Exposed: The Secret Mailing List of the Gaming Journalism Elite

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After weeks of #GamerGate, cover-ups, and gaming sites attacking their own audience (gamers), I sincerely hope this isn't real. :(

Several prominent gaming journalists across America are part of a secret mailing list on which they discuss what to cover, what to ignore, and what approach their coverage should take to breaking news, Breitbart can reveal. The sight of journalists not only engaging in activism on behalf of their reporting subjects but also discouraging other reporters and editors from covering stories of interest to their readers will be disturbing to many in the industry, who have long suspected a persistent bias and unusual levels of co-operation and co-ordination from senior journalists.
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This just looks like shop talk to me. Not sure why anybody would be surprised at people talking behind the scenes in any industry!?
 
The whole GamerGate nonsense is the direct result of many years of fucking with consumers with bad reviews. If you play games then you don't read professional reviews. You either go on YouTube and watch less bias reviews or go to Twitch and watch someone play the game. Here's a clue, if someone is sponsored then it's likely they have a biased review. If someone is signing their check then it's just a matter of time before they start to give every game they review a high score.

The only reason this is a topic in the news is because gaming journalists are getting fired left and right. So they're basically lashing out and trying to make themselves seem reletvent by becoming an issue. Look at the whole fiasco with Destiny in how it's bombing with user score. Bet you that game was big on those secret mailing list, cause like Titanfall and Watch Dogs, it was over hyped to hell and back.

The core reason this is happening is because anyone with a web cam or ability to log into Twitch will give a better review than Kotaku. Lets play videos are killing them.
 
will be disturbing to many
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the only thing "disturbing" to me honestly is how there continues to exist gaming "journalism" Its mostly tabloid like reporting, coupled to forums that seem to solely exist for people to vent their spleen over things
 
Professional Game "Reviewers" need to die as a profession. Users do their job better than they do for free. All the professional reviewers hated DNF, but I enjoyed it a lot. It was everything I wanted in a Duke Nukem game.
 
I've been sort of following this #gamergate ordeal, mostly because the sits I read talk about it...

But I don't get the big deal? I really don't. I don't care, people are people and will behave badly. Take everything with copious amounts of salt and use your own common sense. Do your own research. This Gamer Gate appears to be a non issue and just a huge circle jerk.
 
I stopped paying attention to the gaming press 6 years ago because this collusion was plain as day to see even back then. The technology has just progressed to the point where the evidence is easy to find and get to.
 
Ashbringer said:
Lets play videos are killing them.
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This. Back around 2000 game reviews were pretty legit. If you liked the genre, and it got good reviews, you would probably like the game. If a game got around a 60% score, it was garbage. These days it's the opposite. The best games are the ones with 70% or 80%. If the game has a huge budget it will get a 90% or higher score and be awful.

If I'm deciding if I might like a game or not, I just watch Let's Play vids.
 
simland said:
I've been sort of following this #gamergate ordeal, mostly because the sits I read talk about it...

But I don't get the big deal? I really don't. I don't care, people are people and will behave badly. Take everything with copious amounts of salt and use your own common sense. Do your own research. This Gamer Gate appears to be a non issue and just a huge circle jerk.
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It's a big deal because it is in the general public's eye now, and I would say the majority of the media consuming public will take things at face value. Since #GamerGate has been getting a lot of attention the "journalists" have been doing their best to discredit those with legitimate criticism. It seems the trolls for the most part have gotten bored at this point, so it is even more important to them now since the more logical people have gotten louder. Their very existence is being threatened, so they're acting like a cornered animal.
 
like ive said before.

we all know who runs the entertainment industry. everything entertainment related theyve taken over.

ever since they got their grubby hands on the gaming segment its been nothing but crap like hollywood, the music industry, and sports entertainment.

gaming isnt like it used to be and this is why.
because "THEY" ruined it.
 
Armenius said:
It's a big deal because it is in the general public's eye now, and I would say the majority of the media consuming public will take things at face value. Since #GamerGate has been getting a lot of attention the "journalists" have been doing their best to discredit those with legitimate criticism. It seems the trolls for the most part have gotten bored at this point, so it is even more important to them now since the more logical people have gotten louder. Their very existence is being threatened, so they're acting like a cornered animal.
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Is the big point review scores? Or is it the sexism? I keep getting confused. A number of loud people seem to be trying to use the tag GamerGate as a platform for their own purposes.

Again, it really seems like an issue between journalists and the handful of people who think there should be "integrity" in journalism. Anyone who still believes there is integrity in media, need only turn on the TV and have their world come crumbling down.
 
Ashbringer said:
The whole GamerGate nonsense is the direct result of many years of fucking with consumers with bad reviews. If you play games then you don't read professional reviews. You either go on YouTube and watch less bias reviews or go to Twitch and watch someone play the game. Here's a clue, if someone is sponsored then it's likely they have a biased review. If someone is signing their check then it's just a matter of time before they start to give every game they review a high score.
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That's my approach. I might watch trailers and some gameplay videos from the developer, but if I want honest information then I read forums and watch random peoples' gameplay videos. Still gotta take even that stuff with a grain of salt since some people complain a game is broke yet they later admit they're trying to run it on a machine that doesn't even meet minimum requirements.
 
