GamerGate thread

[Priran]

Maybe, but it is nice to see that the staging ground for GamerGate and the founder of that staging ground do actually agree that fighting feminism in video games is actually part of what GamerGate is about and not just about supposed ethics in games journalism.

At this point I gotta ask, do we really need any more evidence that GG is not just about ethics in gaming journalism?

Gamergate is just a hashtag used by people seeking to advance a cause. The individual people using that hashtag can have their own agendas behind using it, but the cause behind the tag, the thing all of their individual agendas can agree on, is getting rid of corrupt games journalists.

[Correction]

Weird that the catalyst continues to be things that revolve around women's issues. 'literally tricked into buying Gone Home,' by those horrible horrible reviewers, a $20 budget game sitting at 86 MC. Not Skyrim on PS3, a game that cost between $60 and $120, that sits today at 92 metacritic despite crippling framerate bugs. Not Battlefield 3, a game sold at $60 with a $40 season pass, sitting at 89 MC despite a catastrophic launch. No, it has to be a game that was tangentially connected to Zoe Quinn. But that's just a coincidence, we assure you!

Because it's about ethics in game journalism. I mean, look at these duplicitous reviews! People had no choice but to spend the equivalent of a movie ticket's admission based on these hyperbolic lies about how amazing the game was:

It's just a wonderfully crafted, well-paced story about a family. And that's really it. There's not much else out there like it. It may not sound like much on paper, but Gone Home had such an impact on me that I'll be thinking about this game for years to come.

As a statement of intent, Gone Home is laudable; as a technical exercise in game narrative, it's compromised, but it definitely has its strengths and is worthy of study. But you can't escape the sense that Gaynor, Zimonja and Nordhagen started on this project with grand designs for games as a storytelling medium, yet without a story they desperately wanted to tell.

Gone Home's detractors will cry that this isn't really a game. We'd argue that if it looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And guess what? There is a literal duck here, nesting over the key to the first locked door. It's not quackery: this is game design writ small and enthralled to the story, turning the player into both reader and author with a surprising degree of sophistication.

Yes, core gamers who only want to play games sure had that wool pulled over their eyes. And they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those kids and their damn dog.

[Priran]

Weird that the catalyst continues to be things that revolve around women's issues. 'literally tricked into buying Gone Home,' by those horrible horrible reviewers, a $20 budget game sitting at 86 MC. Not Skyrim on PS3, a game that cost between $60 and $120, that sits today at 92 metacritic despite crippling framerate bugs. Not Battlefield 3, a game sold at $60 with a $40 season pass, sitting at 89 MC despite a catastrophic launch. No, it has to be a game that was tangentially connected to Zoe Quinn. But that's just a coincidence, we assure you!

Because it's about ethics in game journalism. I mean, look at these duplicitous reviews! People had no choice but to spend the equivalent of a movie ticket's admission based on these hyperbolic lies about how amazing the game was:


Yes, core gamers who only want to play games sure had that wool pulled over their eyes. And they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those kids and their damn dog.

WW1 was about hating Serbians.


For what it's worth, I didn't dislike Gone Home. I thought it was an interesting way to tell a story. But that's what it is, a story dictated to the viewer in a 3D environment. It's not a game and it's not a dismissal of Gone Home to call it what it is.

[Lyall]

Metacritic isn't really a viable place to record scores since people have gone on the record as saying they've fudged them intentionally to keep them above the "no bonus for you" benchmark. I don't have the source offhand but I imagine googling it would find it fairly quickly.

That said, Gone Home isn't a game. It's a walk-through audio book. There are Powerpoint presentations that are as interactive as Gone Home is. Calling it 10/10 GotY is offensive simply because there isn't a game to be had there.

Personally speaking, 20 dollars for 80~ minutes of gameplay is enough to knock points off for me. How many times have reviewers cried about game length before? "Alien: Isolation is too long." "God of War 3 is too short." "Gone Home is 10/10 Game of the Year All Years."

Something strange about that.

[Correction]

There are two '10/10' reviews for Gone Home, one of them from the same publication that gave it GOTY (Polygon).

Here's the 2013 GOTY spread, including reader-voted GOTY:

GTAV: 10
The Last of Us: 15
The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds: 2
Call of Duty - Black Ops II: 1
Super Mario 3D World: 1
The Stanley Parable: 1
Gone Home: 1

Oh shit one publication went against the overwhelming majority. Dear me, an indie 'non-game' for casuals got as many GOTY awards as Blops2. The injustice. We must take this to the streets immediately. People were tricked I tell you, hornswaggled! By gum I won't live in a world where annualized franchises don't sweep, where gaming bloggers and journalists don't all come to the same conclusion about what was the best game of the year. Because different opinions are unethical I tells ya.

[Priran]

There are two '10/10' reviews for Gone Home, one of them from the same publication that gave it GOTY (Polygon).

