okay. Thanks for confirming she is trying to take games away from us.

 

[outunderthestars]

Who's decrying people having personal opinions or subjective analysis? When did I say that? I specifically named the example of "if your SO is the developer, maybe you shouldn't write or at least state the fact in your article".

There are many ways to discover games. Here's a few, despite your sarcasm:

- Gamejolt
- Indiegames.com (they cover a wide gamut of indie titles and from what I've seen, show no real favoritism)
- Indiestatik - Has writers like Chloi on staff who actively seek out indies and give fair coverage. Good writers overall and they cover a lot of different games.
- Reddit (gamedev, indiegaming, games, subreddits for other games if you are looking for a particular genre like creepygaming)
- Game engine, gamedev forums like Unity, UE4, TIGSource.
- Facebook has a group called Indie Game Promo (a lot of it is mobile devs and a lot of clones, but that's the nature of open groups, sadly)
- IndieDB.com
- Billions of other smaller game sites, youtubers, etc. Did you know that a lot of youtubers do Let's Plays of small indie games nobody's ever heard of? Markiplier did a let's play of one of my gamejam games. I discovered it after I saw a huge unexplained spike in my site's traffic. Know who told him? Nobody. His readers recommended it to him.

The fact is, there are a *ton* of places you can go to discover games, even if you ignore the fact that developers actively send their games to press for coverage, so they don't even *need* to go find them.

There is absolutely no *need* to rely on your friends to know that a game exists. This is the internet for crying out loud, you can find anything.

There are literally tens of thousands of games being developed right now. You cannot possibly expect journalists to scour the internet for every single one just because your business plan doesn't involve a marketing budget.


Not to be rude, but you really don't have room to talk as you have not updated your company's blog since May. That doesn't exactly make it easier for a journalist to discover your project.

 

[Cybit]

I don't have a lot of patience for people who act like these relationships are destroying journalistic integrity and ethics while developers' children and family are receiving death threats

One does not preclude the other. This is not a "which crime is worse" war. You can decry the bullshit the female developers are having to put up with w/r/t GG AND point out that not having that disclosure is a very big deal from a journalist's perspective. Can I summon @MHWilliams and @jschrier somehow to see their perspectives?

 

[jacksepticeye]

Wow it's even trending worldwide on Twitter now

Spoiler

this was posted already wasn't it? D:

 

[Son of Cervantes]

I see it as a very minor error/omission that has been dealt with adequately, I completely disagree with the fact that the writer should be fired or that there's been a huge breach of ethics. It's a storm in a teacup, like most of gamergate.

Ok.

 

[Pride]

I think we all (or at least most of us) agree that Hernandez should have disclosed the relationship. Kotaku has acknowledged this as well on a go-forward basis while stopping short of firing her. Obviously, there is a conflict of interest there, and writers should be upfront about disclosing such conflicts. I would really like to encourage that we move on.

I've not commented at all on GamerGate nor do I associate myself with it but to allow post after post of claims that the GamerGate campaign is an anti-women campaign, then to encourage people to "move on" when discussing an example of what some claim the movement to be about seems a very big double standard.

 

[Gutsy Frog]

Thanks for the completely irrelevant and totally unbiased information?

I'm just saying, you don't need disinformation to dislike Anita. I doubt anyone but a small minority thinks she 'wants to take video games away from us'.

 

[Mesoian]

Why nobody talks about Zoe injecting microchips in herself and making that seem like its cool?, hovering her hand over the phone to log into twitter.....really?.

Because it's completely irrelevant to the conversation?

Also don't laugh too hard, there's some interesting stuff that's going to be offered to the market in late 2015.

 

[Squire]

True. Hernandez has done some truly heinous shit in the past and basically all of it went ignored, but THIS is the thing that causes outrage? It's ludicrous.

Please tell me what she has done that's deserving of the use of "heinous" as a descriptor.

I mean... "Heinous"? Really? REALLY?

 

[Hemi-PoweredDrone]

Wow it's even trending worldwide on Twitter now

Spoiler

this was posted already wasn't it? D:

After the terrorism thing, it isn't surprising. Thankfully it seems that Gamergate is killing itself off before someone actually gets hurt.

 

[RicoTheMad]

There are literally tens of thousands of games being developed right now. You cannot possibly expect journalists to scour the internet for every single one just because your business plan doesn't involve a marketing budget.

What are you on about? When did I say marketing wasn't a thing.

Should my marketing budget include funds for bribes to the press? Hookers/gigolos? I'm an indie so I may need to get my own hands dirty. Will you tell my wife this is necessary so she'll give me the go ahead, please?

Ridiculous.

