Derek Smart Caught Up in Alganon Plagiarism Furor
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Oh that was running through my head when I read that article. Kudos sir!Irridium said:"Looks like Darek *puts on sunglasses* isn't too Smart."
Just curious, did any other game industry self-googler figure ever appeared on the forums?Russ Pitts said:
Smart's a member here, and he's responded to at least one post about himself in the past. I wouldn't call it a "blowup" so much, at least not compared to some of the incidents I've seen on Blue's or Gama, but his attitude certainly shone through brightly.Irridium said:
I really don't know what to make of the man. He seems incredibly passionate about videogames and is apparently able to make a decent living developing them for a dedicated but very small, niche audience. But he also seems unable to resist responding to just about everything that's said about him online, and that's when he tends to come across like something of a sociopath. So I dunno.
But like Russ said, it's always entertaining when Derek shows up.
concerning his flame war stuff: http://follies.werewolves.org/archives/1About/WhatIsFlameWarAbout.htmlDeofuta said:
The drama approach: [edit] do a search for encyclopediadramatica + derek smart [edit] be warned... mature stuff can be founded there... get an ad-blocker prior to the visit.
a possibly more truthful approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart
his blog...
http://www.dereksmart.org/
I find it very interesting that while an industry veteran will openly admit that purchased PR prattle is samey and in the end, fairly unimportant, he will still direct his company to hire a PR firm to prattle on about his games.
I can't help but see personally insulting implications in this. Does this mean that Derek Smart (and others who feel the same way) think gamers are morons who happily drink up whatever hired PR says, as if we can't tell that's what we're reading? Or is it that hiring a PR firm is just "something you do" when you're releasing a game, meaning that it IS unimportant, meaning that it's a waste of money and a waste of time for gamers to even bother paying attention to it? If the second one is true, that also implies that devs don't think very much about their customers. But in either case, it makes me wonder, why do they bother?
Take for example the game facts pages on Steam releases. These are clearly nothing but reams of PR prattle, and I can't believe anyone actually buys a game based on this by-the-numbers praise. We have a world of Internet game reviews now; we REALLY don't need hired PR prattle. For games that get good independent reviews, it's just pointless. And for games that get terrible independent reviews, it's just dishonesty someone paid for because they apparently think I'm stupid.
Either way, I think it's long past time devs stopped wasting money on this crap.
I can't help but see personally insulting implications in this. Does this mean that Derek Smart (and others who feel the same way) think gamers are morons who happily drink up whatever hired PR says, as if we can't tell that's what we're reading? Or is it that hiring a PR firm is just "something you do" when you're releasing a game, meaning that it IS unimportant, meaning that it's a waste of money and a waste of time for gamers to even bother paying attention to it? If the second one is true, that also implies that devs don't think very much about their customers. But in either case, it makes me wonder, why do they bother?
Take for example the game facts pages on Steam releases. These are clearly nothing but reams of PR prattle, and I can't believe anyone actually buys a game based on this by-the-numbers praise. We have a world of Internet game reviews now; we REALLY don't need hired PR prattle. For games that get good independent reviews, it's just pointless. And for games that get terrible independent reviews, it's just dishonesty someone paid for because they apparently think I'm stupid.
Either way, I think it's long past time devs stopped wasting money on this crap.
My thoughts exactly. I find his forum behavior fairly shocking, but he does have that Peter Molyneux trait of over-hyping his upcoming and existing games (but even more so) that tends to bait people. I really love his game play ideas, and have tried to enjoy each of his games, but his ambition just outstrips his development team's ability by so much they come out terribly.Andy Chalk said:
Seriously though, if we could get those Battlecruiser games working like they were supposed to... maybe Infinity (www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity) will get there.
I find it surprising that people are offended by the plagiarism and are missing the bigger picture: the things "he said" in that PR release were never actually said by him at all!
PR firms are almost magical. They write bog-standard business fluff about companies, plaster them all over news wires as if they were reports from independent reporters (instead of paid for by the entity being reported on), and speak of things that never really happened. It's fraud in every dimension.
There are entire industries based on this. I know of one particular "blog" that is big news in the industry I work in. It used to be one person's blog, and getting on there was a big deal because he only reviewed the good stuff. But he has long since sold his website to a PR company. They have strict rules for how articles are to be worded so that they still look like industry insiders reporting on their experiences. I know first-hand that these articles are all written by PR writers for the companies being reviewed. They write them as if they are customers, often submitted "anonymously", and speak from the first-person point of view. They claim to have used them on projects and to have had great results, but none of these things ever happened. It's an entire world of news fabricated to look genuine, but in reality it's entirely the creative writing of a public relations firm. It's a complete lie.
I've even heard from board members speaking of these websites, saying how important it is that they were "accepted" onto this site in one breath (as if their were some sort of editorial process), then talking about the money and writers that went into getting on the site and the planned follow-up articles. The whole place lives in a world of double-think, where the marketers take pride in being accepted for review, despite having just paid for the privilege.
