erttheking said:
Good thing I wasn't accusing you of dishonest then. "Let's be honest" is just another way of saying "Let's face facts"
I know. I just like picking apart the old turns of phrase; especially those with more sinister sounding literal interpretations.
It's dry humor, OK? I'm bored out of my mind reviewing for my next exam.
Pardon me, but is this really a big thing? Aside from those initial articles is this a widespread thing? Not to mention I've seen it said over and over again that the "gamers are dead" article, didn't mean what it sounded like, so it sounds like a lot of people are jumping the gun and trying to play the victim card.
I've seen that defense before, and while I get what the intention was, I don't accept it in practice. Sorry.
First problem: They specified "gamers": literally
the most generic term of identity in gaming, and used it in their little tirade.
Second problem: A Genetic Fallacy remains a fallacy, no matter how you qualify it. (see below)
Also when I see gamers called misogynists, it never is about the entire demographic, and is usually in response to something that warrants it.
Well going by your logic (or rather, that of the Gamers Are Over articles), I could wander into downtown Chicago, loudly decree "Black culture promotes crime, here are some examples of black criminals." and walk away unscathed as long as I include the disclaimer "If you're black and not a criminal, this isn't aimed at you".
If I accept that, then I must accept the possibility that if I ended up hanging from a tree next day, it obviously wasn't anything I said but just a misinterpretation on the audiences' part.
Do you see why that defense of those articles is complete bunk?
"People misunderstood. People didn't read. People overreacted."
Absolutely not. No, Leigh Alexander and her cronies overreacted. Instead of calling to an end to the harassment by these damn trolls, they instead went for the low-blow, and aimed their ire squarely at everyone in gaming.
In her own words, from her own article:
Leigh Alexander said:
All of us should be better than this. You should be deeply questioning your life choices if this and this and this are the prominent public face your business presents to the rest of the world.
(hyperlinks omitted)
Or how about this?
Article Cont'd said:
Right, let?s say it?s a vocal minority that?s not representative of most people. ... Don?t give press to the harassers. Don?t blame an entire industry for a few bad apples.
Yet disclaiming liability is clearly no help. Game websites with huge community hubs whose fans are often associated with blunt Twitter hate mobs sort of shrug, they say things like ?we delete the really bad stuff, what else can we do? and ?those people don?t represent our community? -- but actually, those people do represent your community. That?s what your community is known for, whether you like it or not.
When you decline to create or to curate a culture in your spaces, you?re responsible for what spawns in the vacuum. That?s what?s been happening to games.
Notice the language. Notice the sweeping blame.
She's blaming everyone for not "curating" trolls. She's placing EXTREMELY unrealistic expectations on gaming culture, when the problem is obviously a result of internet culture, and the inherent problem between public figures and anonymous trolls.
Notice how broad the accusations fly on their own, without the tacked-on disclaimer; the intent is clear as day. They didn't just blame a few bad eggs or trolls, they blamed gaming culture itself. It was clear statement of divorce from the gamer audience, and a call for like-minded fools to embark on an exodus.
Article Cont'd said:
But it?s unstoppable. A new generation of fans and creators is finally aiming to instate a healthy cultural vocabulary, a language of community that was missing in the days of ?gamer pride? and special interest groups led by a product-guide approach to conversation with a single presumed demographic.
Oh of course we're entering a new promised land! A land that is all inclusive!...except for those filthy white males I just mocked two paragraphs above. FUCK THEM. Gaming is OURS now!
Culture war!
Article fin said:
These straw man ?game journalism ethics? conversations people have been having are largely the domain of a prior age, when all we did was negotiate ad deals and review scores and scraped to be called ?reporters?, because we had the same powerlessness complex as our audience had.
Strawman nothin' honey, when the only narrative you construct is the one that furthers your goals and those of your personal friends, then what purpose does the audience have?
Ethical issues didn't stem from some retarded inferiority complex; but raw economic pressure.
Gaming hard-crashed in the 80s, and re-emerged under Nintendo via monopoly. In that time, publishers learned that gaming magazines were EXCEPTIONALLY vulnerable to collusion because their livelihoods were heavily dependent on ad-revenue and the continued commercial success of said publishers.
From a consumer-awareness angle (which is a critical part of a reviewer's job), that's the proverbial "Let the fox guard the hen house."
What that established, was an insular, semi-paranoid culture of mouthpieces and cronyism.
