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Escapist: How Do We Finally Talk About Ethics?
- Thread starter Giolon
- Start date
I want to know if you read the article from start to finish, and if you did I'd love to hear about how you arrived at the conclusion that this is a call to reboot GG.
Not just you, Zashga, but every person posting a similar hot take, because there are a lot of them. Seriously, y'all. Read the article. In general you should be reading the articles in the OP.
I would possibly agree with you if there hadn't been a very public and very similar example in the political world just a few years earlier. I'll grant that the Game Journalism crowd was sort of uniquely situated for this rather intentional trap on the part of alt-right Steve Bannon and his bastard attack dogs, because they were all sort of located together and friends even as the old days of Ziff-Davis, etc. scattered.
That said, you ignored what I said about maybe the unique nature of journalism needing a clearer line there, repeated generic "industry forum" things I've heard before, and then contradicted the poster right before you:
Me too. Me too.
I did read it. The entire point of the article is ostensibly to revive discussion about ethics is games journalism, which I don't believe to be a sincere concern. Spending a few paragraphs bemoaning the excesses of gamergate without getting into any specifics (and especially without addressing The Escapist's role, new management or no) isn't sufficient to convince me that 1) he understands what was wrong with gamergate, or 2) that he's actually interested in talking about ethics in games journalism for real this time. Anyone who wants to seriously tackle that topic will need to spend considerably more effort addressing the toxic waste dump it emerged from. For The Escapist in particular, that may well be impossible.
I don't think I'm obligated to go back and respond to every point you make in the thread, and I disagree enough with your premise that I don't think there's a point in engaging further. I don't believe the outrage over the group or others like it is legitimate. Obviously, you disagree. Not entirely sure what you mean by me "contradicting the poster before me" but to be clear, I'm not trying to assert you're a bad actor.
This is a bizarre assertion. Actual discussions and solutions for the ethics issues will have nothing to do with harassment campaigns.
From what I remember, the EIC during that time was Greg Tito. And he tainted that site forever basically, by opening its doors and basically promoting a hate group. Don't think there is anything worth salvaging here.
I dunno, a video game outlet supporting a harassment campaign seems like it has a lot to do with ethics in games journalism.
That is a good point. I wasn't considering issues specific to each outlets like that.
All the more reason to have the discussion about ethics though.
Gamergate was a shit show. Escapist is meh.
However, given recent shenanigans around Epic store and the entire gaming press basically jumping down PC gamers' throats for not willing to support that needs to have a conversation around it. Between that and the whole "influencer" shtick which also muddies the water. That said, this has nothing to do with an article in the OP, so it's kind of a tangent. Personally I am super impressed by our own resident press sneak on the board and the deep dives Jason does but that's very rare to see.
For pricing/cost, especially with AAA games, I would defer to Jim Sterling who has couple of excellent videos talking about "real" prices of games, especially with FOMO driving sales of high priced editions.
However, given recent shenanigans around Epic store and the entire gaming press basically jumping down PC gamers' throats for not willing to support that needs to have a conversation around it. Between that and the whole "influencer" shtick which also muddies the water. That said, this has nothing to do with an article in the OP, so it's kind of a tangent. Personally I am super impressed by our own resident press sneak on the board and the deep dives Jason does but that's very rare to see.
For pricing/cost, especially with AAA games, I would defer to Jim Sterling who has couple of excellent videos talking about "real" prices of games, especially with FOMO driving sales of high priced editions.
Russ is correct on those points, buuuuuut...
This has nothing to do with how GG started and the origins of the clarion call "It's About Ethics In Game Journalism," unless he's asking that we discuss ethics in the game industry? Because that's something people have been discussing.
