Game Journalism - Unfit for purpose?

[227]

He's made huge contributions to the adventure genre over the years, and his Kickstarter for Broken Age helped pave the way for other projects that otherwise wouldn't have seen the light of day.

Peter Molyneux also made huge contributions to gaming once upon a time, but that doesn't give him a free pass for Godus. Schafer has had multiple Goduses; Broken Age (which may have opened the door to such projects at first, but also slammed it back shut when its lack of quality turned it into a cautionary tale about crowdfunding), the outright-abandoned Spacebase DF-9, and to a lesser extent, Massive Chalice. It's no wonder people are sick of him asking for money up front when they've been burned so many times.

More to the point of this thread, he's usually given a free pass by the gaming media because he's a part of the same circles they run in, which is endlessly annoying. Go on and try to find an article about the Fig date being surreptitiously changed. You won't. You also won't be able to find anything about Square-Enix releasing two games with always-on DRM in a span of 7 days. But heaven help you if you create a game with bikinis.

 

[dragonbird]

Thank you @227 for bringing this back on topic. There's a few posts there that made me think I was in the General Videogame thread.
@Damariel @Sephira - I'm moving the two Kojima posts over there. The Schafer discussion should also move if you're all determined to discuss him rather than gaming media.

 

[Damariel]

Why would Tim Schafer make a game pro bono? Kickstarter is not a charity.

Nobody is talking about making games pro bono, he will get money for copies sold after all... And if you tell me he doesn't have money after his stunt with Broken Age then I guess it's his fault not ours. Less parties and cameos on game shows, more working next time.

@Dragonbird I finished my part on this subject.

 

[Pug.]

Peter Molyneux also made huge contributions to gaming once upon a time, but that doesn't give him a free pass for Godus. Schafer has had multiple Goduses; Broken Age (which may have opened the door to such projects at first, but also slammed it back shut when its lack of quality turned it into a cautionary tale about crowdfunding), the outright-abandoned Spacebase DF-9, and to a lesser extent, Massive Chalice. It's no wonder people are sick of him asking for money up front when they've been burned so many times.

More to the point of this thread, he's usually given a free pass by the gaming media because he's a part of the same circles they run in, which is endlessly annoying. Go on and try to find an article about the Fig date being surreptitiously changed. You won't. You also won't be able to find anything about Square-Enix releasing two games with always-on DRM in a span of 7 days. But heaven help you if you create a game with bikinis.

Fair enough.

 

[Sephira]

@Dragonbird that's ok, the discussion was over, not that there is much to say for a foreseen event. :teeth:

 

[Phinnway]

Looks like youtube is !@#$ing with people again. Not sure whether any game channels have been affected yet, but Nostalgia Critic lost 3 weeks of monetization. I'll let him do the talking...

FYI he got monetiization back 4 hours after putting up this video. That was after 3 weeks of being ignored by youtube's official communication channels.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

An interesting review of female characters in games:

Way more useful ideas for game designers than what Anita Sarkeesian likes to talk about.

 

[Cheylus]

I like the fact he talks about motherhood as a potentially interesting playground. We keep on having award-winning games with *praised* writing about a father and a "lost" daughter (The Last of Us, The Witcher 3 - Bloody Baron and Geralt himself... -, The Walking Dead, Bioshock Infinite).
On a larger scale, we keep on having stories with father issues in AAA titles:
- Bethesda tried something like that with Fallout 4,
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (follow your father's footsteps),
- GTA5 (one of the main character has to deal with "family issues" and his two children)
- the protagonists of AC Syndicate defines themselves differently in regards to their father (which is never seen in game),
- the hero of AC Unity witnesses the murder of his girlfriend's father and will have to atone for that
- well, every protagonist in a AC game has deep father issues, with the exception of Kenway and Altair
- the protagonist of Watch Dogs is angry because he lost his child
- the Arkham Knight is "Batman's son"
- MGSV revolves around Elijah being angry because his "destiny" is tied to his father's
(in general, son rebels against their fathers, except when he's dead, and daughters are nice to them, that's how video games work)

On the meantime, in movies, you have the prominent trope of the "let's build our family again" or "our son is a rebel".

