Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
My read on the whole Penny Arcade "brand empire" era, with multiple comics, an expo, charity, games, branded merch, the pivot to video, reality show, and news publication is that it was all way WAY too much and nobody involved at the top had the constitution for it except maybe Robert Khoo. Certainly Mike and Jerry, the bosses who needed to show compassion, integrity, and leadership were not able to do so.
All it takes is a decent person to be good to employees when there's not a lot at stake. All you need is a functioning moral compass and no desire to be evil. It takes an extraordinary person to do the same when they are stressed, uncomfortable, unhappy, and risking something they've built from the ground up.
People unprepared for leadership and responsibility break under the pressure. They ask employees to put their family second, they bluster and compromise on principles, and they'll say anything to take some of the pressure off themselves.
This doesn't excuse Mike or Jerry for not being better. They should have been stronger, they should have stepped down, or they should have scaled things back until they could recognize themselves again. It seems like that third option is exactly what they did, though belatedly. And yeah, I think they still deserve some criticism for their behavior at that time. Being in a shit situation is not a free pass, but part of being compassionate is calibrating your judgements to account for context.
I am sure that we haven't seen a response from PA about Ben's claims because they read them, as vague as they are, and everyone probably nodded. Yeah. Yep. That happened. Personally I would come out and own up to exactly what the journalistic manipulations were and apologize for them, but I am an idiot who constantly walks into traps and digs holes for himself in situations exactly like this.
The PR calculus is probably just: "The accusations were vague, the truth behind them isn't that bad, and admitting to one thing opens you up to more accusations, which might be untrue but are led credence by prior admissions of guilt". Ugh. I still hate that even though I understand it's probably true.
Donkey Kong on
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
It doesn't take decency so much as experience. I've worked with plenty of decent people who managed to screw things up because they didn't know how to do things in a good way. That's why startups fail.
Whether or not anything Mr. Kuchera said was true, if PA builds on this experience knowing what didn't work out and being honest with the issues, the next PA Report and the ones after that would continue to improve. Of course, we have mentors and consultants for people that can't afford to iterate too much.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It doesn't take decency so much as experience. I've worked with plenty of decent people who managed to screw things up because they didn't know how to do things in a good way. That's why startups fail.
Whether or not anything Mr. Kuchera said was true, if PA builds on this experience knowing what didn't work out and being honest with the issues, the next PA Report and the ones after that would continue to improve. Of course, we have mentors and consultants for people that can't afford to iterate too much.
They've had a pretty legitimate stretch of good will and quality product in the industry from what I've seen. They've been a company I've been more than happy to spend money on. It's not like any of the third party creators they've worked with have come out with tales of bad blood and shoddy management either. I can only remember like one employee that looked a little unhappy once or twice even back when they were doing the reality shows. It sure seems like Mike and Jerry are decent enough owners and bosses from the outside, it just also seems like with the PAR thing that the lines got crossed up.
Anything that's labeled journalism is a fraught world to step into because outside of the capitalist drive of "Make something that can be monetized enough to be worth it" there's a moral code that comes with it that's even independent of the imperative to be decent towards your employees and trustworthy towards your consumers.
And running afoul of this code can basically fuck everything else either directly or by proxy.
Maybe PA weren't the right people to start the endeavor, maybe Ben was the wrong guy to run it but the correct call seems to have been to pull the plug and at least it's almost a decade in the rearview.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Also, unless Kuchera was about to unearth some sort of rampant abuse in the industry, I can't see how Ben's professional accusations are justified. He makes it sound like they drove him to cover up something truly vile and I doubt that's even possible.
That's not at all how I read it. It's not about a specific story being repressed. It's about an office culture where the concept of journalism meant "write about things that will make us and our advertisers happy" and how that was extraordinarily problematic for a venture that was supposed to be all about being "the good gaming journalists".
I read "having been told I had to protect their business over writing what I knew was right was horrific" as an insinuation that what he "knew was right" is heavy shit that's, I don't know...more than video games? But maybe I'm wrong. I said this on the first page, but his grievous tone is just so far out of whack for the industry that it's really hard to take him and his weak ass E3 story seriously.
Also literally every journalistic medium works this way past like the 1970s since we don't live in the world of comic books.
They let him write about the titty-esque controllers so I dunno if his censorship thing is holding water for me even. I want to say, if anything, khoo/PA corp probably asked him to tone down the editorialism in his writing. But the lack of information from him makes this nearly impossible to say one way or another.
Speaking as someone who spent a pretty good chunk of the post-1970s as a journalist, this is absolutely not true. Having the business side try to influence what you write is a huge ethical boundary. I can't think of any time anyone ever insinuated to me that I should write something to make our advertisers happy, and if anyone had, most of the editors I've ever worked for would have jumped right in and kicked some ass for me. We called it the "business side" because many of the places I worked for would literally partition the building so that the newsroom was physically separate and had our own side.
But, that being said, I worked in serious newsrooms full of other professional journalists. If I got hired by a webcomic company that wanted to branch out into a news blog about video games, I'd probably understand that it ain't the Washington Post and my bosses are not going to be up on the nuances of journalism ethics.
Fair but the allegation is that the suggestion was about driving traffic.
Did your editor ever come to you and tell you that you needed to write something by the end of the day because stuff needed to be in the paper for the paper to be sold? This doesn’t tell you what to write but it does tell you to “get the clicks up”, as it were.
And the business side telling the news side how much news should be in a paper, how much should be human interest, how much should be local information/advertising*, etc all seem like reasonable interactions. “Don’t write bad things about this restaurant” is a fundamentally different interaction than “don’t write about 20 restaurants per day, the readers can only handle so much and it’s not helping sell our serious paper aimed at business people” or “so the restaurant reviews you’re doing aren’t selling enough copies of ‘The Restaurant Review’, a different approach to reviews should be considered”. And the latter two seem like reasonable discussions to be having over the firewall. And also far more of what the allegation seemed to be.
*like restaurant reviews, which are news in the sense that the reviewer is independent but is functionally advertising. Which is pretty important to games journalism because this is the kind of thing that games journalism existed to do primarily. Tell you about new and upcoming games, tell you how new releases panned out.
Yeah, that's a little different. It's totally reasonable to say "Hey, the stories we're writing aren't generating enough interest." You just can't say "don't write that negative article about VR headsets, one of our advertisers might pull."
