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Fucking game journalism


FredEffinChopin
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  • 1 month later...

So Polygon have been at the centre of a bit of controversy of late. Initially they'd planned to not review SimCity at all due to it being at a review event in LA for 2 days. They stated as such on twitter and EA got in touch and allowed them to play the game at home. Polygon then reviewed the game, on the reviewers servers, and posted up a review before launch with a score on 9.5. Then yesterday after launch and the inevitable server failure they changed the score to an 8.0. They could have just waited all of 24 hours for the game to actually go up and no need to change a score (And are they going to change it every time the server goes wobbles, and if being unplayable at launch is still an 8.0 scoring game, does that mean when it goes offline it'll still get a 7.0 or something?) but it's a new site it's still old writers, and posting before launch nets you pageviews, stirring controversy nets you even more n pageviews means prizes. Could have also just stuck to their original guns and not reviewed the game at all (but that's even less pageviews than not reviewing at all)

 

Just waiting for BBC News business section to cover the FTSE 100, NYSE, Dow Jones n VOX Media.

 

Incidentally Witcher 2 EE scored only a 7. As I remarked on twitter Polygon rate the SimCity Launcher and queue clock as a better game than Witcher 2 EE. So there's not just the issue that they changed it, but that they kept it so high. But I guess it was nice of EA to bend over backwards for them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://ridiculoushuman.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/pure-folly-miss-polygon/

 

Polygon have done some more stuff, which Stuart Campbell has filled out on. It dotes on RPS a bit much, but more about Polygon showing true colours (with special cameo by our fave EiC of Kotaku) n stuff, good round-up of past week n bits antics.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey look:

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/04/08/veteran-tech-blogger-spills-xbox-720-reveal-date-pricing-and-more

Someone on the internet is quoting anonymous sources and saying that the XBox 360 will be released in November! IGN UK! TIME TO DO A REPORT ON IT! Oh shit! He's also taking a guess-- I mean, his sources say, that price will be 500 dollars. NEWS!

 

 

So if I quote anonymous sources and say the PS4 is coming out in November, you know, the month game consoles come out, and also take a guess at the price, can I be reported on by "gaming journalists"? UK ones of course, who clearly have nothing to report because all the news breaks for the EST/PST timezones.

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To be fair these people, while they publish crap for views lots of the time, sometimes DO get really reliable sources to give them info and they publish it. Kotaku did the same with the always online of the xbox like 2 weeks ago

 

Yeah, that's typically what I see. A lot of their time their sources really are people with inside information because if this console is coming out then there are people out there in the world who know these things especially as it spreads from the hardware dev team to the software dev team to game devs to marketing, etc. They expect their NDA to hold in their secrets.

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  • 1 year later...

I forgot about this thread. We were so "about ethics in games journalism" before it was cool.

 

btw stuff is going down.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-24-lost-humanity-18-a-table-of-doritos

http://botherer.org/2012/10/24/games-journalists-and-the-perception-of-corruption/

http://botherer.org/2012/10/25/an-utter-disgrace/

Worth following the various links. Oh and given the edit of the EG article Robert Florence has also since stepped down as a columns writer for EG.

Also adds an addition to the whole affair when you take in mind the events of last years GMAS and the media reaction to it.

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  • 1 month later...

So Michael McWhertor, previously if Kotaku currently of Polygon, privy to the fact Lego were making "Lego Dimensions" decided to grab the domain before lego could then redirect it to Polygon.

I'm pretty sure if I remember articles in the past complaining of domain squatters for likes of COD 9 n such.

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In Mcwhertor's defence, he claims he didn't have any info that wasn't publicly available, and had only gone through with the domain purchase to see if there was a hold on it from someone else (e.g. Lego or WB Games). He directed the traffic to (admittedly Polygon) pages that were related to the game and as soon as he was contacted he handed the domain over.

 

If anything, Lego and WB Games need to get their shit together. Other companies start registering domain names as soon as a name is decided on. It costs eff all and stops people squatting on the domain and doing all sorts of nefarious stuff.

 

In short, Mcwhertor was perhaps a little bit cheeky in going all the way through with the purchase, but I think it can be attributed to being a bit overzealous in his attempts to "investigate". Lego and WB Games dropped the ball by not registering the domain ages ago. Lego and WB Games should be thanking their lucky stars that a good guy got the domain and not a baddy.

 

Sony need to watch out for this too, their TM registrations have been woefully slack of late.

Edited by Thursday Next
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If anything, Lego and WB Games need to get their shit together. Other companies start registering domain names as soon as a name is decided on. It costs eff all and stops people squatting on the domain and doing all sorts of nefarious stuff.

 

Sony need to watch out for this too, their TM registrations have been woefully slack of late.

