Are all awards and most of game critics corrupt?

[Alex Bakke]

I can't even read the words "game journalism" in relation to most sites without it sounding like "gayme jurnilzmmms" in my head.

Game CHURNALIZM more like aha.

I don't look at the specific site before judging a piece of writing. I look at the writer. Quintin Smith for example, has written for IGN and Gamespy in the past (Both owned by NewsCorp IIRC). All of the original RPS guys worked for PC Gamer before starting the site, and PC gamer published the now infamous DA2 review, whereas Kieron Gillen wouldn't write about Blood Bowl because he once did some translation work for Cyanide for (IIRC) a manual for one of their games. It all depends on the person.

[Winged Nazgul]

As pointed out in http://www.gatheryourparty.com/artic...ce-steps-down/

He also included a section about a certain writer named Lauren Wainwright, a freelance contributor for The Sun, IGN, GameSpot, and VG247. He cited some tweets she made about the upcoming Tomb Raider game, and said that they made him wonder about whether she was “in the pocket of the Tomb Raider PR team.” Maybe it was being a little disrespectful to make an accusation like that in a public place, but there are good ways to handle it, and the following is not one of them.
She threatened legal action, and, understandably, Eurogamer took down and revised the article to not include the part about Lauren Wainwright. Really, all she did was solidify the opinion by over-reacting so much to it. Another bit of evidence to heap on is on her is that her Journalisted profile also lists Square Enix (the publisher for Tomb Raider) as a current employer. Sure, it isn’t proof, but it’s pretty bad.

L O L

[Alex Bakke]

The company Wainwright represents has claimed they didn't threaten legal action, merely asked Eurogamer to take down 'harmful content'.

[Barnox]

True story:

Recently I've been looking up people I knew from my old gaming days. XBL, WoW, some browser games. Found quite a few of them.

I remembered a woman who lives in the same town as me, worked in local GAME. She was some Xbox community champion or something during the Xbox Coke Zone promotion, wrote for some gaming blog as well. Had her own personal blog, with the word "Viera" in it, but I couldn't find it. Gave up in the end.

Today, I get around to reading Lost Humanity 18: The Shitstorm. I'm reading it post-edit, but see the uneditted version on a forum. I'm thinking "Wow, these people can't even back up their own actions. This Dave keeps backtracking, and that Lauren threatened legal action over copy-pasting. Mega bitch.". Read through more of the comments.

I come across her twitter handle. @athiestium. Its a word I've not forgotted over the many years since I played XBL, as it sounds odd and I could never pronounce it. It's her XBL username. I remember her first name at this point too. I laugh. Maybe it is for the better that I didn't remember her, seeing as someone I once enjoyed playing with has turned into the industry's PR pooch.


On a more on-topic note: I hope organisations are making a place for Rab as we speak. His articles are great. Also Dark Souls pictures.

[gundato]

I do. In the first you're sugar coating the issues. In the second you're blaming everyone but yourself. What you should be doing is blaming everyone including yourself. I realize you gave a hypothetical and those two statements could be about two different projects, but since they're in relation to the same example I'll assume they're about the same project.

Saying "X in general is bad" without any proper references is crap journalism and comes across as mere speculation. I could write up a piece on a group of people, lets say footballers again, and not give any direct quotes/evidence to suggest they're like that. Now it's just a rag piece. It belongs in The Sun or The Daily Mail. By naming and quoting people you're giving meat to your news piece.

Mr. Cook shouldve thought about the knock on effects of what he was saying before he said it. He had time to. You always have time online to think before you say. And people who work online and in the media should be well aware of just how critical the internet can be and how important it is that they don't say or do things which can reflect badly on them.

Your proper references are "Supposedly unbiased journalists were causing readers to question their impartiality through a PS3 contest". Twitter lets you search by hashtag, right? Then the general hashtag used in the contest would provide all the twitter evidence desired while not singling anyone out.
BAM, a reference. Anything beyond that is just calling people out.