I think most devs or "artists" failed so miserably over the years to write a compelling and believable love story, dumbed down to "romances". Now they're trying to get us emotional with parenthood. Yeah, way better than "save the princess"...........

Video games writers: please stop playing video games and watching movies to get inspired and start reading books and newspapers.

 

[dragonbird]

I'm not going to disagree with the points raised, but we seem to be drifting well off-topic? If you want to continue this, I think we should probably move it into a different thread.

 

[Garrison72]

The BBC weighs in, results are predictable.

If you love gaming, no matter your gender, signing up to be interviewed by the likes of these guys only hurts the medium as a whole. One of the girls interviewed expressed her disappointment with the bias in the comments section...well, what did you think was going to happen? They were going to be fair and balanced?

 

[Pug.]

The BBC weighs in, results are predictable.

If you love gaming, no matter your gender, signing up to be interviewed by the likes of these guys only hurts the medium as a whole. One of the girls interviewed expressed her disappointment with the bias in the comments section...well, what did you think was going to happen? They were going to be fair and balanced?

Well, I have to admit that there is still quite a bit of misogyny in the gaming community. I remember when I bought Mortal Kombat X back in the fall, I played a few rounds online as Cassie Cage, and after beating some schmuck I received a message to the effect of "go kill yourself you fucking bitch." I'm a 6'2" guy, but simply playing as a female character within the game was enough to provoke sexist comments and abuse. I disabled messaging on my PS4 after reporting the twerp, but it's frustrating that a lot of people seem to tolerate this kind of behavior as "kids just being kids." If I had a kid like that, I'd disown his ass and ask god for a refund.

I agree that judging any community, however, by looking at the comments section on YouTube and other sites is ... flawed to say the least? YouTube is a cesspool where nothing is sacred or off the table. Watch any video and 9 times out of 10 the first comment will be someone telling another person to fuck themselves or threatening them, regardless of whether you're watching a movie trailer, a let's play, or cat videos.

It would be nice if the media focused on some of the better aspects of the gaming community, e.g. I recently watched a piece on CNN I think it was, where doctors are experimenting with Oculus and other VR systems in hospitals to help sick children recuperate and make their hospital stays less taxing. There is good in gaming, but like with all things, it's easier to focus on the negative.

 

[jjavier]

This is news on Gawker Media, so I think is on topic.


[video=youtube;sxslGhOj5-Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxslGhOj5-Q[/video]

 

[227]

This is news on Gawker Media, so I think is on topic.

Christmas came remarkably early this year.

Also in vidya gamez jurnalizm, Jim Sterling is apparently being sued by the developer of The Slaughtering Grounds (and a bazillion more trashy games). Most of the links with details are of the Neogaf and Kotaku varieties, so here's a one-sided explanation from the developers' own site. They're also crowdfunding legal fees, which is going about as poorly as you'd expect. There are people hoping for them to actually follow through, though, because Sterling has no chance in hell of losing and the resulting curbstomp would likely keep other developers from getting all legal-y whenever someone criticizes their product. Or something like that; I don't know jack about law beyond what I've seen from other random internet weirdos.

I don't like Sterling, but in this case the wishy-washy worm seems to be in the right.

 

[Garrison72]

Microsoft threw a party for devs at GDC. The party had dancing girls in it. A female Aussie dev was offended by girls dancing and filed a formal complaint; MS promptly apologized. Glad I don't work in this industry, I couldn't handle all the SJW oppression.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-exec-apologizes-for-unequivocally-wrong-gdc-p/1100-6435802/

Clearly, this is the new MO if you simply want attention on social media.

 

[Pug.]

Microsoft threw a party for devs at GDC. The party had dancing girls in it. A female Aussie dev was offended by girls dancing and filed a formal complaint; MS promptly apologized. Glad I don't work in this industry, I couldn't handle all the SJW oppression.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-exec-apologizes-for-unequivocally-wrong-gdc-p/1100-6435802/

Clearly, this is the new MO if you simply want attention on social media.

I don't see how asking corporate America to refrain from using half naked women to sell their products brands you an "oppressive Social Justice Warrior."

Would you feel comfortable if you walked into a Microsoft conference and saw this?

