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[Neonivek]

The links are... misleading timfernius. Even I cannot decifer a few of them and others are clearly not proving the point they are evidence for.

[(int) magicMissile]

The links are... misleading timfernius. Even I cannot decifer a few of them and others are clearly not proving the point they are evidence for.

Please point to which ones you are talking about.

[Neonivek]

The Anita one where the guy was being a jerk and people were pointing out he was being a jerk.

[(int) magicMissile]

The Anita one where the guy was being a jerk and people were pointing out he was being a jerk.

That's fair enough.

There are however issues with believing people without asking them for evidence. The Escapist has had to issue a change to one of their articles to state outright that they have no evidence that harassment occurred in that particular instance. This is especially a problem since, in that instance, the people accused of harassment were VERY vulnerable and open to harassment (which they received in a massive wave).

"Update: This post has been edited to correctly assert that the claims were made by the accuser and have not been confirmed by another party."

[nenjin]

This is nothing compared to other journalists/media branches.

I am a marketing manager by day job and i can (and done so many times) have my PR team write an article which i then send to a blog/newspaper/magazine to publish as their own. sometimes i don't even have to pay for that article, they ask me to do it because they need "content" and want to secure future potential ad purchases.

We (My company) also funded a "reality" t.v show series where the cast, the presenters, the script, the locations, the broadcasting hours were all decided by us and were in the sole intent to promote our products. it was done in such a way that a naive viewer could never tell, but we pushed our products very heavily in that show.

I can have radio hosts talk about my products, i can have my products discussed, in a strictly positive way in t.v talk shows. i can, as a marketing manager, pretty much use any of the known media outlets to inject my own written content as an objective content written/researched/collected by journalists. i am not talking about obscure blogs and newspapers, i am talking about the biggest ones.

Why? because i have a relatively big advertising budget.

So, instead of worrying about Indie-Media relationships corruption, i'd worry about AAA-Media relationship corruption, because that's where the real money is.

^

In Journalism school, burningpet was the guy I was told to watch out for. Sad to see that in the years since, media has basically gone begging for content to put up on the web. I can read a lot of CNN articles where, just by the verbage and good editing, I can tell it was an ad piece submitted as original work. Nobody in their right fucking mind cares that much about Beats By Dre.

The reason this whole thing matters to gamers is because they think they're policing their own. It's not a big corporate entity with a $1 million legal team and corporate anonymity. It's someone "in the indie scene" which means, to the internet, they can hammer them as much as they want because they have no form of corporate or legal protection/anonymity. It's not that I think anyone is deeply surprised this is happening in media; they simply have a target they can reach in this case and so they are. (The dev's attempts at controlling this story have always just fanned the flames, because they can't possibly react with enough speed or authority enough to close it down.)

While I think the general thing has become way over blown (in the classic fashion of normal media where thing happens, and then half a dozen articles get published trying to assert that is or isn't a pattern of behavior in society at large), I don't necessarily think citizens doing this kind of active participation in the business of media is a bad thing. I at least like it better than being reduced to making snarky posts or blaming Obama in news article comment pages.

[Neonivek]

I am mostly trying to feel out the real situation by what is posted here.

[(int) magicMissile]

In Journalism school, burningpet was the guy I was told to watch out for. Sad to see that in the years since, media has basically gone begging for content to put up on the web. I can read a lot of CNN articles where, just by the verbage and good editing, I can tell it was an ad piece submitted as original work. Nobody in their right fucking mind cares that much about Beats By Dre.

The reason this whole thing matters to gamers is because they think they're policing their own. It's not a big corporate entity with a $1 million legal team and corporate anonymity. It's someone "in the indie scene" which means, to the internet, they can hammer them as much as they want because they have no form of corporate or legal protection/anonymity. It's not that I think anyone is deeply surprised this is happening in media; they simply have a target they can reach in this case and so they are. (The dev's attempts at controlling this story have always just fanned the flames, because they can't possibly react with enough speed or authority enough to close it down.)

While I think the general thing has become way over blown (in the classic fashion of normal media where thing happens, and then half a dozen articles get published trying to assert that is or isn't a pattern of behavior in society at large), I don't necessarily think citizens doing this kind of active participation in the business of media is a bad thing. I at least like it better than being reduced to making snarky posts or blaming Obama in news article comment pages.

It's the start to making the big difference.

[TamerVirus]

Has there ever been an attempt to create an 'unbiased' gaming medium website?

The only one I really know about is gather your party, but the posts are few and far in between

[burningpet]

In Journalism school, burningpet was the guy I was told to watch out for. Sad to see that in the years since, media has basically gone begging for content to put up on the web. I can read a lot of CNN articles where, just by the verbage and good editing, I can tell it was an ad piece submitted as original work. Nobody in their right fucking mind cares that much about Beats By Dre.

