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WHY DO PEOPLE HATE GAMES JOURNALISTS? - by Mr Biffo

23/5/2016

52 Comments

 
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Video game reviewers are not elected officials. They're not running the country, or responsible for the welfare of our children. Heck, speaking from experience... as jobs go it's scarcely one rung up from lavatory attendant or murderer, when it comes to telling people what you do for a living. And, indeed, games journalists are paid accordingly. 

And yet many appear to think that games journos are a gilded class - who must prove their worthiness to stand atop the golden dais, again and again. That they somehow have an obligation of accountability, a duty to be "gud" at games - not just competent at writing about games. And that they should somehow possess superhuman integrity which transcends the average pleb.

The level of grief games journalists get if they balls up, aren't good enough at games, criticise the wrong thing, like the wrong thing, or - god forbid - actually do something which is construed to be unethical, appears to be mounting over time.

In short: a lot of people seem to absolutely hate games journalists. 

Which is weird for me, because - well - I was a games journalist and nobody has ever hated me ever ever ever... And because when I read games mags growing up the journos were something to aspire to, rather than despise. Back then, we all ran around sporting "Jaz" Rignall mullets, giving everything 98%.
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THREATENED, MUCH?
Games journalists have come to represent something that a certain type of gamer either doesn't approve of, or - I suspect - is threatened by in some way.

It feels like it has bled in from a broader suspicion of the press, but there's much more to it than that.

​Clearly it sprung from the same rancid well as G*mergate - much as Gamerg*te has sprung from broader culture war, which seems to have its origins in a movement against political correctness.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against calling out conflicts of interest when they arise - Digi used to allude to that sort of thing constantly back in the day, because it was funny to do so.

Gam*rgate, if you ask many of its supporters, is about "ethics in games journalism". You can trace the tipping point back to things like Doritogate (Google it, if you don't know).

But the thing that has always interested me about their ire is this: why do they care? Seriously... why does anybody care what games journalists do? What does it honestly matter if games journalism is the single most corrupt industry on the planet? Who would really be personally affected by that - especially today when games media is no longer confined to commercial magazines or websites? Why do they get so frothed up about all this?


Polygon, Kotaku and Gamasutra certainly come in for more stick than most - often dismissed as being staffed by so-called "S*cial Just*ce W*rriors". That this is behind some of the wrath seems likely, but day to day there's more going on. There's a movement which seems to be looking for conflicts of interest, or other more odious motives, behind every last bit of games writing.

Polygon not reviewing Star Fox Zero because of the rubbish controls was attributed as some sort of punishment on Nintendo for its firing of employee Alison Rapp. Then its recent 
Doom video - for which the journalist responsible was deemed too inept to have been given his job - is a case in point. Imagine you're him for a minute: imagine having thousands of people around the world insisting you're not competent at your low-paid job. 

It feels like they're always digging for evidence that these people aren't good enough to be games journalist - any clue that they aren't up to snuff, to satisfy their beliefs. 

This week, a piece in 
Paste, in defence of the Polygon Doom video, made plenty of reasonable points - but the comments demonstrate the level of bile that many games journalists now face whenever they put pen to paper.

​Here's a selection of them:


  • "It doesn't even need saying that you don't have to be good at video games to have fun in them, what it does say is that if you're inept at playing a game you have no right to judge it or showcase it in a way that makes it unfaithful to the product... ...I would not hire a carpenter to teach a science class. For the same reason I would not hire a person with minimal to non-existent game experience to showcase gameplay for something they're unsuited for."
  • "If you get paid to play games for a living, i.e. reviewing games, then by definition you are a professional gamer and what you would expect from a review of Doom, from a professional, is someone who could actually use a controller."
  • "You're deflecting from the real issue, which is that gaming fans have a right to take exception with these journalists if they don't believe them to be actual gamers, especially when half of theM have agendas to push."
  • "This author is smug piece of shit and typical of a lot of gaming journalists today. Gamers aren't the problem. Liars and slanderers are."
  • "Gaming journalism is a profession populated by the scum of humanity."
  • "Why People Don't Take Games Seriously is because of Articles like this that antagonize gamers. People like you really love shitting on gamers so that you could get clicks. Fearmongering making gamers look bad in the eyes of the public. Dont like the game because of it;s difficulty? Git Gud. ​Or better yet play games thats for casuals. dont ever play games like Dark Souls if you're just gonna go waah waah, this game is to hard make it easier! Wheres the difficulty setting!? Casuals should just stay out of Skill based games if all they ever do is whining. You guys are ANTI-GAMERS. And you guys like polygon should be rightfully Blacklisted."
"No right to judge"? "Fans have a right"? "The scum of humanity"? "Liars and slanderers"? Er... entitled and overreacting, much?
​
Let's take stock of what they're commenting on: an article in defence of a games journalist who probably isn't the greatest gamer of all time. The author isn't an apologist for paedophiles, or a Holocaust denier. He's just suggesting that, y'know... not all games journalists have to be good at games.