The "ethics" of old started with the Jeff Gerstmann firing and people always pointed to that as evidence that there was something rotten in Denmark, and the seething continued until more progressive game blogs began taking pervy Japanese games to task for being skeezy, even going so far as to award those games LOWER SCORES (gasp) when reviewing them, which led to the increasingly angry chorus of "JUST SHUT UP AND REVIEW IT OBJECTIVELY!!!" that began to litter comment sections for scathing reviews of JC Pantsu no Ecchi DUNGEON LIFE Plus and anything localized by NISA, or any game featuring teenage breasts as the prominent gameplay mechanism, generally. this led to a backlash against those game blogs, which were joined by an increasing number of reviewers willing to let objectification slide, then Anita Sarkeesian burst onto the scene, then Leigh Alexander wrote the the "Gamer is Dead" article, then 4chan went after Zoe Quinn, etc. The "ethics" behind GG was, at its core, only ever anger that game journos were criticizing gross games for being gross and scoring them appropriately (especially the scores, geez), and I'm not sure what unionizing developers, developer burnout, and dishonest monetization schemes have to do with ethics in games journalism.
This has nothing to do with how GG started and the origins of the clarion call "It's About Ethics In Game Journalism," unless he's asking that we discuss ethics in the game industry? Because that's something people have been discussing.
The "ethics" of old started with the Jeff Gerstmann firing and people always pointed to that as evidence that there was something rotten in Denmark, and the seething continued until more progressive game blogs began taking pervy Japanese games to task for being skeezy, even going so far as to award those games LOWER SCORES (gasp) when reviewing them, which led to the increasingly angry chorus of "JUST SHUT UP AND REVIEW IT OBJECTIVELY!!!" that began to litter comment sections for scathing reviews of JC Pantsu no Ecchi DUNGEON LIFE Plus and anything localized by NISA, or any game featuring teenage breasts as the prominent gameplay mechanism, generally. this led to a backlash against those game blogs, which were joined by an increasing number of reviewers willing to let objectification slide, then Anita Sarkeesian burst onto the scene, then Leigh Alexander wrote the the "Gamer is Dead" article, then 4chan went after Zoe Quinn, etc. The "ethics" behind GG was, at its core, only ever anger that game journos were criticizing gross games for being gross and scoring them appropriately (especially the scores, geez), and I'm not sure what unionizing developers, developer burnout, and dishonest monetization schemes have to do with ethics in games journalism.
What a bunch of bullshit. We have arguments over micro-transactions and crunch and reviews and everything else, every single day.
We weren't part of any hate movement, so we don't have to try to tiptoe our way around it. If you think that's the big thing that keeps you from having an unrelated discussion, maybe it's because you know you should have taken a stand against that shit when it was happening (or you were an active part of the disease, like the Escapist).
We weren't part of any hate movement, so we don't have to try to tiptoe our way around it. If you think that's the big thing that keeps you from having an unrelated discussion, maybe it's because you know you should have taken a stand against that shit when it was happening (or you were an active part of the disease, like the Escapist).
I'm not sure why people are calling this article "excellent. In the "Journalists getting squeezed" section, there is a clear pivot from well-detailed recap of print journalism's difficulties adapting the digital age to a vague statement about video game outlet writers taking shortcuts with few examples. Even though that should be where most of the examples are.
And the solution to journalists facing extreme pressures is... Tell readers about review copies? Is that supposed to a be joke? You're the head of the fucking Escapist.
And the solution to journalists facing extreme pressures is... Tell readers about review copies? Is that supposed to a be joke? You're the head of the fucking Escapist.
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Man
Let me ask you a question
How do you think people with pre-release copies test online functions in a game
asking if someone is being exploited or mistreated is an ethical question and will always be. games journalists ignoring exploitation when reviewing games plays heavily into that.
Can't forget to include some back-patting in the editorial on ethics in journalism.
It's really hard to care about this when the absolute worst case scenario you can come up with is something like:
Journalist gives a game a higher/lower review score than they believe the game actually deserves because they have some kind of undisclosed relationship with the maker (which can even involve money changing hands) or they agree/disagree with the developer on some issue outside of the game itself, and they want to affect the game's reception.
