It also appears that the guy just left instead of being fired.
I wonder if American sources would be as quick to capitulate what with the different standards for libel and shit. English defamation law is kind of retarded. I think their might be jurisdiction in England for American comments as well but I have no clue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
The two edited out parts that caused a lot of the fuss:
One games journalist, Lauren Wainwright, tweeted: "Urm... Trion were giving away PS3s to journalists at the GMAs. Not sure why that's a bad thing?"
Now, a few tweets earlier, she also tweeted this: "Lara header, two TR pix in the gallery and a very subtle TR background. #obsessed @tombraider pic.twitter.com/VOWDSavZ"
And instantly I am suspicious. I am suspicious of this journalist's apparent love for Tomb Raider. I am asking myself whether she's in the pocket of the Tomb Raider PR team. I'm sure she isn't, but the doubt is there. After all, she sees nothing wrong with journalists promoting a game to win a PS3, right?
Another journalist, one of the winners of the PS3 competition, tweeted this at disgusted RPS writer John Walker: "It was a hashtag, not an advert. Get off the pedestal." Now, this was Dave Cook, a guy I've met before. A good guy, as far as I could tell. But I don't believe for one second that Dave doesn't understand that in this time of social media madness a hashtag is just as powerful as an advert. Either he's on the defensive or he doesn't get what being a journalist is actually about.
Lauren has now protected her twitter account for only friends.
Cook showed up posting in the responses of the article defending himself then later said he would give the PS3 to charity after taking a thrashing from people.
There is no reason whatsoever for removing the Lauren Wainwright bit. Reposting two publically available statements and then a clearly marked personal opinion.
Video Games Consultant at Freelance
The Sun - Games Critic at News International
Freelance (IGN, Future Publishing, Uncooked Media, PlayBoy, Square Enix, News International, CBS,)
Experience
Future Publishing
CBS Interactive
Barrington Harvey
Consolemonster.com
Destructoid.com
I took the two articles seems to be that game journalism isn't really corrupt, but when you get too buddy-buddy with PR people or slap unreleased games over your twitter, it sure makes you look like you are. And that journalists should really consider this before doing these things.
Although I imagine this is going to get lost in the waves of "Game Journalism is Completely Corrupt!" and "Conspiracy Theories from Elitist Bloggers!" during the day.
McHoger on
+3
Options
citizen059hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered Userregular
Maybe I'm just brain dead this morning, but I have no idea what French is getting at there.
I'm guessing - he's editor in chief, she works for him, and he and/or his company led the effort to threaten Eurogamer to get them to pull the offending text.
People are probably raging against him for it, and he feels he's just being the valiant white knight defending his damsel in distress.
It just feels like it's rapidly turning to a witch-hunt to weed out all the critics who have ever admitted to enjoying a game outside of a review. These people get into this work because they, like we, enjoy games. They are human, and so will have favourites, and ones they don't like. There probably are instances of some critics being swayed by the actions of publishers and PR folk, but I do honestly believe it is nothing like the widespread corruption that people are worrying about.
Advertising a game for potential material gain when you're suppose to be neutral is a fucking stupid thing to do as a game journo. They deserve a kick in the pants for being stupid, nevermind potentially corrupt.
Ah, didn't make the connection between the two of them. Based on his twitter feed he doesn't see the problem himself, which is... Well. It's fucking baffling, really.
Also, lets not bring weird white knight bullshit terminology in on this. It has nothing to do with her sex, and it shouldn't be a factor in judging the bullshit swarming around her.
I don't think we know who fired off the lawsuit threat, but the French twitter makes me think it was a company she was working for. She apparently interned for Future Publishing in 2011 and has done freelance for them since then, but it could be another company she is doing freelance for.
I mainly posted it because the editor of freaking MCV doesn't see what is wrong with threatening a goddamn lawsuit over legit criticism.
Ah, didn't make the connection between the two of them. Based on his twitter feed he doesn't see the problem himself, which is... Well. It's fucking baffling, really.
Also, lets not bring weird white knight bullshit terminology in on this. It has nothing to do with her sex, and it shouldn't be a factor in judging the bullshit swarming around her.
Yeah, I guess it speaks to the mentality of the folks in question - as mentioned by darleysam above, there's a tendency to view games journalists as inherently biased because they enjoy the games they report on. The line there is very thin, and to their credit most of the really good ones will admit up front any potential conflict of interest in their writing.
