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GAMES JOURNALISM: WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE? by Mr Biffo

23/11/2015

39 Comments

 
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Last week you may have noticed yet another storm brewing around games journalism. In a pair of articles on Kotaku, one by US editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo and another by UK editor Keza MacDonald, the site went public over its frustrations in dealing with Bethesda and Ubisoft.

In short: Kotaku feel it has, for a number of years, been blacklisted by Bethesda, and for the past year by Ubisoft, after leaking details of unannounced games. With calls and emails not being responded to, Kotaku's coverage of the companies' games has been - as you'd expect - compromised.

​With Kotaku being one of the biggest gaming sites on the Interwebble, it kicked off a flurry of discussion. Much of it, inevitably, criticising Kotaku for being a bunch of crybabies, and inexplicably taking the side of the big games companies. Others were more sympathetic to Kotaku's journalistic right to report what it felt its readers would be interested in.

Question: Which of these "gourds" holds the most "water"?

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GAMERS ARE IDIOTS
I honestly don't get some gamers. I've never understood the blind loyalty to products made by faceless corporations and companies, who wouldn't think twice about running their customers through a mangle if they thought it would squeeze more money out of them. 

​You don't get that same loyalty to, say, Harper Collins, or Universal Studios, or Zanussi, or Walkers Crisps. There's something about games - or gamers - that inspires a sort of loyalty that borders on being mental.


What Kotaku did most clearly and positively was shine a light on practices that were going on as far back as the 90s, when I was still a professional games journo (as opposed to the unprofessional one I am now). The worst outcome of these practices - if not reported upon - is that the reporting you get on games is going to be skewed utterly in favour of a company that wants you to buy its things.

If games firms were able to get away with this en masse, they would be able control the gaming media. You wouldn't hear about buggy game releases. Everything would be "Woooh! 9/10!".

And it happens; some websites are clearly more "enthusiastic" than others in order to hang onto exclusives and advertisers. You might know which ones I'm talking about.

But then there are others which feel like they're on the side of gamers. Kotaku always felt like this to me. By revealing their troubles with Ubi and Bethy - which I dare say happened after considerable effort to resolve the situation amicably - they're even more on the side of gamers.

Or, if you don't like that label, the consumer. That's you, whomever you are.

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SYMPATHY IS WHAT WE NEED, MY FRIEND
​I can sympathise with Kotaku's position. Back in the Digitiser days, we were finding it impossible to establish a relationship with Sony. It reached a tipping point when the company's PR department wouldn't acknowledge our request for a copy of Wipeout.

Not covering the biggest game launch of the year was making us look like real big idiots and, being perfectly frank with you, we knew we had a bigger audience than most games magazines.

However, we always felt sidelined by a clique. The journos and PR people of the day, it felt to us, were uncomfortably close. We were on the outside of that, looking in (and, if I'm honest, I still feel oddly on the sidelines).


While on the one hand we valued our independence and didn't want to socialise with coked-up "lads" who treated their job like something they were entitled to, on the other we sort of looked at the freebie trips around the world the CVGs and Mean Machines of the world were getting, and wanted a piece of that pie. We were young. Wouldn't you?

Not that we ever got those freebies, or pursued them that vigorously, mind. While there are many other journos of the time that I remember fondly, we went to just enough games events to know that we weren't like most of the other boys (so to speak), and getting the review software and press releases was enough.

​When we got them, that is.


In our frustration, we wrote a piece about the Sony situation on Digitiser... and mentioned the PR person by name. Suffice to say, our bosses got a furious phone call within a few minutes of the piece going up. We got into terrible trouble (Teletext's bosses typically just defaulted to most things being our fault). But we also got the copy of Wipeout we wanted, and early Sony review copies from that point onwards. 

WHO'S WRONG?
So who is in the wrong in the Kotaku/blacklisting scandal? Well... nobody and everybody, depending on your perspective.

As Keza MacDonald rightly asserts: "Nobody is entitled privileged access" to a games company's products - not even a site as big as Kotaku. At the same time... Bethesda and Ubisoft clearly didn't want the release of information about their forthcoming games being taken out of their hands, and so you can sort of see why they might be pissed off.


I mean, back in the day we reported on Digi an exclusive about the release of the 32X that we only knew about because we'd eavesdropped on a conversation in the lobby of Sega HQ. Sega's PR weren't best pleased... but more than that they became paranoid about an internal mole. Which was funny. 