Because of that the following bad consequences occur:
1. The game gets a little higher or lower meta score than it deserves.
2. Developers maybe even get or miss a bonus that they might not have for certain games because of the illicit reviews. Maybe on the extreme extreme end someone gets fired.
3. Consumers may be improperly influenced into buying a game that they would not have bought if the meta score or specific review they saw was a bit lower.
And that's really it, as far as the people who crusade the hardest against this are concerned. Undisclosed deals or hidden agendas are not a good thing, to be sure. But holy shit the amount of concern spent over these potential breaches of ethical standards when the possible improper results are so minor, or so stupid, is just ridiculous.
Journalist gives a game a higher/lower review score than they believe the game actually deserves because they have some kind of undisclosed relationship with the maker (which can even involve money changing hands) or they agree/disagree with the developer on some issue outside of the game itself, and they want to affect the game's reception.
Because of that the following bad consequences occur:
1. The game gets a little higher or lower meta score than it deserves.
2. Developers maybe even get or miss a bonus that they might not have for certain games because of the illicit reviews. Maybe on the extreme extreme end someone gets fired.
3. Consumers may be improperly influenced into buying a game that they would not have bought if the meta score or specific review they saw was a bit lower.
And that's really it, as far as the people who crusade the hardest against this are concerned. Undisclosed deals or hidden agendas are not a good thing, to be sure. But holy shit the amount of concern spent over these potential breaches of ethical standards when the possible improper results are so minor, or so stupid, is just ridiculous.
The same way people at Facebook discuss kids spending money as "friendly fraud:" in digital chat mechanisms that are labelled "secret" or "private," yet are in the long-term anything but. Chatting game functions pre-release... who cares if it leaks later. Discussing "friendly fraud" in secret... problem. I'm not... asking for pre-embargo transparency.
Eh I get it: I'm out of touch. My area of concern here is practically Discord's business model. "Ethics" will continue to be rewritten by the upheaval of our technopoly until we settle on a new set of them. They will be weird and alien and unfamiliar to both Russ Pitts and myself, honestly.
Here are the defining sentences of the piece, apparently:
The sweep through actual concerns is uneven but not misguided. Maybe a little old-school. The golden age of indies he sees is also just another facet of developers working harder and longer for less and less reward in a marketplace of automated discovery algorithms, hungry influencer pitchmen, and aging games press icons who already have enough close friends, thank you. Most major game engines (including Epic's) have also become marketplaces to cash in on the indie dev dream from both ends. Unreal Engine, along with Fortnite, enables Epic to do this aggressive pitch for Epic Store against Steam, eliciting a whisper of existential dread for wholesale digital adopters who at best bemoan all the storefront launchers they must deal with, and at worst must wonder if their endless access to their digital library is as guaranteed and secure as they thought it was. With an endless supply of new games, was it foremost in journalists minds to warn consumers about the drawbacks of digital? The mid-tier AA development level has been entirely gutted in the last ten years, and every major studio purchase by a major publisher eventually degrades and devolves the studio into dust, so there is no "middle class" in the games industry where you can settle in a sustainable career, unless you approach the top. And as the indies multiply in a fixed marketplace and the AAA's release fewer games that are in fact self-contained marketplaces, every problem the industry has from exploitation of labor to lack of sustainability seems inextricably tied to the same issues plaguing every industry: this endless death-march of unlimited expansion without end or consequence... until a crash.
"Ethics" in video games journalism existed for me since I noticed 80's mag Electronic Games ran actual reviews while Atari Age used promo copy. Seems like a pretty quaint concern now, looking back. The real discussion about them now are still going on, just without that word. Because it indeed got coopted like a cartoon frog.
This, who gives a shit. We've got tons of real problems that people keep ignoring.
Ethics in videogame journalism is not something any reasonable human being should give a shit about. It's a hobby for god sake.
