Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2014 19:58:41 GMT -5
Let's not get all toasty about unnecessary issues here. Leave the social justice and personal attacks out of this thread or it'll get closed.
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Post by Feynman on Jul 30, 2014 20:03:12 GMT -5
I kinda want to know why people are upset with reading gaming news sites that post stories about Social Justice issues. Did these sites used to post things that were actually worth reading and now they're not? Because the way I see it, most gaming news sites never posted anything interesting at all, and at least this new wave of "Social Justice" as it's derisively called is more engaging to read than what I used to see, even though I think there's some serious problems with most of those kinds of articles. I personally only read Gamasutra regularly but I keep USGamer, Joystiq, Siliconera, Polygon, and Rock Paper Shotgun in my Twitter feed. I'm all for more inclusiveness in the games industry, and developers definitely should be encouraged to explore stories and themes outside of the "teenage male" demographic. These issues are important, and thoughtful, intelligent discussion is worthwhile, but all too often you get stories that stir up a huge fuss over absolutely trivial crap. For example: - The Sorceress in Dragon's Crown has huge tits HOW DARE THEY. - [Character] in [BioWare Game] has no gay romance option HOW DARE THEY. - {Game with erotic elements] caters to straight men THOSE SEXIST BASTARDS. So in the end the entire topic often ends up devolving into an asinine shouting match between straight men who feel like they're being attacked, and other genders and/or sexualities who feel like they're being ignored or invalidated.
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Post by Ike on Jul 30, 2014 20:18:24 GMT -5
the unfortunate thing about talking about any "serious" issue in gaming is that it gets interpreted as clickbait or dismissed so any actual discussion devolves into a shouting match in the comments section. hence the solution is to disable comments.
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geishaboy
Full Member
Like that movie Drunken Master, minus the kung-fu
Posts: 190
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Post by geishaboy on Jul 30, 2014 20:48:14 GMT -5
I normally stick to personal blogs and the like. I'm going to read someone's opinion, I want at least read an unbiased one. Or even if it is biased, an opinion that isn't shaped (or even brought, in some cases) by game companies. Also Ugh. This post is disgusting and you seriously need to grow up. Absolutely outstanding rebuttal. I especially liked your well thought out argument and the numerous points you raised which were backed by relevant facts and evidence. Also, I really think it speaks to you character to have kept a mature tone to your post and refrained from name calling. Bravo.
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TonicBH
Junior Member
8-bit Alex Trebek is judging you.
Posts: 79
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Post by TonicBH on Jul 30, 2014 20:54:39 GMT -5
the unfortunate thing about talking about any "serious" issue in gaming is that it gets interpreted as clickbait or dismissed so any actual discussion devolves into a shouting match in the comments section. hence the solution is to disable comments. Whenever ANYBODY throws out the click bait argument I ignore them immediately, because they're fucking idiots who just want to do a drive-by "lol games journalism" troll with little else to contribute. I'd suggest Giant Bomb, but I look at that site as a more general interest gaming website, I don't go there specifically for news. Instead, what I do is usually follow some notable writers on Twitter and such and just find out about stuff from that, which means I'm jumping between Polygon, Joystiq and Gamasutra depending on the news and subject matter. I assume that's what most people do these days, you end up finding more interesting stuff that way. Downside is every once in a while you accidentally read terrible articles by terrible people (Ben Kuchera of Polygon, Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku, etc), but it's a risk you take sometimes.
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Post by Feynman on Jul 30, 2014 20:55:43 GMT -5
the unfortunate thing about talking about any "serious" issue in gaming is that it gets interpreted as clickbait or dismissed so any actual discussion devolves into a shouting match in the comments section. hence the solution is to disable comments. That's definitely true. Not just in games, either. It doesn't help that often the articles that really are sensationalist clickbait are created either in response to or to cash in on a legitmately worthwhile article, and the resulting noise ends up getting more attention than the worthwhile article does.