I mean, I happen to agree - I think being able to write is the most important thing for a games journalist.

Secondly, having some degree of knowledge of the games industry, its history, and the context of any particular game is important. You don't have to be a world class gamer to be able to possess those attributes. And, frankly, I think it's good that there are games journos with different skill levels. Jeremy Clarkson doesn't need to be Jensen Button to write about cars - and you don't see anybody raging about this. But games journos are deemed "SJWs" - indeed, the mouthpieces of "SJWs" - so they're fair game, it seems.

My knee-jerk response is to dismiss it as some sort of gamer elitism... but what does that even mean? If we try to peer deeper, look at what's behind the language being used, it appears to be coming from people who are lashing out. People lash out when they're angry. People often get angry if they're threatened or scared. So what is threatening so many gamers? What are they scared of?

I think I've worked it out: they're defending their sense of identity. They're "Gamers" - and god forbid anybody who isn't part of that club, or tries to alter the rules of that club. By attacking Polygon they're reaffirming who they believe they are.
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CLUCK-CLUCK!
There's something of a chicken-and-an-egg thing when it comes to a person's identity; how much of it stems from their environment, their upbringing, their significant others growing up... and how much of it is them finding an identity which fits who they are?

We all see ourselves in a way that is uniquely ours. We've all developed a self-concept - a set of beliefs about who we are - which comes about from our interactions with others.

It might not even reflect reality; a thin person might think they're overweight (because they've been told as such - or maybe they were once overweight, but have struggled to shift the belief that they still are). Someone might believe they're a "good" person, but have a meltdown should they ever behave in a "bad" way.

Having those beliefs threatened or challenged can provoke an extreme response. Let's say you're a bus driver. You take pride in your work. How do you feel when you are presented with evidence that you're not a bus driver, and never have been?

Think about it. Think about who you believe you are. Now imagine having all of that challenged. Having someone want to take that away from you, or tell you you're wrong. What would you do to hang onto it?

Once upon a time, gaming was widely seen as a young, male, pursuit. In recent years, gaming has moved - and with it, the demographic has broadened out significantly. The idea of a gamer is no longer wrapped in the stereotype of young, straight, male. A gamer can be anyone, and is anyone. It's little wonder, therefore, the group that once made up the traditional gamer demographic could feel marginalised and threatened.

Anita Sarkeesian - host of the Feminist Frequency YouTube series - often annoys me, but I couldn't agree more when she says that women are sometimes targets for harassment by male gamers, because they are "challenging the status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space".

More than that, they're redefining their concept of what a gamer is, and the response is more than simple misogyny, or transphobia, or doxxing, or harassment, or whatever else they get accused of. Conversely, the response of those who are anti that is equally rooted in wanting to hang onto their sense of self.

Being confronted with something which challenges that can be absolute terror. This might sound extreme, but it presses the same emotional buttons as a fear of death for a person. When confronting someone by challenging their identity, you're challenging someone who - on 
some primal, instinctual level - thinks you're trying to kill them.

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WHO AM I?
Being a gamer - a Game*gater, even - is something that can bring many benefits for an individual.

A sense of social connection, a sense of purpose, a cause greater than yourself, friendship, belonging, safety, self-esteem - and, again, identity.

"Who am I?" is a question that's as old and profound as time. Being able to answer that question is something we all want.

I wasn't adopted - as far as I know - but I can imagine wanting to find my biological parents if I had been. Years ago, my dad and niece put together our family tree, but hit a brick wall when it comes to my dad's dad.

My great-great-grandparents raised my grandad as their own, my great-grandmother pretending that my grandfather was her brother, rather than son.

Some years ago, I got given a DNA test for my birthday - yeah, I know, bit weird. The results came back, and pretty much all my nuggets of DNA could be traced back to one specific area of Northern Morocco. My great-grandmother grew up in Portsmouth. Portsmouth had trade with Morocco at the turn of the century. Joining the dots, we've concluded that she got knocked-up by a Moroccan sailor. Which explains why every other person in my family has dark eyes and skin. 

We have a need to know who we are. Belonging to a group like Ga*ergate offers that. And more!