If you wanted to report on the footballers, I am sure there have been MANY previous articles that did say "Dick is a dick" or "Vinnie Jones is a psychopath, good riddance. In related news, he is a fun actor" that you can cite. But the moment you start quoting individuals during a "X in general are asshats" it becomes "X in general are asshats, particularly Y"

[Makariel]

OT:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ouble-act.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...-dogs-lie.html
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2011/11/0...-of-lara-croft
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...evolution.html
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/07/clou...-dissidia-012/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/02/the-...rror-is-dying/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/17/inte...oshi-minagawa/
http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/11/inte...akamasa-shiba/

Saw these linked, these are from the writer who threatened to sue.
Every single one of them reads as a PR release.

Wait, what? All of them are SqEnix games? That's funny, since she lists SqEnix as a current employer...
http://journalisted.com/lauren-wainwright

Edit: ah, has been pointed out already, didn't see the last couple of posts. But better be careful, don't want to be sued for libel :P

[Shooop]

Wait, what? All of them are SqEnix games? That's funny, since she lists SqEnix as a current employer...
http://journalisted.com/lauren-wainwright

Edit: ah, has been pointed out already, didn't see the last couple of posts. But better be careful, don't want to be sued for libel :P

Something like this demands a 60 Minutes investigation. But that would mean of course people would have to actually take games journalism seriously like (most of) the people here.

[Finicky]

Wait, what? All of them are SqEnix games? That's funny, since she lists SqEnix as a current employer...
http://journalisted.com/lauren-wainwright

Edit: ah, has been pointed out already, didn't see the last couple of posts. But better be careful, don't want to be sued for libel :P

I don't live in the UK, and I'm not anyone's mountain dew cheetos whore, so it's okay:p (I know you are kidding:p)

[SirKicksalot]

IncGamers pulled Lauren's review of the isometric Lara Croft

[Shane]

IncGamers pulled Lauren's review of the isometric Lara Croft

Haha, friggin Campbell, I love that man.

Edit: Shit, Rev. just retweeted that. I'm too tired to be making oherent posts, going to get some sleep now.

[Sketch]

Well it's proven, EA pay everyone to give them good reviews as Medal of Honor: Warfighters staggering 49% Metacritic rating shows.

[Estel]

Huh.

I didn't get the impression that Rab originally intended to claim or insinuate that Lauren was actually corrupt. I thought he was making a point that even small deviations such as retweeting an advert for a competition can create the impression (almost always misleadingly) of impropriety of some sort. For journalists striving for professionalism, and people who want the games press to aspire to these levels, even the vaguest of impressions of this leave a bad taste in the mouth and can feel amateurish.

It's bizarre that some journalists on Twitter came out completely against this very idea and very few even engaged with it, though perhaps Leigh's article in Gamasutra goes some way to pointing out the converse position that all games writers needn't aspire to that bar of impartiality.

It's a shame that some of this discussion is being clouded by claims of Lauren being an industry shill, because that really doesn't feel like the point at all. It's also morphing into personal attacks and sustained abuse towards Lauren herself, which is utterly disgusting.

[Finicky]

Huh.

I didn't get the impression that Rab originally intended to claim or insinuate that Lauren was actually corrupt. I thought he was making a point that even small deviations such as retweeting an advert for a competition can create the impression (almost always misleadingly) of impropriety of some sort. For journalists striving for professionalism, and people who want the games press to aspire to these levels, even the vaguest of impressions of this leave a bad taste in the mouth and can feel amateurish.

It's bizarre that some journalists on Twitter came out completely against this very idea and very few even engaged with it, though perhaps Leigh's article in Gamasutra goes some way to pointing out the converse position that all games writers needn't aspire to that bar of impartiality.

It's a shame that some of this discussion is being clouded by claims of Lauren being an industry shill, because that really doesn't feel like the point at all. It's also morphing into personal attacks and sustained abuse towards Lauren herself, which is utterly disgusting.

The point shifted for a lot of people when she used legal threats to bully eurogamer into editing the article. The man quit his job over it... She's just getting what's coming to her.

[Estel]

The point shifted for a lot of people when she used legal threats to bully eurogamer into editing the article. The man quit his job over it... She's just getting what's coming to her.

