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After the whole THQN fuckup, I can safely say most of the gaming press is spineless.
- Thread starter GhostTrick
- Start date
then essentially you're talking shit.
you're calling the games media hypocrites when they actually havent done what you said they've done?
OP
OP
Oh, they took a stance and saying they'll stop coverage ? I didn't knew that !
I must have been in the wrong then ! Can you point me out to these statements ?
No ?
Then I take it that they'll keep covering and writing about their games once PR are sent.
Right, then allow me to reply:
I'm not "bashing" the gaming press out of nothing. Guess what ? They are part of the industry. They are the one reporting informations and are also the link between publishers and customers. THQN did a fuckin disgusting thing here as one of their higher up has been rather tolerant to homophobic crap and rather happy to post on a racist board hosting child pornography. So yes, I'd like that, the person in the middle, between me and the publisher, actually do something. Because when everything is fine, the gaming press is glad to report the information the publisher wants me to get. Now, I'd like the gaming press to report to the publisher what any sane person would think: Making promotion and giving voice to a racist website hosting child pornography, two illegal things in 99.99% of the countries in this world is TERRIBLE. If THQN think this isn't worthy of an action and apology, then it means they're okay with it. If they're okay with it, I'd find it normal that the press stop covering them.
This is your exact line
"I'm just saying that it's hypocrite to call out on a company to then promote it. Because as of right now, the gaming press is being a way to promote stuff. "
Point to a games site that has promoted THQN since the 8chan AMA? If not that's you straight up bullshitting because the games media havent done such a thing.
Not a single serious press site about video games is promoting THQN. What are you even on about? You're angry they aren't lynching the company more. You need more anger. Of course this is a serious thing, but pretty much every site I read bashed them over the shitty choice of hosting an AMA on 8chan. Like, come on. If you want more serious games "journalism", then boycotting everything you don't like means nothing. The companies will just go to influencers and shitty YouTube personalities and reach a younger and less critical audience instead.
OP
OP
I'll repeat myself: Lack of coverage right now is happening because of the lack of information. There's no coverage because there's nothing to cover. Duh. As there's nothing to cover yet, as I said, I'd love to see the press taking a stance. You know, actually SAYING what they plan to do. You're right, for now we'll have to see. But as no stance is taken, I take it as nothing has changed and that whenever THQN will send press releases, these will be carried out.
For now. Because there's nothing new to promote. You're right, the companies can still go elsewhere. But at least, they would've take a stance for something that is important.
so you're creating a false narrative to drive your thread. It's bullshit and you deserve to be called out on your bullshit thread.
OP
OP
What false narrative ? Did they take a stance ? Or did you just not read the thread ??
ok so let's break this down.
> They are part of the industry.
guess what, so are we. it doesn't just behoove the press to do something about this, there's also an onus on us as consumers to think about how we participate. we aren't passive in this equation.
> They are the one reporting informations and are also the link between publishers and customers.
sometimes, not always. publishers more and more these days are looking for ways to entirely cut out the press and reach consumers directly. often those efforts include avoiding the kind of scrutiny that comes from having their efforts filtered through the gaming press. i can quite imagine that any publisher PR would be thankful to never have to deal with an investigative journalist like jason schreier ever again.
we should be happy that the gaming press exist to be able to filter a lot of the bullshit that publishers put out, and look at it cynically. 100% there are publications who don't do the work to hold publishers to account, but there are dozens of excellent publications that take holding games companies to account seriously.
> THQN did a fuckin disgusting thing
no-one's arguing otherwise, and i heard multiple publications talk about it via their sites and podcasts.
> If THQN think this isn't worthy of an action and apology, then it means they're okay with it. If they're okay with it, I'd find it normal that the press stop covering them
the idea that the press would stop reporting on a major publisher because the publisher is shitty is just odd.
tbh there is a salient point that one could make here, and it's about *access journalism*, which is something that is slowly being discussed more and more these days. there's a certain degree to which there is a adversarial but symbiotic relationship between the press and publishers, where you might find yourself blacklisted by a given publisher if you piss them off (see bethesda and kotaku).
a final point. if you really want to give thqn some underdog streetcred amongst people like gators then by all means continue to advocate for them being delisted with the press.
this right here
"I'm just saying that it's hypocrite to call out on a company to then promote it. Because as of right now, the gaming press is being a way to promote stuff. "
this is false narrative. They are not promoting anything but you sure as shit are making it seem like they are
Someone on the gamesindustry.biz podcast made a great point, saying something along the lines of. If THQnoridc announces DeBlob 3 we need to make sure we keep the conversation open by introducing it as "THQnoridc who once hosted a AMA on site known for child pornography announce DeBlob 3"
Because that's the default and they've done nothing to indicate otherwise? It would be quite the abnormal step to stop coverage, something that would almost certainly necessitate a story in of itself to explain that they're taking that step going forward and will indeed not cover anything from THQ Nordic going forward until they end their relationship with those responsible with this incident. That's not something done from the shadows, but because of it's nature, would almost certainly be explained in a story in of itself so that people aren't confused and know what to expect.