You can accept someone's feelings without accepting their judgement of the facts. Believing people is not about handing over your right to form your own opinion based on evidence, it's about not having a knee-jerk reaction to reject someone's claims about their experience simply because it contradicts your expectations.
Okay, but what if their feelings are literally debilitating? Isn’t validating those feelings potentially damaging?
I really don’t know but it feels that way. Like, validating someone’s downward spiral based on false pretenses doesn’t feel very helpful to them.
A few years ago Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff wrote a book, The Coddling of the American Mind that addresses this. I keep meaning to read it, but I found the articles based of it, and the podcasts interviews they did extremely convincing.
It came out in 2018 and in the intervening 3 years the culture has gone in the opposite direction of their suggestions at light speed. So I guess they lost that argument.
The Coddling of the American Mind:
How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. How did this happen?
First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life
Holy wow this sounds like a storehold full of hot rotting garbage
“Why are anxiety, suicide and depression on the rise?”
[stands in front of a world steadily falling apart, as debt swells, the work that used to provide a stable life no longer does and generally everything goes to hell if you’re not well connected or well off to begin with]
Also, unless Kuchera was about to unearth some sort of rampant abuse in the industry, I can't see how Ben's professional accusations are justified. He makes it sound like they drove him to cover up something truly vile and I doubt that's even possible.
That's not at all how I read it. It's not about a specific story being repressed. It's about an office culture where the concept of journalism meant "write about things that will make us and our advertisers happy" and how that was extraordinarily problematic for a venture that was supposed to be all about being "the good gaming journalists".
I read "having been told I had to protect their business over writing what I knew was right was horrific" as an insinuation that what he "knew was right" is heavy shit that's, I don't know...more than video games? But maybe I'm wrong. I said this on the first page, but his grievous tone is just so far out of whack for the industry that it's really hard to take him and his weak ass E3 story seriously.
Also literally every journalistic medium works this way past like the 1970s since we don't live in the world of comic books.
They let him write about the titty-esque controllers so I dunno if his censorship thing is holding water for me even. I want to say, if anything, khoo/PA corp probably asked him to tone down the editorialism in his writing. But the lack of information from him makes this nearly impossible to say one way or another.
Speaking as someone who spent a pretty good chunk of the post-1970s as a journalist, this is absolutely not true. Having the business side try to influence what you write is a huge ethical boundary. I can't think of any time anyone ever insinuated to me that I should write something to make our advertisers happy, and if anyone had, most of the editors I've ever worked for would have jumped right in and kicked some ass for me. We called it the "business side" because many of the places I worked for would literally partition the building so that the newsroom was physically separate and had our own side.
But, that being said, I worked in serious newsrooms full of other professional journalists. If I got hired by a webcomic company that wanted to branch out into a news blog about video games, I'd probably understand that it ain't the Washington Post and my bosses are not going to be up on the nuances of journalism ethics.
Fair but the allegation is that the suggestion was about driving traffic.
Did your editor ever come to you and tell you that you needed to write something by the end of the day because stuff needed to be in the paper for the paper to be sold? This doesn’t tell you what to write but it does tell you to “get the clicks up”, as it were.
And the business side telling the news side how much news should be in a paper, how much should be human interest, how much should be local information/advertising*, etc all seem like reasonable interactions. “Don’t write bad things about this restaurant” is a fundamentally different interaction than “don’t write about 20 restaurants per day, the readers can only handle so much and it’s not helping sell our serious paper aimed at business people” or “so the restaurant reviews you’re doing aren’t selling enough copies of ‘The Restaurant Review’, a different approach to reviews should be considered”. And the latter two seem like reasonable discussions to be having over the firewall. And also far more of what the allegation seemed to be.
*like restaurant reviews, which are news in the sense that the reviewer is independent but is functionally advertising. Which is pretty important to games journalism because this is the kind of thing that games journalism existed to do primarily. Tell you about new and upcoming games, tell you how new releases panned out.
Yeah, that's a little different. It's totally reasonable to say "Hey, the stories we're writing aren't generating enough interest." You just can't say "don't write that negative article about VR headsets, one of our advertisers might pull."
Which is why people are a little bit looking for more context. The only example given is one of the former and not latter. He was terrified of the “joke” about “getting the clicks up to support the ad buys” which seems to be an entirely legitimate thing to be discussing with the EiC.
Edit: I think it’s also OK for business to say “don’t write an article about VR headsets, our audience isn’t interested in VR headsets” and ignoring that this is a legitimate decision for business to take over editorial leads to weird places. The reason it is is because most “news media” isn’t really news, but rather enthusiast support. WAPO is news news but the PA report was gaming enthusiast support. Articles that are not about gaming, and do not help people make informed purchase decisions aren’t things you can sell when you’re selling gaming enthusiast support. These also mix, it’s neither a coincidence nor is it wrong that restaurant reviews in the Houston Chronicle do not feature restaurants in Albany. Chronicle Business gets to tell Chronicle editorial not to write those reviews. It would be legitimate for PA to tell editorial to not write articles about the new Mt Dew flavor because they’re a gaming site and not a soda enthusiast site.
On top of this there are other areas that business can butt into editorial. If someone wrote a restaurant review at WAPO and wrote” I loved it, the hot dog was roughly the size of a penis and just as easy to eat” you would expect them to be fired, and anyone who let that get to print to be fired and I don’t think anyone would stand up for their “journalist freedom”. So not only does business get to determine what genre you get to write about it also gets to determine the style in which you write it.
Most of the time these things don’t come up, because there is already an understanding about what kind of content is being produced by editorial and business doesn’t have to step in. The WAPO editor knows it’s going to have a mix of local interest and national news. And no editor is going to suddenly turn it into a home a garden outlet for the greater Tulsa metropolitan area because of course they won’t. But if they did WAPO business would be right for firing them for it.
And while I am not saying they did come up at PA I am saying that the only explicit thing Ben told us about falls even more firmly in the “actually no it’s OK for business to have this discussion with you” than those, which also reside firmly in the “it’s OK for business to have these discussions with you” territory.
And on top of that PA, which represents two actual people, probably has even more leeway as to directing editorial as the real people the company represents can legitimately have opinions on things whereas such a situation is not common or reasonable in papers. The inability of editorial to determine if “Mike and Jerry like something” is because they were paid or because they legit like something is the reason for the firewall. But the actual construction of the company does give more leeway here on what is acceptable.