When you're writing stuff, especially daily, you're always looking for content, wherever it comes from. Things are even more cutthroat now, with so many sites competing to stand out from one another. I can't really blame Kotaku for running the offending pieces. I'd have done the same if I'd heard through unofficial channels about Fallout 4 and Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

At the same time, I don't blame Bethesda and Ubisoft for no longer wanting to deal with them (though ignoring them completely does seem a little babyish and/or passive-aggressive).
​

Thing is, Kotaku's reporting seemed to be on the side of the gamer - excitement about the games in question. So all the grief they're getting, gamers calling the stories a "dick move" or whatever, strike me as coming from a weird place. 
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STRANGE DAYS 
It's a strange time to be a games journalist (and I'm not talking about myself here).

Clearly, the big games companies don't need magazines and websites as much as they once did. Wining and dining of individuals - the YouTube generation - is sufficient to get them the positive word-of-mouth they need.


​It's both a good thing and a bad thing. Individual, independent, voices is something that games coverage benefits from. At the same time, there are precious few checks and balances in place when it comes to that bold new world.

I'm pretty fascinated by the world of YouTube. Watch a random selection of vloggers and it's amazing how formulaic they are.

"Hey, guys" the videos usually begin with, before we watch them going off to get a coffee, playing with a puppy, then ending with some sort of life-affirming catchphrase, a tease of a big announcement, and request to follow, share and comment. Day in day out. The formula is the same across the board - as encouraged by the YouTube Creator Academy.


​GENERATION TUBE
The big worry with a lot of the YouTubers is that it's difficult to know whether they're talking about things because they want to, or because they've been paid to, or because they feel obliged to.

Watching a YouTuber talk to his or her loyal, young audience - when it's pretty clear that they're plugging something they've been given money to plug - is deeply uncomfortable to watch, and sort of incenses me. Mentioning the sponsorship in the description makes little difference when you're plugging stuff to 13 and 14 year-olds.


​But it's clear that this audience, this potential market, is going to become more and more valuable to companies (and not just games companies) - and reaching it often comes without all the issues of unruly journalists spoiling your marketing plans, or trying to maintain their integrity and independence while juggling that with not upsetting the corporate applecart.

I don't get those who seem to want to spend the whole time beating the gaming press with a stick. Least of all a site like Kotaku which does seem to have integrity. I can only assume the attacks come from a place of jealousy.

Games journalists, gaming websites, are no paragons of virtue. They're as flawed and prone to mistakes as we all are. Yes, even websites need to be accountable and transparent... but the alternative to the gaming press is something worse; secretly bought coverage without opinion.

Stay tuned for my big announcement! Please comment below and share, guys! Love you all!

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
VG TIPS: GAMES JOURNALISTS ARE IDIOTS TOO by Mr Biffo
SO YOU WANT TO WORK IN THE GAMES INDUSTRY...
CYBER-X: A Day in the Life of a Games Journalist

39 Comments
Bananasthemonkey
23/11/2015 11:21:43 am

Funnily enough, I've always felt that Walkers crisps represent a colossal betrayal of my childhood snack loyalties and feel dirty and compromised eating them.

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Chris
23/11/2015 12:32:36 pm

This.

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PeskyFletch
23/11/2015 12:33:28 pm

I know, thinking they have the right to change the default colour of salt n vinegar, the scum!

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Thrills
23/11/2015 12:12:25 pm

Gamer loyalty to faceless corporations that exist to make money is indeed bizarre. Recently I've seen accusations that Capcom, that famed bastion of integrity and righteous values, have 'sold out' as they've slightly toned down the sexist shit in Street Fighter V, and also made it more accessible gameplay-wise to new players.

The gamer world is the worst thing.

PS I like the idea of 90s Sega freaking out as they worry about having a mole. Heehee.

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Steve McDouken
23/11/2015 01:01:46 pm

I'd have been frankly embarrassed to be seen pulling off some of those specials as they were. And more broadly, the fighting game community just doesn't need the hassle that would have come from it.

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Thrills
23/11/2015 01:49:17 pm

Yup, I agree with all of that.

Steve McDouken
23/11/2015 02:11:39 pm

Though obviously I feel betrayed by Ken's terrible new hairdo. Capcom sold out.

Ridiculous Human
23/11/2015 12:22:50 pm

NeoGaf's thread on this contained the memorable assertion that Kotaku "should stop backstabbing their partners".

I shuddered.

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Rollo Benny's Moustache
23/11/2015 12:26:36 pm

Tempted to grow a large quiff and buy some stupid National Health-style spectacles now, and join this youtube money pit while it's still going... kids are dumb anyway, they deserve to be duped into buying rubbish games.