Critics couldn't be TOO critical if the game was meant to drive system sales. Occasional sparks flew over this for high profile games (like the infamous Total Recall review that had Acclaim pull all ads from EGM), but the back-end business culture between the gaming press and producers all but ensured that the big winners stayed big while the end consumer was largely kept out of the loop.
Gaming "journalism" is a joke and has been for decades; it's only extremely recently that what could be called "Gaming Academics" are emerging since early video games now have enough "historical distance" that they can be analyzed without stepping on some especially big toes.
But that crony-culture gaming "journalism" leaned on hasn't been purged, and ethical problems still present themselves. Before, the ethical issues could be ignored because back in the Nintendo-monopoly days, gaming was still recovering; and fighting for positive purpose in the face of competing media and political scaremongering.
We're past those days now.
Gaming largely competes with itself, but the cronyism culture persists yet; it's just shifting from the now-eroding AAA publishers to indie game developers.
Yes, indies; they aren't as immune to such culture as we like to think. In fact, because their success is HEAVILY dependent coverage, they have more incentive than anyone to get cuddly with the gaming press.
In fact, it's quite obvious how these publications have become highly critical of AAA's antics (especially here on The Escapist) while increasingly rooting for the indie-underdog.
Remember those "Doritogate" articles two years ago? Those articles wouldn't have a prayer of seeing print 15, heck, 10 years ago (despite being just as relevant, if not moreso) because back then, the ball was in AAA's court.
But suppose those indie-devs are leveraging their sudden relevancy to push other political agendas (like Zoe Quinn; whose friendship with Sarkeesian is no secret; they've frequently and publicly supported each other); that trickles back down to, yup, the gaming press.
In all of this mess, the LAST entity whose needs are actually considered are the people that keep everyone in business: the sodding gamers. Yet, methinks even the "silent majority" is moving away from the traditional gaming press now, and into less conventional means like Youtube personalities and Lets Plays.
Why? Because the majority of them aren't interested in gender politics.
They don't give a toss that feminists or SJWs or whatever squawking head at Kotaku starts making a big stink about the sexist art style of this game, or the tasteless undertones of that game.
To up and call "ethics" a "strawman" is hilariously ironic; either as a plea to change the subject (and divert attention from their own shady dealings) or to deny the reality that gamers are leaving magazines and their "social justice" journalism editorials in droves.
They're tired of being preached to. Tired of being condemned for shit that's WAY beyond their control (and largely none of their business to begin with).
Tired of having to second-guess whether that 10/10 came from genuine critical analysis or someone's pocketbook.
They're tired of gaming being less about games, and more about pushing this political propaganda from people who largely don't actually give a shit about the medium so much as their career.
TLDR; Game "journalism" is overly inbred, corrupt, and has been for DECADES; largely by necessity, but also by choice.
Consumers paid it before, but they're pretty damn sick of it now.
It's become one of those things where it means whatever the person speaking wants it to mean. What conflict of interest?
Between the producer and the reviewer, obviously.
Bias and preference are obviously going to occur naturally; we're human.
That's a concession the consumer audience must accept.
But they need to be laid out for perspective.
If a reviewer and a producer have more than incidental relations (like say, if one is related to or works for the other), they definitely need to lay that out.
If there is no basis to assume honest intentions (or neutrality), then why should the audience assume the review isn't just form of advertising?
At that point, why not just fire up someone's Lets Play and use that? It's the game laid bare.
Also once again, unless a reviewer is flat out lying about a game, objectivity shouldn't be an issue.
Outright lies are only half the problem; omission of information can be just as dangerous as an actual lie.
Omitting problems to prop up scores is definitely an issue; especially in an age where Metacritic is used to determine developer salaries, bonuses, and even future employment.
Recall a few weeks back to the Shadow of Mordor and the company-mandated script;
"Emphasize this feature, but DO NOT EVER MENTION THIS THAT OR THOSE BAD THINGS!"
I don't expect critics to provide every little detail, but there is a limit to how much information one can spin or omit before their reliability becomes questionable.
In fact, simple assumption of some objectivity doesn't just apply to reviewers either; we need to hold producers to this as well, lest we fall back into demo doctoring...(oh right, they're doing that too)
In the end, these issues should not (and cannot) be dismissed with technical excuses like "It's subjective, it just is" because they're matters of trust.
Strain consumer trust too much, and they will stop buying games.