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TonicBH
Junior Member
8-bit Alex Trebek is judging you.
Posts: 79
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Post by TonicBH on Jul 30, 2014 20:58:02 GMT -5
I normally stick to personal blogs and the like. I'm going to read someone's opinion, I want at least read an unbiased one. Or even if it is biased, an opinion that isn't shaped (or even brought, in some cases) by game companies. Honest question: Outside of the Kane & Lynch fiasco (which was panicked executives doing a knee-jerk reaction, not Eidos bitching about the score), when the hell have game reviews have been "bought" by companies? I keep hearing this all the time, and I think people confuse that with "I disagree with this review and I have to have a REASON!"
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geishaboy
Full Member
Like that movie Drunken Master, minus the kung-fu
Posts: 190
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Post by geishaboy on Jul 30, 2014 21:35:39 GMT -5
I normally stick to personal blogs and the like. I'm going to read someone's opinion, I want at least read an unbiased one. Or even if it is biased, an opinion that isn't shaped (or even brought, in some cases) by game companies. Honest question: Outside of the Kane & Lynch fiasco (which was panicked executives doing a knee-jerk reaction, not Eidos bitching about the score), when the hell have game reviews have been "bought" by companies? I keep hearing this all the time, and I think people confuse that with "I disagree with this review and I have to have a REASON!" To be fair, I can't honestly think of any one report of reviews being bought, but a simple google search will bring to light certain realities of game reviews. Although, a lot of it is just common sense as well. If you have a game review site and have game company x advertising on your site, what do you think is going to happen to those advertising dollars if you give their games poor reviews? There are certain unspoken obligations at play. It kinda sucks, but it's just a reality of the gaming industry. Another thing that seems to be common is the 'wine and dine' approach. Show the reviewers a good time, give them games and other freebies, win them over and then have them review your game. It's still bribery even if there is no money changing hands.
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Post by Joseph Joestar on Jul 30, 2014 21:37:54 GMT -5
Dan Hsu alluded to it in an EGM editor's column, although I don't remember the details.
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Post by dantroid on Jul 30, 2014 22:10:15 GMT -5
Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum.
For console gaming, I frequent nintendoeverything.com and gamingeverything.com for solid gaming NEWS.
There's the odd article of opinion crap or a podcast, but I ignore it. For the most part they are straight-up news that keeps me very up to date on what's going on with gaming. Just facts for the most part, which is what I want. I keep clear of the user comments though, cause they are a bunch of entitled babies.
Gamasutra (which was mentioned by a previous poster here) is also decent, but I've been using it less and less lately because of their increase in doomsday Nintendo articles that piss me off.
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Post by ReyVGM on Jul 30, 2014 22:17:15 GMT -5
Hi dantroid.
You'll either die from all the trolls that frequent HG101 nowadays, or you'll live long enough to become one of them.
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Post by Super Orbus on Jul 30, 2014 22:30:16 GMT -5
Join us. It is your destiny.
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Post by GamerL on Jul 30, 2014 22:41:35 GMT -5
the unfortunate thing about talking about any "serious" issue in gaming is that it gets interpreted as clickbait or dismissed so any actual discussion devolves into a shouting match in the comments section. hence the solution is to disable comments. Whenever ANYBODY throws out the click bait argument I ignore them immediately, because they're fucking idiots who just want to do a drive-by "lol games journalism" troll with little else to contribute. I'd suggest Giant Bomb, but I look at that site as a more general interest gaming website, I don't go there specifically for news. Instead, what I do is usually follow some notable writers on Twitter and such and just find out about stuff from that, which means I'm jumping between Polygon, Joystiq and Gamasutra depending on the news and subject matter. I assume that's what most people do these days, you end up finding more interesting stuff that way. Downside is every once in a while you accidentally read terrible articles by terrible people (Ben Kuchera of Polygon, Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku, etc), but it's a risk you take sometimes. I don't understand why, it's a legitimate gripe, websites make money from the ads that are on the pages, the more people click the page the more people "view" the ad and the more money they get from the ad, this leads to a website posting stories with whatever headlines they know will get people to click the most, it's a problem that plagues every "news" website, not just gaming ones, for mainstream news sites China is a big clickbait lure, so they post whatever story about whatever "wacky" thing is going on in China despite the fact that none of these stories are true when it comes to gaming sites the big clickbait is anything that will incite controversy and feminism is one of the big zeitgeisty things of the 2010s and ripe for controversy, but beyond feminism I remember one obvious example that Dtoid did was earlier in the year a lot of staff left Naughty Dog, which is usually a typical thing once a studio ships a big game, a lot of people move on, but Dtoid kept posting these stories to make it seem like Naughty Dog was dying I mean, be honest, do you really think that when the witch character with the big boobs from Dragon's Crown was "controversial" that was not a cynical clickbait ploy?
