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Kotaku: It's Reckoning Day For Nintendo Switch Rumor Reporters

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A

Altered Juice

Member
Saucycarpdog said:
It's only gonna get worse.

unknown.png
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I imagine there would be more duplicate threads from people rushing to be first, but yeah
 
H

Herr Schwarz

Banned
Eugh I don't really call this kind of thing hard hitting games journalism.

Just spoiling the eventual Nintendo press releases. Why? To keep the public informed before the inevitable press release?

So instead one big announcement with hype and lots of posts going "whaaaat" its just metered out.

I mean I can see how this works out for journalists, them sweet clicks, but for everyone else whats the difference?

It's like someone coming up and spoiling the future avatar trailer with spoilers of what they saw... ok great?
 
Hoho for breakfast

Hoho for breakfast

Member
CryptiK said:
We need a massive checklist thread of what ended up being true or false.
Click to expand...

Yep this would be fun reading. As someone said though for technical details...I dont think there's any way in hell we're getting them from Nintendo. Especially when it's yet another underpowered system compared to others.
 
E

Empyrean Heaven

Member
That's probably the most amazing thing about the Switch is that outside of 3rd party rumors we have nothing concrete coming out. It's refreshing in this day and age to have a company that actually cares about surprising their fans and not having everything leak out before a show.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
Kotaku said:
“I am constantly worried about that,” Dale told me during a recent interview. “That is honestly the most tiring thing about doing leaks, is the sitting and waiting and wondering, ‘Am I gonna lose all credibility because all of this is gonna turn out wrong?’”
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Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
 
TannerDemoz

TannerDemoz

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

Thank you. I was trying to think of a way to say this but couldn't find the words.

I think it's kind of sad that some leakers are so deep into this that it's effecting their lives and turning into a need for them to prove themselves.
 
D

DarkLordMalik

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...
Well said.

I'd rather take leaks from someone professional like Jason or Tom from EG, who atleast try to verify as much as they can, instead of Twitter 'insiders' like LKD and ER. But I guess, people are just thirsty for any rumor, whether it is true or just a fake/false info.

Back during the PS4/XBO launch, we had plenty of so called 'faux' insiders and with time, majority of them just disappeared in the background because of their wrong leaks. I suspect the same will happen this time as well.
 
B

brad-t

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

Agreed, as someone who likes LKD. I think it's just a consequence of being pretty green at this.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
And just to clarify something I said:
Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

I think I phrased that badly. More important than that is I think trying to understand why did you believe this? Like if you say "a top level executive who spoke to me only on condition of anonymity," I get why you think this is rock solid information. If you say "an entry-level employee overheard something in an elevator," I understand why this rumor should be taken with a grain of salt.
 
G

Gai Murakumo

Member
Some will rise, some will fall. We shall see tonight. I just want the rumor mill to end and see the hard facts of the system. This should have been over with months ago.
 
L

LinkSlayer64

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

Honestly, I'd say it's more because she just got let go from Destructoid relatively recently, and the Switch news put her new site and team which also consists of some ex-Dtoid team members into the spotlight, solidifying them as a site paid attention too, and thus a site people will go to, which will earn them revenue.
 
O

orthodoxy1095

Banned
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...
Felt similarly reading that section. It'll be interesting to see if all of her stuff comes true (unlikely), or if things are wrong, how confident she was about the things that she got wrong.
 
N

nckillthegrimace

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

When Patrick Klepek reported that Microsoft was reversing its Xbox One DRM, he said he felt "sick to his stomach" after posting his story, despite having gone through multiple sources he had known for years. So no, there's considerable stress in putting something out there, even if you take necessary precautions, because you're just twisting in the wind until something official happens. Until then, you're on the hook.
 
