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Why are Uighur issues getting ignored by gaming journalism?
- Thread starter Rosenkrantz
- Start date
This is so much of a carbon copy of leafy it almost sounds like a parody.Meanwhile, this is allowed:
"DOOM Eternal is Too Difficult"...According to Games Journalist Dean Takahashi
DOOM Eternal is getting closer to release and overall the game looks amzing. However, in leading up to launch and the eventual DOOM Eternal Reviews, Games Jo...www.youtube.com
You're not getting anything out of MKBHD. Dude could barely be assed to put out a video on George Floyd or any of the protests last summer while others were putting out videos and being active on Twitter discussing it.
If he can't even be assed to talk about his own political plight after spending a summer watching himself be murdered week after week by police officers and racists, he's not going to comment on this issue, either.
So here's a question, then.
Every single year, Gamesindustry.biz does a report on the use of conflict minerals among console and accessory manufacturers. Why do I never see a thread about it on Era? The site isn't ignored, a cursory glance of the first three pages here shows the site in several OPs. Why does this get ignored?
If I were to argue, this is proof that no one on Resetera cares about this, would you feel offended? If I said it was proof that you're not fulfilling your role as a human, would you think that false?
Every single year, Gamesindustry.biz does a report on the use of conflict minerals among console and accessory manufacturers. Why do I never see a thread about it on Era? The site isn't ignored, a cursory glance of the first three pages here shows the site in several OPs. Why does this get ignored?
If I were to argue, this is proof that no one on Resetera cares about this, would you feel offended? If I said it was proof that you're not fulfilling your role as a human, would you think that false?
I didn't say I expect it, which is why I said it's the most I would expect. And that's not very much. But thanks for being condescending.
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No, because the traction of topics like this shows that most people here really don't care.
But I think ideally there should be a difference between a hobbyist forum and people for whom journalism is a work. Maybe I'm wrong.
Why don't we care? People on this very forum (including myself) were at eachothers throats trying to get hard to find electronics/computer hardware who's production supported this vile shit and knowing full well it does. At the same time we valiantly closed our derelict facebook accounts for it's horrible policy on hate speech and misinformation (what a sacrfice!) we are still supporting literal slave labor with our dollars.
I think the fight against this has obviously got to start at the top and the government has to really put pressure on china.
I think the fight against this has obviously got to start at the top and the government has to really put pressure on china.
??
I was agreeing with you/adding to your point, not criticizing you. Apologies if that came across the wrong way.
Well put.
Came here to write this only to realise a lot of people agree. Good
A-yup.
It's also oddly myopic to expect gaming publications to have the resources necessary to investigate something like this.
Microsoft got asked by VGC and responded with
I mean someone could follow up on this and asked if MS investigated those claims, but I don't think they can do much else.
I mean someone could follow up on this and asked if MS investigated those claims, but I don't think they can do much else.
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At the very least it gives the issue a little bit more visibility. As others pointed out thorough the thread, it's better to have small articles like this than a complete silence.
Well now I feel like a real ass. Thought you were saying they wouldn't even say what my post said cause they'd get blacklisted but I see my error.
Seeing a lot of excuses and rationalizations for inaction in this arena and it's a damn shame. Mindlessly consuming, hyping and promoting luxury electronics made with the blood of fellow human beings is abhorrent no matter the rationale behind it. The cost here is ridiculously severe and the stakes (toys!) ridiculously low and yet we still see arguments being toted out like "What if the poor hype men get blacklisted." The answer bluntly remains that people on this forum don't care enough about Uighur lives and conflict minerals to even skip purchasing a PS5, let alone the business risks gaming sites would have to take to shed light on the matter to the larger gaming populace. It's apathy, plain and simple, and it's not just among "journalists." It's right here on a forum that's supposed to be one of the most progressive in the gaming scene.
well what you're doing about it besides being outraged in a video game forum?
An entire page just quoting this post is probably the right call here.
People out here seriously expecting the equivalent of consumer reports blurb writers to expose the fucking lithium mining industry or some shit.
IGN has a Chinese branch, cynically they're not going to report on anything that will kick them out of the market, less cynical reason is that it could put the lives of the people there in danger.
Not purchasing a PS5, but thanks for your weird attempt at a gotcha. Talking to people and trying to convince them or spread awareness of the issue is one of the best things one can do in a situation like this, which is why it sucks that outlets aren't covering the issue at all.
