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THQ Nordic holding an AMA on... 8chan (UP: website linked to multiple mass shootings) READ THREADMARKS
- Thread starter Deleted member 401
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There is something incredibly surreal about reading through this article and getting to the paragraph where they have to explain what "lolis" are. Think about just how fucked up that is that this is even a thing that has happened.
I honestly started to reply to one of the comments there that clearly came from a GG'er where he spewed the usual BS about how there's "no CP at 8chan now!" and how it's just lies being spread by "those that lost to gamergate" and all that happy horseshit, but I just closed the tab instead. There's no point with those people.
They want you to read the article so they leave that info out of the headline.
It's also strategic. Child pornography + video games = moral panic. Kind of like the "Momo" viral video going around yet again.
They put out an apology claiming they didn't know what was going to happen and are now sticking their heads in the sand hoping it all goes away.
...no. What? No.
Vinnk says that employees who remain with THQ Nordic necessarily earn some of the guilt, and so after some years, he'll stop being sympathetic to them.
I think that's some judgmental, capitalism-embracing, capitalism-normalizing shit. I don't see any reason why I wouldn't always have sympathy for someone who has no other reasonable option than to work for a shitty corporation to earn a livelihood.
That's all.
Doesn't mean I'm going to be supporting the THQ Nordic bigwigs with my dollars.
For fuck's sake.
I really don't think we should be letting Pieceofshitgate have a monopoly on criticizing games media (not that they ever actually did that, but you know what I mean). Some of us were passionate about actual conflicts of interest between publishers and publications way before misogynistic fucklords hijacked the concept.
That's fine, but I'm just asking myself "what would I do" and if working for a boss who condones child pornography is a thing, you bet your ass I'm leaving there as soon as reasonably possible. In fact, I would even rather be pushing the boss of my development studio to sever ties with the publisher in this case. There is no reason for any studio (except Warhorse, of course) to stay under the THQ Nordic umbrella after this. Either way I am 100% on board with you about capitalism and having sympathy for the people stuck in this situation, but I do think that the working class also needs to bite back at some point. This is a pretty good point to do so imo.
Sorry, I mean what's the issue people are having with how it's being covered so far?
Imagine if EA had done this. EA, one of the main pantomime villains in gaming, conducts an AMA on a website full of white supremacists that support and post child abuse and child porn. Gaming Youtubers everywhere would relentlessly swarm all over this like flies around a carcass, never willing to let go, because this is a legit goldmine. There would be material for weeks if not months, relentlessly and gleefully laughing at the company's expense for its association with child porn and loudly proclaiming it the worst PR disaster in living memory (most content creators and reports I imagine would gloss over the whole extreme homophobia and Nazism stuff). I can almost imagine the "EA ARE PAEDOS" video headlines and practically the whole of the gaming press going for the jugular with heavy hitting article after another. "After Anthem, EA drops to a whole new low!'
But since it's not EA or Activision but a smaller scale plucky publisher that so happens to have snapped up a whole bunch of formerly abandoned IPs that gamers remember and are fond of, the response has been as limp as a soggy rich tea biscuit left in a hot cuppa. Considering this is not some comparative "oopsie" where a single social media employee opts to be a bigot on Twitter but senior figures within the company making the active decision to happily play ball with some of the worst dregs the wretched corners of the internet have to offer and did not nope out after a nanosecond, is extraordinarily damning. In electing to give this story some of the most feeble coverage ever while sounding like they accept the bullshit apology as something genuine and said in good faith, the gaming press have failed spectacularly. In sounding as timid and feeble as they do, they are content with letting these guys off the hook. An all round trash fire.
The year may be young, but the magnitude of this fiasco is so damning and so great in multiple ways which go beyond the simple fact that there is almost certainly a pervasive corporate culture within THQ Nordic thinking it is worth courting child porn loving white supremacists, that I can't imagine this being topped as ResetEra's 2019 Fail of the Year. A travesty for the innocent employees and developers who had to watch in horror as their dipshit bosses went ahead with this stunt. A travesty for the gaming press in how reluctant it's been to rake THQ Nordic's asses over the coals for being chummy with regulars on a white supremacist child porn cesspool. A travesty for decent people as a whole with yet another likely confirmation that the company may get away with this relatively unscathed, but now protected by its own freshly recruited online brownshirts army.
I will legitimately lose my shit if at the end of the year this site votes for [insert another disappointing game similar to Fallout 76 or Anthem] as the Fail of the Year winner again when this shining jewel of shit is in the running.
And as for the CEO who would rather say and do nothing about this, your silence is more than enough to indicate tacit approval. To speculate that you're a coward would be way too charitable. To suggest you simply don't care would be way too kind. No, you flat out approve this shit given your sustained silence and without an ounce of moral integrity, would just rather it blows over. No reasonable CEO would stare at this raging fire, point to the guy holding the can of petrol and with suspicious burn marks all over him and be all "yeah what he said" and hope the inferno will quietly put itself out.
But since it's not EA or Activision but a smaller scale plucky publisher that so happens to have snapped up a whole bunch of formerly abandoned IPs that gamers remember and are fond of, the response has been as limp as a soggy rich tea biscuit left in a hot cuppa. Considering this is not some comparative "oopsie" where a single social media employee opts to be a bigot on Twitter but senior figures within the company making the active decision to happily play ball with some of the worst dregs the wretched corners of the internet have to offer and did not nope out after a nanosecond, is extraordinarily damning. In electing to give this story some of the most feeble coverage ever while sounding like they accept the bullshit apology as something genuine and said in good faith, the gaming press have failed spectacularly. In sounding as timid and feeble as they do, they are content with letting these guys off the hook. An all round trash fire.