All of which come together for me to come to the conclusion that I just have to know more of what was so objectionable. Because what was supplied wasnt an affront to journalistic ethics
Goumindong on
+11
Handsome CostanzaAsk me about 8bitdoRIP Iwata-sanRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
Why is everyone acting like he only gave a vague undefined answer about what was going on? Like it's some mystery that we don't know about? He seems to lay it out pretty clearly here:
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
Why is everyone acting like he only gave a vague undefined answer about what was going on? Like it's some mystery that we don't know about? He seems to lay it out pretty clearly here:
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
That's still a lot of possibilities, ranging from "Don't say anything bad about our advertisers" to "Stop writing about how controllers feel like tits it's driving away traffic." And even the worst possibility is basically a "so what?" from me, that's not abuse, that's not even surprising.
Why is everyone acting like he only gave a vague undefined answer about what was going on? Like it's some mystery that we don't know about? He seems to lay it out pretty clearly here:
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
That is extremely vague. There's zero context for what he considers "killing a story" and what counts as "protecting the business".
Actual rape victims managed to be more explicit than Kuchera, so all the vague hearsay is just that.
Also, of course that PA is not going to say anything, the obvious response is to just ignore, ignore, ignore and wait for it to blow over when the outrage runs out of gas. That's the case regardless of whatever they are innocent or not.
Abacus on
0
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
Why is everyone acting like he only gave a vague undefined answer about what was going on? Like it's some mystery that we don't know about? He seems to lay it out pretty clearly here:
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
There is a mountain of difference between "EA employees are suffering unchecked abuse at work" and "EA's new game is pretty crappy, actually." I care a lot more if management killed that first story than if they killed the second.
+10
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
The disconnect here seems to be between a few things:
The accusation isn't vague at all: Ben Kutchera alleges Penny Arcade killed stories to save their business and acted in a dishonest way with their media outlet while simultaneously making comics attacking those who do so with other presses. The accusation is that PA was hypocritical in this specific thing. That is real, clear, and specific.
The various supporting warrants and experiences are all super vague and muddy his point. What specifically they did and why the various anecdotes matter in connection to the accusation of hypocrisy aren't entirely clear and make it confusing as to what he is specifically talking about. Some of what he says seems pretty straightforward, like being told to kill stories, others seem odd/irrelevant/weird like feeling threatened over his family time.
It seems perfectly understandable to me to feel this story is pretty clear cut in what Ben set Ben off on this line of discussion, the alleged hypocrisy, regardless of if you believe him or not. It also seems perfectly understandable to me to think that this is all very muddy and vague. And I don't think those two stances are mutually exclusive here. You don't need to have specific points here if you are familiar with the many comics PA has put out criticizing games media and journalism over the years. They've pretty much covered the full spectrum of bashing games press for anything in the range of what "killing a story" or "protecting the business" could be, so not having the details isn't super important as far as Ben's allegations. But to validate them as to what specific things PA did wrong? Yeah, without more details it's not like this can get much in the way of legs or go anywhere.
And since the report is years dead, it's not super relevant to anyone but Ben and the PA comic readership whenever Mike or Jerry write another comic about games journalism.
It isn’t clear what Ben is alleging w.r.t. story kills, Enc
Agreed, but it doesn't necessarily matter since pretty much anything in that realm would fall under things PA has derided games journalism for doing in the past with comics, news posts, and tweets.
Or, in shorter terms, some people are satisfied with the classification or alleged wrongdoing as enough to make the point clear, while others aren't unless it goes down to the particulars. And both are right and neither is really exclusionary to the other.
You can get the idea that someone might be accused of theft without knowing if it was petite or grand larceny as the specific crime, and if the person accused is someone who commonly advocates against theft, the specific crime might not be particularly meaningful in a certain degree of public opinion, even if it would absolutely be needed for anything more tangible to happen.
It isn’t clear what Ben is alleging w.r.t. story kills, Enc
Agreed, but it doesn't necessarily matter since pretty much anything in that realm would fall under things PA has derided games journalism for doing in the past with comics, news posts, and tweets.
Or, in shorter terms, some people are satisfied with the classification or alleged wrongdoing as enough to make the point clear, while others aren't unless it goes down to the particulars. And both are right and neither is really exclusionary to the other.
You can get the idea that someone might be accused of theft without knowing if it was petite or grand larceny as the specific crime, and if the person accused is someone who commonly advocates against theft, the specific crime might not be particularly meaningful in a certain degree of public opinion, even if it would absolutely be needed for anything more tangible to happen.
It is a big difference if someone steals a pen or a car
The disconnect here seems to be between a few things:
The accusation isn't vague at all: Ben Kutchera alleges Penny Arcade killed stories to save their business and acted in a dishonest way with their media outlet while simultaneously making comics attacking those who do so with other presses. The accusation is that PA was hypocritical in this specific thing. That is real, clear, and specific.
The various supporting warrants and experiences are all super vague and muddy his point. What specifically they did and why the various anecdotes matter in connection to the accusation of hypocrisy aren't entirely clear and make it confusing as to what he is specifically talking about. Some of what he says seems pretty straightforward, like being told to kill stories, others seem odd/irrelevant/weird like feeling threatened over his family time.
It seems perfectly understandable to me to feel this story is pretty clear cut in what Ben set Ben off on this line of discussion, the alleged hypocrisy, regardless of if you believe him or not. It also seems perfectly understandable to me to think that this is all very muddy and vague. And I don't think those two stances are mutually exclusive here. You don't need to have specific points here if you are familiar with the many comics PA has put out criticizing games media and journalism over the years. They've pretty much covered the full spectrum of bashing games press for anything in the range of what "killing a story" or "protecting the business" could be, so not having the details isn't super important as far as Ben's allegations. But to validate them as to what specific things PA did wrong? Yeah, without more details it's not like this can get much in the way of legs or go anywhere.
And since the report is years dead, it's not super relevant to anyone but Ben and the PA comic readership whenever Mike or Jerry write another comic about games journalism.
The supporting claims don't just muddy the point. They suggest that his assessment of the other claims should be approached within the context of how he's describing other interactions.
It's like, hypothetically, if you give 3 examples and 2 are obvious hyperbole, I'm going to start to wonder if the 3rd one is also hyperbole but just less obvious.