That that's not the case, that there are no such postings on any of the major sites as far as I'm aware (and I could quite easily be mistaken about that and would love to be corrected if I'm wrong and do apologize deeply for that in the case, as it would indeed be my error here), kind of speak to itself in that regard. You certainly don't get to assume they're going to stop covering it based on nothing, because them covering that stuff is indeed the default and them stopping and forming their own boycott of THQ Nordic-related content would be a highly, highly atypical step even for situations like this that would necessitate an editor's note/story in of itself. You don't get to just assume that based on nothing, because that's not how that works in these kind of situations.
That being the case, I don't get what you're issue is with GhostTrick's posts unless you're assuming they're indeed going to stop covering anything involving THQ Nordic without saying anything at all. Unless they specifically say otherwise, there's absolutely zero reason to assume they won't (continue to post THQ Nordic PR, etc), because of exactly how abnormal and large a step that would be, and the confusion that would cause to their audiences without such a story/explanation.
My take as well.
There are very very very few people in the gaming press that do actual journalism.
What take? People shouldn't ignore them.
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OP
OP
Did I say they are promoting them right now ?
No, I said it's hypocrite to call them out and then promote it. The "then promote it" has yet to happen for the sole reason there's nothing to cover yet.
But as of right now, as there's nothing to promote, I'm asking them to take a stance. Where's the false narrative here ? I'm taking their silence on the matter that nothing will change.
I'm not going to reply now as I have something to do. But I'm quoting your post to tell you I'm not going to ignore it since you took efforts to write it and that I'm going to adress it later today.
As far as I can recall, VG247 was the only outlet who didn't beat around the bush and took a hard no coverage stance towards CDPR/GOG for propping up Gamer Gate and their homophobic and transphobic tweets. I just wish they did the same in this case as well and that others followed.
Anyone else remember when the news of crunch at Rockstar came out, someone made a post they were disgusted with the gaming press for not covering, only for 2 days later like 5 new articles poped up across those gaming outlets?
How about for once we take a wait and see approach?
How about for once we take a wait and see approach?
In my opinion, the ideal course of action would be for outlets to loudly and proudly announce that they've taken a no coverage stance against THQ Nordic until something drastically changes. Ideally.
I mean this as someone who spent most of his life following this this. Video games are cool but everything around them is a fucking mess. The word "gamer" was a marketing ploy to make people buying games feel special and the outlets usually echo the same opinions as the comments. There are exceptions but general gaming journalism is just talking about press releases and hype culture
They did it because nobody cares about GOG anyway, and Cyberpunk will be released 5 years later. But it was a good PR for VG247.
Curious. Why are we wanting to hold a whole company to account for the actions of one person who arranged the 8chan AMA on his own? You're essentially tarring the whole of THQ Nordic with the same brush, which is a ludicrous leap in my opinion.
The websites that I have seen cover what's happened have been enormously critical of the situation. But, what's left to report? Do you want them to write weekly reminders about it until he gets fired? Maybe he was asked to do the AMA, accepted, and genuinely didn't know the website's reputation - I hadn't even heard of it until this happened.
There are so many unanswered questions, and this whole thread seems like a kneejerk reaction to a situation that none of us know enough about. THQ Nordic will (unsurprisingly) be on damage control, so it's not like any website will get those answers until the company's ready to talk about it (if ever).
And, as others have said, the broader audience won't ever even read about it. If you want THQ Nordic to suffer in some way, vote with your wallets. Don't buy their games if this has angered you, but I don't think turning it into an attack on games media is particularly justified.
The websites that I have seen cover what's happened have been enormously critical of the situation. But, what's left to report? Do you want them to write weekly reminders about it until he gets fired? Maybe he was asked to do the AMA, accepted, and genuinely didn't know the website's reputation - I hadn't even heard of it until this happened.