Yeh, she (allegedly) used legal threats. That doesn't make her guilty of being corrupt or a shill, as some have claimed, nor does it excuse her being abused as extensively as she has been. By "She's just getting what's coming to her" are you endorsing that abuse? (I'm not saying she shouldn't expect it, the internet being as it is, but it's still horrible and deplorable that it does happen and we should do everything in our power to stamp it out).

[Finicky]

Yeh, she (allegedly) used legal threats. That doesn't make her guilty of being corrupt or a shill, as some have claimed, nor does it excuse her being abused as extensively as she has been. By "She's just getting what's coming to her" are you endorsing that abuse? (I'm not saying she shouldn't expect it, the internet being as it is, but it's still horrible and deplorable that it does happen and we should do everything in our power to stamp it out).

So now she is the victim? and not eurogamer/robert? Awesome.
The threats and agressive reaction make her suspect, just a byproduct of being a pos towards the writer of the article and a detriment to journalistic integrity.

If her career shouldn't hang for being shill, it should for the baseless legal threats.

[Estel]

So now she is the victim? and not eurogamer/robert? Awesome.
The threats and agressive reaction make her suspect, just a byproduct of being a pos towards the writer of the article and a detriment to journalistic integrity.

They're not mutually exclusive.

[Jockie]

People are a bit quick to jump on the condemnation train. The twitter thing alone is a mistake, a daft mistake that events like the GMAs are designed to throw up, with their purposeful blurring of the lines between PR and journalism. If you think that alone is worthy of condemnation, you might be interested to know that RPS contributor Dan Griliopolis also tweeted the hashtag, he has since accepted it was a mistake (as did Dave Cook). Making a mistake, then being put instantly on the defensive as the walls start to close in doesn't make you a bad person or even necessarily a bad journalist.

The issue with Ms Wainwright is that she started claiming libel and refusing to accept any wrongdoing, when I think it's pretty clear that she's acting in a manner that does not befit someone who calls themself a journalist. In truth, I don't think she is a journalist in the traditional sense (see the Leigh Alexander article). MCV (her employer) are a trade mag who essentially compile PR materials then hand them out, with occasional industry analysis throw in. Wainwright, is more of a fan-girl blogger whose found herself in various high-profile places (destructoid, the Sun), perhaps due to enthusiasm, willingness to engage with PRs etc. Honestly I think she's massively out of her depth and though deserving of criticism in this matter, it's pretty horrible seeing all and sundry diving in to throw scorn (and now, horrific misogynistic abuse [although that's a different issue]) her way.

[deano2099]

I'm glad someone had the balls to actually name names and give concrete examples of supposed 'corruption' and actually open up the debate on it. The people involved could have opted to engage in the discussion, rather than get it shut down. Which, to my mind, is far more useful to the industry as a whole than the cowards that post angry blogs about "an Editor I used to work for did this" and "I once knew a magazine that did this" and then add "but I won't name names". Which means they could easily be making it up, as there's no way to prove it, and no way for the people/titles in question to offer their side of the story.

And that leads to threads like this, where people think every single games journalist is getting envelopes of cash to give games good scores. Because one or two stories that may or may not be true get extrapolated to apply to industry as a whole.

[Dexter]

I'd just like to point this out before some oversensitive people on likely Kotaku or even Walker come out and make this all about "gamer misogyny" again, which is likely bound to happen at some point since certain "individuals" are already trying to frame it that way making her the victim so everyone can get away from this scot-free and nobody starts pointing at "gaming journalists" doing bad things:




Just go to said places and read what is actually being written instead of taking it second hand by the same "hacks" that are getting all defensive right now:
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=497024
http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/159921371
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/commen...rom_eurogamer/

e.g. from 4chan: http://i.imgur.com/K7GsE.png

[Finicky]

They're not mutually exclusive.

So it's suspect, but at the same time it's also abusive to examine her history as a 'journalist'? (I have to use the ' ', I just can't say it with a straight face after reading the Squeenix articles)

Again, she is the bully here, not the community for looking closer.

Jockie summed it up pretty well.

SMH at the misogeny angle to deflect criticism, holy shit.
Could have guessed that was coming...

Someone should tell these twats that nobody cares if she has a dick or a vagina, the only thing anyone cares about is if she has integrity.