+23
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
It isn’t clear what Ben is alleging w.r.t. story kills, Enc
Agreed, but it doesn't necessarily matter since pretty much anything in that realm would fall under things PA has derided games journalism for doing in the past with comics, news posts, and tweets.
Or, in shorter terms, some people are satisfied with the classification or alleged wrongdoing as enough to make the point clear, while others aren't unless it goes down to the particulars. And both are right and neither is really exclusionary to the other.
You can get the idea that someone might be accused of theft without knowing if it was petite or grand larceny as the specific crime, and if the person accused is someone who commonly advocates against theft, the specific crime might not be particularly meaningful in a certain degree of public opinion, even if it would absolutely be needed for anything more tangible to happen.
It is a big difference if someone steals a pen or a car
Again, I agree entirely with you. But in either case the person might be considered a hypocrite, just to the degree of an eyeroll or to the degree of social shunning. I'm not sure Ben cared enough for that level of detail, or that we should care without that level of detail. But it's clear enough the classification of thing he is alleging, if not the degree or particulars. And I think that's why this thread has 25 pages. Because some people think the classification is enough to be clear, and others don't. And neither are incorrect.
0
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
The disconnect here seems to be between a few things:
The accusation isn't vague at all: Ben Kutchera alleges Penny Arcade killed stories to save their business and acted in a dishonest way with their media outlet while simultaneously making comics attacking those who do so with other presses. The accusation is that PA was hypocritical in this specific thing. That is real, clear, and specific.
The various supporting warrants and experiences are all super vague and muddy his point. What specifically they did and why the various anecdotes matter in connection to the accusation of hypocrisy aren't entirely clear and make it confusing as to what he is specifically talking about. Some of what he says seems pretty straightforward, like being told to kill stories, others seem odd/irrelevant/weird like feeling threatened over his family time.
It seems perfectly understandable to me to feel this story is pretty clear cut in what Ben set Ben off on this line of discussion, the alleged hypocrisy, regardless of if you believe him or not. It also seems perfectly understandable to me to think that this is all very muddy and vague. And I don't think those two stances are mutually exclusive here. You don't need to have specific points here if you are familiar with the many comics PA has put out criticizing games media and journalism over the years. They've pretty much covered the full spectrum of bashing games press for anything in the range of what "killing a story" or "protecting the business" could be, so not having the details isn't super important as far as Ben's allegations. But to validate them as to what specific things PA did wrong? Yeah, without more details it's not like this can get much in the way of legs or go anywhere.
And since the report is years dead, it's not super relevant to anyone but Ben and the PA comic readership whenever Mike or Jerry write another comic about games journalism.
The supporting claims don't just muddy the point. They suggest that his assessment of the other claims should be approached within the context of how he's describing other interactions.
It's like, hypothetically, if you give 3 examples and 2 are obvious hyperbole, I'm going to start to wonder if the 3rd one is also hyperbole but just less obvious.
This is a different thing, though! You are talking about if the allegations are valid, not if the allegations are clear (and to what extent of clarity). That's a value judgement, and one that I agree makes sense. But isn't really what I'm talking about here. Nobody has to believe a word of what Ben is saying to understand what he is alleging.
Again, without specifics there is no way to know if what he alleges is real or to what extent, but it isn't unclear what he is alleging. That break, and the crossover between it, seems to be the conflict here in this thread. And, again, at this point the degree it matters is negligible.
The disconnect here seems to be between a few things:
The accusation isn't vague at all: Ben Kutchera alleges Penny Arcade killed stories to save their business and acted in a dishonest way with their media outlet while simultaneously making comics attacking those who do so with other presses. The accusation is that PA was hypocritical in this specific thing. That is real, clear, and specific.
The various supporting warrants and experiences are all super vague and muddy his point. What specifically they did and why the various anecdotes matter in connection to the accusation of hypocrisy aren't entirely clear and make it confusing as to what he is specifically talking about. Some of what he says seems pretty straightforward, like being told to kill stories, others seem odd/irrelevant/weird like feeling threatened over his family time.
It seems perfectly understandable to me to feel this story is pretty clear cut in what Ben set Ben off on this line of discussion, the alleged hypocrisy, regardless of if you believe him or not. It also seems perfectly understandable to me to think that this is all very muddy and vague. And I don't think those two stances are mutually exclusive here. You don't need to have specific points here if you are familiar with the many comics PA has put out criticizing games media and journalism over the years. They've pretty much covered the full spectrum of bashing games press for anything in the range of what "killing a story" or "protecting the business" could be, so not having the details isn't super important as far as Ben's allegations. But to validate them as to what specific things PA did wrong? Yeah, without more details it's not like this can get much in the way of legs or go anywhere.
And since the report is years dead, it's not super relevant to anyone but Ben and the PA comic readership whenever Mike or Jerry write another comic about games journalism.
The supporting claims don't just muddy the point. They suggest that his assessment of the other claims should be approached within the context of how he's describing other interactions.
It's like, hypothetically, if you give 3 examples and 2 are obvious hyperbole, I'm going to start to wonder if the 3rd one is also hyperbole but just less obvious.
This is a different thing, though! You are talking about if the allegations are valid, not if the allegations are clear (and to what extent of clarity). That's a value judgement, and one that I agree makes sense. But isn't really what I'm talking about here. Nobody has to believe a word of what Ben is saying to understand what he is alleging.
Again, without specifics there is no way to know if what he alleges is real or to what extent, but it isn't unclear what he is alleging. That break, and the crossover between it, seems to be the conflict here in this thread. And, again, at this point the degree it matters is negligible.
I am talking about the clarity of the allegations. Because the vagueness of them is what invites assumptions and those assumptions will be based off what we think of the person in question.
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It isn’t clear what Ben is alleging w.r.t. story kills, Enc
Agreed, but it doesn't necessarily matter since pretty much anything in that realm would fall under things PA has derided games journalism for doing in the past with comics, news posts, and tweets.
Or, in shorter terms, some people are satisfied with the classification or alleged wrongdoing as enough to make the point clear, while others aren't unless it goes down to the particulars. And both are right and neither is really exclusionary to the other.
You can get the idea that someone might be accused of theft without knowing if it was petite or grand larceny as the specific crime, and if the person accused is someone who commonly advocates against theft, the specific crime might not be particularly meaningful in a certain degree of public opinion, even if it would absolutely be needed for anything more tangible to happen.