Media will always be held to a higher standard. They're the ones we're supposed to get our news from, so in the public's eye they can't be tainted.
And when they are, or are even perceived to be, that's when we get the people who scream "FAKE NEWS" because they get presented with facts they don't want to believe.
Frankly, I don't care about the "ethics" of an online consumer magazine. It's like complaining about the "ethics" of a sears catalog.
Right, obviously if people can't handle their favorite games being given .5 points less than a perfect score, the issue is with the concept of scores, and now with, you know, people needing to fucking grow up. Let's remove score from everything else as well, wouldn't want anyone's feelings to be hurt; take down Yelp, ban them from school and college exams. etc.
I swear gamer egos are the brittlest substance in the entire universe.
I agree with this generally although bonuses and firings seem like serious enough consequences to me to be slightly concerned.
I'll add to your list that professional game reviewers are in no way the gatekeepers of anything in the current internet environment. There are enough reviews that a single "corrupt" score has minimal impact on anything. The consumer also has more access to footage and opinions than ever before. It's easier than ever to inform oneself.
Besides that, isn't the new sketchiness all about YouTube influencers who are not trained in or sworn to any formal standard of professional ethics in the first place? Is that games journalism? Regardless, the purported concerns on people who actually care about these issues may apply more readily in that area.
From day -1, really. Before it was re-branded as Gamergate to try and gain mainstream support, it was called "Quinnspiracy" and yeah, was exclusively about harassing women. Never at any point in its history or pre-history was GG ever about ethics.
GG was about harassing women from day 1. No one gave shit about 'ethics' or 'journalism'. It originated by the allegations of a salty ex boyfriend, ffs.
Article is just yet even more gaslighting for some "yeah those GG people are shitty, but there's some valuable discussion here!" brand re-alignment.
What ethics ? Very few people in the industry are actual journalists.
Also dont give me the ethics bullshit, it was just a strawman used by Gamergaters to spread irrational hate.
Also dont give me the ethics bullshit, it was just a strawman used by Gamergaters to spread irrational hate.
Agreed. Being part of the hype machine and typing up paid advertisements I mean previews and reviews doth not make one a journalist.
Sure, every few months an article will be written discussing a topic- and those are glorified essays.
100% this.
The article seems to consider gamergate as some sort of great, stifling shadow that inhibits the entire games community when in reality it was seen for what it was years ago and dismissed by reasonable minds. I think we're all better at differentiating between smokescreens and genuine views these days as well through other movements in society, Jim Sterling for example has been tackling subjects like influencer sponsorship ethics for years and shockingly without a hidden alt-right agenda.
The typical priorities of some gamers will always baffle me.
This person has been harassing people, usually women, for years by using his position = "who cares, these so called victims are either lying or they should have come forward sooner, why now after x amount of time has passed?"
This outlet gave a game a higher/lower score than I think it deserves = "Burn that fucking place down and drag this journalist out to be burned at the stake!"
This person has been harassing people, usually women, for years by using his position = "who cares, these so called victims are either lying or they should have come forward sooner, why now after x amount of time has passed?"
This outlet gave a game a higher/lower score than I think it deserves = "Burn that fucking place down and drag this journalist out to be burned at the stake!"
There was at one time, well before GamerGate, a legitimate move by games journalists themselves to push back against publisher advertising dollars adulterating the legitimacy of game reviews. People like Jeff Gerstmann (GameSpot / Giant Bomb; fired for refusing to increase a game review score in the face of pressure from the game's publisher who was heavily advertising on GameSpot at the time and started Giant Bomb as a result) and Rab Florence (Consolevania / Eurogamer; https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-24-lost-humanity-18-a-table-of-doritos) rightly lashed out and were promptly punished by the the publications they worked for. This was a completely seperate thing from GG. Just goes to show how subversive bad actors on the internet can hijack legitimate issues and twist them to fit their agenda when and where convenient.