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S.I.T. DOWN
Social Identity Theory - otherwise known as that "Us and Them theory" - was formulated in the 70s and 80s by a couple of social psychologists.

It describes the way that part of the self-concept can derive from being a member of a group. What's more, it also models intergroup conflict in a way that seems very familiar to the way games journos get attacked.

Intergroup conflict starts with a process of comparison between individuals in one group (the in-group) to those of another group (the out-group). 

​This comparison is anything but unbiased and objective. Instead, it is a mechanism for enhancing one’s self-esteem, twisting reality to serve that:


  • The in-group is favoured over the out-group.
  • They'll exaggerate and overgeneralize the differences between the two groups, in order to enhance the distinctiveness of the in-group.
  • They'll remember and focus more detailed and positive information about the in-group, and more negative information about the out-group.

In short, any particular group is biased towards their own group, and will do whatever it takes to maintain their positive beliefs towards that group, and highlight the negatives towards their opposing group. And they do this to strengthen their own self-concept/identity, and self-esteem. It's pure survival.

Another theory, Self-Categorisation Theory, describes the psychological processes behind group formation, and how an individual will class collections of people (including themselves) as a group (i.e.: "games journalists", or "social justice warriors" or "gamergaters").

Part of its focus is on how an individual will depersonalise, and will stereotype themselves based upon commonly-held characterisations of an in-group. In short: that group's beliefs and aims - both positive and negative - become integrated into an individual's self-concept. It becomes who they are; even if that group's needs are different from their own original needs. Basically, they'll adapt to fit it in order to belong.

Self-Categorisation also theorises that members of an in-group will classify the members of an out-group as more homogenised. That "they" are all the same, rather than a collection of individuals. It depersonalises the out-group. 

So: "Gaming journalism is a profession populated by the scum of humanity". Rather than: "Gaming journalism is a profession populated by a group of individuals".

THEM
There's a lot more to all of it than that, of course. That's just the tip of the iceberg that is intergroup dynamics, but it demonstrates why it's so hard to find a middle ground, or peace between opposing groups.  

There are potential solutions - members of groups meeting face-to-face... but hard in the era of the Internet, when everyone is spread across the world, and firing their shots from behind a screen. Games journalists are simply another "them" to rail against, because it strengthens their personal belief in who they are. It strengthens their sense of self-esteem. It gives them a sense of belonging. 

Threaten that at your peril. Do so, and you risk becoming one of "them".
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
​HOW NOT TO BE A PSYCHOTHERAPIST - BY MR BIFFO
HOW TO BE A WRITER (IF YOU'RE ME) - BY MR BIFFO​
UNCHARTED 4, METACRITIC, AND THE WASHINGTON POST: THE LUXURY OF BEING AN IDIOT - BY MR BIFFO
52 Comments
Old Red
23/5/2016 11:08:46 am

Jealousy, pure and simple. Most people who play games would love the idea of being paid for the privilege. I have to admit a tinge of the green hue when it comes to the working life games journalists have.

The reality is I put far too much time into actually playing games and sketch around the actual worky bit. To be a good writer takes time, skill and effort and to 'git gud' at writing means spending less time sat with a controller in your hand and more time at a keyboard. This obviously means that games journalists don't have the time to spend enjoying games and playing them at the standard that more dedicated gamers do.

I don't think a good games journalist has to be good at games, they just need to be able to offer a constructive critique of a game and who it will appeal to. Take for instance Digi's review of Star Fox Zero. I knew that it would be a game I would enjoy, due to the fact that I like replaying games and improving my scores. However, I have to agree that the game deserves a lower score, because the controls have such a high entry point and most people simply won't have the time to invest in it to get their money's worth.

I know what games Mr Biffo likes and I know what games I like, therefore I'm able to make balanced judgements from his reviews. It's only because as a writer he expresses these preferences and writes 'gud' that I come back to read Digi's articles and reviews.

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RG
23/5/2016 11:36:30 am

So, Journos / GG / SJW are the new Mods vs Rockers?

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Dr Kank
23/5/2016 11:46:36 am

Within G*mergate circles there did seem to be more support for veteran games journalists, the hostility was aimed at a newer generation. The reasoning was -

1. Games journalism has a very low level of entry, and so ends up as a dumping ground for people who would rather work in other forms of media but lack the qualifications, ability, or connections.

2. There's no money in games journalism, so it tends to attract people who aren't primarily motivated by income, and can write for free for long enough to establish themselves. Privileged people from wealthy backgrounds, living off of trust funds (it's a very American viewpoint).

