"Journalist" Jason Schreier (one of Quinn's OG whiteknights) whines about one of Bethesda's twitter accounts mocking him, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees at the danger this puts journalists in in a "post GamerGate" world:
Jason Schreier is also a disingenuous asshole here.
Bethesda (and Zenimax) rarely, if ever at all, send out review copies to outlets and they do not under any circumstances participate in any media that they do not entirely control.
This has been the case for this company for nearly 6 years and he probably should realize that. The only reason that Bethesda even sends review copies at all (they had a few years where they sent out 0) is because the marketing director said he "was sick of seeing every review take the first 5 paragraphs complaining that they didn't get a review copy instead of talking about the game".
Game Journalism is dying. Kotaku has been hemorrhaging money ever since Telemundo bought them and as I understand it, Polygon barely breaks even. Vice axed Waypoint.
YouTubers and influencers are where it's at. Some get paid 5 grand to play a game for an hour. And there's no way most of these journos are making anywhere near 50k. They're making much less than that.
Games journalists are around for us to mock. That's the only function that they serve. They are incompetent fools who sell no copies of games and are forced to whore themselves out for access.
Any company bowing to them is either incompetent or has the same ideology that they do. There is no press they can generate that gamers don't get from YouTube.
Bethesda (and other companies) have found that it's a way bigger Return on Investment to give attention/product to youtube/twitch people compared to games journalists. To get a good review on IGN, you would have to buy $10,000 of advertising and fly out the journalist to some crazy event and all you would get is a single good article. They can instead just send free codes (or even early codes) to youtubers and they will lap that shit up for free and will have a much larger reach.
The only "Games Journalism" outlet I can see surviving for any period of time is Giantbomb. Not because they're particularly good, but because they're owned by CBS and Gerstmann was smart enough to identify that video content was going to be "the shit" moving forward and they still the only "Game Journalist" outlet I associate with video content and Gerstmann was again smart enough to realize that he should host it himself (this meaning he isn't subject to Youtube or Twitch's rules and keeps all of the super targeted ad revenue).
Bethesda (and other companies) have found that it's a way bigger Return on Investment to give attention/product to youtube/twitch people compared to games journalists. To get a good review on IGN, you would have to buy $10,000 of advertising and fly out the journalist to some crazy event and all you would get is a single good article. They can instead just send free codes (or even early codes) to youtubers and they will lap that shit up for free and will have a much larger reach.
The only "Games Journalism" outlet I can see surviving for any period of time is Giantbomb. Not because they're particularly good, but because they're owned by CBS and Gerstmann was smart enough to identify that video content was going to be "the shit" moving forward and they still the only "Game Journalist" outlet I associate with video content and Gerstmann was again smart enough to realize that he should host it himself (this meaning he isn't subject to Youtube or Twitch's rules and keeps all of the super targeted ad revenue).
The only counterpoint is Japanese companies who don't really like to work any digital press as they prefer print. But their journalists there are pretty much PR tickers. They still do DMCA takedowns of the game for anything plotwise.
Even with the hot expose Jason did about the shit-show that Anthem was; I can't take him seriously since the whole "Lolis have huge tits" fiasco. I don't know how hard it is to get something so simple so wrong. So even when he writes the occasional good article, I have to question how much of what he's writing is his misinterpreting what's being told.
There's an interesting theory about the Destiny article not being written by Jason, but "leaked" Activision as a form of damage control. Destiny was in hot water for a lack of content and DLC already on the disc. The article has a lot of excuses about why content is lacking and why patches are slow to be released. It could be an attempt by Bungie to save face and make excuses without damaging Activision's reputation with an official announcement.
GmanLives got bitten by that. He disclosed he got the game from an EA partnership and EA made him remove the disclosure. It's a shame he caved to EA demands. I like to think I'd have just pointed to the FTC rules on disclosure to make EA back off.
The only "Games Journalism" outlet I can see surviving for any period of time is Giantbomb. Not because they're particularly good, but because they're owned by CBS and Gerstmann was smart enough to identify that video content was going to be "the shit" moving forward and they still the only "Game Journalist" outlet I associate with video content and Gerstmann was again smart enough to realize that he should host it himself (this meaning he isn't subject to Youtube or Twitch's rules and keeps all of the super targeted ad revenue).
GiantBomb host videos on YouTube now. The last smart move they did (or at least that I know of) was when they employed popular YouTube "best of" editors to make content for them, and their last bit of good content was their Contradiction: Spot the Liar Quick Look or Jeff's Destiny Game of the Year rant.