Ya it's not to say that people suck and don't care but more so that we've always just felt disconnected from issues that don't directly affect us. We can have sympathy for people but unless you can relate somehow it's just not going to bother most people to the point that they try to help find a solution. That and also that most people aren't going to enjoy their favorite hobby to prove a point against a problem that feels distant and foreign. You see examples of this today with police brutality, mass shootings, etc, huge issues within our society and yet they all just become talking points for us for a few days.
You're expecting users of a video game forum, i.e. some of the most passionate enthusiasts of the medium, to skip a new console entirely on principle. Why does it surprise you that that isn't happening?
Correct. This is true about consumer electronics in general, really. You expect people on an enthusiast forum to do that? People would stop playing video games if this was the case, which we both know isn't happening.
There are, unfortunately, a bunch of people here and on the internet who fit this description.
And of course people will ignore this.
"It's out of gaming journalists' capabilities". No, it'e not. There's another way than going to China and live reporting from there.
Because electronic tinky toy reviewers aren't exactly equipped to handle the issue, even if it were profitable for them to cover.
This is all spot on. It's not just even a matter of funding - in this particular issue that's actually a major setback even for many mainstream outlets. Again we come back to the smaller issue that gaming "journalism" isn't really an actual thing, not in the same way we think of actual mainstream media journalism (your BBC's, CNN's, Reuters etc). Most of the people writing articles, reviews, opinion pieces don't *feel* (operative word here, I obviously don't have any information on this) like they have the actual proper training to even pursue these sort of issues - regardless of wanting to or not.
We have a few people that do something of the sort (Jason Schreier is probably the most high profile example currently), but for the most part the bigger channels/publications aren't doing any "journalism" per say. A large part, if not the overwhelming majority of the gaming press relies on things like: early access to games/demos/builds - which directly implies keeping good standing with them; pre-release interviews which function as a PR tool; exclusive content from company X, Y or Z; reviews that themselves rarely ask too many questions (though, sites like Kotaku, Polygon, etc have slowly but surely changed that particular paradigm a bit); massive advertisement campaigns to promote game A, B or C; sponsored giveaways/prizes, etc.
This is to say: gaming press in general is too deeply embedded into the actual commercial mechanisms of the industry to actually try to cause any serious waves (though, I can't stress this enough, there are a few exceptions as rare as they may be). So even the idea of signal boosting (ie, reporting the work of mainstream media) this issue is particular is probably a big "no-no" for the livelihood of many of them. Even when the information gets more and more clear. I mean, this has been a known issue since...2018 ? At the very least. That's how far back I can find articles in my mainstream media at least (Portugal). Though initially it was centered around the genocide of Uighurs, not so much the slave work in factories.
The lack of focus on this awful issue is merely a symptom, not the cause, of the oddity of the gaming press. I don't really expect this status quo to change anytime soon but I do hope I'm 100% wrong on this.
My apologies then. I didn't realize there was a direct connection to the consoles and the slave labor. I agree it would be nice for it to be acknowledged more by gaming journalists since it's such a serious travesty what is going on. I frankly don't follow any gaming journalists closely so I don't know what they usually tweet about but definitely some acknowledgement here and there should be the bare minimum.
Like any of you actually give a shit about this.
And don't even pretend that you do, because you don't.
If you guys don't give a shit about stuff like Amazon exploiting people and keep buying from them, and that's white people getting treated badly, I can't even imagine how microscopic you guys give a shit about a bunch of Muslims getting tortured or killed for your favorite electronics and games.
And don't even pretend that you do, because you don't.
If you guys don't give a shit about stuff like Amazon exploiting people and keep buying from them, and that's white people getting treated badly, I can't even imagine how microscopic you guys give a shit about a bunch of Muslims getting tortured or killed for your favorite electronics and games.
But pretending to care gives you an excuse to call chinese people names though. So of course everyone cares so much. Better start another war and destabilize the region fast.
Ultimately you're completely right.
I'm dealing with the cognitive dissonance of whether or not to buy the new consoles just like everyone else. "But I identify as an enthusiast... But I'm just one person... It's not going to change anything... But a lion wouldn't not buy a ps5... But Demon's Souls..." Either we act in line with the values we say we have, or we don't actually hold those values and we're just pretending to show off how much we "care".
