You are ascribing far more to me than I actually said. I didn't discredit marketing, I said optics being used here, without considering the optics of a bargained-for exchange which the foundation of the show is premised around, is a bunch of bullshit.
You seemingly have no problem with the very real conflicts of interest that might arise from what typically constitutes these problems (aka money exchanging hands) while honing in on Kojima.
That's why it's bullshit. You have chosen to arbitrarily make the issue about a smaller specific subset while ignoring the optics of the larger issue, which actually, realistically and generally leads to conflicts of interest.
You want to both validate the show and harp on Geoff simultaneously. That's the point. You can't do both when you invoke the optics argument. Geoff secures marketing and sponsorship funding for this show from folks whose games are up for awards. His show cannot live without that money. His show can live without Death Stranding.
If you feel calling out selective usage of optics is insult to your profession, fine. Take that insult.
This is precisely why I find the whole issue with optics such a bunch of fucking bullshit. Fuck reality, Geoff should make his show for the toxic manchildren that were fiending at the keyboard ready to go.
Whether or not there may be potential conflicts of interests elsewhere does not matter as the optics in this situation are focused on the more-public and contextually different instances where the relationship between Keighley and Kojima has been shown in the products that both people preside over.
You're declaring that your instance of a potential conflict of interest is
exactly the same as the situation between Keighley and Kojima, and then insulting me and my profession for not agreeing with that declaration.
They are not the same. Kojima and Keighley's relationship is both more public-facing and more personal than any of the funding agreements made between Keighley and the Game Award's partners. As such, when it comes to optics, a potential conflict of interest
no matter how real it is is going to hurt the legitimacy of the show more when it comes to the former than it does the latter. The existence of this very thread coupled with the lack of a thread complaining about its sponsors (and the lack of ones in years prior) proves that I'm right here and I'm sure that the potential "shitstorms," that would occur if DS were win will only do so further.
Because that's the thing about optics. It's not logical. It's not something that would hold up in a court of law or a scientific textbook. It's an art, something that is wholly subjective whilst rarely making sense. It's how Gillette can be seen as progressive for an advert decrying toxic masculinity whilst simultaneously being part of a destructive capitalist organisation. It's how Sony managed to win the generation so conclusively despite the 'fact' that Microsoft backed-off from their DRM desires. And, yes, it's how people can see that a potential conflict of interest between Kojima and Keighley is more important than a potential conflict of interest between Keighley and his sponsors. If you want to continue to see that as "fucking bullshit" whilst making insinuations that I'm a manchild then so be it, but that's just reality.
And I'm not harping on Geoff for crying out loud. Criticism does not equal condemnation, and I'm sick of this heated rhetoric where everyone is a hater and no-one can
possibly be reasonable. You can admit someone's faults whilst still seeing them as a good person doing good things; it's not all-or-nothing no matter how much you'd want to believe it is.
Yes it is attacking Geoff for having a relationship with someone. Imagine trying to tell someone you don't know it is a "mistake" to have a relationship with someone else you don't know. What a ridiculous notion.
Saying a guy in the gaming industry that also has an award show can't have a relationship with someone else in the gaming industry is nonsense. And yeah let's continue to pretend Kojima is the only other person Geoff has a relationship with in the ideo game industry as if it isn't ridiculous either.
And like I said in another comment than the same should apply to all other video game publications that have relationships with publishers and developers and they should all start removing games from their lists because in some fictional world where they were run by a board of directors they may think it will have bad PR.
Bad PR that would come from irrational people on the internet that are toxic about everything.
The issue isn't that Geoff has a friendly relationship with someone. It's that he's used that relationship to signal boost both himself and Kojima's work throughout multiple heavily-public instances.
Though maybe I should have worded things differently because when I say "involvement" I mean the publicly-facing involvement between the two in situations such as the TGAs and Death Stranding.