Edit: Forgot to add the likes of Jim Sterling in there, as well.
Edit: Forgot to add the likes of Jim Sterling in there, as well.
I'm just gonna throw this out there out there, but I don't think MovieBob would've returned to The Escpist like he did if he thought it would continue catering to alt-right shitheels.
cool, so escapist is definitely still catering to gamergate dweebs, just with a modern plausible deniability spin.
This article feels so weird because I don't think a barrier to avoid discussing bad media practices actually exists. If a scoop pops up about a website taking a bribe to kill a bad-labor-practices story or something, just publish that. If the games media is too dismissive of consumer concerns over the epic storefront, write about that. If you describe clear corporate malpractice people will care.
Trying to make a meta-conversation about the topic of ethics is just gonna be an avenue to more harassment because it's kinda conspiratorial. "We need to have a conversation about ethics in gaming, guys, there's just so much sketchy stuff out there."
Trying to make a meta-conversation about the topic of ethics is just gonna be an avenue to more harassment because it's kinda conspiratorial. "We need to have a conversation about ethics in gaming, guys, there's just so much sketchy stuff out there."
Just to clarify, Rab wasn't fired from his role, he stepped down because Eurogamer were being threatened with legal action by another games journalist mentioned in the piece.
They couldn't afford it, so amended the article, Rab felt he couldn't support it so stood down.
I was going to link the very same Eurogamer piece you linked but then realised you had already done it but somehow taken a weird view that he was punished by his publication.
Don't mean to have a go but it is important to have clarity on these issues, that's what prevents bad actors re directing these issues for their own gains.
If you check out the blog by Rab I've linked, you'll see the biggest regret is that his original article thesis was lost to a bunch of people misreading it and using it as an excuse to threaten a female games journalist. Because of course it fucking did.
[citation needed]
Seriously, outside of Filip Miucin (whose psychological issues seemed to run deeper than just cutting some corners) is any of this really a concern in 2019? I could see being cautious about influencers as there's nothing really in place to keep them honest about compensation, but they aren't journalists and don't/shouldn't claim to be. "Ethics in Games Jornalism" has always been a fancy way of saying "sneaky SJWs are ruining my games behind the scenes" and has never been about anything else. It's a non-issue.
I don't think I've ever seen as bad of a possible reply as I did from Russ there. Jesus fucking Christ.
like I said his article was transparent. you can talk about specific problems in game journalism without mentioning gamergate. which seems super important if you're trying to rehabilitate your shitty image. but Russ's post was as much about rehabilitation as gamergate was about ethics.
An honest article asking how game journalism discusses ethical issues in video games should probably... I dunno, cite websites other than The Escapist that discuss those issues? Waypoint, Deorbital, Unwinnable, Kotaku, Bullet Points are all out there talking openly about ways games and games journalism is broken. The only games website this article cites (other than itself, which it cites 9 times) is an IGN article about the video game crash of 1983. C'mon. Pitts cites the fucking Washington Examiner of all places before a legitimate games website and dares to ask "where all the good games writing is."
Id like some users here chiming in on this after they said Russ was one of the good guys.
This is one of the things that rubs me the wrong way the most about this article. It's ostensibly "let's discuss ethics," and then when it comes time to do that...he doesn't. He cites an ethical breach that WAS discussed when it was relevant. He makes vague accusations but says nothing of actual substance, and then goes on to talk some nonsense about review copies of games.
Zoe Quinn just posted a thread where she is rightfully pissed that he decided to revive a GG hub website without even acknowledging that, write a poor ethics in games journalism screed with no substance, and not even contact her despite him evoking the spectre of GG-a hate campaign that she was at the center of. His response is....woooooof.
You got to it before me, but that second tweet was such an unnecessary escalation.
Yeah, absolutely nuts. Sorry, wasn't trying to steal the post from you or anything, I'm just sitting here flabbergasted as I read it all in real time on Twitter.