It is a big difference if someone steals a pen or a car
Again, I agree entirely with you. But in either case the person might be considered a hypocrite, just to the degree of an eyeroll or to the degree of social shunning. I'm not sure Ben cared enough for that level of detail, or that we should care without that level of detail. But it's clear enough the classification of thing he is alleging, if not the degree or particulars. And I think that's why this thread has 25 pages. Because some people think the classification is enough to be clear, and others don't. And neither are incorrect.
If someone stole a pen, i dont give a damn. If they stole a car, i probably do.
Since Ben Kuchera is a writer he probably knows that, so he left the details out because he was either stream-of-consciousness rattling down his thoughts, or he deliberately left them out.
I believe it's the former, judging from the rest of the tweets. But those details are still missing, and are make-or-break for this story.
And like it was just numerous times before, everyone believes ben hard a terrible time, and everyone believes he feels he was in a tough spot.
The question is what degrees of guilt for you can assign to whom, and to answer that, details matter a lot.
To again stay within the analogy, "Someone took something very important away"
This can mean A LOT. It can mean the world, almost nothing, and almost anything in between.
And I'm reserving my judgement on this story until I have at least the adress of where I can buy the map to the ballpark.
+15
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Personally, I do think the library of comics, newsposts, and tweets deriding the games media outlets (specifically and as a bloc) from PA, their stance against work-over-family with criticism on crunch, and general stated distrust of the big game companies over the years satisfy my need for specifics as far as understanding Ben's allegations, even if I won't necessarily believe the allegations without more presented. Everyone is different, though.
I would totally agree it would be unclear in a vacuum, but with the volume of PA materials out there expressing their specific stances and opinions that apparently run opposite of what Ben is talking about, the hypocrisy allegations seem clear to me without additional context.
Personally, I do think the library of comics, newsposts, and tweets deriding the games media outlets (specifically and as a bloc) from PA, their stance against work-over-family with criticism on crunch, and general stated distrust of the big game companies over the years satisfy my need for specifics as far as understanding Ben's allegations, even if I won't necessarily believe the allegations without more presented. Everyone is different, though.
I would totally agree it would be unclear in a vacuum, but with the volume of PA materials out there expressing their specific stances and opinions that apparently run opposite of what Ben is talking about, the hypocrisy allegations seem clear to me without additional context.
I think the divide here is that even if I go ahead and agree that whatever happened was hypocritical, there’s still a question of scale/severity.
There is a range of “hypocritical” actions they could have taken. They range from minor (not printing a lame article) to severe (killing a story about industry abuse). Both could be considered “killing” a story by a writer. But one I would be concerned with and the other I couldn’t care less about. Which is why, to me, these kinds of details are important.
+18
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Personally, I do think the library of comics, newsposts, and tweets deriding the games media outlets (specifically and as a bloc) from PA, their stance against work-over-family with criticism on crunch, and general stated distrust of the big game companies over the years satisfy my need for specifics as far as understanding Ben's allegations, even if I won't necessarily believe the allegations without more presented. Everyone is different, though.
I would totally agree it would be unclear in a vacuum, but with the volume of PA materials out there expressing their specific stances and opinions that apparently run opposite of what Ben is talking about, the hypocrisy allegations seem clear to me without additional context.
I think the divide here is that even if I go ahead and agree that whatever happened was hypocritical, there’s still a question of scale/severity.
There is a range of “hypocritical” actions they could have taken. They range from minor (not printing a lame article) to severe (killing a story about industry abuse). Both could be considered “killing” a story by a writer. But one I would be concerned with and the other I couldn’t care less about. Which is why, to me, these kinds of details are important.
For sure, though even then I'm not sure how much it would matter.
The PA Report is dead, it was years ago, Khoo is gone, and PA hasn't shown any indication of heading in that direction anymore. In the worst case, with lots of specifics, it would be a disappointment and make Mike and Jerry maybe need to do a press release expressing regret. In most cases, it just doesn't matter at all except if PA makes another comic on games journalism (and then with folks just being disappointed or disregarding their ability to make those judgements).
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
It turns out that sometimes there are reasons journalism companies sometimes make the bad decisions they do.
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
In "public" at a corporate retreat, which of course makes it unclear what "in public" means given that PA is like 15 people.
The tightrope I'm walking is
1. extract our standards for belief from this specific situation
2. apply it to a similar situation where I'm biased on the other side of the issue or disinterested
3. am I comfortable applying the same standard?
In my case I'm super comfortable because my standards are super low in most controversies. If I can't personally do anything about it, and if nobody wants me to brainstorm ideas to make things better, then I don't particularly care if I know the truth or not. I think I have a horrible tendency to virtue signal, so I try to actively curb it when I can, which means staying objective most of the time and only expressing my opinion when I have a clear objective. But that's just me - I'm still interested in how the rest of you square the circle under varying circumstances.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
Right, but then again this is a person who describes a mundane conversation with a sales guy as "terrifying", which for me makes his definition of 'berating' specious.
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0
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
In "public" at a corporate retreat, which of course makes it unclear what "in public" means given that PA is like 15 people.
The tightrope I'm walking is
1. extract our standards for belief from this specific situation
2. apply it to a similar situation where I'm biased on the other side of the issue or disinterested
3. am I comfortable applying the same standard?
In my case I'm super comfortable because my standards are super low in most controversies. If I can't personally do anything about it, and if nobody wants me to brainstorm ideas to make things better, then I don't particularly care if I know the truth or not. I think I have a horrible tendency to virtue signal, so I try to actively curb it when I can, which means staying objective most of the time and only expressing my opinion when I have a clear objective. But that's just me - I'm still interested in how the rest of you square the circle under varying circumstances.
It's real hard for me, personally. Rationally, I don't feel like Ben has any reason to lie that feels reasonable here. I also don't want to believe that Mike and Jerry would be hypocrites to this degree, intentionally or unintentionally. I also know what going through a meltdown publicly feels like and how things can all bleed together to make things that were sorta meh feel much, much worse in retrospect. The lack of details cause all sorts of doubt between these things to flirt around in my thread, which is what has drawn me back to check this thread every so often this week.
I really wish PA or Ben or both would say something more about it, because I feel like its gonna nag at the back of my mind well into the future.