J

Jigorath

Banned
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

Agreed completely.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
nckillthegrimace said:
When Patrick Klepek reported that Microsoft was reversing its Xbox One DRM, he said he felt "sick to his stomach" after posting his story, despite having gone through multiple sources he had known for years. So no, there's considerable stress in putting something out there, even if you take necessary precautions, because you're just twisting in the wind until something official happens. Until then, you're on the hook.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that there is never any cause to be reticent about people not believing you, or even perhaps a fear that even if I know that what I'm reporting is true now it might change tomorrow and I'll look foolish. But what I'm saying is that if you're following a good protocol for verification and properly contextualizing information, your reputation won't live and die based on every report. You're probably going to get some things wrong. People may lie to you. Information may change before officially revealed. That's fine. But hopefully you've presented yourself in such a way that your entire reputation shouldn't rest on being right with one piece of hot insider gossip.
 
A

AgeEighty

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

All the proper journalism in the world can't account for changes of plans behind the scenes. The leaks she gets (provided they're legit, which I believe they are) are snapshots of a moment in time in the development process. And I'd say she does a fine job contextualizing her reports; she constantly tells everyone to take her information with a grain of salt. But you and I know that won't prevent her from getting savaged if a lot of her info ends up being either wrong or out of date.
 
A

Aikidoka

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
I'm not saying that there is never any cause to be reticent about people not believing you, or even perhaps a fear that even if I know that what I'm reporting is true now it might change tomorrow and I'll look foolish. But what I'm saying is that if you're following a good protocol for verification and properly contextualizing information, your reputation won't live and die based on every report. You're probably going to get some things wrong. People may lie to you. Information may change before officially revealed. That's fine. But hopefully you've presented yourself in such a way that your entire reputation shouldn't rest on being right with one piece of hot insider gossip.
Click to expand...

Do you have an example of Laura not properly presenting her leaks or are you just assuming that since she's afraid that she did a bad job? The latter seems like a inane stance to have, but I'm not sure why you would be concerned about her interview statement, otherwise.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
AgeEighty said:
All the proper journalism in the world can't account for changes of plans behind the scenes. The leaks she gets (provided they're legit, which I believe they are) are snapshots of a moment in time in the development process. And I'd say she does a fine job contextualizing her reports; she constantly tells everyone to take her information with a grain of salt. But you and I know that won't prevent her from getting savaged if a lot of her info ends up being either wrong or out of date.
Click to expand...

I want to first note that I'm not talking about any one leaker. My interest in this topic has nothing to do with praising or denigrating any one persona. I just used her quote as a springboard to speak broadly about the subject. Having said that, the bolded does not give you cover to report any information that comes your way. Providing a catchall disclaimer to treat something as a rumor is not how you properly contextualize information. Proper contextualization involves explaining your level of confidence in this information. Are you hearing this from one source? Multiple sources? Without burning your contact, can you give me some idea as to why you believe this person? What's their position? Are they likely to be privy to this information?

That's what I mean by proper journalism. So many times I feel like people just think the goal of this stuff is to keep score and that determines how trustworthy you are. If person A broke 5 stories and 4 of them are right, that makes them better than someone who got 3 out of 5 correct. And I honestly don't think that's a good way to look at things. If you don't want to be taken seriously and just want to dump information with a disclaimer of "do with this what you will," then so be it. But if you do want to be taken seriously I honestly don't think it's really that big of a mystery in terms of answering the question of "what's the proper way to break this news?"
 
C

Chris Ticehurst

Member
This is the thing about the video game industry that I don't like. Alot of the industry is based on rumors and leaks and not official reports. How many people in the industry have a degree in journalism and how many just put a badge on pretending they are without the degree?
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
JaseC said:
Yeah, BG&E2 isn't even remotely validated. She's alone on that front and the rumour has been revised twice:

Originally: In production, Switch exclusive, 2017
Then: In pre-production, Switch exclusive, 2018, teaser during the Switch reveal (after Ancel announced that Ubi had greenlit the project)
Now: Temporary Switch exclusive and maybe a teaser during the Switch media event (after the Switch reveal)

The lack of consistency sticks out like a sore thumb -- every single detail she's provided has changed at least once. I'll be quite shocked if the rumour is on the mark as it looks to me like she/her source has been evolving the rumour in response to facts that cast doubt over it.
Click to expand...

