Game journalism is a disgrace

[Brother None]

Back on topic, and re: Kotaku being a joke:

 

[TorontoReign]

Oh my God. Seriously!?

 

[Jabu]

The story has had virtually no presence outside gaming forums and enthusiast blogs. It's fucking pathetic that none of the usual suspects wrote so much as a pip about it.

You think it's unimportant "tired nonsense" then please elaborate and tell us why, in particular when it HAS sparked a lot of debate (and laughter) on gamings forums -- among the sort of people that make up your audience -- and when you apparently have the time and staff to publish to the vapid drivel you do on a daily basis.

Also, I'm not certain if it's by wilful ignorance or not, but exactly like Totilo in that comment, I've seen a bunch of people on both sides of PR-press divide misrepresenting the issue, focusing on tension between publications rather than the content of the article.

John Walker should have posted his thoughts on RPS proper. Not certain why he relegated them to his personal blog.

 

[Briosafreak]

I dare because I have shown integrity and loyalty throughout NMA's hard run, whereas you abandoned the site at the drop of a hat for your precious press access and preferential treatment. I am on a high horse because my behavior and yours put me there. You can do what you want, but you could at least have the decency to be honest about it, like Chobot. Haha.

It takes a lot to get on my bad side, but you managed it. You can try to blame me for that, or think back and figure out how your behavior would come across to someone who once considered you a friend and reliable colleague. You have no one to blame but yourself, and I have no reason not to be brutally honest about this. I have no respect for your bending over backwards, and have no reason to hide it.

False. You left NMA 2 times. I don't work on the industry since September 2011, while you continue to be paid to write about games. In the place where I was first banned ever, because I went there on a rage because they insulted NMA every single time they could.

In the same place that you link every time you can to spur traffic to receive your check, even if the sources of those news were others, like Ausir or me or DAC or Kotaku or whatever. You are the one that talks nice things about the small publishers that actually give you exclusives or stash.

And you are the one that gave a 360º turn absolving Bethesda of every practice that you accuse me of doing, because you're trying to maintain a good atmosphere between those that pay you and Beth.

You're the one that shut out everyone that could "steal" your limelight, like the person that brought everything about Van Buren to us, or like the time you boycotted the Fallout wiki while going all mellow and peacefull to Nexus, where they insulted NMA and fallout fans every single freaking day. You're the one that decided I was the enemy, on FO3blog and PF, while the Nexus crews and mainstream sites were crushing us at NMA. That wasn't a problem, since your real site was going so so.

And if it's true that you were the one that pushed Roshambo over the top against me and created the largest problem this site ever had then watch out, karma is a bitch.

 

[Brother None]

You left NMA 2 times.

1 time. Unless you're counting the time I went to volunteer in Russia, which would be funny. I also left simply because I felt like it/was tired of it for a while, which is fine. Odin and Silencer left for such reasons, and that's fine, I have no problem with either of them. Heck, I don't have a problem with anyone on NMA staff present or past, not even Roshambo, who hates my guts, but I know he meant well, and he might have been right in hindsight. Only one I have a problem with is you.

In the place where I was first banned ever, because I went there on a rage because they insulted NMA every single time they could.

Being banned for going on a rage doesn't sound like much of an indictment on GameBanshee.

In the same place that you link every time you can to spur traffic to receive your check, even if the sources of those news were others, like Ausir or me or DAC or Kotaku or whatever.

I always link to whoever the source is. I read GameBanshee regularly, I very rarely read the Vault, Planet Fallout or DaC. Like, I load up those sites only once or twice a month, unless I'm looking up stuff on the Vault. So yeah, I source where I actually read it. Sue me. Use the news submit forum if you want to beat GB to it.

You are the one that talks nice things about the small publishers that actually give you exclusives or stash.