The site started going down hill after Patrick Klepek was hired, and then fell off a cliff when Ryan died. I do wonder if Ryan was the brains of the operation because after his death they went all in on social justice, complete with diversity hires and refusing to cover problematic games. If you've not visited the site in a while, I recommend you don't. Keep your memories of energy drink reviews and their plans for a used game store raid intact. Now they look like sad, bitter, tired old men who don't seem to enjoy anything.
GiantBomb host videos on YouTube now. The last smart move they did (or at least that I know of) was when they employed popular YouTube "best of" editors to make content for them, and their last bit of good content was their Contradiction: Spot the Liar Quick Look or Jeff's Destiny Game of the Year rant.
The site started going down hill after Patrick Klepek was hired, and then fell off a cliff when Ryan died. I do wonder if Ryan was the brains of the operation because after his death they went all in on social justice, complete with diversity hires and refusing to cover problematic games. If you've not visited the site in a while, I recommend you don't. Keep your memories of energy drink reviews and their plans for a used game store raid intact. Now they look like sad, bitter, tired old men who don't seem to enjoy anything.
I like some of the current cast (Dan Rykert, Jason, Brad, Vinny, etc) but don't watch all that much.
Re-hosting on Youtube makes sense (it's free hosting and advertising) and most twitch streamers do it as well, but if a video gets taken down they don't give a shit because it's over on giantbomb.com; plus a number of series that live only there.
I don't think the site is great, but Jeff Gerstmann has made some pretty smart moves that are going to have it outlast most of their peers (Kotaku, IGN, etc) and he clearily is the "brains" behind the operation. Ryan Davis (RIP) was absolutely the "balls" of the operation and is sorely missed by most long time fans because the site lacks "balls" in a major way.
"Journalist" Jason Schreier (one of Quinn's OG whiteknights) whines about one of Bethesda's twitter accounts mocking him, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees at the danger this puts journalists in in a "post GamerGate" world:
They don’t answer your emails because gay ops/civil conspiracy is more or less an autonomic function for you at this point. Do they understand that they’re the bottom of the barrel?
GmanLives got bitten by that. He disclosed he got the game from an EA partnership and EA made him remove the disclosure. It's a shame he caved to EA demands. I like to think I'd have just pointed to the FTC rules on disclosure to make EA back off.
Gggggmanlives got bit for using the wrong partnership logo in his review, that being the "GameChangers" program that does not involve payment. His Anthem review was different in that he was actually paid to do it on the side. ( https://archive.fo/gZVvw )
He got slapped for that and then went all-out in saying that EA didn't like his stunning and brave negative review with a claim that they pulled his partnership - which turned out to be false - and reuploaded his video to include a rant about being persecuted while frantically posting about it on Twitter.
He fucked himself twice and came out the good guy because EA being shit is fully believable and convinced people to forget that he got caught doing paid reviews.
In the days when people bought paper magazines with names like PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World and all the platform specific ones like ones for Amiga, Commodore, Nintendo, etc., the people who wrote for them were obsessive gaming nerds much like the readers and would only focus on things gamers would actually care about. Some of them were shills just as now but at least they were shilling about shit people who bought games cared about like the content of the game, what the mechanics were like, what other games it was like, etc. You could just adjust your credibility score of it based on how much of a shill they were.
The current crop of useless losers doesn't say anything anyone considering buying something would give a scintilla of a shit about. It's just SJW glurge that nobody ever in the history of the world bought a game over.
It's honestly really amazing any of these useless cocksucking cornholing dumb motherfuckers have any job anywhere at all or that utterly worthless outlets like Kotaku even exist.
This is true. In the past, these were true hobbyist magazines. They were run by people with qualifications much higher but has a passion for the hobby. I remember in PC gamer they had one guy with a history PhD who got his own strategy section and reviewed strategy games for grognards. You had people for each genre, so you wouldn't get a guy who played RPGs play FPSes. So there wasn't a bias there. Of course there was shilling but it was nowhere near as bad. With the rise of online, the shilling intensified and the hobbyists left because the money wasn't there and they were overqualified for what they were doing.