The response from French/Wainwright so far seems to be "what's the problem I don't see a problem wtf are you talking about" - while not overtly biased, at least displaying some obliviousness to the potential appearance of bias.
Also re: the white knight comment - wait, is that a thing now? Like, did that become an offensive gender war thing and I missed it? I need to get out more.
I'm really confused as to why a videogame reviewer has to be held to the same journalistic standard that a Walter Cronkite or Edward R Murrow does? No one questions the "journalistic integrity" of film critics, its just an Op-Ed the same way a video game review is.
Yet here we are talking about how they have to have some unbiased and objective standard to review toys. It's not news. It's not important. Take all the free PS3s and doodads you want, if I want to read your review it's because I like your style of writing and find it entertaining.
Actually people do from time to time hold film and literary critics to the flames because this shit has been happening since time itself began. It's just that in the games industry the shills make up the majority of it. Especially with all these community management positions out there being filled by former "journalists".
Ah, didn't make the connection between the two of them. Based on his twitter feed he doesn't see the problem himself, which is... Well. It's fucking baffling, really.
Also, lets not bring weird white knight bullshit terminology in on this. It has nothing to do with her sex, and it shouldn't be a factor in judging the bullshit swarming around her.
Yeah, I guess it speaks to the mentality of the folks in question - as mentioned by darleysam above, there's a tendency to view games journalists as inherently biased because they enjoy the games they report on. The line there is very thin, and to their credit most of the really good ones will admit up front any potential conflict of interest in their writing.
The response from French/Wainwright so far seems to be "what's the problem I don't see a problem wtf are you talking about" - while not overtly biased, at least displaying some obliviousness to the potential appearance of bias.
Also re: the white knight comment - wait, is that a thing now? Like, did that become an offensive gender war thing and I missed it? I need to get out more.
Enthusiast press is a weird thing. My favorite film writers are prone to shows of enthusiasm, and part of the job is championing things you care about. At the same time, PR people are aware of the enthusiasm that journalists have for the medium, and they try to exploit the hell out of it. I don't believe it's the endemic thing that some do, but the availability of shitty journalists means PR folk can more easily ignore the unbiased journalists since they have so many filter free venues to shoot information and press kits at.
And sorry, 'white knight' is a term that tends to get thrown around whenever somebody on the Internet isn't being a rabid misogynist, so I apologize for misreading your message.
Yeesh, the Deus Ex one doesn't even read like a coherent article, more like a bunch of blurbs from the back of the box. Wish I could read the vg247 ones, stupid work filters.
I'm really confused as to why a videogame reviewer has to be held to the same journalistic standard that a Walter Cronkite or Edward R Murrow does? No one questions the "journalistic integrity" of film critics, its just an Op-Ed the same way a video game review is.
Yet here we are talking about how they have to have some unbiased and objective standard to review toys. It's not news. It's not important. Take all the free PS3s and doodads you want, if I want to read your review it's because I like your style of writing and find it entertaining.
There's a big area in between Cronkite and 'writing about toys'. If we want to see adverts, we know where to go. Personally, I do trust most reviewers and know where to look for ones that will give me the information I need. But people don't want to feel like they're just getting a PR line about how great a game is.
Firaxis and 2K aren't talking sales numbers yet, but both DeAngelis and Gupta have been encouraged by XCOM's positive reception. "It has been one of my great professional experiences to read the fan reaction to this game," says Gupta, "I have been very bowled over by how people have engaged with it."
The price and release date for Slingshot will be announced soon.
I'm really confused as to why a videogame reviewer has to be held to the same journalistic standard that a Walter Cronkite or Edward R Murrow does? No one questions the "journalistic integrity" of film critics, its just an Op-Ed the same way a video game review is.
Yet here we are talking about how they have to have some unbiased and objective standard to review toys. It's not news. It's not important. Take all the free PS3s and doodads you want, if I want to read your review it's because I like your style of writing and find it entertaining.
It's not terribly unreasonable for a consumer reading a review of a product to expect the review to be fair - after all, the decision of "should I buy this or not" might hinge on what they read.
Arguments can be made on both sides of the issue in terms of just how much of an influence there really is, but the game publishers have shown in the past that they're willing to put pressure on critics to produce good review scores. Clearly they think it's important to tilt the scales in their favor.