It's definitely hard to tell what's going on with BG&E2 based on rumors. Especially when you look at what Ancel himself has said. He makes it sound like it's not coming out any time soon. Specifically he said it's probably 3-4 years away from completion. So, either he's trying to surprise people by downplaying how far along it is, or on some level those rumors are very wrong.
 
A

AgeEighty

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
I want to first note that I'm not talking about any one leaker. My interest in this topic has nothing to do with praising or denigrating any one persona. I just used her quote as a springboard to speak broadly about the subject. Having said that, the bolded does not give you cover to report any information that comes your way. Providing a catchall disclaimer to treat something as a rumor is not how you properly contextualize information. Proper contextualization involves explaining your level of confidence in this information. Are you hearing this from one source? Multiple sources? Without burning your contact, can you give me some idea as to why you believe this person? What's their position? Are they likely to be privy to this information?

That's what I mean by proper journalism. So many times I feel like people just think the goal of this stuff is to keep score and that determines how trustworthy you are. If person A broke 5 stories and 4 of them are right, that makes them better than someone who got 3 out of 5 correct. And I honestly don't think that's a good way to look at things. If you don't want to be taken seriously and just want to dump information with a disclaimer of "do with this what you will," then so be it. But if you do want to be taken seriously I honestly don't think it's really that big of a mystery in terms of answering the question of "what's the proper way to break this news?"
Click to expand...

If you've been a follower of leakers such as Laura and Emily, you'll know they routinely talk about double and triple sourcing their information. Laura posted a breakdown of the information she's leaked and what kind of sources she got them from. She's also mentioned information she has received and not reported due to lesser confidence in her source. Emily has been a little less transparent, but has also spoken about exercising discretion with regard to what she's heard vs. what she has and has not reported.

With regard to the "keeping score" aspect, as far as I can judge it's not really about that from Laura's perspective. I think that as a result of the very emotional reaction to her information, there's a lot of emotion from her side as well. She's got a lot at stake tonight, and rather than just wanting to be right, I think she really, really doesn't want to be wrong.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
AgeEighty said:
All the proper journalism in the world can't account for changes of plans behind the scenes. The leaks she gets (provided they're legit, which I believe they are) are snapshots of a moment in time in the development process. And I'd say she does a fine job contextualizing her reports; she constantly tells everyone to take her information with a grain of salt. But you and I know that won't prevent her from getting savaged if a lot of her info ends up being either wrong or out of date.
Click to expand...

Good journalistic practices:
0) Don't make things up
1) Ensuring at least two sources for claims
2) Ensuring one of your sources isn't using your other source as a source, because that would just be one source.
3) Employing proper validation of the sources identities as employees of firms in a place to know what they are saying
4) Being very careful to separate what you heard, what you inferred, and what you speculate
5) Being very careful to understand what your sources know, what they infer, and what they speculate
6) Not falling for the tendency of low-ranking sources to represent themselves as more central, connected, or knowledgeable than they are.
7) Not using the fact that other journalists are reporting things as additional coroborration without being sure that their sources are not your sources
8) Being clear when you're repeating a claim another journalist made and when you have independent confirmation about a claim another journalist made
9) Reporting honestly without baiting, teasing, hyping, or withholding
10) Not trying to claim plaudits when you're right if you don't take lumps when you're wrong--"take this with a grain of salt" is absolutely not professional in any capacity, because if you turn out right, you're not going to say "No, no, I was wrong, I didn't know it".
11) Not taking excessive credit for reporting something that a reasonably informed speculator with no information would have concluded.

LPVG are very clearly not making up everything they write whole cloth! It's also quite obvious that as a former Destructoid writer and enterprising blogger-journalist, LKD is capable of seeking out sources--some of which she had probably cultivated before all this. And I take her at her word that her "master list of claims she's made" actually do have the sources she claims they do, and further that she's smart enough not to fall for a faker.