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PeskyFletch
23/11/2015 12:36:02 pm

" didn't want to socialise with coked-up "lads" who treated their job like something they were entitled to"

Sadly loads of industries are riddled with these pillocks, my fave was whilst training to be a relationship Manager for RBS(Pre financial crisis) being taken out for a coke and strippers laced night with a bunch of Yar yar public school boys with zero understanding of how lucky they were, the braying cocks.

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Glynh
23/11/2015 01:13:55 pm

I'll go with the boring option and say that both sides have points. I was really impressed that fallout 4 was kept secret for so long, it's better than waiting through years of minor teasers, so I would be annoyed to if someone shouted out my secret but I doubt kotaku did it out of spite so it's a shame they can't work things out.

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Euphemia
23/11/2015 01:14:07 pm

Same goes for any publication where the need to feed the mouths of their audience with content clashes with the need to feed the mouths of their employees. The temptation to suckle from the easy money teat will have a lot of allure in tight times. All the backbone and pride in the world won't make an appetizing meal for your family. Unless they like the taste of backbone. And living outside in bins.

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AdeR
23/11/2015 02:35:15 pm

Was that Sony business the reason Zombie Dave once described them as a "brrrrrrrnch rrrrrf crrrrrrrrnz?" back in the day?

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Hit The Lever
23/11/2015 02:42:29 pm

Talking of Youtubers one of them called JonTron did a paid advert for Battlefront and Wallmart and uploaded it to his channel. It was blatantly obvious that it was made by someone else hired by EA and there wasn't even one instance of a negative word spoken about the game throughout.

Anyone who even mentioned that he may have tainted his credibility when it comes to giving an opinion on Battlefront were shot down by scores of his fans in the comments.

The worst part was 3 youtubers who i've subbed to for 5+ years didn't even have anything bad to say about this "endorsement" and one even said they'd gladly take cash from a publisher if offered.

So even some of the trusted old guard youtube game reviewers are willing to sellout to the highest bidder and not just the PewDiePie squealer types. Their main argument being "Food isn't free" and "Someone's got to pay the mortgage".

I should also point out JonTron has 2 million subscribers and does not look like he's missed a meal in a long while.

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dab88
23/11/2015 08:07:46 pm

Seriously!? I'll have to watch that when I get home and leave a disgruntled comment. Is it too much to ask for some bloody principle in this world? There's no excuse. It's simple greed that drives most people.

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Conflicted
23/11/2015 03:09:46 pm

It's hard to pick a side here, as nobody in this situation looks that great. Bethesda and Ubisoft are no saints (Bethesda will one day run out the good will they've built up if they keep putting out buggy games with old technology, and Ubisoft has just become the new Activision), but they are under no obligation to give Kotaku privileged access. It probably would have been fairer and smarter to not deny them review code to actively put them beneath other sites. Kotaku had nothing to lose once they were effectively told to go and buy their own copy, so the publisher PR types should have known they'd lash out.

That said, there is an extent to which it sounds like Kotaku is annoyed at not getting what they want when plenty of other sites don't have privileged access to news (including this one). Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but Kotaku likely wouldn't have got where it is without at least tacitly agreeing to that same PR system for a long time. They're a major outlet with a huge owner, and a significant "tastemaker", so they're not exactly the victimised little guy these days.

Personally I think I'd prefer that everyone just got review copies and no junkets and goodies, and could report on whatever they hear without restriction, but I doubt that would be popular with either side.

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Bo
23/11/2015 03:14:45 pm

Amazing how the "social revolution" of Youtube has led us to a bunch of identikit clean-shaven white late teen boys who would look just as at home on Blue Peter, isn't it?

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colincidence link
25/11/2015 02:24:25 am

VERY late-teen...

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Conflicted
23/11/2015 04:43:17 pm

The marketably non-threatening pretty guys of YouTube could easily fill in for One Direction members in a pinch, but that's hardly a fair assessment. After all, there's plenty of identikit white girls too. YouTube offers *everyone* a chance to be famous as long as they're reasonably conventionally attractive and dressed fashionably, and basically look like they could get on regular media.

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Conflicted
23/11/2015 04:44:12 pm

Sorry, that was @Bo, not the article.

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paul
23/11/2015 06:16:45 pm

Freedom of press is important. Just don't think that a cheap click bait hit ( e.g. new leaked screens of a pre beta game) is not going to hurt the game, and will instead profit the outlet.