Nope. I don't get any stash (my Fallout 3 T-Shirt is the only gaming peripheral I ever got), we rarely get exclusives. And when we do, it doesn't matter. For example, we got the exclusive worldwide first interview for Game of Thrones. But the review criticizes expansively, notes the reviewer initially disliked it, and notes it's only for fans of the books/series who don't mind a slower pace. We've always had a good relation with, say, Spiderweb, but I still disliked and criticized Avadon. We got a preview version of Risen 2 and I liked it and the game well enough, but still criticized it and we torched the DLC in our review. It's called integrity, you may want to look it up. It's how we worked, it's how we continue to work. For instance, there's no way I'd review Wasteland 2 because I'm way too invested in that game. GB is like a model site for journalism, too bad it only has the resources for reviews/previews/interviews, not actual journalism.

And you are the one that gave a 360º turn absolving Bethesda of every practice that you accuse me of doing, because you're trying to maintain a good atmosphere between those that pay you and Beth.

Haha. You're seriously going to try to flip the books on me? Pretend I am double-faced here? I haven't even directly talked to anyone from Bethesda for years. I have zero hope of getting any direct PR contact for NMA or myself, because they can't stand me, but my experience with them with GameBanshee has been positive, and while I make no secret about not liking Bethesda, my bias against them doesn't bring me to lie or misrepresent my own experience. They can't stand me, I joined GameBanshee, and yet their relationship to the site didn't change. I know a lot of publishers who do a lot worse. That's just a fact. When something is positive, it's positive, as much as I'd like to paint them as 100% bad people bullies. And I rant against Bethesda often enough, much to their annoyance, Buck has never told me to stop it.

And again, I was talking about their relations to press, not fansites. Their fansite policies are what they are, and I've never made any secret of them. They try to muscle out or ignore fansites they can't control, and you tried to help them to do that. Doesn't give you much ground to lecture me on.

You're the one that shut out everyone that could "steal" your limelight

What limelight? I just truck along imperfectly. This is some paranoid stuff, dude.

like the person that brought everything about Van Buren to us

Uh, you never told me who brought everything about Van Buren to us. Unless you mean yourself, but it's no secret you're the source of all Van Buren goodies. The actual source of it is a secret though, isn't he? I have no idea who it is. Would like to keep it that way, too, the more people know, the more likely it is to leak. And you quit after Van Buren, and were always welcome back. You made bad decisions for the wrong reasons, dude, no point in blaming me for that.

or like the time you boycotted the Fallout wiki while going all mellow and peacefull to Nexus

Wuh? I mailed Nexus once to ask if they would do contests together with us, they said sure, and then I kind of forgot about it. I've had no contact with them since, and the only relation NMA has to them is linking to their mods. Are you saying I should have some kind of antagonistic policy towards them? Why? What good would that do? We never had the resources to challenge them as a mod hub.

Again you accuse me of boycotts. Y'know, Tagaziel still works at the Vault, I think. We always shared staff. I just personally didn't peruse the site. Again with the accusation of boycotts though. I don't tell the other newsposters what sites to peruse or not, I never told anyone they couldn't work on the Vault. At different points NMA promoted and encouraged people to submit content on the Vault. Do I personally like the Vault or Ausir? Not particularly. Have I at times thought of the site as a competitor with us for traffic? Of course, because they are, though at this point they're so big it's irrelevant. I think I was a bit more antagonistic back when they were a part of DaC because DaC was using them to replace their site content, so working on the Vault was basically making DaC content for them. You may be confusing that with a boycott, but even then I didn't try to "force" people to stop working on the Vault. And I did kind of try to just stay out of the Nukapedia-vs-Vault fight because I personally think having competing wikis is kind of contra-intuitive and it's just a money about views and money rather than anything principle-like.

You're the one that decided I was the enemy

Nope, that was all your decision. Not my fault when you force my hand. You're welcome back, always have been, but I certainly wouldn't trust you. You made your own bed, man, don't blame me for it.

the Nexus crews and mainstream sites were crushing us at NMA. That wasn't a problem, since your real site was going so so.

I don't understand what you're saying here. I have a secret real site? Or what?

Not that I'm claiming NMA is perfectly-managed, but we do the best we can while sticking better to our principles than professionals do. Your abandoning us as you did certainly didn't help.

And if it's true that you were the one that pushed Roshambo over the top against me.

Huh? Rosh hates me. I'm not even sure what you're referring to here. I don't even remember Roshambo going over the top against you. He went over the top against a lot of people though.

