Jimquisition: Integrity, Journalism, and Free PS4s
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
Jim I don't think you got the appropriate "rise" 
out of us with ps4 licking. Maybe Greg Tido should give it a try !
out of us with ps4 licking. Maybe Greg Tido should give it a try !
I frankly don't care if the reviewers post images of their PS4s or not. I mean, I really, REALLY don't care. They're not rubbing it in my face any more than people who bought theirs are. Sure they have their names on them or whatever but that's like going into a Starbucks and being jealous that you don't have a nifty little apron with your name embroidered into it. It's their job to give you coffee so yeah, there are perks to it. I work a low level position at a TV station so I know when somethings coming on and I have access to neat little exclusive posters and shit. That's just a perk of the job. Sure you can get mad when I show you my sick-as-fuck Agents of Shield poster on twitter with a #CoulsonLives slapped onto it but whatever. It's a part of my job. It's a perk. Most every job as perks. You want perks, then get the damned job. I really hate it when people whine about not getting the same shit that game reviewers get. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
No, cooks do not buy their own knives. Chefs do. But chefs are highly paid, and knives are personal to them. And even then, most chefs probably have them paid for anyway. Moreover - does a cook buy the ovens or the pots and pans they cook with? Of course not.Miyenne said:
Also, most hair stylists work for salons who buy all the tools. I'm not sure where you get the idea that the typical hair stylist is buying all their tools, unless they work for themselves.
I'm confused. Why is this a question? What does your gender or sexual orientation have to do with attraction to Jim?
Perhaps you missed the "self-employed" part in their post? Regardless, in almost every other profession people either buy their tools or have them provided by their employers. Why should games journalism be any different? Unless the games companies providing them with games and consoles and flights are their employers?Aardvaarkman said:
I'm sure Jim's picture of things as they currently stand is more or less accurate. But as a game consumer, it's hard not to feel a note of unease. In my case, it's not so much at the idea that getting game systems etc. for free amounts to a payoff for good "critical" press as the recent cases where companies or their reps groused or threatened (or in some cases, actually followed through) on preventing some portions of the critical press from getting the same access to their products as their peers on the basis of their alleged negativity.
Every time something like that makes the headlines, one wonders if it's an anomaly or the status quo- or if the first is turning into the second in some seamy underbelly we aren't privileged to observe.
I imagine a different model- and please, anyone feel free to poke holes in this idea; I'm sure there are problems I'm not seeing.
First, I imagine some kind of "board" of game reviewers whose existence is funded by a modest payment from participating game review outlets, payment scaled based on the staff size, viewership, and annual profit of the institution. The board would serve two major purposes: one, to keep a roll list of independently "accredited" game reviewers (just so any schmuck who makes a game video on YouTube doesn't get the same treatment as a writer of long standing for a major site), and two, to holler holy murder if a company tries to stick it to an accredited reviewer- limiting their access, etc. The reviewer board would insure that the companies that tried to employ strong-arm tactics would get the "blacklist" treatment, not the other way around.
Secondly, accredited game reviewers or their institutions would pay for their own games and systems. Ah, hold on- I'm not talking about MSRP. Your presence on the roll list as a reviewer means you get an enormous discount- maybe paying $5 for a AAA game and $100 for a system, say. That would put even a high-traffic reviewer on a roughly even playing field in terms of their expenses as a gamer who doesn't review every game and have to cover every system. A reviewer's presence on the list would mean they still get early access- and if a game company tries to exclude anyone on that list from receiving the same treatment, see above. It would help significantly lessen the appearance of impropriety- every expense the game reviewer had paid to the company, every shipment the company sent out to a reviewer, could be a matter of public record on a web site that the board maintained. Reviewers would have "some skin in the game".
The hardest part, from where I stand, would be making absolutely certain the Board remained independent and free of prejudice. They would have to receive no funding at all from the game companies, directly or indirectly; they would also have to have some means to suspend or remove reviewers who had broken a code of conduct (which would presumably largely consist of breaches of journalistic ethics); they would have to be absolutely above pressure from companies to censure particular critics for their reviews. I'd also recommend that there should be a way for a critic to keep his or her "accredited" status even if their parent company turned them loose, just to avoid things like the Gamespot "Kane & Lynch" debacle.
That's my "perfect world" scenario, anyway; I'm not pretending such a thing is ever going to come about on my say-so.
Every time something like that makes the headlines, one wonders if it's an anomaly or the status quo- or if the first is turning into the second in some seamy underbelly we aren't privileged to observe.
I imagine a different model- and please, anyone feel free to poke holes in this idea; I'm sure there are problems I'm not seeing.
First, I imagine some kind of "board" of game reviewers whose existence is funded by a modest payment from participating game review outlets, payment scaled based on the staff size, viewership, and annual profit of the institution. The board would serve two major purposes: one, to keep a roll list of independently "accredited" game reviewers (just so any schmuck who makes a game video on YouTube doesn't get the same treatment as a writer of long standing for a major site), and two, to holler holy murder if a company tries to stick it to an accredited reviewer- limiting their access, etc. The reviewer board would insure that the companies that tried to employ strong-arm tactics would get the "blacklist" treatment, not the other way around.