I'm really confused as to why a videogame reviewer has to be held to the same journalistic standard that a Walter Cronkite or Edward R Murrow does? No one questions the "journalistic integrity" of film critics, its just an Op-Ed the same way a video game review is.
Yet here we are talking about how they have to have some unbiased and objective standard to review toys. It's not news. It's not important. Take all the free PS3s and doodads you want, if I want to read your review it's because I like your style of writing and find it entertaining.
There's a big area in between Cronkite and 'writing about toys'. If we want to see adverts, we know where to go. Personally, I do trust most reviewers and know where to look for ones that will give me the information I need. But people don't want to feel like they're just getting a PR line about how great a game is.
Exactly, and those types of PR-only reviews will always exist and always get ignored by the majority of people. It's just funny how ANGRY people are over this. Who cares enough to lose their job over what that woman tweeted? She's not taking bread off YOUR table.
My XBL friends list has been lit up by people playing XCOM, but Major Nelson's latest Live activity chart (which I believe basically shows who's been playing what the most while signed in to Xbox Live) didn't even show it, while Dishonored (same release date) came in at 18th. Ultimately, this tells me nothing.
Firaxis and 2K aren't talking sales numbers yet, but both DeAngelis and Gupta have been encouraged by XCOM's positive reception. "It has been one of my great professional experiences to read the fan reaction to this game," says Gupta, "I have been very bowled over by how people have engaged with it."
The price and release date for Slingshot will be announced soon.
I am interested in console sales figures for this unforgiving turn based game. I'd like for them to be decent (just to show that with some heavy handed tweaking you can pitch that kind of game to the console crowd), but I suspect they will not be.
I can't see the PC sales figures being terrible though. I have a fair degree of faith in my brothers.
There actually are many people that do say the same things about movie "critics." Just look up Earl Dittman, or better, that critic that was not a real person and was just a Sony marketing tool. They're often called Quote Whores and the same gist is generally applied to them that tends to come up in the video game journalism debate, that they're junket junkies.
I won't ever read anything by Wainwright because she obviously has no integrity, but ultimately this whole hullabaloo doesn't really mean anything. As others have said, every industry is like this. The only people it hurts are consumers who do zero research of their own and take reviews on total blind faith, and, well, they kinda deserve to be let down if it happens...
Wait, so now we're pretending that we, the enlightened elite, aren't influenced by marketing?
That only the uneducated masses fall victim to marketing?
"Brand awareness" means something. It doesn't matter if ppl think they are immune.
Also, what is it with ppl who think that bribes are limited to cash envelopes that are direct payment for agreed services? The 70-ies was a looong time ago.
Wait, so now we're pretending that we, the enlightened elite, aren't influenced by marketing?
That only the uneducated masses fall victim to marketing?
"Brand awareness" means something. It doesn't matter if ppl think they are immune.
Also, what is it with ppl who think that bribes are limited to cash envelopes that are direct payment for agreed services? The 70-ies was a looong time ago.
Is that what you got from my post or are you being more broad? I'm a bit of an odd duck (to put it mildly...) and no, marketing in general doesn't work on me. I'm a cynical jerk, so I see an ad and it doesn't even matter what it is or what it's for; it gets brushed off immediately. If I'm interested in something it's because I did my own research, not because I saw a shiny picture.
Plus, I use adblock and don't have cable. Where am I going to see ads?
Spose I may as well weigh in since I attempt to be one of those journalist thingies.
Technically speaking Quote Whores are people who simply say nice things just so they can continue to be lavished by attention from PR people. As far as Junket Whores go -- often the studios will offer reviewers the opportunity to go on a trip, paid for by the company, where the reviewer gets absolutely lavished with food and fun and free crap and oh yeah they might spend a couple hours watching a movie and writing about it. If you're interested, you really need to check this play-by-play of how insanely decadent junkets can get:
This exists in "traditional" media, but there are also plenty of traditional journalists who say "no thank you" and just do things on their own, so they aren't overly influenced by the studio/company. They have scruples.