What's the largest problem this site ever had? Probably not thinking up doing a wiki before Ausir did, I guess, haha. Or not convincing him to move it to NMA when it had to leave the Sorcerers Place host.

 

[Sander]

I'm not even going to address the numerous falsehoods/fabrications in Briosa's post, but I find this interesting:

You're the one that shut out everyone that could "steal" your limelight, like the person that brought everything about Van Buren to us, or like the time you boycotted the Fallout wiki while going all mellow and peacefull to Nexus, where they insulted NMA and fallout fans every single freaking day. You're the one that decided I was the enemy, on FO3blog and PF, while the Nexus crews and mainstream sites were crushing us at NMA. That wasn't a problem, since your real site was going so so.

None of us ever saw any of the competition as a war, nor did we see PF or the Nexus or FO3blog or anyone else as "the enemy". I'm not even sure how we'd go about waging war on another fansite anyway.

NMA just did its thing, and we didn't sit about thinking up schemes to hurt the competition.

But apparently, you always did. The fact that you saw that period as a war between NMA and FO3blog, or NMA and PF or NMA and the Nexus says a lot about the way you look at these things, and nothing at all about how we viewed it.

And, quite frankly, this is something you should know already. You were a big part of the site and the news crew for a good long while. When you and I were both a part of this site, there was never talk of how we could wage war on another site. The focus was always on improving the site itself.

 

[Brother None]

Yeah. Not that I made a secret of not liking Planet Fallout because they were a controlled "pseudo-fansite", but direct policies of boycotting or enmity? What would even be the point of that? The closest we got was when I noted we should try to support the Vault content over Planet Fallout content, but that wasn't exactly an indepth policy of any sorts.

I mean, maybe you can make a bigger site if you're antagonising, but NMA has always focused on quality over making exacting policies to maximize traffic. Because that's the crowd we are.

Other than the NMA-DaC war. But that's just tradition.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

I wasn't going to comment on this, but because the guy using my old nick(incognito) commented, i'd like to point out that I'm not taking sides here because my name is Paul and this shit is between ya'll

*My name is not really Paul.

 

[Briosafreak]

I'm not even going to address the numerous falsehoods/fabrications in Briosa's post, but I find this interesting:

[

Sorry? I didn't fabricate nothing, he's the one doing it from the start, and it started years ago. This time it just went too far, lying like that and conveniently manipulating what one "remembers" and "doesn't remember" it's the substance of fabrications. And lying about the way he expelled the fallout fan that got the van Van Buren files is way too much. He expelled John at the time from because he was too friendly with the former BIS people, but I'm sure he forgot to tell everyone about that. Oh actually he didn't. Or maybe he didn't tell you Sander.

He also forgot that the rage against Gamebanshee was because of days of insults against NMA, and he was there in the discussion.

And he forgot that he tried to absolve Beth RIGHT on the top of this thread. Why if nothing changed? If they continue to flood the "journos" with gifts, swag and paid trips? If they continue to hire gaming media people for voiceovers? Because Fallout 4 is already in pre production for some time, it's coming, and he wants Gamebanshee to not be put aside as NMA is. Because, you know, one has to protect the bosses prosperity, since they are paying him, making him a complete hypocrite.

And a douchebag, by the way.

I'll move away, which was something he wanted, that's fine. If he destroys NMA with the chimeric going independent and payed by the community project, either to bring it to Gamebanshee or monetize it, or if I know 100% sure that it was really you who pushed Rosh, then Kharn, the next talk will be face to face.

Karma is a bitch, remember that.

 

[Brother None]

What? Who's John?! welsh? I don't know of any other Johns. Why would it be a problem to be too friendly with former BIS people? We all like former BIS people.

EDIT: wait! Now I remember. You mean the guy who deleted a bunch of posts for Puuk's sake (or someone else's)? kumquat? He was told off for deleting posts, which is against our moderating guidelines. I since made a newsposting-only group since that won't happen again. He wasn't expelled, though, he made a procedural mistake that I think became a bit of a drama. We don't like censoring people. It was Rosh who handled that stuff for the most part, though, and who really had it in for him, not me. It was often put on me to talk with him coz unlike Rosh I actually got along with the dude. He also chose to leave himself, he wasn't banned or anything. A quick search through the Admin Forum brought me to a thread of Rosh flaming you and kum, and me - heh - defending you, while Rosh just wants you both gone for being dev fanboys (linked Sander to it, so he's seen it too now). Hah. Good times. I do have to look up a lot of this stuff before I remember it, TBH.

