After the whole THQN fuckup, I can safely say most of the gaming press is spineless.

[Jecht]

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/0...e-board-with-reputation-for-child-pornography

This whole thread is just another bad faith posting about "games journalism" not too different from how Gamergate caught on. And I'm not saying the OP is a Gamergator but we really need to move past this kind of rhetoric. Journalism needs to improve in general but everyone said their piece about this and there's nothing else you can really do.

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The information about being blocked by the company on skype or emailing them everyday is nowhere in that article, and that is what I was asking about.

Also stop painting every bit of media criticism as some gamergate dog whistle, speaking as someone who was writing about games at that time and was severely harassed it is insulting.

 

[Deleted member 6730]

Also stop painting every bit of media criticism as some gamergate dog whistle, speaking as someone who was writing about games at that time and was severely harassed it is insulting.

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But we need to stop calling the gaming press "spineless" "not real journalism" "unethical" because not only is that insulting to gaming journalists in general but that kind of rhetoric ended up being the shell that was the entry point to radicalize a bunch of gators into harrassment and death threats and doxxing. There's a smarter way to criticize the gaming press without getting angry at them and this ain't it chief.

We need to stop responding to any criticism of the media with references to gamergate.

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Like it or not Gamergate, and by extension the entire alt-right movement ruined everything and now we need to change our approach to criticizing the media.

 

[GhostTrick]

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/0...e-board-with-reputation-for-child-pornography

This whole thread is just another bad faith posting about "games journalism" not too different from how Gamergate caught on. And I'm not saying the OP is a Gamergator but we really need to move past this kind of rhetoric. Journalism needs to improve in general but everyone said their piece about this and there's nothing else you can really do.

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When you're saying it's "bad faith" posting about ""games journalism"", you're basically throwing accusations of Gamergator. You're aware that I didn't said "everyone" but "most". The articles rightfully calling this out are the minority... and are more than a month old. As of right now, the whole thing died. Unless I missed all these articles.

 

[Deleted member 6730]

When you're saying it's "bad faith" posting about ""games journalism"", you're basically throwing accusations of Gamergator. You're aware that I didn't said "everyone" but "most". The articles rightfully calling this out are the minority... and are more than a month old. As of right now, the whole thing died. Unless I missed all these articles.

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The fact you straight up admit in your first sentence that you don't hold the press at high regard should let us know it has more to do with your anger at journalists for some reason than actual outrage towards THQNordic. Like how is it the press's fault that THQ held a Q&A on a site that harbors pedophiles. Take your outrage at them not at journalists who already reported the story when it was relevant. And just because they're not lingering on this because it wasn't relevant to their readers a week later with no new information (again not their fault) doesn't mean they're not people who know this is a bad thing but what else can they do about it?

 

[B.K.]

They're mostly the kind of outlets that wouldn't report on Apple or Disney either. The difference is that Apple and Disney are big enough for mainstream press to pick up on.

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Do you really think Disney cares? They rehired James Gunn, a pedophile, to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after everything died down last summer. They don't care what people think.

 

[GhostTrick]

The fact you straight up admit in your first sentence that you don't hold the press at high regard should let us know it has more to do with your anger at journalists for some reason than actual outrage towards THQNordic. Like how is it the press's fault that THQ held a Q&A on a site that harbors pedophiles. Take your outrage at them not at journalists who already reported the story when it was relevant. And just because they're not lingering on this because it wasn't relevant to their readers a week later with no new information (again not their fault) doesn't mean they're not people who know this is a bad thing but what else can they do about it?

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Because I strongly reacted to it already. Yes, I didn't and this is a new reach here. It's not the press fault's that THQ not only held a QA on a site they couldn't possibly know was a shit hole but also had their higher ups reacting like shit to racist and homophobic comments. Why the journalists though ? Because they're supposed to be the voice between publishers and customers. They're the one with the louder voice. They cant do anything about it ? Is this a joke ? If a partner did in fact coordinate their PR on a CP hosting website, I'd take distances asap.

 

[svacina]

They rehired James Gunn, a pedophile

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That's such a mischaracterization of what happened with Gunn that I don't even know how to respond.