BUT, these journalists are allowed to have their own opinions. Hell, in the case of critics, I would hope they have opinions. That's why I read them, after all... I want their thoughts on what makes a movie good or bad. And in that respect, I really don't mind if one of them tweets, say, "man, is a new Superman movie really necessary?" That's his own personal opinion. As long as he watches the movie with a reasonably open mind, he's doing his job. He's producing his own thoughts, with little to no influence from the studios.
As far as how this applies to vidja games:
A journalist saying they're excited for video game X isn't bad at all. Hell, it should be encouraged. Now, the entire British video game press going to a party in their honor thrown by the PR people? Where you can be given expensive stuff in return for tweeting exactly what they say? Hell no. Ideally, a journalist should hold a PR firm at arm's length. If a PR firm pitches an idea that the journalist honestly thinks is a good idea, that's fine. (When that happens to me, I generally reach out to other companies for the article as well to make sure things stay fair.) But journalists should have the ability to turn their ideas down when they don't think it'll work. Accepting significant favors from the PR firm makes it much harder to do that, since there's the expectation that you'll return the favor.
The delayed reviews combined with poor scores it seems to be getting don't bode well for Warfighter. Luckily, ORC shows how important reviews are to most people plus the all important day one sales are over with!
Is that what you got from my post or are you being more broad? I'm a bit of an odd duck (to put it mildly...) and no, marketing in general doesn't work on me. I'm a cynical jerk, so I see an ad and it doesn't even matter what it is or what it's for; it gets brushed off immediately. If I'm interested in something it's because I did my own research, not because I saw a shiny picture.
Plus, I use adblock and don't have cable. Where am I going to see ads?
Marketing works just as well, if not better, on people who don't think that marketing works on them.
Posts
I wonder if American sources would be as quick to capitulate what with the different standards for libel and shit. English defamation law is kind of retarded. I think their might be jurisdiction in England for American comments as well but I have no clue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
Lauren has now protected her twitter account for only friends.
Cook showed up posting in the responses of the article defending himself then later said he would give the PS3 to charity after taking a thrashing from people.
http://botherer.org/2012/10/25/an-utter-disgrace/
Hah, and she also works for Squeenix while having a Tomb Raider twitter background. Fantastic.
Good.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Although I imagine this is going to get lost in the waves of "Game Journalism is Completely Corrupt!" and "Conspiracy Theories from Elitist Bloggers!" during the day.
I'm guessing - he's editor in chief, she works for him, and he and/or his company led the effort to threaten Eurogamer to get them to pull the offending text.
People are probably raging against him for it, and he feels he's just being the valiant white knight defending his damsel in distress.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Also, lets not bring weird white knight bullshit terminology in on this. It has nothing to do with her sex, and it shouldn't be a factor in judging the bullshit swarming around her.
I mainly posted it because the editor of freaking MCV doesn't see what is wrong with threatening a goddamn lawsuit over legit criticism.
This probably deserves its own thread, and I am at school right now.
Yeah, I guess it speaks to the mentality of the folks in question - as mentioned by darleysam above, there's a tendency to view games journalists as inherently biased because they enjoy the games they report on. The line there is very thin, and to their credit most of the really good ones will admit up front any potential conflict of interest in their writing.
The response from French/Wainwright so far seems to be "what's the problem I don't see a problem wtf are you talking about" - while not overtly biased, at least displaying some obliviousness to the potential appearance of bias.
Also re: the white knight comment - wait, is that a thing now? Like, did that become an offensive gender war thing and I missed it? I need to get out more.
Lara Croft. She needs to be protected.
Check out her articles:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/4375406/Gamings-killer-double-act.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/4354817/Let-sleeping-dogs-lie.html
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2011/11/04/the-redemption-of-lara-croft
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/3769932/Lab-rat-revolution.html
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/07/cloud-nine-mitsunori-takahashi-on-dissidia-012/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/02/the-3rd-birthdays-hajime-tabata-i-dont-believe-survival-horror-is-dying/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/17/interview-tactics-ogre-director-hiroshi-minagawa/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/11/interview-lord-of-arcana-producer-takamasa-shiba/
Food for thought.
Yet here we are talking about how they have to have some unbiased and objective standard to review toys. It's not news. It's not important. Take all the free PS3s and doodads you want, if I want to read your review it's because I like your style of writing and find it entertaining.