Put those two factors together and you get a new generation of games journalists who feel that their occupation is beneath them and don't really have much in common with the people they're writing for.

This is just what I've picked up from talking to various G*mergate supporters, I was completely unaware of Polygon and Kotaku and so on when this all kicked off.

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Keith
23/5/2016 12:28:07 pm

Another aspect of this is that gaming seems to be subject to an exaggerated version of what a lot of reviews of other media are subject to; I've seen Star Wars fans be dismissive of Mark Kermode's positive review of The Force Awakens on the basis that his dislike of earlier films shows that he doesn't understand the films or their universe.

The problem comes with failure to accept that reviews aren't simply for the hardcore, and aren't about reinforcing one's own beliefs, though.
Just as experiencing a game is an interactive thing, so is experiencing a review - you can often infer from the text something about where the reviewer is coming from, and based on that you can usually get an idea of how applicable to you their score is.

As an example, Mr Biffo's original slightly negative review of The Witcher 3 last year convinced me to buy it; not because I read it and thought "b-but - I LOVE The Witcher series! Biffo must be a fool!" - but because as I read it, I saw that some of what he was criticizing the game for were things I knew I could still enjoy; the looting and map mopping type stuff were things I knew I'd like doing during a time I was quite happy to invest time into a game that'd be for me like a more story driven Skyrim.

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Rakladtor III The Terrible
23/5/2016 12:48:12 pm

It's because diks. As the industry has become more mainstream, some nepotic phony diks have seeped into the journalistic side of things, which is unfortunate but to be expected. Non-diks who notice this shrug their shoulders, it's irritating but as Mr. Biffo says, it's only videogames. Maybe some might point it out, complain about it a bit.

But then others jump on the bandwagon, take the opinion that gamejournos are ALL diks, turn it into a 'cause' and ramble around dikishly attacking gamejournos, which in turn draws out typically dikish responses from the dik gamejournos and their own mob of diks. Jungian typology has all of this down, it's just humans. Same pattern with just about every issue of contention ever.

A big part of the problem is social media itself. People will always find a reason to fight, and with social media they'll inevitably use it as a battleground. But the social media sites LUV IT and won't enforce measures to temper the hullabaloo. Because they benefit from the hullabaloo. If questioned they'll just play it populist with the free speech card, because they don't want to offend anybody, just for everybody else to offend each other

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Keith
23/5/2016 12:51:11 pm

A point that a lot of these people miss is that by definition, if you already have an opinion about a game/film/whatever before watching a review, then you're not the intended audience.

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KaraVanPark
23/5/2016 01:00:04 pm

The analogy of Jeremy Clarkson not being a good a driver as Jensen Button wasn't comparable. It would be more like Jezza reviewing cars then finding out he was the type of driver who couldn't parallel park and got the train because motorways frightened him.

Being hopeless at FPS games gives the sneaking suspicion that the people reviewing the game aren't playing them as thoroughly as they claim to be doing, as surely their 'chops' would be sharpened by doing something week in week out?

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Euphemia
23/5/2016 03:46:19 pm

I disagree, I think it was very comparable as the subject (sporty cars, racing, behaving like a bell-end) is another area that self-identifies as mainly male/macho. The mostly male comments supporting Clarkson when he got the elbow were very much along the same line as those in this article, and I'd argue for similar reasons.

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Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 01:11:45 pm

A lot of weasel words and projection going on imo.

How many people demanded X of games journalists and what exactly is X?

As per usual the journos seem to strawman X to suit their narrative and pull the usual stunt of claiming the opinions of a few to be the views of thousands.

In the recent Doom scandal I'd ask why games journos feel they are different to other specialist press writers?

I like classic bikes. I wouldn't expect a writer in a classic bike mag to be Barry Sheen or an ex designer at Triumph.

I would demand basic standards.

Can he ride a bike?

Can he ride an old British bike with gears on the right and with first up.

Can he describe the difference between a four and two stroke?

He doesn't have to be able to completely rebuild a bike but can he do moderate tasks like adjusting valve clearances?

Make similar equivalent demands of game journos (e.g. Can you use a dual stick joypad design that has been in widespread use for twenty years?) and suddenly you are accused of oppression.

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amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 01:18:32 pm

But it's the anger that's perplexing. Why don't you just go "well, this magazine about bikes is rubbish, the writer's don't know anything; i'll not buy it again".

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Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 01:28:59 pm

That's what I have done to the gaming sites.

Although I didn't get chance, I still reserve the right to put a thumbs down on a video and politely feed back why I'm not watching their material again.