Pretty much. As a matter of fact, said reports are the main reason I even became aware of the conflict mineral problems and IIRC it led to folks asking Nintendo and other such companies in their QA sessions about said materials and how to stop them from being used, so it's not like industry folk aren't doing nothing: the problem is how complex this situation is in comparison and how wayyyy out of field it is for most folk. Like for example, me as a small scale game reviewer: What do you expect me to do? This has jack shit to do with devs and pubs I tend to reach out to and the PR people are so far away from manufacturing calls/places like Foxconn and whatnot (which has so, so, so many abusive practices it's not even funny and has been a crisis for eons) that literally, most folks in this field can't do anything even if they wanted to. As noted earlier by the admin, even the best of the best in the world reporting field have trouble reporting on the Uighur situations since China is so stubbornly strict on letting outsiders see things they don't want them to see that it's gruelingly difficult to even investigate or get in the areas to do so. What worked for finding out about use of conflict minerals, won't work in super defensive fortified China. What, talk to like, the two mainland China publishers I have PR emails from and ask them to investigate a situation they no doubt know of and literally couldn't do a thing about for fear of their government shutting them down? They have no link to the situation. It will go nowhere.
A gaming website with nowhere near that reach or power will go nowhere trying to investigate or push calls to improve the situation over there, and for the big ones that have China branches/partnerships doing such a thing could literally endanger the lives of their clients over there. So like, you ask a random big gaming site to go "hey call out china on their uighur genocide". OK, they do everything they can and condemn it and say it's unacceptable and needs to stop... and it pretty much has the same traction as if you or I made a random tweet on the matter since none of them can break into the region to push for change or find a way to stop this. Console creators like Nintendo, Sony and MS can't pinpoint every single person that makes every machine ever, so that alone is a tricky thing to pinpoint and outright stop on their end. (save for moving out of china entirely or away from Foxconn which, good luck with that with how massive they are) So what then besides constantly asking them to investigate and cut ties as much as possible? Hell, the fact that the conflict mineral situation has a lot of info known about it to the masses thanks to folk like Gamesindustry and yet most average folks still ignore/are unaware of it kinda proves how hard these sorts of situations are to inform consumers into caring about, and thus causing any change to be done.
You literally can't do much about it without asking the world in general to push harder on China, which folks like the BBC are trying to do by reporting on the genocide in-depth and exposing it to the world. And if a big gaming site did manage to make an article rightfully saying that China's treatment of Uighurs is abhorrent and unacceptable based on all we know... It would do nothing. The general gaming audience would have no interest in it/little knowledge about it whether you like it or not (even though everyone should be really concerned about this situation), and it wouldn't cause any sort of massive uprising or change in the slightest. The reason the Hong Kong protests were getting the attention they need, is because even before the Overwatch shenanigans those protests were visible worldwide and those partaking in it detailed tons and tons of info about the situation that everyone could understand every detail and know who to support and what to do. I knew a lot of HK/TW devs who also supported the protests and a lot in the industry were able to do the same because of that visibility. Then when the Overwatch ban happened it just multiplied by a crazy amount and made average joes who barely pay attention to the news aware. That's the sort of visibility such a situation needs for folks to generally pay attention, unfortunately.
Short of people in China themselves protesting the treatment of Uighurs en masse or someone within doing a massive expose that reaches the attention everyone on the entire planet, I don't think the Uighur situation or the slave labor will get on most folk's radar, sadly. :( Just like how the Sudan Darfur Genocide is under the radar for most folks and I had to learn about that via my high school due to a documentary my teacher showed us, and i'm still upset and sad about that crisis going on for nearly 18 fucking years, six after I learned about it in high school.
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This thread isn't for reasonable responses. It's an excuse to say gaming has no real journalists.
Or a Switch, or an Xbox, or any games that release on any of those platforms, or Intel, or NVIDIA, or...
If Era actually cared about this we'd stop playing video games period and turn this forum into one of discussion for this issue.
I agree with this take and I disagree with it at the same time.
It's easy to say that people don't care because they're still buying consoles, shopping on Amazon, and browsing this site on a computer or smartphone. But in the grand scheme, this isn't an issue that can just be fixed by dropping everything.
Amazon has products that grocery stores in some areas don't stock. People living in rural areas and leaning on Amazon to supply them with things I can buy at Target or Winco but they can't because they don't have a Target and Winco is going to happen. Smartphones are a staple in the modern world. Computers and internet access are a damn near necessity, especially given smartphones are the first time a lot of poorer people were able to get internet access in the first place.
Trying to get people to just up and drop stuff and restructure their entire way of interacting with the world at large or to find new hobbies that interest them isn't going to happen when these are things they rely on for core functions of basic life.
Making a bunch of noise collectively until these companies shift policies and governments put mechanisms in place to curb these types of things is how it works. Someone up and dumping everything doesn't mean they care more than any number of people posting in this thread, it just means that they can afford to do it.