There are so many unanswered questions, and this whole thread seems like a kneejerk reaction to a situation that none of us know enough about. THQ Nordic will (unsurprisingly) be on damage control, so it's not like any website will get those answers until the company's ready to talk about it (if ever).
And, as others have said, the broader audience won't ever even read about it. If you want THQ Nordic to suffer in some way, vote with your wallets. Don't buy their games if this has angered you, but I don't think turning it into an attack on games media is particularly justified.
As far as I can recall, previews for Cyberpunk 2077 where coming out at the time, a lot of coverage surrounding it. I wouldn't dismiss their stance as just a calculated PR stunt.
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Did you read the summary that has been linked to in the previous threads? Do you know who was involved in the AMA?
That's an odd take considering that they signal boosted a cesspool of bigotry and paedophilia and kept the link up for several hours after the fact.
Well, the actual founder/CEO said that an apology was made and left it at that, that has been his response whenever outlets reached out to him, wouldn't damage control in this case imply that they would be more transparent about the matter and try to improve their public relations? To me it currently seems like they are just waiting for the matter to blow over/trying to sweep it under the rug.
Obviously the child abuse that 8chan allows is the key highlight but your suggesting that the gaming press are somehow enabling it by "promoting" THQ nordic.
Again I would argue both that coverage of their games is not inherently promotional and also you are taking a pretty big leap to bash games journalists.
Even if they never cover THQ's games again, 8chan aren't affected. Obviously someone at the top of THQ should quickly lose their posts but to suggest the press didn't do their best in this isn't fair.
Also, are we going to include youtubers and Twitch streamers in this? Should all potential buyers also take part in a boycott? How far do we take this?
It really sounds like you want to rake the games' press over the fire for the traditional "they are too in bed with producers" line when there is no evidence of that here.
The most productive thing we can do, if we truly value this issue, is to vote with our clicks.
I've long stopped supporting many sites I used to visit religiously because they wouldn't report on issues I cared about. There's a reason why some of my favorite gaming reporters/journalists are independent authors.
I've long stopped supporting many sites I used to visit religiously because they wouldn't report on issues I cared about. There's a reason why some of my favorite gaming reporters/journalists are independent authors.
I agree with your sentiment, but in terms of tackling the issue head-on, first and foremost you need to vote with your wallets (if we are specifically talking about THQ Nordic signal boosting 8CHAN).
Because the gaming press is mostly glorified bloggers with the few great journalists out there not being able to do enough on their own.
Have reviewers get a spine and refuse special editions of games they get from publishers. Call them out for going to review events. Don't click on sites like GameSpot that transitioned to clickbait-y titles.
The fact is this has always been the case. The gaming press has always had the least amount of power out of any medium because of how it started on the 90s and the total lack of care from its audience. Chances are it will continue.
Have reviewers get a spine and refuse special editions of games they get from publishers. Call them out for going to review events. Don't click on sites like GameSpot that transitioned to clickbait-y titles.
The fact is this has always been the case. The gaming press has always had the least amount of power out of any medium because of how it started on the 90s and the total lack of care from its audience. Chances are it will continue.
That would be ideal but history has shown that game/publisher boycotts are extremely ineffective as most people don't adhere to them.
Making noise on social media and having the news reported is far more effective. Unfortunately most of our media failed us this time, so I suggest failing them in return.
christ alive. so many people here who have really weird/distrustful ideas of what constitutes a journalist. i keep seeing this "they're not even journalists" - which imo is what this is really all about. a modern paranoia that we're somehow being tricked/hoodwinked and that we cannot trust the press.
you know who fucking laps this shit up? game publishers. the more of a wedge they can create between the traditional gaming press and the gaming community, the less trust there is, the better it is for the pubs. that is why you have people like mike ybarra attacking and undermining the credibility of the gaming press.
you know who fucking laps this shit up? game publishers. the more of a wedge they can create between the traditional gaming press and the gaming community, the less trust there is, the better it is for the pubs. that is why you have people like mike ybarra attacking and undermining the credibility of the gaming press.
I don't distrust most of the media but I don't think it's far fetched to say the majority of gaming sites employees are reporters, not journalists. The closest thing to journalism most gaming sites do is a Q&A or interview with the developers.
That doesn't make them untrustworthy, but failing to pickup on something as harmful as this THQ/8-chan story does not lend them credibility in my opinion, it does the opposite.
