Fucking Kotaku

[Hot Heart]

Lol. My bookmark led me to Gizmodo instead, clicked the Kotaku header...reloads Gizmodo. Took a good few clicks before it decided to load Kotaku.

 

Can't say I've noticed a speed difference, if anything it is faster. Except it's incredibly unstable at the moment and doesn't load a lot of things properly.

[deanb]

Was about to come say is anyone else getting uk.gizmodo.com as well in place of Kotaku?

The old layout back is nice, but I don't particularly want to read Gizmodo after they published that whole "you're all stupid retards WAAAHHHHH!!" rant thing.

Also uk prefix is ....interesting. Certainly new. Nice that the workaround gets the old layout at least, shame it's front page stuff only and everything else is the broken horrible stuff. Best part is you can get to your old profile page, with all the nice tabs like "comments"/"Messages" and your website n Gamertag stuff.

[Battra92]

Can't say I have that problem, personally. But then I do have a fairly fast connection.

 

It does fail to load pages as well as comments sometimes though.

 

My connection isn't the problem, it's one of the best in the USA. There's a decent chance it's my computer, but it's a 4-year-old MacBook Pro that was top of the line (for a mac lol) when I bought it, and no other site gives me problems like this.

 

They seem to hate Macs as my Macbook (non pro) chokes on it as well. Oh well, one less regular for them I guess.

 

I will miss Lifehacker, though. :-(

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I don't see how OS would effect this. Just browser.

[SomTervo]

Know what I like the least about the new sites?

 

I'm coming to Kotaku, but it doesn't look like Kotaku.

 

Where's that iconic Red/Yellow colour scheme? Save some red words and the yellow 'Kotaku' design, it's all white n shit. Psychologically, it's actually making me uninterested in reading the articles they post on there.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Kotaku seems to have lost its identity more than the other sites.

[SanaEquiesterer]

Sometimes I felt as though some editors were writing certain things just to start arguments. One Mike referred to Zelda as an RPG, and Crecente's points about why Black Ops should be game of the year were pretty weak. His rebuttal at the end gave me the impression he took some things personally. And Plunkett often spun headlines pretty badly.

 

I'm a little surprised to see a lot of dislike for Ashcraft's writing. The sense of humour he included in his articles was different, and I liked him for it.

[Enervation]

Where's that iconic Red/Yellow colour scheme? Save some red words and the yellow 'Kotaku' design, it's all white n shit. Psychologically, it's actually making me uninterested in reading the articles they post on there.

 

It's sort of like the same thing McDonald's did when it expanded - they originally had a plan to scrap the Golden Arches, but the economist they hired basically said "no, it's too iconic. People recognize McD's by this symbol alone."

 

I don't think Gawker took that into mind.

[excaliburps]

Just going to add my 2 cents into this.

 

I'll be speaking on behalf of my years with Kotaku and as to what I think. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

While I get where all the hate from Bash comes from he's actually a good guy. I mean out of all the editors Bash and Owen are the most approachable ones. At least from my experience.

 

That doesn't speak about his (Bash) writing ability. He does tend to focus less on the gaming and more about the lifestyle. I'm kinda indifferent about it. He posts some things that pique my interest. He posts some things that are a bit bland...And so on.

 

Fave contributor so far has been Totilo. From a purely "I want to read what he wrote and it's not nonsense" sort of way. Granted, he's the newest out of the bunch so writer's fatigue or whatnot is not that noticeable.

 

Least favorite? A toss-up between Plunkett and Tim Rogers. I think in the long run I'll go with Tim.

 

Plunkett does put a lot of opinionated posts on the site. Some that border on being trollish. And he can't take criticism all that well. BUT! At least I can stand what he posts and have an idea what's it about.

 

Tim Rogers just seemed like an overly pretentious, douchey, hipster to me. I read one of his long rambles and for all his bravado, long sentences, big words it's not deep. And clearly the man thinks highly of himself a bit too much. That, and he clearly loves his own writing too much as well.

 

He obviously likes writing about himself way more than games. To the point that games are pushed to the back-end so we can hear about how he likes his food, styles his hair, how many pounds he's lost, etc. Which, I don't know about you but was very boring to me.

 

I tried reading another of his articles again and came to the same conclusion. Tim = Loves himself too much.

 

Not to be a jerk, but I think the fact that he's in Japan and he's friends with Bash are the primary reason he's even with the site.

 

Now let's get down to the big kahuna. Crecente himself.

 

I actually don't have a problem with his writing style.

 

What I don't like is his selective reporting, unwilling to accept criticism and the fact that he thinks his opinion is better than the rest of us. Yes. Even the other editors.

 

The reason this is amplified for me is because I remember when he wasn't like this. I stand to be corrected, but the former EIC was Florian Eckhart (Screen name). And Crecente was just a contributing editor back then. I don't remember him being this spiteful, etc. Of course we all grow up so that's part of it.

 

In some cases it's pretty obvious which games Crecente likes. Those games tend to get a lot more coverage than games he doesn't give a flying fuck about. That should be ok...For us readers. For an editor? Nope. Shouldn't be the case as what you don't like maybe what a lot of your readers like.