I don't expect to be smeared for doing so. If they do smear me they can expect another piece of feedback.

amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 01:33:57 pm

Yeah but I don't think Biffo is talking about you and your polite feedback. He's talking about people who are really angry and call journos the scum of humanity.

Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 01:36:52 pm

What percentage are they?

Polygon would exaggerate any criticism and claim its 90 percent. I see a handful.

amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 01:40:58 pm

I was talking about that handful. I wasn't talking about Polygon.

Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 02:19:33 pm

How many?

Enough for people to keep writing endless articles that make it falsely appear to outsiders that there is a major problem in the industry?

amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 02:39:20 pm

12

Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 03:59:00 pm

Versus 50 million buying GTA V.

Not worth dragging gaming through the muck over then.

amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 04:48:27 pm

WAIT I miscounted. 17.

amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 01:19:18 pm

So gamers all were like "but games are art!" and then when reviewers started to review them like they were art they got annoyed.

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Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 01:34:00 pm

How many gamers said that?

You realise not all gamers are the same?

I've seen politicised reviews of games, not much in the way of artistic reviews though. Not sure those doing the reviews are capable of that.

But those claiming games are art aren't the same ones criticising reviews.

It's a diverse customer base. "Gamer" is about as meaningful as "person with two feet".

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amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 01:40:10 pm

I meant it as when you review art, you review it with respect to it's political and cultural climate and impact; otherwise you're just reviewing it as a "product". People are saying they are worth talking about as a cultural phenomenon. So in that sense the "politicised" reviews are the ones I mean.

Dr Kank
23/5/2016 01:48:25 pm

If you're reviewing games as art I'd take the approach of looking at the qualities that make games unique compared to other art forms such as books or music, which would be the interactivity and sense of freedom within each game. The gameplay rather than the political message.

amazingmikeyc
23/5/2016 01:57:10 pm

Yeah; I mean both are totally valid approaches. There's lots of ways of doing film reviews and film criticism, for example. There's the type where you write 500 words about whether it's worth seeing at the cinema, for example, then there's the type that talks about the deeper themes and message & cultural impact. They're all serving different purposes.

KaraVanPark
23/5/2016 01:39:11 pm

If you can just ignore reviewers with dubious credibility you can also ignore the strangely angry subset of people who play videogames.

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Keith
23/5/2016 01:44:05 pm

The argument that reviewers have to be games experts in the same way that car reviewers should be is bogus.
Games are, unlike performance cars, affordable and aimed at players of various abilities, and personally speaking if I see a FPS reviewed, I would much rather read one written by someone who has similar frustrations and limitations as me, than by someone who is an expert making assumptions about the player which can often underestimate quite how much time it takes to get into a game before it becomes fun.

Besides, most games seem to be designed for an "average" player, at least in terms of single player mode. Otherwise what is the point of any sort of learning curve, or any sort of story in which the player character develops over time?

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Mr Biffo
23/5/2016 02:16:36 pm

But why is it all or nothing regarding reviewers' skill levels?

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Keith
23/5/2016 03:12:36 pm

I agree, it's bizarre. Games reviewers need to be enthusiasts, clearly, and to be savvy of how video games are constructed. But y9u don't need to be brilliant at a game to understand that, say, a game's difficulty level is one that rewards people who are already familiar with a series rather than novices

Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 02:39:34 pm

That gamers have mixed abilities is a red herring. That doesn't justify employing my Gran because she can describe what a game was like from a total novice perspective. I doubt the novices really want that. Perhaps in the Daily Mail gaming section but not a specialist gaming site.

A reviewer in the specialist press should be a subject matter expert. NOT a pro, but knowledgeable and in the case of gaming "competent" at play in most genres and on most systems. If you have the passion to be a good writer you would have acquired the skills already.

A good reviewer has the skill to write a review that provides useful info to the newbie and the more experienced player.

In the same way Martin Brundle didn't need to be five times world champion to do his job. He just needed to be good enough to understand how it all works and then have the ability to explain it the layman and dedicated fan alike.

A reviewer should understand how to use the software, how to use the hardware and be able to explain it to multiple audiences on different levels. If you know less than 99% of the customer base, your reviews ain't much use.

People can argue the toss all they want but the new breed of youtubers have those skills and readers (newbies and pros) are abandoning the old sites in their droves for them.

Get the qualifications for the job before applying or enjoy a very short career. The problem as others have suggested is that a lot of these journos perhaps had ambitions to be political writers but got into games journalism because that's all that was going and it was no more than "a foot in the door" of the journalism industry.

They had a Nintendo when they were a kid so "what the hell, I can wing it".