 

[dancingphlower]

Do you really think Disney cares? They rehired James Gunn, a pedophile, to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after everything died down last summer. They don't care what people think.

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You can't be serious right now.

 

[P-Tux7]

Since the gaming press often uses connections to the game companies to get extra news or clicks, they don't want to piss them off. This is horrible for unbiased reporting.

 

[Daysean]

Do you really think Disney cares? They rehired James Gunn, a pedophile, to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after everything died down last summer. They don't care what people think.

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You fell for the fake news hard
Congrats for being a puppet

 

[TaleSpun]

Do you really think Disney cares? They rehired James Gunn, a pedophile, to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after everything died down last summer. They don't care what people think.

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It's so funny to see people arguing against the relevance of Gamergate in these discussions and then a whackjob comment like this only a few posts down. Literal GG shit.

 

[Nickerbocker98]

Do you really think Disney cares? They rehired James Gunn, a pedophile, to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after everything died down last summer. They don't care what people think.

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I didn't know Cernovich had an ERA account.

 

[Eumi]

Just report the person repeating alt-right talking points, you won't get any sort of reasonable response, and it'll just derail the thread.

 

[spam musubi]

I wonder if the press will tackle the massive systematic sexual harassment at Xbox at all.

 

[Zips]

I wonder if the press will tackle the massive systematic sexual harassment at Xbox at all.

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You don't have to wonder.

Just search for "xbox sexual harassment" in Google and you can see that there have been dozens of different articles already, especially if you specifically look at Google News.

 

[B.K.]

It's so funny to see people arguing against the relevance of Gamergate in these discussions and then a whackjob comment like this only a few posts down. Literal GG shit.

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I still don't know what Gamergate is. Something about men not liking women in gaming? I stay out of threads like that.

I didn't know Cernovich had an ERA account.

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I don't know who or what Cernovich is.

You fell for the fake news hard

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I don't know. Where there's smoke, there's fire. He made thousands of Tweets about it. It makes me wonder about a person.

 

[Hasan Ali Almaci]

I didn't hold the gaming press to high standard in the first place. In my opinion, not many were doing an actual journalist work and most of the time doing an opinion work about games and reposting press releases sent by publishers.

But after the whole THQN stuff, which for those who may not know about, is basically a few higher ups from THQ Nordic, taking the decision to hold an official AMA on a website known for hosting child pornography, drawn but also real one, and doubling down on that decision, to then pretend it was a mistake on their end and didnt make proper research (when it's obvious even when you step on said website). As of right now, no actions from THQN has been taken toward these higher ups.

But the other problematic thing that happened following that is the weak press coverage. Sure, a few did their job reporting it accurately but others talked about it in a lame way as a "whoopsie they made a mistake !".

And today ? Well they totally let that slip away.

We're talking about a key members of a big publisher giving a spot to a website hosting child pornography and here we have the press being lenient toward that, when, if they had a fuckin spine, they should've collectively take the decision to stop covering THQN stuff and stop reviewing their games until proper actions were taken. If the biggest websites and editors in chief just decided that, the whole thing would've been resolved in a few days and THQN would've had no choice but to take proper actions, if they wanted their promotion back.

In the end, none of that happened. Crazy.

In any other industry or in any serious press, the journalists would keep coming at them until an actual answer was given. They'd keep pressing them until something was done.
Imagine if Disney hosted an AMA on a website hosting child pornography ?
Imagine if Apple hosted ab AMA on a website hosting racist content ?
The press would go insane on that.

But not the gaming press, who decided to remain the obedient and lenient promotion tool.

I basically feel like that, save for a few persons, the whole gaming press is nothing but a spineless advertisment billboard. I knew they werent the most pro-consumers, but now I know they are totally at the boots of publishers.

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No they wouldnt.
The shit Disney and Apple have gotten away with and continue to get away with is on another level compared to games. An inconvenient truth is also that the public does not want to read about things they disagree with or want to not be reminded of. Hey MJ was a great artists, I dont want to watch Leaving Neverland. Even if you deny you are guilty of this fact.

 

[Sloth Guevara]

Not surprised that Nadia won't do something that may hurt their bottom line in a capitalist system.