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
Right, but then again this is a person who describes a mundane conversation with a sales guy as "terrifying", which for me makes his definition of 'berating' specious.
Though I will say, even if "in public" was at the corporate retreat which involves just a couple dozen people, that could still be calling you out in front of the entire company, on an issue which was particularly thorny, so that one could still be actually pretty bad.
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
In "public" at a corporate retreat, which of course makes it unclear what "in public" means given that PA is like 15 people.
The tightrope I'm walking is
1. extract our standards for belief from this specific situation
2. apply it to a similar situation where I'm biased on the other side of the issue or disinterested
3. am I comfortable applying the same standard?
In my case I'm super comfortable because my standards are super low in most controversies. If I can't personally do anything about it, and if nobody wants me to brainstorm ideas to make things better, then I don't particularly care if I know the truth or not. I think I have a horrible tendency to virtue signal, so I try to actively curb it when I can, which means staying objective most of the time and only expressing my opinion when I have a clear objective. But that's just me - I'm still interested in how the rest of you square the circle under varying circumstances.
It's real hard for me, personally. Rationally, I don't feel like Ben has any reason to lie that feels reasonable here. I also don't want to believe that Mike and Jerry would be hypocrites to this degree, intentionally or unintentionally. I also know what going through a meltdown publicly feels like and how things can all bleed together to make things that were sorta meh feel much, much worse in retrospect. The lack of details cause all sorts of doubt between these things to flirt around in my thread, which is what has drawn me back to check this thread every so often this week.
I really wish PA or Ben or both would say something more about it, because I feel like its gonna nag at the back of my mind well into the future.
As far as public spats go, I'm quite pleased. Mr. Kuchera wasn't chased off the internet, the people in here are not pulling punches but are keeping things contained and civil, PA hasn't made the situation worse with a PR disaster - I'm just so sick of the escalation of internet controversy where everyone walks away damaged. We all know what that looks like, and I'll stop being happy if the situation starts looking more familiar. If PA can say some magic words to make everything better, that'll be golden - but any attempt will have me sweating bullets that they cut the wrong wire. I don't expect anything of Mr. Kuchera other than more wristwatch tweets - when I put my head in the lion's mouth and it doesn't bite, I don't stick around checking for cavities.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
+8
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
Right, but then again this is a person who describes a mundane conversation with a sales guy as "terrifying", which for me makes his definition of 'berating' specious.
Though I will say, even if "in public" was at the corporate retreat which involves just a couple dozen people, that could still be calling you out in front of the entire company, on an issue which was particularly thorny, so that one could still be actually pretty bad.
Or it could've been an offhand comment.
We absolutely do not know.
+7
HerrCronIt that wickedly supports taxationRegistered Userregular
The most clear one was he was berated in public for not being more supportive during Dickwolves
In "public" at a corporate retreat, which of course makes it unclear what "in public" means given that PA is like 15 people.
As opposed to doing it one on one, like any conversation like that should have been done.
And that's beign generous and assuming it actually had to be done at all.
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Why is everyone acting like he only gave a vague undefined answer about what was going on? Like it's some mystery that we don't know about? He seems to lay it out pretty clearly here:
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
That is vague bud; we don't have the slightest idea what story was squashed or under what circumstance. Like is he trying to report about systemic sexual abuse at Riot and Ubisoft? Reporting on the actual physical toll of crunch? Complaining about how there isn't enough espresso available at blizzard HQ? Mojang is actually a cult that teaches children to seek structural weaknesses in their homes to plant explosives inside of so they can get a better spawn after they destroy their bed?
Like context absolutely matters and it's possible that M&J were justified in squashing the story. I say possible because the only people with any insight on the topic aren't saying sweet fuckall.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
Doing it to protect their business would be making sure not to piss off the people paying money to PA. PA has called out others for doing that very thing.
It's kind of odd PA hasn't said anything, I understand it's the safer PR move, but that doesn't exonerate them in any way, and really, it just pushes it the other way.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
Doing it to protect their business would be making sure not to piss off the people paying money to PA. PA has called out others for doing that very thing.
It's kind of odd PA hasn't said anything, I understand it's the safer PR move, but that doesn't exonerate them in any way, and really, it just pushes it the other way.
There are plenty of people here who do not hold Mike and Jerry in high regard, and this water-carrying angle is lazy and dismissive.
He has provided zero context or details, he gets what one should get when they provide zero context or details: Questions and doubt. If he provides something with actual meat, then we can go over specifics. For right now it sounds like someone with unresolved anger lashing out because they're having a bad time.
And I'm not even discounting the idea that he may be correct and the PA people did horrible shit. I'm just saying he's provided no reason for me to think so other than nebulous gestures towards that direction.
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All it takes is a decent person to be good to employees when there's not a lot at stake. All you need is a functioning moral compass and no desire to be evil. It takes an extraordinary person to do the same when they are stressed, uncomfortable, unhappy, and risking something they've built from the ground up.
People unprepared for leadership and responsibility break under the pressure. They ask employees to put their family second, they bluster and compromise on principles, and they'll say anything to take some of the pressure off themselves.
This doesn't excuse Mike or Jerry for not being better. They should have been stronger, they should have stepped down, or they should have scaled things back until they could recognize themselves again. It seems like that third option is exactly what they did, though belatedly. And yeah, I think they still deserve some criticism for their behavior at that time. Being in a shit situation is not a free pass, but part of being compassionate is calibrating your judgements to account for context.
I am sure that we haven't seen a response from PA about Ben's claims because they read them, as vague as they are, and everyone probably nodded. Yeah. Yep. That happened. Personally I would come out and own up to exactly what the journalistic manipulations were and apologize for them, but I am an idiot who constantly walks into traps and digs holes for himself in situations exactly like this.
The PR calculus is probably just: "The accusations were vague, the truth behind them isn't that bad, and admitting to one thing opens you up to more accusations, which might be untrue but are led credence by prior admissions of guilt". Ugh. I still hate that even though I understand it's probably true.
Whether or not anything Mr. Kuchera said was true, if PA builds on this experience knowing what didn't work out and being honest with the issues, the next PA Report and the ones after that would continue to improve. Of course, we have mentors and consultants for people that can't afford to iterate too much.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
They've had a pretty legitimate stretch of good will and quality product in the industry from what I've seen. They've been a company I've been more than happy to spend money on. It's not like any of the third party creators they've worked with have come out with tales of bad blood and shoddy management either. I can only remember like one employee that looked a little unhappy once or twice even back when they were doing the reality shows. It sure seems like Mike and Jerry are decent enough owners and bosses from the outside, it just also seems like with the PAR thing that the lines got crossed up.