Where I think they are hurt is participating in the circular group of Twitter/YouTube/blog leaker-speculators, who frequently violate 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and especially 9, 10, and 11.

For example, if you have a source in Bethesda Germany who tells you cuts are being made to the new Wolfenstein for the country, that's very plausible. But you might want to verify that they know this for a fact, instead of assuming it to be the case because everyone knows Germany's laws require cuts to Nazi-related content. And then you might further verify that the person's claim is specific to Germany. And if your source also tells you that Elder Scrolls VI is not being worked on, but the source is a QA tester in Bethesda Germany on Wolfenstein, then maybe they aren't in a position to know that Elder Scrolls VI is being worked on or not, and they are making an inference based on what they've seen and heard that is not true. And if you report it as "SOURCE: New Wolfenstein Being Censored", you need to be mindful that what your source was telling you was probably only true for Germany, if at all. And you don't get to weasel out of it by saying "Take with a grain of salt"--and anyway, in the end, if you're right, you've just told people the most obvious thing that anyone could have guessed even without knowing anything.

The good thing about LPVG is that although some of their claims are the normal wishy-washy Nostradamus bullshit, they've made specific claims about specific games and specific claims about those games being prepped for this presentation. There's an obvious W and an obvious L that we can take away tonight. That kind of transparency is good, and I think JSchreier was getting at that.

Oh, and one final thing--someone being correct in the past may well mean that they are not totally full of shit and making up things whole cloth because their psychic premonition told them that Zelda: Valley of the Flood is M rated and b-b-b-based, but it doesn't mean that they are exercising discretion and good practices going forward. The opposite is definitely true--if someone goes out on limb and says StarTropics III by Retro Studios is going to blow your socks off and they announce Donkey Kong, you write them off forever. That's not a "things change", that's a "full of shit". But someone being right does not establish that they will continue to be, and that's why constant vigilance, skepticism, and holding people accountable for errors rather than just remembering successes matters.
 
S

Steve Youngblood

Member
Aikidoka said:
Do you have an example of Laura not properly presenting her leaks or are you just assuming that since she's afraid that she did a bad job? The latter seems like a inane stance to have, but I'm not sure why you would be concerned about her interview statement, otherwise.
Click to expand...

I clarified in my last post that I was mainly interested in speaking broadly about leakers and not necessarily Laura in particular. I just quickly looked at Let's Play Video Games. The most recent big report started off with an explanation of sources. That's good practice. It lets me better understand a degree of confidence in what is being reported. So I kept perusing a little bit and stumbled on this:

http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...-from-software-considering-trilogy-rerelease/

According to one of our sources, From Software has Dark Souls 3 running on the Nintendo Switch with a level of performance they are happy with. They have not committed to releasing it yet, but discussions internally at the company have discussed the financial viability of re releasing the main three Dark Souls titles on the Switch with their DLC bundled in.
Click to expand...

"According to one of our sources..." I have no idea how confident she actually is about the reliability of this info. That's an example of what I'm talking about.
 
A

Aztechnology

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Good journalistic practices:
0) Don't make things up
1) Ensuring at least two sources for claims
2) Ensuring one of your sources isn't using your other source as a source, because that would just be one source.
3) Employing proper validation of the sources identities as employees of firms in a place to know what they are saying
4) Being very careful to separate what you heard, what you inferred, and what you speculate
5) Being very careful to understand what your sources know, what they infer, and what they speculate
6) Not falling for the tendency of low-ranking sources to represent themselves as more central, connected, or knowledgeable than they are.
7) Not using the fact that other journalists are reporting things as additional coroborration without being sure that their sources are not your sources
8) Being clear when you're repeating a claim another journalist made and when you have independent confirmation about a claim another journalist made
9) Reporting honestly without baiting, teasing, hyping, or withholding
10) Not trying to claim plaudits when you're right if you don't take lumps when you're wrong--"take this with a grain of salt" is absolutely not professional in any capacity, because if you turn out right, you're not going to say "No, no, I was wrong, I didn't know it".
11) Not taking excessive credit for reporting something that a reasonably informed speculator with no information would have concluded.