Secondly, accredited game reviewers or their institutions would pay for their own games and systems. Ah, hold on- I'm not talking about MSRP. Your presence on the roll list as a reviewer means you get an enormous discount- maybe paying $5 for a AAA game and $100 for a system, say. That would put even a high-traffic reviewer on a roughly even playing field in terms of their expenses as a gamer who doesn't review every game and have to cover every system. A reviewer's presence on the list would mean they still get early access- and if a game company tries to exclude anyone on that list from receiving the same treatment, see above. It would help significantly lessen the appearance of impropriety- every expense the game reviewer had paid to the company, every shipment the company sent out to a reviewer, could be a matter of public record on a web site that the board maintained. Reviewers would have "some skin in the game".
The hardest part, from where I stand, would be making absolutely certain the Board remained independent and free of prejudice. They would have to receive no funding at all from the game companies, directly or indirectly; they would also have to have some means to suspend or remove reviewers who had broken a code of conduct (which would presumably largely consist of breaches of journalistic ethics); they would have to be absolutely above pressure from companies to censure particular critics for their reviews. I'd also recommend that there should be a way for a critic to keep his or her "accredited" status even if their parent company turned them loose, just to avoid things like the Gamespot "Kane & Lynch" debacle.
That's my "perfect world" scenario, anyway; I'm not pretending such a thing is ever going to come about on my say-so.
Psychologically, I think it works the opposite way. When you pay money for something, you are more likely to praise and justify it, because you are invested in it. This is one of the reasons fans become so rabid - because they have invested time and money in their products, and they don't want to seem foolish for having bought an inferior product.Weaver said:
Imagine if clean air wasn't free to breathe. I'd imagine that the review scores for "fresh air" would go through the roof. But if you've lived your whole life somewhere with breathable air, you don;t even think about it.
I think the area where money mainly comes into this is the promise of future money. If somebody gives you something for free, you aren't invested in reviewing it positively or not. You already have it. However, if somebody promises future money based on an outcome (advertising revenue, etc.), then the situation changes. Likewise, if your livelihood is threatened by not taking certain actions (i.e: Kane & Lynch) then that's also a motivator.
A straight-up review copy doesn't really act that way. What does is the way that advertising revenue is what most review sites are dependent upon these days.
Well, that makes it completely irrelevant, then. If you're self-employed, you pay for [strong]all[/strong] of your expenses, not just tools.SirCannonFodder said:
Do self-employed cooks even exist? the whole idea of being a cook is that you work for a kitchen, which is presumably owned by somebody else. If you owned the place you cook in, then you are a business owner, a restauranteur, or a chef - even if you do some cooking, that's not primarily what your stake is.
The thing is, if game companies were in the habit of "implying" to the people who received their games that a good score was somehow expected, someone somewhere sometime would have documented this and revealed it. Yet this simply doesn't happen. Because that would be stupid, and believing that this is a thing that happens is stupid. People who cry about corruption and such nonsense are short sighted and bitter little people and we should all just ignore them.
That's a good counter point! I hadn't really considered that.Aardvaarkman said:
I guess it might come down to the type of person you are. The kind feels the sort of financial investment like you mentioned or the one who fells ripped off at a poor quality product you paid money for. I'm quite cynical myself and I feel pretty ripped off when something doesn't deliver on its value, personally.
I do have to wonder if, on a base level, the PS4 is even worth reviewing at all. The only people who have them, and subsequently the games for them, bought them months ago as pre-orders. I couldn't even go out and buy one as every store capped their pre-orders and sold out within like a week of their availability.
It's not like you're saving them money by telling them not to get something, because they already got it.
It's not like you're saving them money by telling them not to get something, because they already got it.
Hmm, I wonder how mad Jim would be if someone photoshopped a copy of Aliens Space Marines in place of the ps4. I assume he'd turn into Voltron and slay the offending photoshopper.
If they didn't get copies before the game then they'd have no game before launch and the reviews wouldn't hit websites until a day or so after launch. So, I think you're pretty wrong regarding embargoes. Yeah, they're bad but they're not as bad as reviewers not getting the games prior to release to have something prepared by day one at least.medv4380 said:
I stopped watching Jimquisition weeks ago, maybe a couple months, but it wasn't because I didn't like them. It was primarily because several episodes were about things I knew about, and most of Jim's opinions are also my own. This was the first episode I've watched in a long while, and I'm really happy to see your sense of humor has not changed one iota. Keep gettin' 'em, Jim.
You're missing the point, in either case, the person doing the job either pays for their tools or has their employer pay for them. Why should games journalism be any different?Aardvaarkman said:
So, what's to stop a self-employed chef being given free knives by a company? There are even plenty of self-employed chefs who are paid by knife companies to endorse the knives. Your point simply isn't true. Those aren't the only two ways a person doing a job can get their tools. They may have even inherited them from their grandfather.SirCannonFodder said:
Why would the client of a self-employed hair stylist care if the stylist was given a free curling wand? Plenty of hair salons get discounts to stock certain brands of product.
I guess I am missing the point. Would you care to explain what it is?