And running afoul of this code can basically fuck everything else either directly or by proxy.
Maybe PA weren't the right people to start the endeavor, maybe Ben was the wrong guy to run it but the correct call seems to have been to pull the plug and at least it's almost a decade in the rearview.
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Yeah, that's a little different. It's totally reasonable to say "Hey, the stories we're writing aren't generating enough interest." You just can't say "don't write that negative article about VR headsets, one of our advertisers might pull."
Holy wow this sounds like a storehold full of hot rotting garbage
“Why are anxiety, suicide and depression on the rise?”
[stands in front of a world steadily falling apart, as debt swells, the work that used to provide a stable life no longer does and generally everything goes to hell if you’re not well connected or well off to begin with]
“Gotta be the safe spaces and trigger warnings”
Which is why people are a little bit looking for more context. The only example given is one of the former and not latter. He was terrified of the “joke” about “getting the clicks up to support the ad buys” which seems to be an entirely legitimate thing to be discussing with the EiC.
Edit: I think it’s also OK for business to say “don’t write an article about VR headsets, our audience isn’t interested in VR headsets” and ignoring that this is a legitimate decision for business to take over editorial leads to weird places. The reason it is is because most “news media” isn’t really news, but rather enthusiast support. WAPO is news news but the PA report was gaming enthusiast support. Articles that are not about gaming, and do not help people make informed purchase decisions aren’t things you can sell when you’re selling gaming enthusiast support. These also mix, it’s neither a coincidence nor is it wrong that restaurant reviews in the Houston Chronicle do not feature restaurants in Albany. Chronicle Business gets to tell Chronicle editorial not to write those reviews. It would be legitimate for PA to tell editorial to not write articles about the new Mt Dew flavor because they’re a gaming site and not a soda enthusiast site.
On top of this there are other areas that business can butt into editorial. If someone wrote a restaurant review at WAPO and wrote” I loved it, the hot dog was roughly the size of a penis and just as easy to eat” you would expect them to be fired, and anyone who let that get to print to be fired and I don’t think anyone would stand up for their “journalist freedom”. So not only does business get to determine what genre you get to write about it also gets to determine the style in which you write it.
Most of the time these things don’t come up, because there is already an understanding about what kind of content is being produced by editorial and business doesn’t have to step in. The WAPO editor knows it’s going to have a mix of local interest and national news. And no editor is going to suddenly turn it into a home a garden outlet for the greater Tulsa metropolitan area because of course they won’t. But if they did WAPO business would be right for firing them for it.
And while I am not saying they did come up at PA I am saying that the only explicit thing Ben told us about falls even more firmly in the “actually no it’s OK for business to have this discussion with you” than those, which also reside firmly in the “it’s OK for business to have these discussions with you” territory.
And on top of that PA, which represents two actual people, probably has even more leeway as to directing editorial as the real people the company represents can legitimately have opinions on things whereas such a situation is not common or reasonable in papers. The inability of editorial to determine if “Mike and Jerry like something” is because they were paid or because they legit like something is the reason for the firewall. But the actual construction of the company does give more leeway here on what is acceptable.
All of which come together for me to come to the conclusion that I just have to know more of what was so objectionable. Because what was supplied wasnt an affront to journalistic ethics
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
That's still a lot of possibilities, ranging from "Don't say anything bad about our advertisers" to "Stop writing about how controllers feel like tits it's driving away traffic." And even the worst possibility is basically a "so what?" from me, that's not abuse, that's not even surprising.
That is extremely vague. There's zero context for what he considers "killing a story" and what counts as "protecting the business".
Also, of course that PA is not going to say anything, the obvious response is to just ignore, ignore, ignore and wait for it to blow over when the outrage runs out of gas. That's the case regardless of whatever they are innocent or not.
There is a mountain of difference between "EA employees are suffering unchecked abuse at work" and "EA's new game is pretty crappy, actually." I care a lot more if management killed that first story than if they killed the second.
It seems perfectly understandable to me to feel this story is pretty clear cut in what Ben set Ben off on this line of discussion, the alleged hypocrisy, regardless of if you believe him or not. It also seems perfectly understandable to me to think that this is all very muddy and vague. And I don't think those two stances are mutually exclusive here. You don't need to have specific points here if you are familiar with the many comics PA has put out criticizing games media and journalism over the years. They've pretty much covered the full spectrum of bashing games press for anything in the range of what "killing a story" or "protecting the business" could be, so not having the details isn't super important as far as Ben's allegations. But to validate them as to what specific things PA did wrong? Yeah, without more details it's not like this can get much in the way of legs or go anywhere.
And since the report is years dead, it's not super relevant to anyone but Ben and the PA comic readership whenever Mike or Jerry write another comic about games journalism.
Agreed, but it doesn't necessarily matter since pretty much anything in that realm would fall under things PA has derided games journalism for doing in the past with comics, news posts, and tweets.
Or, in shorter terms, some people are satisfied with the classification or alleged wrongdoing as enough to make the point clear, while others aren't unless it goes down to the particulars. And both are right and neither is really exclusionary to the other.
You can get the idea that someone might be accused of theft without knowing if it was petite or grand larceny as the specific crime, and if the person accused is someone who commonly advocates against theft, the specific crime might not be particularly meaningful in a certain degree of public opinion, even if it would absolutely be needed for anything more tangible to happen.
It is a big difference if someone steals a pen or a car
The supporting claims don't just muddy the point. They suggest that his assessment of the other claims should be approached within the context of how he's describing other interactions.
It's like, hypothetically, if you give 3 examples and 2 are obvious hyperbole, I'm going to start to wonder if the 3rd one is also hyperbole but just less obvious.
Again, I agree entirely with you. But in either case the person might be considered a hypocrite, just to the degree of an eyeroll or to the degree of social shunning. I'm not sure Ben cared enough for that level of detail, or that we should care without that level of detail. But it's clear enough the classification of thing he is alleging, if not the degree or particulars. And I think that's why this thread has 25 pages. Because some people think the classification is enough to be clear, and others don't. And neither are incorrect.