The thing is, the guys in charge of all these media outlets are actually the ones that are reaching out to the Marketing managers, not the other way around.

For two reasons:
1) Not many news sites/papers/magazines can manage themselves financially and so they come up with all sorts of indirect means of selling exposure. in our perspective, Google Adsense is actually far more effective so i don't really need their more expensive Ad space. i can put my Ad in their website, slightly below the Ad they are selling, targeting only my relevant audience, and pay less than a quarter of what they ask. what used to be a small "Bonus" (Mentioning my product, Reviewing my product, etc..) is now their main product because they know it sells better. and they make it main by specifically allowing you full or almost full control on the written article.

2) A lot of journalists are incredibly lazy.

It's the start to making the big difference.

No its not. not only because i am not entirely convinced anything was wrong there, but because even if things were slightly wrong, they have absolutely no impact on the rest of the media outlets or even the bigger Game websites.

Its like trying to fight crony capitalism by publicly condemning and harassing a kid that stole a candy from a gas station. its two completely different things that only share a similarity which is "stealing".

[(int) magicMissile]

Has there ever been an attempt to create an 'unbiased' gaming medium website?

The only one I really know about is gather your party, but the posts are few and far in between

Well, if I ever hit it rich off software development, I'll make a gaming journalism website that is bias free...

And then immediately have people claim that I've set up a way to get a bias for my stuff.

No its not. not only because i am not entirely convinced anything was wrong there, but because even if things were slightly wrong, they have absolutely no impact on the rest of the media outlets or even the bigger Game websites.

Its like trying to fight crony capitalism by publicly condemning and harassing a kid that stole a candy from a gas station. its two completely different things that only share a similarity which is "stealing".

No, it's like trying to fight a raging fire with a trickle of water. If enough of us focus on it and go for the little blazes first, we might be able to control and eventually destroy it.

[scriver]

Or it's just a bunch people jumping on an opportunity to hate on a person they already dislike.

[TamerVirus]

Kotaku and polygon have both instituted changes to their policy, so something came out of all this hoo hah

[Neonivek]

Kotaku and polygon have both instituted changes to their policy, so something came out of all this hoo hah

Well while I think people over reacted... I do think these changes are fair as well.

Best possible result to a overblown situation.

[alway]

Bahaha, this is hilarious:
https://twitter.com/elyscape/status/504680128673505280
https://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/504690459462348801

But in any case, those images do show the actual reason behind this. It isn't about the game journalism. It isn't even about the games. They have EA and Bioware on a list of 'things to boycott' with reasoning of "because they support LGBT issues." Not "they ruined the Sim City series." Not "they sold out." Not "they make the same game over and over and market it as a new one." Not even "paying off journalists with swag." Not a single legitimate issue. All it is is "we hate these people for their beliefs, and you should too." That's all the SJW label is: These people are enemies for calling us out on our sexism and disagreeing with us. And the fact that these people are being shouted down for their beliefs, dragged through the mud and shat upon, shows precisely why they are right and why the things they talk about are, in fact, major problems with the culture which need addressing.

It's ridiculous! If you want those darned feminists to shut up about being harassed, it may be a good idea to stop harassing them every time they say something.

[hermes]

magicMissile is doing a great job of being cool!   

I've been following games journalism for over 20 years.  I got seriously disillusioned about 5 years ago (I'm pretty slow sometimes) and went to gamecritics.com and P4Gaming.  Recently I spent more time on giantbomb.com because I liked their positivity (gamecritics.com can be a bit negative and dry), but I'm pretty bummed by the nepotism in this case - here's why...

Friendships, money changing hands, favors, gifts etc. that's all normal and expected.  Reviews really don't count for much these days, at least I feel (with no data whatsoever) that reviews play a smaller role in consumer purchasing decisions than they used to.  The only thing the gaming media has, the only thing they need, is apparent integrity.  Jeff Gerstmann talks a lot about how he doesn't get in on Kickstarters, he avoids talking about and reviewing products by especially close developers, and he is open about these concerns.  That's the gold standard of behavior as far as I'm concerned.

What's going on with these indie devs and a certain websites is bald-faced corruption/collusion for personal gain.  I agree that it is merely an extreme case of what has already been going on for years.  But it is extreme and it is deceitful and toxic and their behavior in response has been oppressive I don't want that in the media that covers my hobby.

I believe that in the modern society the right to vote in elections counts for virtually nothing, and the right to spend our money freely counts for everything.  Informed consumer choice is the bedrock of a capitalist democracy, and deceitful manipulation of consumer choice should always be sought out and brought to the attention of consumers.  Watchdog bodies.  For games.  It's not a new idea.  4Chan is the only community that is behaving as the watchdog.

OK, my opinions are not cool, but I'm not attacking anyone specifically, just the concepts.