Here's the 2013 GOTY spread, including reader-voted GOTY:

GTAV: 10
The Last of Us: 15
The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds: 2
Call of Duty - Black Ops II: 1
Super Mario 3D World: 1
The Stanley Parable: 1
Gone Home: 1

Oh shit one publication went against the overwhelming majority. Dear me, an indie 'non-came' for casuals got as many GOTY awards as Blops2. The injustice. We must take this to the streets immediately. People were tricked I tell you, hornswaggled!

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you completely losing your shit because you don't think anybody who bought Gone Home was misled by reviews and disappointed with their purchase, or have you totally lost your shit because you thought Gone Home deserved more?

[Lyall]

There are two '10/10' reviews for Gone Home, one of them from the same publication that gave it GOTY (Polygon).

Polygon is the same website that knocked Dragon's Crown and Bayo2 two because of tits, and also one of the sites implicated in the GamesJournoPro thing.

I'm sure it's 100% coincidental the folks clearly penalizing games for being provocative gave Lesbian Walking Simulator 10/10 for being progressive.

[RKenshin]

GG might've started with the journalism concerns, but to me its become more about defending gamers as a group (since this resulted in a lot of hate directed their way), the games they enjoy (with many hit/classic/major titles now being dissected and beaten with the misogynistic bat), and some level of how to address concerns without alienating/offending either party. Oh, and gaming journalism sucks.

[Correction]

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you completely losing your shit because you don't think anybody who bought Gone Home was misled by reviews and disappointed with their purchase, or have you totally lost your shit because you thought Gone Home deserved more?

I'm not the one with the conspiracy theory that gamers were literally tricked into buying Gone Home, or that the GOTY from Polygon is 'offensive.' I'm pointing out that GG's narrative of collusion amongst game journalists falls flat when, among other things, they target one publication for going against the grain and not simply slapping their GOTY on GTA V or The Last of Us the way 80% of all other publications did. That's not what corruption means. That's not what ethics is.

Oh dear a Polygon reviewer didn't like the depiction of women in Dragon's Crown and gave it a 6.5, clearly it's a sign they colluded to do so on GamesJournoPro because that's what everyone else did. Wait. No. That's exactly the opposite of what collusion would have produced.

[Abandon]

Polygon is the same website that knocked Dragon's Crown and Bayo2 two because of tits, and also one of the sites implicated in the GamesJournoPro thing.

I'm sure it's 100% coincidental the folks clearly penalizing games for being provocative gave Lesbian Walking Simulator 10/10 for being progressive.

i lol'd

[Lyall]

Do you work for Polygon, man? It's pretty clear that Poly's letting their stance on social politics dictate how some games are being gauged, and that's exactly what they're not supposed to do. Reader-voted GotY is always going to be a popularity contest, and with how hyped CoD is every year and how much press GTA gets no matter what they release, there's a million hype-riding idiots ready to lap up the writing about how awesome those annuals are. I agree that it's silly for them to win award after award after award, but you can make the case that those games ARE good without needing sensationalist bullshit to reward/dock points on a review.

As I've said before numerous times in these threads, there's nothing wrong with wanting to open a dialogue about a game's use of hypersexualized character proportions or what those proportions might mean for the audience playing those games. THE REVIEW COLUMN IS NOT THE PLACE. The Tropico review reads like fucking parody. They decry how it isn't fun to play as a dictator and how it trivializes the REAL suffering people have undergone at the hands of real-world dictators. The score is lowered because muh feelings got hurt.

That's the sort of shit that needs to go. When your website is supposed to review video games, telling your audience that a walking audiobook is better than ANY non-CDI Zelda game is just wrong. There were plenty of great games that came out in 2013 that got snubbed because social politics spoke louder than gameplay and game design.

[Priran]

I'm not the one with the conspiracy theory that gamers were literally tricked into buying Gone Home, or that the GOTY from Polygon is 'offensive.' I'm pointing out that GG's narrative of collusion amongst game journalists falls flat when, among other things, they target one publication for going against the grain and not simply slapping their GOTY on GTA V or The Last of Us the way 80% of all other publications did. That's not what corruption means. That's not what ethics is.

Oh dear a Polygon reviewer didn't like the depiction of women in Dragon's Crown and gave it a 6.5, clearly it's a sign they colluded to do so on GamesJournoPro because that's what everyone else did. Wait. No. That's exactly the opposite of what collusion would have produced.

Not sure if this is willful ignorance or just more trolling like archi. GameJournoPros factually did collude. Dale North resigned over it.

[Correction]

Do you work for Polygon, man? It's pretty clear that Poly's letting their stance on social politics dictate how some games are being gauged, and that's exactly what they're not supposed to do.

Yes let's dictate what writers are and aren't supposed to do.

THE REVIEW COLUMN IS NOT THE PLACE.

You aren't giving a very convincing argument for why that should be a rule every writer needs to follow.