Are you suggesting they don't intend to market it at all? Doesn't make sense. They're a huge publisher actually, I seriously doubt they usually go an entire week performing no public PR duties. They are responsible for a much larger number of titles than you are admitting.
Their twitter account isn't super active usually but they would usually post every few days which they haven't done since the fuckup. I'm pretty comfortable saying this has been a considerable setback to their normal duties. They are a huge company really and it will be costing them to be silent for so long.
Edit: they also know eventually they'll have to talk to someone and that someone will want to ask questions. If they can't promote upcoming titles without this distraction it will cost them there too. As I said before the media still has a chance at following this up if they choose to. It will be interesting to see if THQN decide to try and dodge those who would ask them about it. I think they will find that very difficult
loads of sites reported on this story. it seems like the argument has devolved into 'yeah, but not those other ones' or 'not loudly enough for my liking'.
This isn't how the press works, or should work.
Wtf, everyone picked up on this. EVERYONE critizised THQN for doing this. They were bashed from here to the sun by pretty much every gaming site. But apparently nothing is enough until the guy responsible is publicly shamed and fired and/or the damn PRESS starts boycotting things.
Nah, authorities should take the whole site down if its publishing that kind of vile content. No way they'd suffer it to continue, risking prospect of innocent internet users stumbling across it.
Any industry so beholden to AAA publishers and so nascent in its life (we're talking 20, 30 years tops) is gonna strudel with integrity. There's also no "games journalism" course in Uni or board of ethics (ESRB LOL) to hold people accountable, either. Some people like Schrier do their best, but he's a unicorn among the swine.
Siri has been fucking with me lately. I'm just gonna leave strudel where it is.
Siri has been fucking with me lately. I'm just gonna leave strudel where it is.
There's a difference between a site known for white supremacy, Nazis and child porn and a site which has a bit of the two on dark corners of the site. I really hope you're just trolling.
There was some very good reporting from a number of game sites however IGN, Gamespot and Kotaku could have been much stronger.
It is the gaming community and the gaming industry that is proven spineless and when that happens what do we expect from the gaming press to do? They will naturally follow.
It is the gaming community and the gaming industry that is proven spineless and when that happens what do we expect from the gaming press to do? They will naturally follow.
It wasn't just some people, it was upper management in high ranking positions. Also the initial response from THQ has been really poor for something as serious as this. None of the response so far has made it seem like they are gonna take action either. Not to mention they kept the link to the AMA on their twitter page for an entire day.
And on top of all that, the posts those THQ employees made while they were in there was also very troubling. It is not just one thing, it is a series of very bad actions that THQ will not take responsibility for.
does it even count as a gaming press specifically? It's more of a collection of unqualified bloggers with a couple exceptions.
There are some sites that did very little reporting, there are sites that did better reporting and there are some that did no reporting at all.
There is a point where the reporting ends and where journalism needs to begin and no one was capable of getting a followup of what happened. Most sites took a few tweets as gospel and left it at that.
That is what I am criticizing, those that did the bare minimum or no reporting at all.
I believe this excellent summary should be a required reading for anyone that wants to express their opinion on the issue because we tend to reply the same things again and again.
Summary of the topic up to now.
To provide background as to 8chan. 8chan as an anonymous message board modeled on 4chan, but meant to be less restrictive than 4chan. As 4chan already restricts very little, in practice what this means is that 8chan is a 4chan clone with a focus on child pornography / pedophilic content.
From Wikipedia:
Additionally, 8chan has a large Neo-Nazi presence, and was the host to Gamergate supporters after 4chan banned them. Blatant anti-semitic, misogynist, and racist posts are extremely common. Additionally, things like doxxing and swatting; the list just goes on.
Because of this, Google has removed 8chan from its search listings. Instead of finding the website, your search results will result in sites like Wikipedia that just tell you what the website is. This is important to note, as if someone interacts with the website, it raises the question of how they even found it in the first place.
THQ's official twitter announces that they're performing an AMA on 8chan's gaming board, /v/:
THQ also notes that they were approached by the gaming board's owner, a Mark (the identity has been guessed at being Mark Kern of Red 5 Studios, a noted Gamergate supporter, but I don't think it's been definitely proven). Cue The Room jokes.
Mark promises to handle the "nasty stuff", which presumably suggests that THQ is aware of the risk of posting on a child pornography supporting message board and wants to avoid legal risks or something along those lines. At any rate, them acknowledging "nasty stuff" tells us that they know it's a possibility here.