 

Case in point; Call of Duty. Crecente likes/loves Call of Duty. That in itself should be no big deal. It is a big deal when other shooters' news, info are left by the wayside because of it.

 

Prime example is me and a couple of people tipped in something about BF3. A ton of info about BF3. No response. No post about it. No nothing.

 

But we do get countless CoD map posts, videos about lucky kills, etc.

 

Which is odd. Seeing as the last few BF3 stories has been viewed by a ton of people and are heavily commented on.

 

I think I'll leave this here. As it's quite long enough. I can give out more examples if need be. I'm quite happy with Kotaku to be honest (although not now). But it's the community above all that keeps me there. I'm friends with the editors well enough. But they shouldn't forget how they became this big in the first place. That, and the fact that there are countless other sites where we can get our news from.

 

TL;DR your choice. Just my two cents. First time I said any of these in public and it feels good!

[deanb]

Hah, your post read more like it should of opened with

 

"Hello, my name is excalipurbs and Iv'e being reading Kotaku for 5 years now......and I've not read it for 3 days now" *small round of applause from the rest of us* "feels good man"

 

Yeah I echo your sentiments on Bash, dude is pretty chill and he has been one of the best when replying to emails. But he's not exactly what I'd go to a game site to read

Luke annoyingly is generally one of the more on-topic, but yeah he's very opinionated. Which because of the way the system (very depressingly) works can become the opinions of everyone else.

Tim...well Tim on the new format better not become a featured article because...http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2066351/kotaku%20beta.png (large-ish file)

 

The COD obsession I'm kind of unsure about. tbh many of us reckon there's some under the table deal, cos even a huge COD fan isn't going to start spending articles on reviewing faceplates for a game.

http://kotaku.com/#!...ut-does-the-job

It was a star well spent (shame he banned everyone else in that thread)

Though I guess it might be the reasons for more recent posts and his GOTY stuff (I didn't actually read any of their GOTY stuff, I have a feeling I should get up to speed on Crecentes. I echoed the opinion that their method was very pretentious to hold out, especially since their GOTY choices were pretty much the same as any other site anyway)

It is a shame their coverage is so mainstream. They rarely cover indies unless they become big via other means (and while I'm a fan of Minecraft, their coverage went too far. However it does make a lot of videos and images which make for nice n simple posts to make)

 

Anywho I'm gonna reply to your "Introduce Yourself" queries here:

Wait. What do you mean "stalking your Facebook account?" Care to go into details...

 

What snark that Crecente throw back at you?

 

I do remember tipping him about a super-sale in one of the major US outlets. He told me the flyer is most probably a fake and it's an early April Fools joke. Turned out it wasn't. He posted it in Kotaku with no mention of where he got it.

 

That, and I was a bit appalled at how he handled the GOTY Black Ops shenanigans. I mean people who didn't like his pick seemed to be getting the unstarring, banning that they didn't deserve, I know of one particular guy who got sent to the cornfield because of an innocent comment about it. Even the other editors was a bit miffed that Black Ops was even in the running.

 

I actually got into a mini discussion with Plunkett about it and he didn't hold back. One of the few instances where we agreed on one thing.

 

Which reminds me. I tipped a couple of things about BF3. This was last week or this week. Did not get a response. Did not get a post. But every CoD lucky kills montage, map pack info, etc. gets posted? WTF? Seems like because he (Crecente) is a huge fan of CoD, we're subjected to read about it more than other high-profile games.

 

And it's not like people aren't excited about Battlefield 3 either. Their last post about it garnered a ton of views, comments and a lot of positive feedback.

 

So, I take it if an editor drops by here and sees any of us talking trash we're going to be banned there? Did they ban your account again?

 

Basically after I was banned last July Crecente made a comment on Speakup that directly referenced stuff I'd said on Facebook. Thing is googling my kotaku account name for my facebook account takes you to my dummy account: http://www.facebook....100000905110468 which I used to play Farmville for a while (was gonna do an article on it, kinda gave up cos the game was a tad crap). Which means you'd have to jump through a couple loops to get to my real name from knowing my kotaku username then to get to my facebook. Now going through your readers facebook profiles is crossing the line, but going out of your way to track down their facebook account? That's not just crossing the line but going right over the border.

Should be noted I'm not their faceboook friends, I don't use a facebook account on Kotaku and I don't have kotaku "liked" especially after that whole thing where they stuck Gawker Applications on our FB accounts without asking.

 

Oh here's the 3DS thing as promised:http://kotaku.com/#!...343073:24343073

Lol at his "confirmation" (which I repeat from yesterday turned out to be wrong) I can't remember if we had PXOD back then, I think we did, I should of brushed up that image n posted it as an article.

Anywho I can't find his reaction of the concorde stuff. There is this one which is pretty infamous across the net:

http://kotaku.com/#!...s-the-xbox-pure

Where he basically blamed CheapAssGamer for a rumour he reported on, rather than taking the hit himself for not bothering to look more into it and notice CAG had a forum competition going on to come up with a rumour. I assume the guy who came up with the Xbox Pure rumour won

 

Which apparently googling for myself on kotaku and then the CAG incident chucks up this which I guess might be worth a spin through. I guess folks finally took crecente up on his "like it or leave" offer.