I did forget the GB-NMA discussion. I don't really remember this kind of stuff too long, to be honest, it's not that important.

Speaking of fabricating and manipulating, it's funny how you claim I "absolve" Beth when all I've said is that they're better than others in my experience because they don't do pressure/blacklisting stuff with professionals, which is not the same as absoluving them of everything. I have said they do press trips and gifts, and that's a problem. They're just relatively not among the worst, because they're better at the positive spin side of things. I still think they manipulate, that many journalists are way too much biased fanboys of them, and that their interpretation of Fallout kinda sucks and Fallout 4 will probably not be very good. Sure sounds like they got me in their pocket, right!!

Look, GB is courteous and professional. We don't let things color our opinion though. Some publishers have blacklisted us. Maybe Bethesda will, maybe they won't. It doesn't matter. I have been critical of them in reviews I've written for GameBanshee, and that won't change unless their games improve. My work speaks for itself, really, making your attempt to flip the "hypocrite" label back on my kind of weak. No one here doubts my integrity. Yours, though...

I'm a nice guy, actually.

You don't have to move away. In fact, I just invited you to rejoin us as staff. That invitation has been open for ages. I don't personally like or trust you, but we could've really used you during the past few years. It was your choice to turn your back on us, has nothing to do with me.

Man, going independent. I'd be happy if we could get the new forum system up. That's kind of how NMA is. Sometimes we have nice ideas, but we're never organized enough to get it done.

If he destroys NMA with the chimeric going independent and payed by the community project, either to bring it to Gamebanshee or monetize it, or if I know 100% sure that it was really you who pushed Rosh, then Kharn, the next talk will be face to face

Now you're threatening me? I'm worried about you, dude. Anyway sure, we can talk face to face. Makes no difference to me.

I'm not worried about my karma.

 

[Sander]

Sorry? I didn't fabricate nothing, he's the one doing it from the start, and it started years ago. This time it just went too far, lying like that and conveniently manipulating what one "remembers" and "doesn't remember" it's the substance of fabrications. And lying about the way he expelled the fallout fan that got the van Van Buren files is way too much. He expelled John at the time from because he was too friendly with the former BIS people, but I'm sure he forgot to tell everyone about that. Oh actually he didn't. Or maybe he didn't tell you Sander.

As far as I can tell he hasn't lied or misrepresented anything in this thread. But half the things you're talking about I either can't remember (which doesn't mean they didn't happen, I just don't remember them), or they went down differently from the way you describe them.

And he forgot that he tried to absolve Beth RIGHT on the top of this thread. Why if nothing changed? If they continue to flood the "journos" with gifts, swag and paid trips? If they continue to hire gaming media people for voiceovers? Because Fallout 4 is already in pre production for some time, it's coming, and he wants Gamebanshee to not be put aside as NMA is. Because, you know, one has to protect the bosses prosperity, since they are paying him, making him a complete hypocrite.

And a douchebag, by the way.

I think I know BN pretty well, both online and in person. I'm very certain I'm right when I say that you are completely and utterly wrong about his motivations.

You seem to view all of this as some kind of Machiavellian power play, where BN is manipulating everyone to some small-time internet celebrity end. That's just...well, delusional, and it doesn't fit with what he's done throughout the years.

You seem convinced that that's happening, though.

if I know 100% sure that it was really you who pushed Rosh, then Kharn, the next talk will be face to face.

I honestly have no clue what you're talking about re: pushing Rosh. Hell, you knew Rosh far longer than I did - he wasn't the type to get pushed into anything by anyone. In fact, if you may recall, he left over a disagreement with BN and me. He went off on you on his own, man. Rosh was (is, presumably) like that.

But if you think that I would ever push anyone toward hating you - you don't know me. Why would I even do that, anyway? What could possibly my reason for doing that? Or BN's, for that matter?