 

[NoKisum]

I'll just repeat what I said in a previous thread on the matter:

Of course most outlets won't speak harshly about situations like this. Speaking out against publishers means lack of early free access to upcoming games. Lack of access means less time to cover upcoming games for the public. Less coverage means less views on their sites and videos. Less views means less money. Less money means no business.

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[CaviarMeths]

I still don't know what Gamergate is.

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Literally lol'd.

 

[More_Badass]

I feel like plenty of entertainment outlets do more than anything the gaming press does. Plenty will reach out for more on a story because entertainment news loves its gossip, news, and rumors about anything going on with celebrities and some goings on in the industry. They really love a good scandal they can sink their teeth into.

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A good scandal requires people to care. The general gaming audience couldn't care less about this.

 

[Deleted member 6730]

Because I strongly reacted to it already. Yes, I didn't and this is a new reach here. It's not the press fault's that THQ not only held a QA on a site they couldn't possibly know was a shit hole but also had their higher ups reacting like shit to racist and homophobic comments. Why the journalists though ? Because they're supposed to be the voice between publishers and customers. They're the one with the louder voice. They cant do anything about it ? Is this a joke ? If a partner did in fact coordinate their PR on a CP hosting website, I'd take distances asap.

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So what's the end goal here? Everybody knows 8chan is bad and the press already shined THQ in a negative light because of this. THQ managed to get away with it for the most part because they're a relatively small company with next to no reach outside of enthusiasts. This makes the comparison to Apple and Disney all the more baffling because they're bigger companies that more people pay attention to and the reporting on this would go on for days because they're bigger companies with a more wholesome image.

 

[Deleted member 15395]

Now, I'm no expert on 8chan, but while I bet people post child porn there because edge I somehow doubt it has a dedicated cheese pizza board as such and that every each cp post results in ban and deletion. Because it's pretty doubtful that whoever owns the place now wants FBI's boot up their ass. 8chan is a cess pool but it's not dark web.
What I am trying to say is that I doubt you could nail the actual site owners for child pornography ("it's against board rules and if users upload it we take action as soon as it is discovered!") unless you want to breach the protections site owners have against user generated content, let alone a third party which hosted an AMA on a video game related board.

I guess you could see share holders suing if shares plummet, but that hasn't been the case.

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You go after THQN, not the 8chan owners.

 

[Mars]

The game industry from top to bottom is a sad joke and anytime someone points out just how "spineless" and "unethical" gaming journalism is... I mean, shit, its obvious. I get it, they care more about the bottomline than fostering MUCH needed change. But don't tell me I'm being "mean" because I refuse to sit here and act like these fuckers add anything to the conversation outside of a press release for the newest game or some shit -- fools don't even react until folks on the internet make noise.

 

[Zips]

The game industry from top to bottom is a sad joke and anytime someone points out just how "spineless" and "unethical" gaming journalism is... I mean, shit, its obvious. I get it, they care more about the bottomline than fostering MUCH needed change. But don't tell me I'm being "mean" because I refuse to sit here and act like these fuckers add anything to the conversation outside of a press release for the newest game or some shit -- fools don't even react until folks on the internet make noise.

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I can't even roll my eyes hard enough at this.

We and the rest of the world saw and found out about the AMA same as everyone else, as it was happening. But it was important to get facts about what the deal was before making some article less it comes off as a reactionary clickbait pile of utter garbage. It's easy to go "oh shit, THQ is stupid!" in a forum post or on a personal social media, but that's not going to cut it as a news post. Get off the high horse.

 

[Biske]

Because the "gaming press" isn't real journalism. It's entertainment news, which is itself just more entertainment. And the "gamer" market broadly either 1) just doesn't want to bother caring and just wants their review scores, trailers, and unboxing videos or 2) widely intersects with fairly shitty demographics, which together defines not only the core audience, but many of those in the gaming press industry.

You will never see a major outlet refuse to cover major gaming releases or run a real campaign against a major publisher with deep issues, because that will decrease their volume of entertainment content, damage relations with effective business partners, anger large swaths of the "gamer demographic", and those producing content for these outlets are part of that very same demographic and thus themselves may not care or are actively against calling these things out for suspect reason. And ultimately, it's not their job. They sell previews of and reactions to entertainment products, not journalism.