Getting a little ahead of ourselves, but they also like a tweet calling criticisms against the AMA on 8chan - again, a site largely defined by its attitute to child pornography - as "sensitive", suggesting a flippant attitude to the whole situation.
We can see a similar attitude expressed in the Linkedin of their PR and Marketing Director, Philipp Brock.
After speculation that maybe this was a hack or a fake, a journalist at PC Games Insider reaches out and confirms that this actually is THQ Nordic.
Some comments from Imran (news editor at Game Informer).
Looking at the activity within the AMA itself. But before you even get to the thread, you have to go to /v/, which was currently advertising a board devoted to pictures (perhaps illustrated) of children at the top of the page. Note that "shotacon" refers to attraction to young boys while "lolicon" refers to attraction to young girls, and "shota" and "loli" to the children themselves.
This would be seen both when posting the thread and going to reply to it.
Note that while 8chan is an anonymous message board and any user can put in any name, there are ways to identify users. I believe IDs are generated on a thread by thread basis and mapped to a certain IP address, but I confess I don't know the specifics of it. In this case, we can see that all of THQ's users are given an ID of 159bc1, which identifies their posts as coming from the same place regardless of what name they put in, perhaps a single company IP being subnetted to multiple users. Additionally, they are given a ## Reporter tag by the board's manager to confirm their official status.
One THQ Nordic name we see is Philipp, the aforementioned PR and marketing director, Philipp Brock.
We can see Philipp assuring an 8chan user that the company will not appeal to social justice. He does not have the ## Reporter tag here, but he does have the 159bc1 ID.
Another post where Philipp tells the user that they've already got "big tiddie lolis" - again, underage girls. Here we have both the 159bc1 ID and the ## Reporter tag.
Here Philipp makes a joke. No ## Reporter tag, but he does have the 159bc1 ID.
Another THQ Nordic name involved is Reinhard. Here we have Reinhard ignoring slurs posted in the AMA. Both the ## Reporter tag and the 159bc1 ID are present.
Reinhard also responds to a homophobic post saying that the image might be from one of their games. Again, the ## Reporter tag and the 159bc1 ID are both present.
Reinhard appears to be Reinhard Pollice, Business & Product Development Director at THQ Nordic. Bear in mind that we're now dealing with a major player within the company, not just someone low on the PR rung.
http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/board-and-management/
When reached to for a response, Reinhard puts the blame on Philipp.
Another member of THQ Nordic is Fabian. His identity is not confirmed. However, he does have the ## Reporter tag and the same 159bc1 ID.
In another post, he says that he has no idea why they picked 8chan as the venue. Again, he has both the ## Reporter tag and the 159bc1 ID.
Meanwhile, 8channers are whining about ResetEra, because what else would a forum with a big Gamergate continigent do. Other questions contain the sort of content (racism, nazi imagery, etc.) that is expected from this website.
Philipp ultimately provides an apology.
Note that the contents of the apology claim that the issue was due to lack of due diligence and understanding. Also remember that this is a website that is unlisted by Google, that they had spoken the board owner previously and specifically on the topic of "nasty stuff", that they had clearly seen questionable content during the AMA itself, and that they had liked a tweet that claimed that critics of the AMA were just sensitive. The claim made in the apology doesn't match the evidence.
In an interview, Philipp claims that he continued the AMA despite the offensive content because he was overwhelmed.
In another, he defends one of replies in the AMA.
Waypoint reached out to the CEO of THQ Nordic who declined to comment, instead referring to Philipp's apology.
Waypoint also reached out to THQ Nordic's actual developers, who are upset at being tied to this marketing attempt.
The story is picked up by various websites. This includes gaming websites (Gamesindustry.biz, Waypoint, Gamasutra) but also more general publications like (Newsweek, Variety)
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...olding-ama-on-imageboard-known-for-child-porn
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/art...ebsite-banned-for-suspected-child-pornography
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...osts_AMA_in_a_notorious_internet_cesspool.php
https://www.newsweek.com/thq-nordic-ama-8chan-games-twitter-mark-1345068
https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/thq-nordic-holds-ama-on-8chan-1203150074/
8chan is a site setup by people banned from 4chan for posting too much child porn. That is not a secret. It is not a site comparable to Reddit or Facebook.
Of course it does, selective coverage is a thing. In this particular case there is potential to use it for something good.
That's pretty much up to the individual outlet, VG247 did take a no coverage stance against CDPR/GOG and I found that worthy of admiration.