That's the sort of shit that needs to go.

"We need less variety in our criticism of games."

Again, it's Gone Home that's driving you crazy, not AAA games that literally can't be played at launch getting 9/10 reviews. It's two 10/10 reviews out of dozens and one out of fifty GOTY awards from 2013 that's got you riled up about what game reviewers should and should not ever do. Because it's about ethics in game journalism.

Not sure if this is willful ignorance or just more trolling like archi. GameJournoPros factually did collude. Dale North resigned over it.

Speaking of willful ignorance are you suggesting that the EIC of Destructoid had something to do with Polygon's 6.5 for Dragon's Crown or GOTY for Gone Home?

[Priran]

Again, it's Gone Home that's driving you crazy, not AAA games that literally can't be played at launch getting 9/10 reviews. It's two 10/10 reviews out of dozens and one out of fifty GOTY awards from 2013 that's got you riled up about what game reviewers should and should not ever do. Because it's about ethics in game journalism.

Hey sperglord the only reason we're talking about Gone Home is because mazmaz asked about it.

[archibaldcrane]

Correction is just crushing it in here.

[Lyall]

Man, I was really looking forward to seeing how Nike's redesign of their famous Sports Shoe 2014 Kobe Edition turned out for the new season. Halfway through my practice, though, I thought about all those poor kids forced to work for minimal wages overseas and it really made me feel bad.

Pros: Shoe is comfortable and awesome

Cons: I don't like some things

Overall: 5/10

AAA games being unplayable at launch is a big problem. Let's see what Polygon had to say about SimCity4, a game hilariously broken on launch.

Oh, they gave it a 9.5/10.

Then they changed it to an 8/10. Then to a 4/10 in the span of a week. Arthur Gies went to bat saying that SimCity4 is impossible to play offline, and this is after someone modded the .init file to make the game infinitely playable offline.

Well, they changed their minds on that one. Wait, what about Diablo 3? A game that crashed so hard on launch that it also broke Warcraft and Starcraft while the log-in server was crippled?

...oh, D3 got a 10/10. Well, surely they changed, it, right?

Ordinarily, my position as reviews editor at Polygon is that we review a game as it exists on release day because our responsibility is to our audience. While we do all we can to maintain due diligence with regard to giving a game every opportunity to deliver, we choose your wallet and your time before the benefit of the doubt.

But Diablo III is different. It’s different because Blizzard has a track record spanning almost two decades of games that have become institutions, and it’s also run the most popular MMO [editor's note: massively multiplayer online game] around for almost eight years. Put simply, Blizzard, more than any developer around, has earned that benefit of the doubt. I believe that the server issues will be resolved. With that in mind, it does both our audience and Diablo III a disservice to dwell on that aspect in this review.

Oh. Being unplayable is fine because Blizzard did it. I see. I guess the one-dimensional loot that forced you into a cash shop and stupidly-ballooning "difficulties" didn't warrant a mention, either.

[NynJa]

Correction is just crushing it in here.

gets temped for blatant trolling in poopdeck, comes back and does it some more.

PS I'm pretty sure Correction is blatantly trolling too at this point, if he's defending a "definite GAME OF THE YEAR" review for a game that isnt even a fucking game.

[Ksandra]

Let's not go over the top care bear stare over what "trolling" is here.

Especially in regards to correction. I may not agree with a lot of his stuff, but he's voiced these types of opinions for fucking years. I doubt he is trolling.

[Correction]

Oh. Being unplayable is fine because Blizzard did it. I see. I guess the one-dimensional loot that forced you into a cash shop and stupidly-ballooning "difficulties" didn't warrant a mention, either.

I'm 100% in agreement that Arthur Gies and Ben Kuchera are full of shit, and that Polygon's editorial voice leaves a lot to be desired.

But saying 'x and y shouldn't exist in reviews' is not how you improve journalism. A variety of critical voices, whether or not you agree with them or what their motivations are, is a sign of healthy journalism, and the opposite of corruption/collusion. A review that takes exception with female representation and uses that as part of the score is allowed to exist. It doesn't represent an attack on gamers. Jim Sterling has covered this at least twice.

[Xajii]

Do you work for Polygon, man? It's pretty clear that Poly's letting their stance on social politics dictate how some games are being gauged, and that's exactly what they're not supposed to do.

According to who? Are you somehow under the impression that video game reviews are under a code of ethics?

It sounds to me that you don't like the way that Polygon reviews their games. That's cool. I don't either. That's why I don't read them or take the review numbers they give seriously.

They're not doing anything wrong. They're doing something you don't like. Which is why you shouldn't read them.

This isn't reporting. This isn't even promotion - which is something you COULD make an argument about, but the only thing anyone seems to talk about their is ZQ, where hteir entire argument is riddled with misinformation. This is about reviews, which are by default opinions. There's no code to break. You're upset about quality and the angle the reviews come from, not about its ethics.