People need to stop pretending the "gaming press" is anything more than it is, or that the "gamer" crowd's issues aren't as deep and wide as they are.

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For real, here and there, a decent article may happen but its largely just commercial PR.

 

[Stock]

Do the writers/personalities at these games media outlets consider themselves "journalists"? This topic doesn't seem fair at all to the people employed in games media and mainstream outlets, since they themselves would probably not consider themselves as "journalists" or "press" in the same vein as investigative reporters from the Washington Post/NY Times/Buzzfeed/etc would. Most writing in gaming is entertainment/hobby news, and the writers are not looking to change the world or take a moral stance. A couple might fall into the journalist realm, like Jason Schreier and/or Patrick Klepek (that I recall off the top of my head); these two put out great work but these writers are far from the norm and are not the standard to hold the whole industry to. Even on the recent Kotaku's Splitscreen, Jason thanked the outlet's staff for stepping up and covering things while he took on that illuminating BioWare piece, which indicates that the piece was quite resource intensive and outside of the site's normal budget.

This thread troubles me, since it appears at first blush to be a roundabout Epic Games Store reactionary thread, since many of the same anti-"games press" sentiments found in this OP may be found in the OP's own posts in countless EGS threads. I understand the frustration, and think the OP's heart is likely in the right place (THQN's AMA was super gross), but this take feels wrong to me.

 

[sph3re]

For real, here and there, a decent article may happen but its largely just commercial PR.

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Gonna piggyback off this post. Definitely agree with you and WhiteRabbitEXE here.

jschreier is one of the best legitimate journalists in the industry, due to actual investigative journalism and reporting. There are some great editorials from others, and the rest are better at their job than I would be.

But yes, the game "journalism" industry is hardly "journalism," it feels like an extension of the game's marketing department half the time.

 

[TaleSpun]

A good scandal requires people to care. The general gaming audience couldn't care less about this.

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The core audience couldn't care less. The only place that discussed this any longer than the day it happened is Era.

 

[Biske]

Gonna piggyback off this post. Definitely agree with you and WhiteRabbitEXE here.

jschreier is one of the best legitimate journalists in the industry, due to actual investigative journalism and reporting. There are some great editorials from others, and the rest are better at their job than I would be.

But yes, the game "journalism" industry is hardly "journalism," it feels like an extension of the game's marketing department half the time.

Click to shrink...

Yup. There is definitely a place for consumer coverage for people who do utilize that in aiding their purchases. It's a valuable and needed resource.

But its like calling a movie critic a journalist, it doesn't mean anything. If you are actually looking into stories, labor practices, impact, how it all comes together, totally. But reviewing and playing games or covering fucking E3? Its an ad. You are an extension of their advertising department.

It makes me think of corporate press releases, a company I used to work for would always email us an "awesome story about the company" and when you click through to the website its a website for press releases made to look like a news website. Just an elaborate way of repackaging a press release.

 

[tmarg]

Waypoint talked about it again on their most recent podcast, but I won't pretend that Waypoint is representitive of games media as a whole.

 

[Nanashrew]

Gonna piggyback off this post. Definitely agree with you and WhiteRabbitEXE here.

jschreier is one of the best legitimate journalists in the industry, due to actual investigative journalism and reporting. There are some great editorials from others, and the rest are better at their job than I would be.

But yes, the game "journalism" industry is hardly "journalism," it feels like an extension of the game's marketing department half the time.

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I still question where he is in all this though. Especially after the poor Kotaku article about this whole situation that lacked any substance and info.

 

[LifeLine]

Games media rather talk about mandatory easy modes apparently.

 

[Zips]

Games media rather talk about mandatory easy modes apparently.

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... There hasn't been anything new about the THQ incident in literally weeks now. There's nothing to report on.

Would you all rather stuff just get made up so that an article could be made? Or should they just rehash the same things that are already known so that they can be accused of beating a dead horse or farming for clicks?