Spoiler

No, didn't think so.

 

[jjavier]

I don't see how asking corporate America to refrain from using half naked women to sell their products brands you an "oppressive Social Justice Warrior."

If the dancers show up during business hours while they are presenting products, you got a point. But this happen at an after party.
Did you saw the picture of the dancers? That is your idea of half naked?

Would you feel comfortable if you walked into a Microsoft conference and saw this?

Spoiler

No, didn't think so.

That's Borat in his trikini!
If Borat in his trikini shows up at an after party I can guarantee you there will be a line of guys asking for a picture with him. I would be in that line.

I got no problem either with some unknown guy appearing in trikini. I wouldn't find it appealing but I wouldn't complain.

---------- Updated at 02:32 AM ----------

Christmas came remarkably early this year.

Also in vidya gamez jurnalizm, Jim Sterling is apparently being sued by the developer of The Slaughtering Grounds (and a bazillion more trashy games). Most of the links with details are of the Neogaf and Kotaku varieties, so here's a one-sided explanation from the developers' own site. They're also crowdfunding legal fees, which is going about as poorly as you'd expect. There are people hoping for them to actually follow through, though, because Sterling has no chance in hell of losing and the resulting curbstomp would likely keep other developers from getting all legal-y whenever someone criticizes their product. Or something like that; I don't know jack about law beyond what I've seen from other random internet weirdos.

I don't like Sterling, but in this case the wishy-washy worm seems to be in the right.

I'm not a Sterling fan either and I agree with you, this time he is right.
He criticized a product for the poor value it offered. I don't see non-videogame related issues/politics here.

Having said that, I do wish both lose the case.

 

[Pug.]

If the dancers show up during business hours while they are presenting products, you got a point. But this happen at an after party.

Fair enough.

 

[227]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-exec-apologizes-for-unequivocally-wrong-gdc-p/1100-6435802/

"We want to build and reflect the culture of Team Xbox--internally and externally--a culture that each one of us can represent with pride."

So a party like Playstation throws, but worse and with fewer people in attendance?

But seriously, paying a bunch of attractive dancers to show up is cringe-y, if only because it feeds into the myths about the stereotypical gamer. Same way it'd be terrible if they had a Mountain Dew fountain and Doritos platter. "Unequivocally wrong" is just the complete opposite end of the spectrum, though, and decrying something stupid as though it were the root of all humanity's ills does nothing but further polarize any attempt to view what they did from a more objective viewpoint. I'd imagine it's events such as this that slowly turned some "game journalists" into raging ideologues incapable of comprehending the concept of nuance.

More to the point of this thread, "some people on Twitter were offended by something" isn't news no matter how many flavors the press seems to come out with.

 

[Garrison72]

"We want to build and reflect the culture of Team Xbox--internally and externally--a culture that each one of us can represent with pride."

So a party like Playstation throws, but worse and with fewer people in attendance?

But seriously, paying a bunch of attractive dancers to show up is cringe-y, if only because it feeds into the myths about the stereotypical gamer. Same way it'd be terrible if they had a Mountain Dew fountain and Doritos platter. "Unequivocally wrong" is just the complete opposite end of the spectrum, though, and decrying something stupid as though it were the root of all humanity's ills does nothing but further polarize any attempt to view what they did from a more objective viewpoint. I'd imagine it's events such as this that slowly turned some "game journalists" into raging ideologues incapable of comprehending the concept of nuance.

More to the point of this thread, "some people on Twitter were offended by something" isn't news no matter how many flavors the press seems to come out with.

Cringey at worst, I'll agree. Not worth raging at MS on Twitter though. She said some pretty disparaging stuff until she got noticed, then she was all, "it's about making a better space for women, REALLY, hurdurhurdr." If that's the case, show some damn respect. Guess I'm tired of seeing this little drama play out over and over and it seems the main goal is really to get pats on the back from social media.

 

[Damariel]

Guess I'm tired of seeing this little drama play out over and over and it seems the main goal is really to get pats on the back from social media.

"OMG my twitter post was retwitted like 200 times this week, I'm a fucking star!!"

Annnd.... I'm like...

Spoiler

If you get what I mean.