No dev would want their game to be revealed, not under calculated terms but being randomly announced with WIP assets. I can't see that benefiting anyone (consumer or developer) but the only outlet reporting it.

Kotaku should always be out there blowing their whistle when they like. It's great that they do it. However, 'You can't burn your bridge and eat it', as some old saying goes.

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Dr Kank
23/11/2015 07:02:22 pm

In this case I don't think it's that people are necessarily loyal to faceless corporations, it's more that people don't really like Kotaku all that much. I mean, if I heard that Katie Hopkins was banned from Burger King, I wouldn't be particularly sympathetic.

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Mr Biffo
23/11/2015 07:27:55 pm

Really curious though - what is it that people don't like about Kotaku? Genuinely interested.

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Dr Kank
23/11/2015 08:13:52 pm

I think it's mainly the association with Gawker and the use of sponsored content

Col. Asdasd
23/11/2015 08:43:47 pm

I stopped visiting some time in their early years, when it was wall-to-wall game cakes and unboxing videos and quick-rip galleries of fanart/cosplay (which natch provided zero attribution to the original creators). And that was the stuff that wasn't just literal rewrites of newsposts on other games news sites (which were usually, and in fact are everywhere still usually, literal rewrites of newsposts on OTHER other games news sites - a veritable human centipede of content.)

It was so bad they ran monthly round-ups to highlight the stuff that *hadn't* been regurgitated from joystiq or 1-up. They also maintained a relationship with the industry that bordered on slavish because they were young and ambitious and they had yet to shore up the level of access over the removal of which they are now kicking up a fuss. I know the term 'clickbait' is a hotly contested semantic internet battleground - which by the way is my least favourite of all battlegrounds, excepting perhaps Big Donut - but these were the guys for whom the term was coined before goons started misapplying it to mean stuff they don't happen to agree with.

Maybe they've gotten better in recent years? I don't really care to find out.

Moving onto the broader point your article, Biff. I do agree that we're too easily enlisted into corporate defence forces, but I'm ambivalent too. I really *don't* like the idea of companies taking these heavy handed measures, and much less gamers defending them for it, but at the same tmime I think it serves to highlight the harmful relationship that lies at the heart of the gamer media.

I mean, if Kotaku or any other site is this compromised when a publisher makes this sort of move on them, this thinly insulated against it, well, okay, I have some sympathy. But why then are they so happy to operate as a cog in this mechanism when things are going smoothly? Why haven't they taken measures to extricate their balls from the vice of corporate malfeasance? If the corporate message behind the blacklisting was 'continue helping us sell our stuff without making trouble, or we'll cut you off at the knees', what am I supposed to make of everything else that's come before it?

Conflicted
23/11/2015 09:34:45 pm

I used to read it daily, but eventually gave up when the mobile advertising layout became too intrusive (please Biffo, if you do take up ads, don't go that route) and the content just wasn't enough to justify it. I haven't really missed it much.

Sadly Kotaku has wavered wildly in quality over the years. On the bright side, they seem to have come out from that awful era of pretending that "random stuff from Japan we found on Reddit" and "here's some cosplayers phwoar" is games news (especially since the latter is kind of counter to their more recent ethos), but their ratio of "found this on Reddit and put 50 words under it" drivel to quality content is still high (At least Digi's "clickbait" is original).

Also the Gawker association is pretty unsavoury. That's not a great outlet. We know to expect very little from tabloids, but leaking sex tapes and forcibly outing people is really sketchy no matter who you or the subject are. Frankly, it makes it harder to take Kotaku's claims to progressiveness seriously when you know that's what's funding them.

Conflicted
23/11/2015 10:02:54 pm

Also to echo Col Asdasd, they didn't seem too worried about the too-close relationship between industry PR and press until it bit them. There does seem to be a slight hypocrisy at work here.

That said, also with Col Asdasd, I'd prefer that Bethesda and Ubisoft didn't ban them from getting review copies. Not responding to their requests for comment is fine (they're really under no obligation), but this is an ugly and frankly stupid tactic. They should have known it would come to this.

Lucius Merriweather link
24/11/2015 12:59:31 pm

I know what you mean, Mr Biffo: it's a bit of a mystery to me, too. But then again, I only started reading Kotaku after the Kotaku UK offshoot was birthed relatively recently - and a lot of the negativity seems to circle around the US site. The UK site seems to do a pretty good job of commissioning original content (full disclosure: I've written several articles for them) as well as selecting interesting stuff from the US site to republish.

The advertising is pretty annoying - but I can put up with that if it means they stay independent. Better to have splash ads from Santander than back-handers from game companies.