 

[night814]

Surprised I missed this thread last month, I have tried to follow so many gaming news outlets over the years such as IGN, Kotaku, Destructoid, and GoNintendo and Nintendo World Report for Nintendo specific stuff and I just always end up disenchanted with them. A lot of it has to do with copy-paste style reporting, the same stories would keep appearing on each site in the exact same style. And yes, they absolutely don't give the bullshit enough coverage. I've found that ResetEra and the old site before it are much better news aggregators.

 

[Nanashrew]

... There hasn't been anything new about the THQ incident in literally weeks now. There's nothing to report on.

Would you all rather stuff just get made up so that an article could be made? Or should they just rehash the same things that are already known so that they can be accused of beating a dead horse or farming for clicks?

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To be fair, one of Ars Technica's editors is on ERA and in one thread on this, they mentioned that when asking THQNordic about this whole thing, THQ instead sent an unsolicited code for an up coming game. That in itself is a story there. Yet no article.

 

[Kaivan]

To be fair, one of Ars Technica's editors is on ERA and in one thread on this, they mentioned that when asking THQNordic about this whole thing, THQ instead sent an unsolicited code for an up coming game. That in itself is a story there. Yet no article.

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Wow. So they literally took the bribe to stay silent.

 

[Zips]

To be fair, one of Ars Technica's editors is on ERA and in one thread on this, they mentioned that when asking THQNordic about this whole thing, THQ instead sent an unsolicited code for an up coming game. That in itself is a story there. Yet no article.

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Which, again, was weeks ago. That's on them to report that one if they felt the need to do so. But no sense in other outlets jumping on that one since there is a lot of unknowns (who did they contact? was it someone from THQ or a third party PR company that has literally nothing to do with what THQ did? Did they follow up? etc.).

Wow. So they literally took the bribe to stay silent.

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You just made one hell of an insinuation there with nothing to back it up.

 

[Conan]

Why is the OP comparing Disney and Apple to THQ Nordic? Seems more fair to compare them to a smaller European company. If Rockstar or Blizzard did this it would of course have been a bigger story, no need to try to warp the context to make a point.

 

[Kaivan]

You just made one hell of an insinuation there with nothing to back it up.

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Press asks for more info. Publisher gives a free copy of a game unrelated to the question. Press backs off and stays silent.

 

[spam musubi]

You don't have to wonder.

Just search for "xbox sexual harassment" in Google and you can see that there have been dozens of different articles already, especially if you specifically look at Google News.

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It is covered, but I'm not seeing a lot of noise about it, only a few sites. And I'm not asking "will they cover it at all", I'm asking if they will keep pressure on Microsoft on the issue.

 

[We_care_a_lot]

'The gaming press are spineless' is not fair or legitimate criticism and anybody trying to frame it as such is part of a larger problem with the rampant toxicity in the gaming community.

Get a grip on youselves.

 

[Zips]

Press asks for more info. Publisher gives a free copy of a game unrelated to the question. Press backs off and stays silent.

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That's not how this works.

You're looking at the fact that there is no new news and twisting the reason to fit your narrative.

There is literally nothing to even suggest that any publication is staying silent because they were paid off with a key or anything else. There's literally nothing new to report on. That is why there hasn't been anything new since.

It is covered, but I'm not seeing a lot of noise about it, only a few sites. And I'm not asking "will they cover it at all", I'm asking if they will keep pressure on Microsoft on the issue.

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"A few sites"

Click to shrink...

Sure.

It's also not the role of the media to police each and every company that they have reported on non-stop. If something new develops, it'll be reported on. But to constantly harp on a topic or a company isn't what the media should be doing. If you want that, there are plenty of YouTube reactionaries that thrive off of that stuff.

 

[L Thammy]

I don't think the games press let this go per se. THQ Nordic kept their heads down and went radio silent so there was nothing to report on. There was one reporter who mentioned that they got unsolicited game codes when they tried to press THQ Nordic on this. They hoped that the gaming public wouldn't care and they were right. The most blatant failure of the gaming press here is that a number of outlets provided weak coverage, even focusing more on the apology than on what was actually done.

As for the idea that blocking coverage of a particular company might be impossible for the press because they rely on the hits that the coverage could bring... would that be true for a smaller company like THQ Nordic, though? I understand how that would shield major publishers.