So you had this ousting of hobbyists because most of them were far overqualified and the money wasn't worth it. Eventually you have this situation now. Video game 'journalism' is considered bottom of the bottom of writing gigs. That's why you have this hate and resentment towards the core audience because this is not what they really want to be doing. It's why a lot of these articles read like they want to be auditioning for 'The New Yorker'. They attach themselves to hucksters like Sarkeesian to make themselves seem more academic. These outlets only survive through shilling and clickbait (which serves to make them think they're 'adult' when their writing and hot takes are immensely piss poor) and even then they're not surviving. The money is shrinking. Telemundo can't even recoup a third of its investment in Kotaku. Waypoint is dead. Polygon is next. Because everyone knows these outlets do not sell games. Nobody likes them. They are loathed by the consumer base. The people that generally read them daily are progtard faggots who play candy crush while they shit and think they game. Why do you think these dumb niggers go crazy when people say mobile isn't gaming? Because that's their core audience. They don't buy products. These outlets regularly write sexualizing women won't sell and is evil, meanwhile Neir: Automata has sold 4 million fucking copies and still going strong with basically a highly sexualized protagonist with an upskirt achievement. Basically, everything they say is always wrong and anyone that listens to them loses money. Also nobody uses them to buy things. This was proven in a study awhile back where consumers used games journalists 1 to 2 percent to buy things. If you dislike them, it's only a matter of time quite honestly. You can pump as much money as you want into them. Disney lost 400 million on Vice. You think that these dumb pieces of shit can keep up with this sort of bleeding? Nah. Also I could care less about review copies and being open. Most of these pieces of shit are completely disingenuous.
YouTubers and Streamers are like the hobbyists of old. Though most of them don't have qualifications to lend themselves to other careers, they genuinely enjoy the games they play. And they connect with their audience. More importantly, they sell copies. Being featured on a YouTube channel or streamer moves shit like nobodies businesses.
The ONLY thing worthwhile about gaming journalism and journalists is using them as a punchline and punching bag.
I'm not trying to be the giantbomb stan because I don't think they're very good, but they've got two sponsored podcasts and a "premium membership" subscription model as well as access to metrics surrounding those two - meaning they're probably doing pretty good if they've got all of those revenue streams pumping.
Although, your chart did get me curious about where Giant Bomb stands compared to some other websites and "fucking yikes" is how it looks.
It looks like they're nearing Something Awful levels of deadness. Kotaku and Kiwi Farms (which isn't even listed as a site for google's analytics) are more popular. Maybe Giantbomb isn't doing so hot, even with all of the revenue streams they've still got a pretty huge staff in two separate offices.
I'm not trying to be the giantbomb stan because I don't think they're very good, but they've got two sponsored podcasts and a "premium membership" subscription model as well as access to metrics surrounding those two - meaning they're probably doing pretty good if they've got all of those revenue streams pumping.
Although, your chart did get me curious about where Giant Bomb stands compared to some other websites and "fucking yikes" is how it looks.
It looks like they're nearing Something Awful levels of deadness. Kotaku and Kiwi Farms (which isn't even listed as a site for google's analytics) are more popular. Maybe Giantbomb isn't doing so hot, even with all of the revenue streams they've still got a pretty huge staff in two separate offices.
They’re also owned outright by CBS since like 2013. Moonves got metooed so if this new guys in a belt-tightening mood they would look pretty good to whoever runs CBSi.
I've noticed that the game devs that do prostrate themselves to the fourth estate's will often get rewarded with an even more intensive campaign:
Riot games submitted to Schreier and Kotaku on subjects like toxicity (LoL's banning practices have become an enduring meme). They even held seminars during a games con especially for women and men pretending to be women. Their reward however is now a personell strike and having article after article piled against them about how their new mentally ill assets can't handle the strain of a working environment.
NRS cleaned up their models and made them more culturally diverse as per Waypoint's orders. Yet they too find themselves the subject of increasingly more reaching articles complaining about Rhonda Roussey and the fact that some of the devs responsible for visual design watched gore in front of their thin-skinned colleages.
What begs the point is, they beat a proverbial dog for wetting the carpet, but then they continue or intensify the beatings after not doing it, or is this a show-weakness-and-you're-dead kinda situation?
I'd argue it's even worse than that. The devs who stick to their guns and tell these people to fuck off are rewarded with a dedicated fanbase who will tell these fuckers to pound sand when they start the attack articles.*see the short lived whinging about Soul Calibur VI's busty female characters* The Devs who bend the knee and worse insult their fans in the process get to hear an apathetic "Get Woke Go Broke" and mockery when the outrage mob attacks.
That's true of all "journalism" now. The information age has rendered it's original purpose obsolete so the whole thing's turned into a sensationalist, desperate and dying clickbait monster that will hire anyone willing to work for table scraps.
Jason Schreier is also a disingenuous asshole here.
Bethesda (and Zenimax) rarely, if ever at all, send out review copies to outlets and they do not under any circumstances participate in any media that they do not entirely control.
This has been the case for this company for nearly 6 years and he probably should realize that. The only reason that Bethesda even sends review copies at all (they had a few years where they sent out 0) is because the marketing director said he "was sick of seeing every review take the first 5 paragraphs complaining that they didn't get a review copy instead of talking about the game".