Random Reviewer
2/12/2015 07:25:08 pm

I think this about sums it up: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/11/20/parabolic1

I agree with you about the importance of expose stories: I can totally see you writing a similar news story. What I can't imagine you doing is framing things in a ridiculously distorted, unhelpful and (yes) clickbatey narrative.

There are plenty of well-adjusted gamers who dislike them not simply because Kotaku critiqued one of their fave corporate overlords, but because they recognize Kotaku as a dustbin of non-news masquerading as news. A place where the culture seems to demand that each Kotaku Journo becomes proficient in shaking a devs hand whilst determining the correct spot to slip the knife in. And it's easy to talk about gamers being stupid and petulant but Kotaku displays those traits in abundance as well. The result of that one sharp PA cartoon critiquing Kotaku? Kotaku now no longer features PA cartoons in their cartoon roundup, because according to the editor 'there is no point in featuring a strip from an organization that hates us.' What are they, five years old? There are good writers working at Kotaku but the overall tone of the place is so lacking in self reflection and humility that I can't be bothered to visit anymore.

Mentussssssss link
23/11/2015 08:20:21 pm

I've been of the mind for quite a while that game publishers tight reign on information control totally takes the journalism out of games journalism, and that many outlets are far too scared to upset the apple cart.

I've had my own brushes with this over the course of the last 5 years or so, from big name publishers only willing to give review copies out if you can prove you've posted XXX number of "positive" articles of the product, to walking around places such as Eurogamer Expo and being forced to turn cameras off just in case (I assume) my camera records something that they don't want the public at large to see despite bringing the game to a showing attended by hundreds of thousands.

I've always been of the mind that if you've not signed an NDA or agreed to an embargo, and you didn't break a law to get it, any info you can get is fair fucking game. Not to mention fair use/dealing for the purposes of commentary, criticism, and review, blah blah blah.

Sadly that doesn't seem the case.

Partially one of the reasons I now just play old arcade games and complain about them instead, because nobody cares about that.

I also don't take endorsements or tell people to like, comment, or subscribe. That might be the reason that I live in a gutter and live on scraps.

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Kelvin Green link
23/11/2015 08:34:59 pm

Yes, I don't understand this blind loyalty to companies either; it reminds me an awful lot of the Nintendo/Sega wars, but we were all kids back then, and kids are stupid.

When I used to review comics in a previous life, I encountered something like this with Marvel, but we ignored their ultimatum and to our surprise it all worked itself out. DC were right bar stewards though, and we never did understand what their problem was.

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Gaming Mill link
23/11/2015 09:53:35 pm

I just wish people would listen to and watch some proper game reviews, created by people with no bias and no idea what they're talking about.

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Richard Wager
23/11/2015 10:15:10 pm

Biffo's clearly in the pocket of Clive Sinclair! I've seen him whizzing around the metropolis in a C5, I kid you not. Trust nobody kiddies!

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Hamptonoid
23/11/2015 10:23:57 pm

You realise that this type of behaviour / relationship isn't unique to games journalism, right?

I have no loyalty either way, and find it difficult to sympathise with any of them. No one has covered themselves in glory.

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Mr Biffo
23/11/2015 10:55:30 pm

Well, yeah. But people might get slightly annoyed if I pointed out commonalities in human behaviour in every feature I wrote...Take it as a give: people are bumholes across the board.

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Hamptonoid
24/11/2015 07:14:51 am

I just don't like the way kotaku seem to being held up as some kind of guiding light of ethics and professionalism; a cynic might argue that kotaku has primarily acted in the interest of kotaku.

Dangleberrries
23/11/2015 11:48:38 pm

Is this similar in other industries? When Autocar print a spy shot of a new car do BMW "blacklist" them? Makes me think that despite the games industry being worth billions, the journalism side seems really amateur and hobbyist, or is it like that across other industries?
The ethics in games journalism thing confuses me as well. Occasionally my wife buys mags like Beautiful Home and fashion magazines. They're chock full of product promotion, but internet nerds aren't Swatting people over it. Hell, my kids read Nat Geo Kids and that is full of advertorials for toys and stuff, should I be Ddos attacking them? I'm confused

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Kelvin Green link
24/11/2015 07:51:24 am

I have seen a great deal of petulant childishness in the comics industry too, but perhaps that's not too surprising as there's a fair bit of crossover (ho ho) in terms of audience and psychology.

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Ssslithe
25/11/2015 02:15:36 pm

Silly Biffo, Sega didn't have a mole. They had a hedgehog.

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