Obviously they didn't. Literally nobody in any public position would want to willingly or actively promote a site like that if they knew because first and foremost from a company perspective it's bad business. It should have ALWAYS been clear that they had clearly not did their job properly in investigating the website in question in the slightest.

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Before you claim that THQ Nordic could not have possibly known that there was child pornography on 8chan before posting the AMA, consider these two points. First off, they cannot find 8chan via Google. Second, in order for them to have even posted the AMA, they would have had to have passed a link at the top of the page advertising a board dedicated to the sexualization of young boys.

They would have had to not only have failed to investigate 8chan beforehand, they would have had to not look at the board as they were posting.

 

[spam musubi]

That's not how this works.

You're looking at the fact that there is no new news and twisting the reason to fit your narrative.

There is literally nothing to even suggest that any publication is staying silent because they were paid off with a key or anything else. There's literally nothing new to report on. That is why there hasn't been anything new since.


"A few sites"



Sure.

It's also not the role of the media to police each and every company that they have reported on non-stop. If something new develops, it'll be reported on. But to constantly harp on a topic or a company isn't what the media should be doing. If you want that, there are plenty of YouTube reactionaries that thrive off of that stuff.

Click to shrink...

I meant a few gaming sites. Which this thread is about. Whether CNBC covered the story is irrelevant to the conversation we're having here. I appreciate that you're trying to stan for game journos in this thread, but at least let's keep the discussion moving forward instead of playing semantics games? Also, I didn't say they're paid off? Why are you putting words in my mouth? It's almost like you don't actually want to have a conversation and just want to shut people down with bad faith arguments.

 

[Nanashrew]

Anyone who knows of 8chan knows what kind of site it even is. Those who don't know of 8chan will not ever know what kind of site it is.

And that should never be understated. To be in the know you have to know.

 

[Zips]

I meant a few gaming sites. Which this thread is about. Whether CNBC covered the story is irrelevant to the conversation we're having here. I appreciate that you're trying to stan for game journos in this thread, but at least let's keep the discussion moving forward instead of playing semantics games? Also, I didn't say they're paid off? Why are you putting words in my mouth? It's almost like you don't actually want to have a conversation and just want to shut people down with bad faith arguments.

Click to shrink...

You should probably go back and read who I was responding to in the beginning of my post.

Furthermore, you only said "press" in your first posts. I showed you news posts from around the web, a lot of them, in fact.

And no. The press, gaming or otherwise, aren't here to "keep the pressure on" companies.

 

[low-G]

Remember how the dialog was that Jeff Gerstmann got fired for an honest review? Gamers WANT someone with a backbone. It's been lacking for decades.

Now I think video games can survive with just game publishers, advertising, and the users that review & criticize games, but it is a shame that games journalism never was able to stand up and become something more meaningful with regards to criticism specifically. Game publishers have always had em by the balls, and soon they'll be replaced entirely with streamers and YouTube personalities the publishers have even more control over.

So I don't think the problem was necessarily that gamers wouldn't support legitimate criticism with integrity, it was just so rare.

I think journalists probably always lost perspective of the big picture because the small voices getting angry about review scores drowned out the overall picture...

 

[kamineko]

There were some good articles. The problem is that an enthusiast press needs product information. If an outlet gets an exclusive look at a product, they're not going to ask why that Pollice asshole isn't gone yet. They need access to the product.

That isn't every outlet's concern, but it makes it hard to ask difficult questions, especially persisting over time. I don't have an easy answer for that--it seems the entire coverage model would need to change but there will always be a voracious desire for pre-release product information.

I'm completely done with them personally, but I don't see that as being an impactful decision. Some shit I just don't associate with, that's all.

 

[Mars]

I can't even roll my eyes hard enough at this.

We and the rest of the world saw and found out about the AMA same as everyone else, as it was happening. But it was important to get facts about what the deal was before making some article less it comes off as a reactionary clickbait pile of utter garbage. It's easy to go "oh shit, THQ is stupid!" in a forum post or on a personal social media, but that's not going to cut it as a news post. Get off the high horse.

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So do they compensate you for playing the role of damage control or what?