It did link to this which I remember it being fun when it hit the net:http://www.something...taku-parody.php

 

Oh and Kotaku in general:

http://kotaku.com/#!...slow-load-times

If they find a game they want to dislike, they'll go full hog on it. A fair chunk of thier GT5 stories were ridiculing how long it was taking to come out but this took the cake. While it was eventually updated and corrected it took them about 2 days to do that. Took them over half a day or so for them just to put in the first update despite many folks immediately pointing out that it was obviously slowed down. But hey, why listen to your readers pretty good and correct advice huh?

 

edit: some more of that trademark "I'm right, you're wrong lalalalalala" http://kotaku.com/#!kotakueditorialboard/forum?comment=35899914:35902898

[excaliburps]

@Deanb

 

I read your post. But I have to read it again to let it all "sink" in. I will post an adequate reply. Needless to say that was something. Especially the last link. Holy crap! So the guy lost his star because he didn't agree with whatever Crecente said? Unbelievable.

 

I will re-read this again while I'm on break from work.

 

[CrowKnow]

[Spamps]

 

Just saw this, was lmfao

[Mr. GOH!]

I don't give a fuck if Bash is a nice guy. I also do not give a fuck about the content of his articles, except insofar as it may be really, really fucking old news. Kotaku can publish what it wants; "off-topic" shit does not bother me. People like the sort of bullshit Bash writes about and that's cool.

 

What does bother me is that Bashcraft cannot write a coherent article. He add zero, nada, zip, zilch to anything he writes about. Indeed, his godawful writing makes the shit he writes less interesting than it would otherwise. The man should not be paid to write for a fucking high-traffic blog. It's insulting to people who can actually write.

[Vargras]

 

lmfao. That's great.

 

My biggest gripe with the new layout is that it looks like a damn wordpress blog. It went from appearing relatively professional, to looking like something an amateur can do. And for some reason, sometimes pages and articles will load twice - they'll load once, then randomly refresh themselves and load again.

[Spamps]

I'm chomping at the bit to see the PA news post related to that comic. Tycho's tweets have been funny enough, but I want to see the formal statement of fury.

Edited February 11, 2011 by Spamps

[TheForgetfulBrain]

Their blog post is up.

 

I love that PA took this on, though I guess it's not the first time they've crossed swords with Gawker.

[excel_excel]

That Penny Arcade comic, God I love those guys!

 

Gawk-Blocking. I like that.

[CorgiShinobi]

Like I've said, I stopped being a part of the Kotaku community when they "gave out passwords to the Soviets," but I would still visit the site about every other day. Now with the redesign, I've been to the site a total of three times.

 

Heck, really two of those times were out of pure boredom.

 

EDIT: But yeah, like in the PA blog post, the one thing I'll miss is Totilo. Quite frankly, I think he was the last improvement that Kotaku ever saw (perhaps ever will see).

Edited February 11, 2011 by Atomsk88

[SanaEquiesterer]

@Deanb (long post; not hitting "Reply")

 

Thanks for the brief history. I started a summer job with no internet connection the very day that "Kotaku D-Day" happened, and I was in the dark for the following two months. By the time I got back I guess the dust had settled, though I do remember times in June when you were talking about the site.

 

I knew Crecente really brought down the banhammer at times, but your links have made me see him in an entirely new light. I think I have a little more resolve to get some websites they link to and just leave Kotaku behind for good.

Edited February 12, 2011 by SanaEquiesterer

[deanb]

If you're wanting a list of sites just check:

http://board.pressxordie.com/topic/24-game-news/

[SanaEquiesterer]

If you're wanting a list of sites just check:

http://board.pressxordie.com/topic/24-game-news/

 

I've been to the thread, thanks; it saved me some time. Once I started giving up on Kotaku, Rock, Paper, Shotgun was one of the first sites I went to without thinking about it.

 

Kotaku named some articles as a series, like Total Recall, and I thought they were actually links. I'll have to unlearn some sites, too, it would seem.

Edited February 12, 2011 by SanaEquiesterer

[FredEffinChopin]

I had it in my mind that I wouldn't really spend time on here talking about Kotaku, but I can't help this.

 

It looks like they are reverting to their old review style, or something strongly resembling it. Perhaps they realized that they can't force people to read their articles the way they want their articles to be read? Maybe they realized they said "fuck you, deal with it" one too many times and everyone is jumping ship? Either way, too little too late. It's really sad, I've never seen a site decline so badly, so quickly.

[deanb]

Nah that's their current review format, (unless they changed since then?). The old review style was the Red n Blue layout of this was good, this was bad. Though that format has dropped the presumptive questions of "lets pretend, yet fail miserably, in guessing what the readers might ask". It was one of the more obvious signs they were getting out of touch. Could of easily been solved with "we're going to review Game X, what do you want to know?"

[TheForgetfulBrain]

http://kotaku.com/#!5756324/sunday-comics/gallery/1

 

Looks like Kotaku posted the PA comic.