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Post by jjmcjj on Jul 30, 2014 23:04:41 GMT -5
I don't believe there was a "good old days" for any gaming site. Maybe a few exceptions, but the way people throw it out you're just sounding like you have opaque, rose-colored glasses super-glued to your eyeballs. Gamespot for instance, I'm not the biggest fan of the site, and I personally think Greg Kasavin was the best reviewer they've ever had, but after the whole mess with Gerstmann and after they cleaned themselves up internally the website I think as at least back in as respectable shape as it was before then even if there isn't anybody there I like as much as Kasavin.
I as others have said have no one-all-be-all website to look for good gaming content. All of them slip up every once in a while, other times they provide good articles and reviews (unless it's IGN we're talking about, who's been bottom-of-the-gutter material for some time now). Whether it's Giant Bomb, Gamasutra, Gamespot, RPS, Destructoid, PC Gamer, Indie Statik, Adventure Gamers, whatever, they all serve their purposes. I never check any of those sites on a daily or even very frequent basis but when I do it's to seek out something specific or someone will point to something of interest at one of those sites and sometimes it's good, sometimes not. To show my unfamiliarity when I read that Ryan Davis of Giant Bomb died it was a shock, and a major loss for many people, but I never went on the site enough to know much about him. I did definitely recognize the name though, I believe he was an editor for Gamespot long ago. (it was on his honeymoon too apparently, which is definitely sad)
If there's anything I go to frequently for any gaming coverage it's probably Total Biscuit. I'm a subscribed viewer to his YT channel, and enjoy his first-impression commentaries on newer PC games, which are insightful and well-spoken, plus when he diverges from that and does a great job at also providing commentary on a general subject on gaming or gaming journalism. An entertaining and smart man, and I wouldn't call him "cynical" as his moniker suggests, just honest, though he can be a harsh critic on certain things that I don't agree with (his definition of what a "game" is for instance - I and probably many of us here could think of plenty of titles that technically don't have failure states but nobody would dispute the fact that they are "games" - it's just that something like Dear Esther is merely a much more simplified version of that).
On "social justice" blah blah blah. The thing is, as of late mainstream games have opted to go for "serious" and "emotional" storytelling, big budgets and attempts to mimic Hollywood fare. It was when the whole "games as art" argument started rising to the surface, which pushed these developers into making their games more and more story-based with full voice acting from famous actors and such (not a new thing, but a more prominent thing nowadays). Long gone are the days of John Carmack and his "stories in games are like stories in porn" belief. But if games are to be treated as "art" then it makes sense that people ought to look at them with the eye of the film or literary critic which is why we have many of these attempts at story analysis and criticism nowadays. And with so-called "tumblr activism" on the rise and video games, even some of the "artful" ones, not exactly having the most progressive portrayals of women for the most part, has been marked by their aiming sights. Here's what I think: I absolutely do think that games should be put up to the same scrutiny as movies, books, etc. are. The problem being, we have numerous intelligent, insightful critics in those fields, whereas video game critics/essayists/whatever you want to call them try to be like them but so far have failed at best. Anita Sarkeesian is, I suppose, trying to be the Molly Haskell of the video game world but, while occasionally stumbling upon a decent point, feels like a half-baked, overlong college essay. And the only reason she's gotten as much attention as she's gotten is because of the thousands of other, far dumber people spouting hateful comments at her. It shows gamers in general haven't exactly grown up yet (look at the dumbassery surrounding how people reacted to Carolyn Petit's review of GTA5, both because she only gave it a 9/10 and also because she criticized its portrayal of women - in this case I found her review very reasonable but people are oversensitive, overprotective rage triggers about their favorite games, especially when it comes to "social justice" issues).