There's a good chance that this mistake happened because the same PR person wrote both articles and just happened to say the same thing twice. It's also possible that they copied the original article and meant to change the wording enough to make it unique, but didn't go far enough. If it were unique, spoken word, we would call it plagiarism, but it's really just boilerplate, adapted from formulas available in one of many books. Their crime wasn't the copying; it was allowing us to see the man shuffle behind the curtain, ruining the great illusion.
Next time you see a news article pass your favorite blog or a customer review on Amazon, consider this entire industry of frauds. It is their job to trick you into thinking that they are regular people, reflecting their own experiences as part of the greater population, when in reality they are corporate shills with open pockets and loose morals.
PR firms are almost magical. They write bog-standard business fluff about companies, plaster them all over news wires as if they were reports from independent reporters (instead of paid for by the entity being reported on), and speak of things that never really happened. It's fraud in every dimension.
There are entire industries based on this. I know of one particular "blog" that is big news in the industry I work in. It used to be one person's blog, and getting on there was a big deal because he only reviewed the good stuff. But he has long since sold his website to a PR company. They have strict rules for how articles are to be worded so that they still look like industry insiders reporting on their experiences. I know first-hand that these articles are all written by PR writers for the companies being reviewed. They write them as if they are customers, often submitted "anonymously", and speak from the first-person point of view. They claim to have used them on projects and to have had great results, but none of these things ever happened. It's an entire world of news fabricated to look genuine, but in reality it's entirely the creative writing of a public relations firm. It's a complete lie.
I've even heard from board members speaking of these websites, saying how important it is that they were "accepted" onto this site in one breath (as if their were some sort of editorial process), then talking about the money and writers that went into getting on the site and the planned follow-up articles. The whole place lives in a world of double-think, where the marketers take pride in being accepted for review, despite having just paid for the privilege.
There's a good chance that this mistake happened because the same PR person wrote both articles and just happened to say the same thing twice. It's also possible that they copied the original article and meant to change the wording enough to make it unique, but didn't go far enough. If it were unique, spoken word, we would call it plagiarism, but it's really just boilerplate, adapted from formulas available in one of many books. Their crime wasn't the copying; it was allowing us to see the man shuffle behind the curtain, ruining the great illusion.
Next time you see a news article pass your favorite blog or a customer review on Amazon, consider this entire industry of frauds. It is their job to trick you into thinking that they are regular people, reflecting their own experiences as part of the greater population, when in reality they are corporate shills with open pockets and loose morals.
Can we still blame Derek Smart for being a jerk and taking over a company that didn't belong to him? Because he just seems like one of those guys you would love to hate.
OT: Well, from reading what the PR guy had to say, it was clearly an accident. Although you thinked the PR guy who sent him the quote would have cleared it up faster.
OT: Well, from reading what the PR guy had to say, it was clearly an accident. Although you thinked the PR guy who sent him the quote would have cleared it up faster.
I think you've half got it. PR is "just something you do", but it's not unimportant, just as choosing those "praise quotes" from reviewers for your game isn't unimportant. We should know it's all spin, but it gives people something to think and talk about. That gets the game's name out there in front of people's eyes again. That reminds you what the developer thinks/wishes their game was like. But it's true independent reviews will hold more truth.TheBluesader said:
The PR firm is a means to that end; it's just easier than managing everything yourself, and probably much cheaper than spending your own/employee time on PR. PR usually goes for glowing praise. They could also be cute or humble or deadpan, but I think they hope glowing praise will push a tiny bit through people's apathy.
Derek Smart and slick PR do not seem to go well together. Bioware were spinning like champion politicians with that fourth pillar stuff so why not try to copy them but I would make up something new like saying that my MMO stands on the firm tripod of loot, combat and tetrominos while existing games have to rest on the shaky bipedal stilts of loot and combat.
@ TheBluesader
"Does this mean that Derek Smart (and others who feel the same way) think gamers are morons who happily drink up whatever hired PR says, as if we can't tell that's what we're reading?"
uhm, yes? And it's called marketing. If it wasn't for PR & marketing, half the games sold would end up in a landfill. Never underestimate the power of abject stupidity.
"Does this mean that Derek Smart (and others who feel the same way) think gamers are morons who happily drink up whatever hired PR says, as if we can't tell that's what we're reading?"
uhm, yes? And it's called marketing. If it wasn't for PR & marketing, half the games sold would end up in a landfill. Never underestimate the power of abject stupidity.
Well, here's no question that a certain sameness pervades most press releases that hit the wires but this one gets tricky because the quote is directly attributed to Smart. It's clearly a mistake by the PR firm and Smart is taking more heat than he likely would otherwise because he's such a polarizing figure in the industry, which of course is really just a nice way of saying that a lot of people don't like him. His assertion that he's an innocent bystander in all this is probably fair, but "not even news?" That's taking it a little too far.
hurr hurr I is clever!