"get some experience and move on innit"

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Mr J Crikey link
23/5/2016 01:56:35 pm

Although I get paid for some of the things I write about games (I'm one of the freelancers at the CeX blog, and I've earned a little elsewhere in the past), I'm not really a games journalist. The blog I run operates at a loss; my writers and I do what we do simply for the love of writing. Nonetheless, it's one of my hobbyist reviews that saw me attract anger like a pro.

One of my reviews of the Michonne miniseries was retweeted by the official The Walking Dead twitter account, and got featured on their facebook page. I'd awarded the episode 8/10, and idly checking out the comments found lots of people thought my review had been 'bought' (couldn't they afford 9/10?), and were asking non-reviewers for trustworthy opinions.

It didn't upset me at all. It amused me, and it felt that in a twisted way I'd 'made it'. At last, I was considered professional enough to not be trusted!

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Barry Stinsen
23/5/2016 02:56:04 pm

I wish my reservations about game journos could be boiled down to something as simple as that. Maybe it's the subtext to this whole silly escapade after posting the embarrassing Polygon vide‪o but I can't believe much of what I see nowadays.

I'm sure we've seen the guy who posted it playing better back at E3, which just begs the question of it being posted to stoke up a controversy. Considering the rise of these preacher articles about how "git gud" is toxic gaming it wouldn't surprise me. Especially the confirmation bias on all fronts and the rise of bloody buzzwords.

Nowadays investigative journalism is on the downturn, press releases and fluff pieces have become the norm, we've seen the death of sub-eds on the race to be first to post any stories and a rise of lowest common denominator publishing to grab the clicks. Modern journalism is a bizarro land I'm glad I was not taught. Chasing ambulances and short hand sounds a lot easier

All I see of this culture argument is people who are fed up of being stamped on and cry bullies who cry over everything until they get their way arguing. It makes for entertaining viewing when I come back from work because none of this drama really matters outside of its own world.

Maybe it all comes down to being able to trust the person telling the story too. I remember vividly my friend B showing me you telling him how people mailed you turds in the post and seeing the crap from the amiga owners and them radiohead zealots.

You have my trust because "you just hate everyone equally man" just like I can trust the Reverend to shoot how he sees things in spite of thinking he'd survive crushes with magical use of his elbows.

In summary, A wise man once said to me "it's all bollocks" and I still love you, you crazy fool.

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Shish
23/5/2016 02:58:15 pm

As John Cleese said in the 80's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4

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Wicked Eric
23/5/2016 03:20:20 pm

It turns out that infamous Doom video was being played using a controller that had the left and right analog sticks reversed for left handed users.

The person playing was right handed and so the result is them struggling to hit the proverbial cow's arse with a banjo.

Who would have thought an innocuous controller setting could spark so many thinkpieces and flamewars.

Polygon, I salute you.

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Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 04:05:45 pm

Poes law! Not sure if your post is satire!

I'm guessing satire as a big gaming site doing a crucial demonstration of a big release that was subject to a controversial review code embargo (making said campaign demo crucial to readers) would have half a dozen pads and just swap it over! Heck, I have three and could easily be over and back to both my brother's houses in 5 minutes and borrow a few more!

If it is the excuse they are making then I call them out for BS or gross incompetence.

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Wicked Eric
23/5/2016 04:10:57 pm

I'm not sure what you are accusing me of.

The individual playing the game gave this explanation and I've got no reason to disbelieve him http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=203987017&postcount=1951

Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 05:40:59 pm

That poster in the link claims that "Gies" was playing the game and using "an elite controller on Xbone"

Couple of problems.

Firstly the tooltips/button prompts on screen suggested it was being played on a PS4. Of course, me knowing that an Xbox One doesn't have a triangle button is probably elitist ;) I jest but Polygon wrote an article about the power and eject buttons being "confusing" so who knows!!!!!!!!


Secondly....Tara Long ("Executive video producer" at Polygon) tweeted that Gies was NOT the person playing the game.

Quote 1:

@THEREALRTU: Also. After playing the console version of Doom I can CONFIRM that there was ZERO excuse for @aegies to have played that terrible. Sorry Bru

@TaraLongest: "that wasn't him playing. or are you just choosing to willfully ignore all the times he's already stated that?"


Quote 2 (in response to someone saying "who knows" when questioning the story):

@TaraLongest: "well i run the polygon youtube channel, so…. i do. i know"



Now you do have a reason to disbelieve it! :)

Not that we are any closer to establishing the truth.

What we have established is that people are telling porkys.