Oh god, they have such entitlement. It's not talked about much, maybe it's not that known, but in the past the big publishers spent a lot of money on what can be called "wine and dining". That Medal of Honor game had a preview event where EA paid for travel/lodging. It was in Hawaii, because it starts with Pearl Harbor. So a ton of game journalists, even from Europe, got a paid trip to Hawaii that included the preview and a guided tour around old war-thingies, then some wine and dine.
When Capcom held a preview event that included that shitty gladiator game people were flown to Rome, same story there.
Console launches, oh shit, that's when the lottery winner sized checks comes out. I remember a Perfect Dark Zero preview that was... they really went the extra mile.
It's not bribes and strangely enough every fucking preview in print was glowing even though six months later the review might be "Game is complete ass, 3/10".
There's an interesting theory about the Destiny article not being written by Jason, but "leaked" Activision as a form of damage control. Destiny was in hot water for a lack of content and DLC already on the disc. The article has a lot of excuses about why content is lacking and why patches are slow to be released. It could be an attempt by Bungie to save face and make excuses without damaging Activision's reputation with an official announcement.
It's not unthinkable, gamejournos love being fed exclusive information so if Activision orchestrated a thinly-veiled "psst, here's some hot behind the scenes secrets about Destiny, don't tell anyone I told you" then that person might just feel that he has a scoop on his hands.
This is true. In the past, these were true hobbyist magazines. They were run by people with qualifications much higher but has a passion for the hobby. I remember in PC gamer they had one guy with a history PhD who got his own strategy section and reviewed strategy games for grognards. You had people for each genre, so you wouldn't get a guy who played RPGs play FPSes. So there wasn't a bias there. Of course there was shilling but it was nowhere near as bad. With the rise of online, the shilling intensified and the hobbyists left because the money wasn't there and they were overqualified for what they were doing.
So you had this ousting of hobbyists because most of them were far overqualified and the money wasn't worth it. Eventually you have this situation now.
I've posted it before, but there was a passionate guy that started writing for the official Nintendo magazine in meatballistan way back while also manning the Nintendo tipline in the evenings, crummy pay and not a job held in high regard but he really liked games and from that humble start he worked himself onwards and upwards.
Imagine anyone at Kotaku transitioning into a real job that requires skills of some kind or knowledge about the field they're supposedly working in.
Pretty much. For the last ten years or more I've had the feeling that they see the job as an easy soapbox or pulpit with a built in audience they can preach to. Then they get really upset when people skip their TDS-rants in a Pokemon review and go somewhere else to actually get information about a game.
With youtubers it's easier to find out what they like and are knowledgeable about so if it is a complex strategy game then so-and-so will probably give some good information, if it's a fighting game then that dude probably knows what's up etc.
I don't remember who it was, maybe someone at IGN, that gave Football Manager a 3.7 or something and complained about lack of graphics and the complexity. That was really funny. For a long time Out of the Park Baseball was the top ranked game on Gamerankings, just above Ocarina of Time. It's the baseball equivalent of Football Manager with a hardcore fanbase and I have never seen it mentioned on the big game sites. After five years you'd think that they should probably look into the game or something.
The only counterpoint is Japanese companies who don't really like to work any digital press as they prefer print. But their journalists there are pretty much PR tickers. They still do DMCA takedowns of the game for anything plotwise.
Japan's culture is that when you buy anything you receive something physical. Even digitally made doujinshi will be printed or sent to you mail order on CD.
Japan's culture is that when you buy anything you receive something physical. Even digitally made doujinshi will be printed or sent to you mail order on CD.
It is still a minor obstacle to seeing gaming journalism die though. So long as the physical culture exists. they aint going to let a couple of guys on youtube cover their games without heavy restrictions
People are worried Japan is the next nation to get SJW-ified. I dunno. I mean they want to, don't get me wrong, but you've got woke outlets losing massive amounts of money and going bankrupt. So I don't know who is going to be left. Blue checkmarks? You know, the mark of re.tards?
The most pressing issue is that journalism is still considered to be a representative voice of the people - it isn't, but stay with me here - and the suits pay attention to it because it's quick and easy. Developers / producers / etc. don't often mingle with the common person and the vocal minority pushing an SJW mindset is pushed to the surface by aforementioned journalists, which creates a false interpretation that it's popular opinion.
The key, the lynch-pin if you will, to all of this is that "Go woke, go broke" is not as apparent as it should be to the people who make decisions. They don't know that internet rags are going up in a flame of bankruptcy, they don't follow it that closely.
The lack of communication is not rectified until their ship is already sinking and they have to find out what they did wrong.
Soon after her husbands Twitter pretty much died in the ass. Now she gets invited to gaming stuff around the world and is probably still banging randos like she used to.
Japan's culture is that when you buy anything you receive something physical. Even digitally made doujinshi will be printed or sent to you mail order on CD.