This is a different thing, though! You are talking about if the allegations are valid, not if the allegations are clear (and to what extent of clarity). That's a value judgement, and one that I agree makes sense. But isn't really what I'm talking about here. Nobody has to believe a word of what Ben is saying to understand what he is alleging.
Again, without specifics there is no way to know if what he alleges is real or to what extent, but it isn't unclear what he is alleging. That break, and the crossover between it, seems to be the conflict here in this thread. And, again, at this point the degree it matters is negligible.
I am talking about the clarity of the allegations. Because the vagueness of them is what invites assumptions and those assumptions will be based off what we think of the person in question.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
In "public" at a corporate retreat, which of course makes it unclear what "in public" means given that PA is like 15 people.
If someone stole a pen, i dont give a damn. If they stole a car, i probably do.
Since Ben Kuchera is a writer he probably knows that, so he left the details out because he was either stream-of-consciousness rattling down his thoughts, or he deliberately left them out.
I believe it's the former, judging from the rest of the tweets. But those details are still missing, and are make-or-break for this story.
And like it was just numerous times before, everyone believes ben hard a terrible time, and everyone believes he feels he was in a tough spot.
The question is what degrees of guilt for you can assign to whom, and to answer that, details matter a lot.
To again stay within the analogy, "Someone took something very important away"
This can mean A LOT. It can mean the world, almost nothing, and almost anything in between.
And I'm reserving my judgement on this story until I have at least the adress of where I can buy the map to the ballpark.
I would totally agree it would be unclear in a vacuum, but with the volume of PA materials out there expressing their specific stances and opinions that apparently run opposite of what Ben is talking about, the hypocrisy allegations seem clear to me without additional context.
I think the divide here is that even if I go ahead and agree that whatever happened was hypocritical, there’s still a question of scale/severity.
There is a range of “hypocritical” actions they could have taken. They range from minor (not printing a lame article) to severe (killing a story about industry abuse). Both could be considered “killing” a story by a writer. But one I would be concerned with and the other I couldn’t care less about. Which is why, to me, these kinds of details are important.
For sure, though even then I'm not sure how much it would matter.
The PA Report is dead, it was years ago, Khoo is gone, and PA hasn't shown any indication of heading in that direction anymore. In the worst case, with lots of specifics, it would be a disappointment and make Mike and Jerry maybe need to do a press release expressing regret. In most cases, it just doesn't matter at all except if PA makes another comic on games journalism (and then with folks just being disappointed or disregarding their ability to make those judgements).
The tightrope I'm walking is
1. extract our standards for belief from this specific situation
2. apply it to a similar situation where I'm biased on the other side of the issue or disinterested
3. am I comfortable applying the same standard?
In my case I'm super comfortable because my standards are super low in most controversies. If I can't personally do anything about it, and if nobody wants me to brainstorm ideas to make things better, then I don't particularly care if I know the truth or not. I think I have a horrible tendency to virtue signal, so I try to actively curb it when I can, which means staying objective most of the time and only expressing my opinion when I have a clear objective. But that's just me - I'm still interested in how the rest of you square the circle under varying circumstances.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Right, but then again this is a person who describes a mundane conversation with a sales guy as "terrifying", which for me makes his definition of 'berating' specious.
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It's real hard for me, personally. Rationally, I don't feel like Ben has any reason to lie that feels reasonable here. I also don't want to believe that Mike and Jerry would be hypocrites to this degree, intentionally or unintentionally. I also know what going through a meltdown publicly feels like and how things can all bleed together to make things that were sorta meh feel much, much worse in retrospect. The lack of details cause all sorts of doubt between these things to flirt around in my thread, which is what has drawn me back to check this thread every so often this week.
I really wish PA or Ben or both would say something more about it, because I feel like its gonna nag at the back of my mind well into the future.
Though I will say, even if "in public" was at the corporate retreat which involves just a couple dozen people, that could still be calling you out in front of the entire company, on an issue which was particularly thorny, so that one could still be actually pretty bad.
As far as public spats go, I'm quite pleased. Mr. Kuchera wasn't chased off the internet, the people in here are not pulling punches but are keeping things contained and civil, PA hasn't made the situation worse with a PR disaster - I'm just so sick of the escalation of internet controversy where everyone walks away damaged. We all know what that looks like, and I'll stop being happy if the situation starts looking more familiar. If PA can say some magic words to make everything better, that'll be golden - but any attempt will have me sweating bullets that they cut the wrong wire. I don't expect anything of Mr. Kuchera other than more wristwatch tweets - when I put my head in the lion's mouth and it doesn't bite, I don't stick around checking for cavities.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Or it could've been an offhand comment.
We absolutely do not know.
As opposed to doing it one on one, like any conversation like that should have been done.
And that's beign generous and assuming it actually had to be done at all.
Celeste [Switch] - She'll be wrestling with inner demons when she comes...
Super Mario Wonder - Wowie Zowie!
That is vague bud; we don't have the slightest idea what story was squashed or under what circumstance. Like is he trying to report about systemic sexual abuse at Riot and Ubisoft? Reporting on the actual physical toll of crunch? Complaining about how there isn't enough espresso available at blizzard HQ? Mojang is actually a cult that teaches children to seek structural weaknesses in their homes to plant explosives inside of so they can get a better spawn after they destroy their bed?
Like context absolutely matters and it's possible that M&J were justified in squashing the story. I say possible because the only people with any insight on the topic aren't saying sweet fuckall.
Doing it to protect their business would be making sure not to piss off the people paying money to PA. PA has called out others for doing that very thing.
It's kind of odd PA hasn't said anything, I understand it's the safer PR move, but that doesn't exonerate them in any way, and really, it just pushes it the other way.
There are plenty of people here who do not hold Mike and Jerry in high regard, and this water-carrying angle is lazy and dismissive.
He has provided zero context or details, he gets what one should get when they provide zero context or details: Questions and doubt. If he provides something with actual meat, then we can go over specifics. For right now it sounds like someone with unresolved anger lashing out because they're having a bad time.
And I'm not even discounting the idea that he may be correct and the PA people did horrible shit. I'm just saying he's provided no reason for me to think so other than nebulous gestures towards that direction.
Like others have said in the thread, they seem to have worked hard to make themselves better folk.
So what's the real harm? Wouldn't they just be saying the same thing as Ben anyway?