Wicked Eric
24/5/2016 08:43:37 am

I guess the chap on NeoGaf got the wrong end of the stick. I'd listen to the full 2 hour podcast to find out for myself but I'm afraid that I just don't care all that much why someone struggled during the opening 20 minutes of Doom 2016.

Harry Medium
23/5/2016 03:27:42 pm

Wow, I, like, REALLY want some Doritos.

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Nick the Gent link
23/5/2016 03:32:57 pm

Great article Biff, and you get to the heart of it when you say people feel threatened.

As Old Red pointed out above, a lot of it is jealousy. There are more than a few journalists who post selfies from launch parties or bars, tweet cute little comments, pontificate about culture and society, and, occasionally, write about video games.

It looks glamorous and often smug. It's a red rag to the Gamergate crowd. I don't necessarily understand or agree with that, but the perception exists.

As you say, it's also tied to the backlash against political correctness. Journalists are deeply distrusted by folks who feel journos are just another part of the elite, telling them what to think - and if they don't agree, then they feel like they're treated as ignorant and backwards (you can see this throughout US politics over the last 20 or 30 years. It's the backlash helped bring about Fox News, etc.)

But we're talking about video game reviews - it's not exactly world-ending stuff.

Also, I didn't think the reviewer was playing Doom all that badly. A bigger question might be why designers persevere with clunky dual-stick controls for FPS games.

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Damon link
23/5/2016 03:44:03 pm

I've always been a them. Not intentionally but I never really aligned with any real group. When dealing with groups in person most don't notice much because it's hard to hate a single person when the only thing you know about them is that they're reading a Dirk Gently novel and own a personal music player. Abstract ideologies rarely come into play in day-to-day living.

But online I've always felt like a "them". I would look at groups and see pretty early on how unhealthy they were. There's a few times I managed to belong for a while but I never seem to identify with a group. I have always seen myself as my own person which makes it difficult to describe myself, I think.

You see it as the Jocks vs Nerds mentality on TV but the truth is that I have never encountered this in real life. In fact I recall talking about The Legend of Zelda at length with a few of the Jocks in high school while we were not being busy in art class -- things which don't really fit with the template idea of a jock. Were they jocks at all then? I don't think they saw themselves that way. They were just guys who liked and played sports and hung out to do sport and marijuana related activities.

I wonder sometimes if the US invent the THEM and when enough individuals feel like a THEM because of the same US they become an US, too.

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Euphemia
23/5/2016 04:01:12 pm

A lot of commenters saying "jealousy" is a motivational factor but I don't think that's valid, it's the question of differing viewpoints creating imaginary conflict.

"I like this, and you don't - therefore you don't like me, so I'm going on the defensive/offensive." It's easier than taking the step back and agreeing to disagree when any form of self examination is required over your motivations. Plus other justifications seep in like "ethics in gaming journalism!" rather than "girls and gays are icky and gaming is my safety zone" when people feel, justly or otherwise, threatened.

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Clockwork Fool
23/5/2016 05:27:17 pm

People, which is to say some people in some parts of the internet "hate" game journalists because once upon a time a group of them colluding on a secret email list of some sort orchestrated a co-ordinated smear campaign on their own readership in order to distract from a potential conflict of interest.

Since then, the core group of these sites have given the impression repeatedly that they don't particularly care for the industry they are reporting on or the readers they are writing for and that they will go out of their way to defend their most openly corrupt colleagues at any cost, even down to continuing to smear and attack normal games fans for over two years.

Frequently with dishonest jibes about all gamers being lonely basement dwelling virgin man-childs and attempting to spin the narrative that all of this backlash has anything at all to do with women in gaming.

That's why people hate game journalists, Mr Biffo. Or at least, that's why people hate certain sites and certain types of games journalism.

Did that really need to be spelled out?

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Spiney O'Sullivan
23/5/2016 08:36:27 pm

As someone who has tried to stay as far from this whole mess as possible, and who frankly doesn't honestly care who is sleeping with who in the industry (though I do genuinely hope that both parties in that case get the help they need), I must admit that I do feel like gamers as a whole have been thrown under the bus by the press a bit. Even though we've all established that we're all too cool to identify with the term "gamer", in all honesty, it's a term I do identify with (though it's certainly not all of my identityl) and it was sad to see some journalists decide that the whole subculture had to be declared dead because a minority can't behave like civilised human beings.

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Clockwork Fool
24/5/2016 01:36:17 am

Speaking on behalf of the sections of the internet I'm familiar with, no one is really that worked up about who was sleeping with who. The single scandal that's a reference to would have blown over in a couple of weeks on it's own like a thousand scandals before it.