LPVG are very clearly not making up everything they write whole cloth! It's also quite obvious that as a former Destructoid writer and enterprising blogger-journalist, LKD is capable of seeking out sources--some of which she had probably cultivated before all this. And I take her at her word that her "master list of claims she's made" actually do have the sources she claims they do, and further that she's smart enough not to fall for a faker.

Where I think they are hurt is participating in the circular group of Twitter/YouTube/blog leaker-speculators, who frequently violate 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and especially 9, 10, and 11.

For example, if you have a source in Bethesda Germany who tells you cuts are being made to the new Wolfenstein for the country, that's very plausible. But you might want to verify that they know this for a fact, instead of assuming it to be the case because everyone knows Germany's laws require cuts to Nazi-related content. And then you might further verify that the person's claim is specific to Germany. And if your source also tells you that Elder Scrolls VI is not being worked on, but the source is a QA tester in Bethesda Germany on Wolfenstein, then maybe they aren't in a position to know that Elder Scrolls VI is being worked on or not, and they are making an inference based on what they've seen and heard that is not true. And if you report it as "SOURCE: New Wolfenstein Being Censored", you need to be mindful that what your source was telling you was probably only true for Germany, if at all. And you don't get to weasel out of it by saying "Take with a grain of salt"--and anyway, in the end, if you're right, you've just told people the most obvious thing that anyone could have guessed even without knowing anything.

The good thing about LPVG is that although some of their claims are the normal wishy-washy Nostradamus bullshit, they've made specific claims about specific games and specific claims about those games being prepped for this presentation. There's an obvious W and an obvious L that we can take away tonight. That kind of transparency is good, and I think JSchreier was getting at that.

Oh, and one final thing--someone being correct in the past may well mean that they are not totally full of shit and making up things whole cloth because their psychic premonition told them that Zelda: Valley of the Flood is M rated and b-b-b-based, but it doesn't mean that they are exercising discretion and good practices going forward. The opposite is definitely true--if someone goes out on limb and says StarTropics III by Retro Studios is going to blow your socks off and they announce Donkey Kong, you write them off forever. That's not a "things change", that's a "full of shit". But someone being right does not establish that they will continue to be, and that's why constant vigilance, skepticism, and holding people accountable for errors rather than just remembering successes matters.
Click to expand...

Bookmarking... This is quality.
 
S

Servbot24

Banned
JaseC said:
Yeah, BG&E2 isn't even remotely validated. She's alone on that front and the rumour has been revised twice:

Originally: In production, Switch exclusive, 2017
Then: In pre-production, Switch exclusive, 2018, teaser during the Switch reveal (after Ancel announced that Ubi had greenlit the project)
Now: Temporary Switch exclusive and maybe a teaser during the Switch media event (after the Switch reveal)

The lack of consistency sticks out like a sore thumb -- every single detail she's provided has changed at least once. I'll be quite shocked if the rumour is on the mark as it looks to me like she/her source has been evolving the rumour in response to facts that cast doubt over it.
Click to expand...

That's how real life works though. Everything is constantly changing. Game development and game business is a stormy, violent sea.
 
S

Spades

Member
Steve Youngblood said:
Something about this quote just kind of bothers me. I feel like most of the apprehension about this would go away by merely aspiring to exercise proper journalism. If you're nervous that this leak might not pan out, maybe don't report it? Or contextualize it as well as you can without burning your source so that it's more readily understood why that particular bit of information wound up incorrect?
Click to expand...

I've been saying the same thing for weeks. It pisses me off that they report these leaks and claim it is not for monetary/reputation gain. If they worry you so much, don't report then and rely on actual journalism to get your clicks.
 
7

7Th

Member
Tom Phillips doesn't really fit with the others; his two major leaks are the specs and Pokemon Stars and chances are those won't be shown regardless of the rumors' veracity.
 
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