The year may be young, but the magnitude of this fiasco is so damning and so great in multiple ways which go beyond the simple fact that there is almost certainly a pervasive corporate culture within THQ Nordic thinking it is worth courting child porn loving white supremacists, that I can't imagine this being topped as ResetEra's 2019 Fail of the Year. A travesty for the innocent employees and developers who had to watch in horror as their dipshit bosses went ahead with this stunt. A travesty for the gaming press in how reluctant it's been to rake THQ Nordic's asses over the coals for being chummy with regulars on a white supremacist child porn cesspool. A travesty for decent people as a whole with yet another likely confirmation that the company may get away with this relatively unscathed, but now protected by its own freshly recruited online brownshirts army.
I will legitimately lose my shit if at the end of the year this site votes for [insert another disappointing game similar to Fallout 76 or Anthem] as the Fail of the Year winner again when this shining jewel of shit is in the running.
And as for the CEO who would rather say and do nothing about this, your silence is more than enough to indicate tacit approval. To speculate that you're a coward would be way too charitable. To suggest you simply don't care would be way too kind. No, you flat out approve this shit given your sustained silence and without an ounce of moral integrity, would just rather it blows over. No reasonable CEO would stare at this raging fire, point to the guy holding the can of petrol and with suspicious burn marks all over him and be all "yeah what he said" and hope the inferno will quietly put itself out.
Gamespots was the worst imo. It only covered the apology, and they thought it appropriate to lead into the article by posting their Darksiders 3 review video.
Nobody is mentioning the higher ups involved. Noone is mentioning why the apology is BS.
Clearly the right move, my man. The comments section of that video is pure trash. There is no arguing with those people.
I dunno, I find great joy in exposing their dumb asses for more people to see. It's actually incredibly easy and requires very little effort. They are, after all, trying to normalize fucking child pornography. "Ignoring the trolls until they go away" demonstrably never works, on the other hand.
Looked at the Gamespot article, seems like it had just barely enough information to understand what they did in the first place. The writer is apparently the youngest member of their UK staff. Did they intentionally choose to treat it like a throwaway piece?
tbh a lot of gaming sites did similar coverage with bare bones articles. Like zero condemnation they made the entire narrative about thq's "apology" and basically downplayed the whole thing. Extremely disappointing
Yeah, after so many years now of seeing just the absolute worst in the industry, it's very easy to say at this point that it's not worth it. They're delusional and hopeless.
For some people, like myself, it's less about "ignoring them until they go away" and more that because I've been calling them out over the years, be it on Twitter or my site, it just becomes too exhausting. It's like ramming your head against something that is as dense and as stupid as a brick wall over and over and expecting the outcome to change.
Don't want to give any more of them clicks for that; this is extremely disappointing. If you had any desire to be seen as more than an extension of advertising than this seems like the easiest thing.
I don't even think they particularly need outright condemnation. Just giving details like the names of the people involved, their interaction with the board owner, and what was on the website when they were posting makes it clear enough that the apology doesn't hold.
Hi guys, I read the WaPo article. That's good journalism there. Also read the WayPoint one, equally hard hitting. That said, I am seeing people say that GameSpot, Kotaku, Polygon et al were too lenient on THQN. How so? Would anyone happen to have any links to their pieces?
Remember when that Daikatana ad was meme-worthy? We've
This incident was this year's reminder that "gamers" and "gaming culture" have been and, now with the aid of purveyors, continue to be trash.
Yeah, wtf Kotaku. You'd think they of all outlets would be better at this.
yup, weak. it's not even on their front page. nathan of all people too.
This is an excellent point and I was thinking the same. We can't allow GamerGate to poison the well of questioning conficts of interest and impartiality, especially when said conflict of interest goes in the direction of letting a company that pulls shit like this get off scot-free.
Man am I glad GamerGate happened after the whole Gamespot-Gerstmann-Kane&Lynch debacle; otherwise there might not have been a debacle.
Fucking pathetic especially because:
1. It's kotaku
2. The article never referenced the two other times THQN responded to posts with loli and homophobic materials
Pitiful.
I always thought Kotaku to be better about progressive issues :/
Me too. I kept checking the site waiting for an update or follow up article but kept finding nothing...
THQ Nordic deliberately courting regulars of a website so vile that it makes you instantly lose faith in humanity? Pfft, who needs to rigorously cover that and apply pressure on the company for doing something so jaw-droppingly idiotic and morally repulsive when we can just shit out ten more articles on how Anthem is an underwhelming video game. EA bad! Oh, has anyone seen the trailer for Darksiders 3: The Crucible? IT LOOK GOOD. Here, you can watch the trailer below!
The well is already poisoned. It's gonna take years until it isn't imo.
Seems somewhat possible, but if those outlets were to change anything they publish because of that, they would lose their integrity by default.
Don't like how the Wapo article says that the original tweet was promptly removed, I don't think 15 hours counts as 'promptly'.
They don't have the sway to do this, they aren't a mega publisher like EA. And honestly they'd make a story about it if thq even tried.
The well is what we make of it. If every time someone talks about conflicts of interest in game journalism, everyone instinctively dogpiles on them howling gamergater, then sure, we'll never be able to discuss that. But surely people can be asked to resist caving to their first knee-jerk instinct and actually think for five seconds if it's actually legitimate to talk about it?
Here we probably could, but every other place is gonna have people defaulting to you being a gg idiot and disregard what you say.
Honestly I can't blame game journos from doing that after the last few years, they've been bombarded with bad faith bullshit. It doesn't help that any legitimate criticism is used by gg too.
It makes more sense when you're using a geological time scale.
I've reported you already, but before you go, can you tell us how you feel about /trapshota/? You know, the board that was being advertised above this AMA?
That's atrocious. The whole tone of the piece is "Those wacky video game companies do the craziest things". Stark contrast to the seriousness of the WaPo piece.