But when the GameJournoPros google group coordinated an attack on their own readership to hide their own wrongdoing, that really kind of turned heads. You know? And they've only ever doubled down on that decision, so it's no surprise feelings haven't really cooled off.

It was never really about a minority misbehaving, it was about trying to bury news of a possible conflict of interest.

Paulvw
23/5/2016 05:55:15 pm

While I take your points about group dynamics and self rewards, I think the level of venom and anger is just a bit road ragey. It costs nothing to overreact and the person posting only sees the personal benefits ie status, entertainment etc rather than any potential cost to the recipient.

Sadly looking around the internet there are loads of rude comments about any subject. Look at any comments section on a newspaper and you'll see the same hectoring, ganging up on various subjects.

Unfortunately Games journalists generally publish reviews on devices with easy internet access to an IT literate audience so the abuse can be immediate.

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Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 06:19:29 pm

Yeah check out the comments under anything related to Justin Bieber or 1D!

Forget gaming, the most shocking language, bulling, harassment, abuse and threats you will ever find online will be teenage girls going to war with each other over those two pop acts!

I think Bieber receives more abuse than just about any other person online. Granted he is huge, but even as a percentage the amount of abuse and death threats he receives far exceeds that of people like Sarkeesian.

The abuse and death threats extend to rival fans, rival acts, love interests of Bieber/1D (even friends mistaken as love interests) and of course doxing leading to death threats against family members of rival fans/acts/love interests.

I'm a Belieber so don't mess!!!!

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Euphemia
23/5/2016 07:26:02 pm

So if the Bieber gave Uncharted 4 anything less than 9/10 the cumulative rage-on would have caused the Internet to shit itself into the long-prophesied singularity?

Superbeast 37
23/5/2016 08:39:16 pm

Kim Kardashian tried breaking the internet - it didn't work!

I don't think Bieber fans care about Uncharted and visa versa!

But if you want to set up a music site and give Biebers album a 7 and 1D's a 10....... Well good luck, hope the clicks were worth it!!!!!

Damon link
23/5/2016 08:19:56 pm

Two ideas just clicked for me.

Years ago no one paid attention to the journalist behind the word. The publication and consequently editor always got the flack for running or approving the work. I wonder when the individual writers became more responsible than the publishers who were meant to vet their content...

I wonder if it happened when the idea of the staff journalist died and everyone became a freelancer.

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ChorltonWheelie
24/5/2016 10:16:08 am

Sheeeesh! He is really bad at Doom though.

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Bruce Flagpole
24/5/2016 10:42:28 am

I think there's a difference between negative comments on an article and outright harassment and attacks across other media, trolling and invasion of privacy etc.

Clearly the latter is wrong, and it's worrying that some people feel the need to try to ruin the lives of others over some pretty meaningless things.

And I'm not saying it's fine to be hurtful in the comments either, but the comments are also mainly going to attract views that aren't in agreement with the article. Nobody wants to read a thousand comments of "This was of an acceptable standard to me".

Anyone commenting is hoping to have others react to their comment. At best they're looking for a "Hey, some great points there Bruce!". Or maybe just "Wow, that was a very witty comment". Or at worst they're just trolling for a reaction.

Regardless, there's an element of playing to the crowd, and then one-upmanship. If someone has already made the comment 'this guy isn't very good', the next will try to be a bit more cutting 'my dog could play better'.

So if a page gets 10000 views, and 50 nasty comments, then you know, 99.5% of readers didn't feel the need to make a nasty comment.
And that's not even considering how many of that 0.5% were just playing along and getting involved in the 'banter', and left the site not giving it a second thought.

Of course, any of the comment-ors that then left to set up a petition or send abuse on twitter or hacking the authors accounts etc. needs taken out the back and whupped.

Anyway, forget the journalist, pity the poor sap who posts his comment days after the article went up and now no one will ever read it... :(

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Damon link
24/5/2016 06:01:33 pm

I do aggree with this. I believe that something which can be substantiated as a factual statement does NOT count as being harassment or hate speech.

"He doesn't seem to be very good at the game" may hurt his feelings but, well, it is true.

That said there is still a line where the attacks become too personal, which I personally feel is never called for.

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Nicholas Taylor
26/5/2016 09:53:30 pm

The only qualification you need to write about any subject is the ability to convey what you want to say on a particular subject to your intended audience. If your actual audience enjoy what you write enough to pay to read it in some way then you're now a popular author. A bit obvious I know, but so many people forget.

Reply



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