Regarding my updates:

That's because its part of my business plan. Which you are not privy to. But thanks for taking the time to look at it regardless, even if it was to slander me personally

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I'm just saying, you don't need disinformation to dislike Anita. I doubt anyone but a small minority thinks she 'wants to take video games away from us'.

What in the world are you talking about? My comment has to do with GG's objectives and supporters, not their perceived reasoning for disliking Anita. There are hundreds of major voices among the GG ranks screaming out that Anita (and feminists) are trying to take games away from them. If you choose to ignore that then that's your prerogative but doesn't change the fact that it's there.

 

[Son of Cervantes]

I'm just saying, you don't need disinformation to dislike Anita. I doubt anyone but a small minority thinks she 'wants to take video games away from us'.

Only issue I have with her videos is the fact that the grabs footage from and doesn't cite the sources. I don't get why she bought that huge stack of games using Kickstarter funds if she wasn't going to play them so she could do video captures and stuff. It comes off as fairly disingenuous.

I think she's a pretty mediocre critic, but I don't disagree with the stuff she points out regarding women in games. She's probably right about 99% of what she says.

 

[partyphone]

I started disliking Anita in 2010, before 4chan even knew of her existence. I found her channel and left her four comments in her approval queue: two positive, two negative (yet nicely-worded). She approved the positive ones but not the negative.

do you have a link or screencap of those comments? since you have such a close personal relationship with the person who made them I just can't accept your word on the issue.

 

[NoCryingUntilTheEnd]

So now that Sarkeesian has been genuinely censored because of terrorism, is there anyone left who really wants to support Gamergate? And how can those still perpetuating all this toxic garbage be stopped?

Do we know for a fact that the ones that threatened Anita were GG supporters, or is it just assumed? And I'm not trying to start any conspiracy or any other silly stuff with this post, I'm just wondering if we have any details on the guys.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

One does not preclude the other. This is not a "which crime is worse" war. You can decry the bullshit the female developers are having to put up with w/r/t GG AND point out that not having that disclosure is a very big deal from a journalist's perspective. Can I summon @MHWilliams and @jschrier somehow to see their perspectives?

They've given their perspectives multiple times throughout the thread (although I realize it's a huge thread).

To be perfectly honest, the issues with reviewers and devs doesn't really matter to me because there are many, many reviews available and they never mean more to me than that particular person's opinion on the game. As a result, the harassment and censorship attempts coming out of GG carry much more weight.

 

[Sou Da]

I'm just saying, you don't need disinformation to dislike Anita. I doubt anyone but a small minority thinks she 'wants to take video games away from us'.

Don't care for her videos at all but depending on what you mean by small minority you'd be surprised

 

[Orayn]

Wow what was Druckmann doing in that mess?

Is this why TLOU was all about Ellie?

Evil succubus infiltrating OUR medium and trying to put FEMALE CHARACTERS in our MAN-GAMES.

#WakeUp

 

[outunderthestars]

What are you on about? When did I say marketing wasn't a thing.

Should my marketing budget include funds for bribes to the press? Hookers/gigolos? I'm an indie so I may need to get my own hands dirty. Will you tell my wife this is necessary so she'll give me the go ahead, please?

Ridiculous.

Absurd hyperbole aside you could start by actually updating your own company's blog. Effective marketing is a craft. It is not an accident that certain indies get press coverage, and the answer isn't some grand conspiracy. It is effective marketing.

Not sure how pointing out you poor marketing plan is slander, but OK.

 

[Mesoian]

Please tell me what she has done that's deserving of the use of "heinous" as a descriptor.

I mean... "Heinous"? Really? REALLY?

She posted an article that basically told the world that Max Tempkin from Cards Against Humanity raped a woman in college with no evidence or creditable backing. I would have fired her for that and given their editor hell. It is a gross article that never should have been run.

But her dating someone once is way more important than that apparently.

 

[Gutsy Frog]

Only issue I have with her videos is the fact that the grabs footage from and doesn't cite the sources. I don't get why she bought that huge stack of games using Kickstarter funds if she wasn't going to play them so she could do video captures and stuff. It comes off as fairly disingenuous.

I think she's a pretty mediocre critic, but I don't disagree with the stuff she points out regarding women in games. She's probably right about 99% of what she says.

There's a pretty huge amount of things she said that are super-ignorant of whatever she's talking about. That and she's obviously sex-negative and made comments that pretty much dehumanized female sex workers.

 

[Gorger]

Dunno if this has been posted already, but 30 minute live Huffpost interview with 3 female pro-gg gamers.

Found it very interesting.

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/se...n-video-game-culture/543c686878c90a71ff000157