Enthusiast press is a weird thing. My favorite film writers are prone to shows of enthusiasm, and part of the job is championing things you care about. At the same time, PR people are aware of the enthusiasm that journalists have for the medium, and they try to exploit the hell out of it. I don't believe it's the endemic thing that some do, but the availability of shitty journalists means PR folk can more easily ignore the unbiased journalists since they have so many filter free venues to shoot information and press kits at.
And sorry, 'white knight' is a term that tends to get thrown around whenever somebody on the Internet isn't being a rabid misogynist, so I apologize for misreading your message.
There's a big area in between Cronkite and 'writing about toys'. If we want to see adverts, we know where to go. Personally, I do trust most reviewers and know where to look for ones that will give me the information I need. But people don't want to feel like they're just getting a PR line about how great a game is.
*Points up at the links he copied and pasted earlier*
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/23/firaxis-talks-future-xcom-content-slingshot-dlc-announced/
Only figures I've seen about are VGChartz ones, so nothing worth mentioning yet.
It's not terribly unreasonable for a consumer reading a review of a product to expect the review to be fair - after all, the decision of "should I buy this or not" might hinge on what they read.
There was a piece on PAR about game review scores and how they relate to sales.
Arguments can be made on both sides of the issue in terms of just how much of an influence there really is, but the game publishers have shown in the past that they're willing to put pressure on critics to produce good review scores. Clearly they think it's important to tilt the scales in their favor.
Exactly, and those types of PR-only reviews will always exist and always get ignored by the majority of people. It's just funny how ANGRY people are over this. Who cares enough to lose their job over what that woman tweeted? She's not taking bread off YOUR table.
I am interested in console sales figures for this unforgiving turn based game. I'd like for them to be decent (just to show that with some heavy handed tweaking you can pitch that kind of game to the console crowd), but I suspect they will not be.
I can't see the PC sales figures being terrible though. I have a fair degree of faith in my brothers.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
YOU know what games you like. Plan accordingly.
That only the uneducated masses fall victim to marketing?
"Brand awareness" means something. It doesn't matter if ppl think they are immune.
Also, what is it with ppl who think that bribes are limited to cash envelopes that are direct payment for agreed services? The 70-ies was a looong time ago.
Is that what you got from my post or are you being more broad? I'm a bit of an odd duck (to put it mildly...) and no, marketing in general doesn't work on me. I'm a cynical jerk, so I see an ad and it doesn't even matter what it is or what it's for; it gets brushed off immediately. If I'm interested in something it's because I did my own research, not because I saw a shiny picture.
Plus, I use adblock and don't have cable. Where am I going to see ads?
Technically speaking Quote Whores are people who simply say nice things just so they can continue to be lavished by attention from PR people. As far as Junket Whores go -- often the studios will offer reviewers the opportunity to go on a trip, paid for by the company, where the reviewer gets absolutely lavished with food and fun and free crap and oh yeah they might spend a couple hours watching a movie and writing about it. If you're interested, you really need to check this play-by-play of how insanely decadent junkets can get:
http://gawker.com/5879282/among-the-junketeers-90-hours-in-vegas-selling-out-hard
This exists in "traditional" media, but there are also plenty of traditional journalists who say "no thank you" and just do things on their own, so they aren't overly influenced by the studio/company. They have scruples.
BUT, these journalists are allowed to have their own opinions. Hell, in the case of critics, I would hope they have opinions. That's why I read them, after all... I want their thoughts on what makes a movie good or bad. And in that respect, I really don't mind if one of them tweets, say, "man, is a new Superman movie really necessary?" That's his own personal opinion. As long as he watches the movie with a reasonably open mind, he's doing his job. He's producing his own thoughts, with little to no influence from the studios.
As far as how this applies to vidja games:
A journalist saying they're excited for video game X isn't bad at all. Hell, it should be encouraged. Now, the entire British video game press going to a party in their honor thrown by the PR people? Where you can be given expensive stuff in return for tweeting exactly what they say? Hell no. Ideally, a journalist should hold a PR firm at arm's length. If a PR firm pitches an idea that the journalist honestly thinks is a good idea, that's fine. (When that happens to me, I generally reach out to other companies for the article as well to make sure things stay fair.) But journalists should have the ability to turn their ideas down when they don't think it'll work. Accepting significant favors from the PR firm makes it much harder to do that, since there's the expectation that you'll return the favor.
Marketing works just as well, if not better, on people who don't think that marketing works on them.