I'm not even talking about people who lives in rural areas or whatever. And not even talking about 'dumping' them all even.
Like, how many of you actually think about the people that suffered behind the things you use? Compound that with its not like there's a lot of you who actually care about plights of Muslims.
Which is why it's funny for me to see people in here saying, oh, the reason why journalists don't do it is because they can't or whatever, making it seems like we suddenly can care if they only have the capabilities to do so. Yeah right, even if we have bbc/cnn level quality of reporting about this, most if not all of us would still not give a shit.
The journalists don't do it is because the market for people who actually care is really small, so why bother?
The poster you responded to is aware of JS and is still correct. There are no gaming journalists. There are some that go beyond just "I like..." or "I don't like...", but none that rise to the level of journalism. Most enthusiast press doesn't, so its not unique to gaming, but at least in sports or film there are some. In gaming there aren't. No one is expecting anyone to go to China undercover, but an extensive article on this with questions asked of multiple people and companies is not some unheard of ask. That is what a real journalist would do. It hasn't been done because there are no real gaming journalists.
That's not how journalism usually is supposed to work though. It's however how "gaming journalism" does seem to work, with that I agree.
The dependency of being constantly on the "good side" of companies inhibits a lot of things that could happen otherwise (not that they would automatically mind you, there'd still have to be a drive/need/want for it).
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I mean, Imran Khan is literally on this page with some weird deflection instead of explaining why it actually can't be done. That's all we need to know.
How is that a deflection? He said there is literally work done on this on an annual basis and it's never picked up by this audience. You asked why a topic is ignored by the gaming press, were given an example of it not being ignored, and are calling it a deflection. If nobody gives a shit about the report that comes out every single year on this, then reporting on it doesn't do anything because the only way for results to occur is if the audience does something with it. Journalists bring us information. It's up to us to make a stink about it.
You asked why no game sites reported on the fact that labour camps are used in the manufacturing of components that are then used to make game consoles, yet a simple Google search shows that plenty of game, tech, and traditional outlets that did.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
This is more or less the answer.
That said, it shouldn't stop journos to retweetinh stories about this topic in twitter etc.
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He mentioned one outlet working on a story about conflict minerals and their use in the tech industry, which is very important topic, but not exactly the same I was asking for (i.e. contribution that video game industry adds to the Uighur genocide). Then someone else brought the article from VGC which as at least tried to bring attention to that particular problem (that's the first time I even heard about VGC, so I guess the reach definitely isn't there).
Here's a thing, what does it cost to someone like Imran Khan to even signal boost the issue? Just to retweet an article on topic to his 30 something thousands followers on Twitter, not even using his official status as an editor, but as an individual?
Also, "bad gamers don't give a shit about the issue" is not a strong argument, because most people don't give a damn about crunch or CDPR's transphobia, yet these themes were extensively covered.
I LOVE how people are claiming "it cant be done, poor journos".
The bare minimum is EASY AF. No one is asking those people to send under cover journos in those factories or interview people there.
All they had to do was "Reports from X thinktank or publication claims companies such as Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Whatevercompany are using factories with uyghur slaves. We tried to contact Whatevercompanies to hear about their stance on the matter, we're waiting an answer".
That was the bare minimum. But hey, difficult job is difficult. :""""""")
Btw HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEXT GEN HYPE OMG SALES ARE THROUGH THE ROOF HAVE YOU HEARD.ABOUT THE SCALPERS ???? HERE'S OUR 57TH ARTICLE ON THE MATTER.
The bare minimum is EASY AF. No one is asking those people to send under cover journos in those factories or interview people there.
All they had to do was "Reports from X thinktank or publication claims companies such as Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Whatevercompany are using factories with uyghur slaves. We tried to contact Whatevercompanies to hear about their stance on the matter, we're waiting an answer".
That was the bare minimum. But hey, difficult job is difficult. :""""""")
Btw HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEXT GEN HYPE OMG SALES ARE THROUGH THE ROOF HAVE YOU HEARD.ABOUT THE SCALPERS ???? HERE'S OUR 57TH ARTICLE ON THE MATTER.
If you're losing your job for doing journalistic work, that means your job isn't about being a journalist but a glorified PR.
Even just a few smaller articles every once in awhile would be good enough reminder. Even if it isn't new information, that would be way better than nothing.
It would help remind and make people aware abput what is happening.
One article won't bring change but that doesn't mean nothing should be done.
This is the dumbest shit I've read on this site.