 

[Per]

I'm not even going to comment on the obvious drama and fabrications from everyone but me, except to say I have never been talking shit behind everyone's back in order to make them finally erupt in a crap cascade of Vesuvian proportions. Because, come on.

To get away with that you'd have to be so smart

 

[Sander]

I love Per. Per wins this thread.

 

[TorontoReign]

Man, going independent. I'd be happy if we could get the new forum system up. That's kind of how NMA is. Sometimes we have nice ideas, but we're never organized enough to get it done.

Lets do it man. You have mentioned it quite a bit. What do we need to do to make it happen? Not to derail the drama that this thread has become or anything...

 

[Brother None]

Heh. It is an idea I floated now and again, but it's not a high priority right now. I'd worry first about getting the forum update done before worrying about any of that complex stuff. Hell, there's a bunch of little things I think take priority.

Fact is we have very steady, reliable hosting from Atomic Gamer, so we should be in no hurry to go anywhere, especially not at a time like this, where a lull in news from both Fallout and Wasteland means our traffic is steady but unspectacular.

 

[TorontoReign]

Heh. It is an idea I floated now and again, but it's not a high priority right now. I'd worry first about getting the forum update done before worrying about any of that complex stuff. Hell, there's a bunch of little things I think take priority.

Fact is we have very steady, reliable hosting from Atomic Gamer, so we should be in no hurry to go anywhere, especially not at a time like this, where a lull in news from both Fallout and Wasteland means our traffic is steady but unspectacular.

True enough. The forum should take priority I suppose.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

THE FORUM SHALL ENDURE.

We shall be the wall that will stand for a glorious thousand years.

Also, yeah, this thread went somewhere weird and fast.

Makes me ashamed that I have published work on Kotaku.

 

[TheWesDude]

here is the problem.

and it is just not a problem with gaming journalism.

it has affected even professional journalism.


un-baised truth is what people want. if a game has a ton of bugs, then say so. if the game is a copy of the previous game, say so. if the game does not advance the genre, say so. if the game is remarkably mediocre, then it should get a mediocre score. if a game takes no risks and instead is just a copy of every other game in the genre, say so.

the problem is, these "professional" journalists kow-tow to the publishers or developers because they think they have to for pre-evaluation copies and such. or agreements to hold their less than stellar reviews until after the game is out and all the people who did day one or even week one purchasing have done so and everyone knows its a shitty game.

and i dont give a crap how many copies of a game sells. there is a saying people forget. "trillions of flies eat shit every day, why arent you?"

first time i played a COD game, it was fun. i enjoyed it for a while.

then i played another one. it was the same as the first one. then i played a third one. it was the same as the first one.

i dont play them anymore.

 

[Brother None]

un-baised truth is what people want.

Well, no. And that's kind of the problem too. I remember the first time I saw Edge mag getting shit over giving a highly-anticipated franchise game (a Halo title, maybe? I don't recall, some franchise) a solid 8/10. It rained death threats and profanity over this infamy. How dare they!?

So, think about it. That puts journalists in a lose-lose situation. Sure, there's level-headed folk who want honest, level-headed reviews, but they tend to congregate around the edges and they're not very vocal. So you've got publisher/PR pressure on one side, but you also have pressure from fans on the other, fans who just want to see their favorite games slobbered on professionally so that their opinions are rubber-stamped.

It's completely lose-lose for journalists to then work hard to be honest. There's no reward in it, pragmatically. You lose access, and readers.

So yeah, it's good it's brought up since it's been kind of ignored. Game journalism won't improve as long as there's zero incentive, and there's zero incentive as long as their readerbase acts this way.

 

[Jebus]

Holy shit, I had no idea NMA and the Fallout news scene was such serious business. This is some high-end drama over here, guys. We should re-work this into a script and make a TV-novella about it.

You seem to view all of this as some kind of Machiavellian power play, where BN is manipulating everyone to some small-time internet celebrity end. That's just...well, delusional, and it doesn't fit with what he's done throughout the years.

Well, TBH, we all know Kharn is always manipulating us. He manipulates me like four times on a daily basis. Not that I mind too much tho'.