People accuse some of the Rock Paper Shotgun staff of being like that too. Their review of Goodbye Deponia I know stirred up some emotions. I have all three Deponia games but haven't played them yet, I'm curious to get to that point to see what the deal is. From what I gather the protagonist is intentionally unlikeable and incompetent to the point where he ruins the lives of everyone around him. And the female lead is a blatantly meek, sexualized stereotype and her name is "Goal." I can't imagine any of this being anything other than some black satire or at least a cynical exploitation of infamous gaming tropes (I have read the ending to Goodbye Deponia is highly controversial - some fans of the series loved it, many others hated it - this makes me even more interested to see what the deal is, and all the more interesting when put in the context of Daedalic's other titles which wildly vary in tone and subject matter).
Also, there was an anonymously written Cracked article very much in this vein that was pretty bad too. Props for their attempts at feminist-sympathizing writing, but they are very hit and miss, and the one I'm thinking of was a miss. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, bring it up if you want (I'm not gonna go around digging for it).
Back on topic, a lot of "tumblr activists" also turn their sights on other media too with the same kind of half-assed impressions so singularly focused on one thing and not even deconstructing it in an intelligent way. Thankfully we still have some proper critics of film and literature left though many of the good ones are either dead or retired. For video games we have very, very few of the sort, in part due to a lack of people with really strong knowledge of video game history and culture, which is due to lack of proper preservation of the medium unlike books or films (yeah yeah yeah emulators blah blah blah those are good but not proper preservation, merely the best we got because the people who should be doing it aren't), the lack of universality of it (everything spread across a bajillion different consoles, operating systems, arcade cabinets, chipsets, hooolllly fucking shit! With books you have... words and movies... film, or digital, either way converted the exact same way, to video), and finally, for the fact that games still really haven't shaken off its association with "something kids/nerds do" at least in the mass media. Mass Effect was vetted in the media as being some porno simulator when word got out you could have sex with mostly any character you wish, even though no sex is even seen in the games. Big-budget games are probably even more stifled from taking any kind of risks in subject matter than Hollywood, and indie game devs for the most part just don't have the same kind of time, funds or support to make something truly interesting, whereas less time and money is needed for an unknown writer or even film-maker to put something interesting together. When the gaming scene as a whole is stifled like this, the maturity of its audience/critics/journalists are stifled as well.
I don't know if I'm making any sense here, I'm probably rambling at this point. I guess the best way to look at it is that video games are a very different medium than anything we've seen beforehand. Paintings, sculpture, music, and yes movies and literature are all probably more similar to one another than video games are to any of them even if it obviously combines or takes influence from elements of all of those. This doesn't answer the topic's question probably, but I already gave my piece on that in the first few paragraphs of mine.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2014 23:12:46 GMT -5
Call me insane, but I'm perfectly satisfied with Kotaku. Most other gaming news sites come across as incredibly pretentious to me. Kotaku just gives me the news. Sure, their comments section is shit, but why would anyone even read comments anyway? It's like purposely raw dogging a Hilton. You know what you're getting into with that situation, so just avoid the whole mess to begin with.
Then again, Kotaku does have Patricia Hernandez. Going by her posts, she's a drug using, polyamorous furry which...what the hell does that have to do with games and game news? At least Tim Rogers hasn't made any posts in a long while.
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