 

Very true, although in Lego's case, they hadn't even technically announced Dimensions yet and, if they wanted to keep it secret, buying the domain 'legodimensions.com' wouldn't exactly have been subtle.

 

Still, McWhertor pls

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For me the issue is more that he redirected it to pages that make him money, because I can see how the domain purchase itself could have been investigatory.

 

Yeah, that's really the only unsavoury point for me. Mitigated somewhat by that fact that it pointed to stuff related to Lego Dimensions. If it had pointed to Polygon's front page, or an unrelated Mcwhertor article, I'd be less inclined to give him a pass.

 

 

 

If anything, Lego and WB Games need to get their shit together. Other companies start registering domain names as soon as a name is decided on. It costs eff all and stops people squatting on the domain and doing all sorts of nefarious stuff.

 

Sony need to watch out for this too, their TM registrations have been woefully slack of late.

 

Very true, although in Lego's case, they hadn't even technically announced Dimensions yet and, if they wanted to keep it secret, buying the domain 'legodimensions.com' wouldn't exactly have been subtle.

 

Still, McWhertor pls

 

 

You can anonymously register a domain so that a WhoIs won't show the actual owner. Then for all the outside world knew it could have been John Legodo setting up a website for his mains electrical installation services.

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For me the issue is more that he redirected it to pages that make him money, because I can see how the domain purchase itself could have been investigatory.

 

That is the real issue. I only said the above to be like "I don't blame Lego that much for not having the domain already registered"

 

 

For me the issue is more that he redirected it to pages that make him money, because I can see how the domain purchase itself could have been investigatory.

 

Yeah, that's really the only unsavoury point for me. Mitigated somewhat by that fact that it pointed to stuff related to Lego Dimensions. If it had pointed to Polygon's front page, or an unrelated Mcwhertor article, I'd be less inclined to give him a pass.

 

 

 

If anything, Lego and WB Games need to get their shit together. Other companies start registering domain names as soon as a name is decided on. It costs eff all and stops people squatting on the domain and doing all sorts of nefarious stuff.

 

Sony need to watch out for this too, their TM registrations have been woefully slack of late.

 

Very true, although in Lego's case, they hadn't even technically announced Dimensions yet and, if they wanted to keep it secret, buying the domain 'legodimensions.com' wouldn't exactly have been subtle.

 

Still, McWhertor pls

 

 

You can anonymously register a domain so that a WhoIs won't show the actual owner. Then for all the outside world knew it could have been John Legodo setting up a website for his mains electrical installation services.

 

 

But then fountain-of-knowledge TN shows that even that argument wasn't well-founded.

 

Yeah, sucks to be Lego – sucks even harder to be ethically-problematic McWhertor

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For me the issue is more that he redirected it to pages that make him money, because I can see how the domain purchase itself could have been investigatory.

 

That is the real issue. I only said the above to be like "I don't blame Lego that much for not having the domain already registered"

 

 

For me the issue is more that he redirected it to pages that make him money, because I can see how the domain purchase itself could have been investigatory.

 

Yeah, that's really the only unsavoury point for me. Mitigated somewhat by that fact that it pointed to stuff related to Lego Dimensions. If it had pointed to Polygon's front page, or an unrelated Mcwhertor article, I'd be less inclined to give him a pass.

 

 

 

If anything, Lego and WB Games need to get their shit together. Other companies start registering domain names as soon as a name is decided on. It costs eff all and stops people squatting on the domain and doing all sorts of nefarious stuff.

 

Sony need to watch out for this too, their TM registrations have been woefully slack of late.

 

Very true, although in Lego's case, they hadn't even technically announced Dimensions yet and, if they wanted to keep it secret, buying the domain 'legodimensions.com' wouldn't exactly have been subtle.

 

Still, McWhertor pls

 

 

You can anonymously register a domain so that a WhoIs won't show the actual owner. Then for all the outside world knew it could have been John Legodo setting up a website for his mains electrical installation services.

 

 

But then fountain-of-knowledge TN shows that even that argument wasn't well-founded.

 

Yeah, sucks to be Lego – sucks even harder to be ethically-problematic McWhertor

 

 

 

It'd still show up as a registration of "legodimensions.com" though, and concatenated like that it would almost certainly be read as a Lego thing, though I suppose it could be a wiki detailing the size and shape of every lego block. :)

 

In an ideal world Mcwhertor would have gone all the way through to "Buy It Now" then sent Lego an email saying that the url wasn't purchased and waited to see how long it took for the domain to be snapped up. Such is life. I'd chalk this up to a no harm, no foul. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am getting real tired of all these sites that use the word "entitled" to describe people who don't like terrible ideas.  They did it when Microsoft backpedaled on the Xbox One's terrible original design and now they're doing it for paid mods on steam.  It's a weasel word that should never be used.

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