Yeah, this is a hardly a shocker. I doubt people knowing specifics will change anything either, it's not like finding out dirt on a president so they can be impeached. The best it can do is tilt the conversation, so that the next time a jame journalist writes something moronic or sponsored, have the comments are calling them shills.
 
The problem is, if you're on the fence and want the game on day one, you're only choice in regards to game reviews are from the select few who have pleased the game developer/publisher.

You can not trust any game reviewer (would not call them journalists). When's the last time they told you the game dev/publisher paid for my trip, airfare, hotel and food as well as a nice gift bag of cool stuff....

The publishers are more to blame then anyone else
 
So that bit about the "Gamer" identity dying? turns out what is Dying is Gaming "Journalism". Mostly because they aren't actually journalists but as someone mentioned Tabloid writers and Paid reviewers. Things like Twitch and Youtube (those of us who Actually play and talk about it While we are playing) are taking off because we earn the respect of fellow gamers because we are Gamers.

Many of us have been yelling for years that published reviews are straight up bought and paid for bullshit. So many games were absolutely horrible but getting amazing reviews. So many games were absolutely horrible but Sold Mass numbers because people read the "pre-review" and blindly pre-ordered/bought it. That business model is dying and it couldn't happen fast enough as far as i am concerned. I know myself and many gamers share the belief that we are simply sick and tired of half finished releases, paying to beta test and being told oh if you want the "Full game" you need to buy all this extra DLC.

Sure we all have different tastes and sometimes a bad game is going to be liked. Apparently Destiny is one of those games. Reviews were good (bought), users rated it low, yet despite the fact that I personally hated Halo and thought for years it was over hyped garbage and held that against Destiny I actually Enjoy destiny...Sometimes personal taste is a strange thing indeed. Now I don't discount the problems people are complaining about, All I'm saying is that I "personally" find it fun and it was worth the money I dropped. Rather it was within my expectations for a console shooter, which admittedly are pretty low given I believe that PC > Console for shooters.
 
The GamerGate is a bunch of bullshit with a bunch of idiots especially Zoe Quinn going "LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!". Fuck off, I don't give a shit about you. The person who made up the story of how she was forced to leave her home still hasn't proven to this date that she actually filed a police report. Plenty of people have been willing to put up money to a charity of the person's choice but she hasn't taken up on them. So.... 100% bullshit. The story needs to die.
 
The main importance of the issue is knowing what sites to delete out of my favorites. It's helped trim down the list a bit.

Yeah I know, should never be surprised about lack of ethics, but hopefully some folks begin to understand why collusion in Journalism is bad, be it games or other. I don't know if anyone remembers Journolist anymore, but if you look at the nightly news and wonder why some stories just flood the zone while others slink off and die, it's because these people collude to cover stories they want to cover and suppress stories they don't.

All I have to say on the rest of the matter - all the gender stuff - if you want games that cater to your sensibilities: either go out and make them, or convince devs to go out and make them. That's fine. There's enough space in the pool for everyone. When you go and start attempting to prevent people from making other games - games you may not like, or that offend your delicate view of the world - you've crossed the line. When you gang up on people - or get groups of your people to go and harass or bully people - you're not a journalist, you're an activist (or another word that starts with a). You are a blogger with a better business card. Free speech is supposed to be for everyone, not just people who agree with you.
 
simland said:
Is the big point review scores? Or is it the sexism? I keep getting confused. A number of loud people seem to be trying to use the tag GamerGate as a platform for their own purposes.

Again, it really seems like an issue between journalists and the handful of people who think there should be "integrity" in journalism. Anyone who still believes there is integrity in media, need only turn on the TV and have their world come crumbling down.
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The whole thing was set off by the Zoe Quinn incident, which resulted in the mass drop of opinion pieces by the gaming "jounalists" that the gamer identity was dead. The whole GamerGate movement started as the result of the "journalists" attacking their own audience, pointing out the hypocrisy and history of questionable ethics practices in the business. Since it was set off by the Quinn incident and Anita Sarkeesian claiming she needed to leave her home due to threats of physical violence, the gaming media is trying to keep the conversation about sexism to discredit people as misogynystic boys.

So the whole thing is really about the gaming journalism business as a whole, it has just come to a head at this point due to the stories and opinion pieces they have posted in the last month. The problem with games media is that the "journalists" are still the gate keepers to the information.
 
flashoverride said:
TWhen you go and start attempting to prevent people from making other games - games you may not like, or that offend your delicate view of the world - you've crossed the line. When you gang up on people - or get groups of your people to go and harass or bully people - you're not a journalist, you're an activist (or another word that starts with a). You are a blogger with a better business card. Free speech is supposed to be for everyone, not just people who agree with you.
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Nice job using a strawman. They criticized things using a feminist viewpoint and are complaining that not enough games catering to them are made. They did not try to "prevent people from making games". Also, they own the publications so they can choose what to publish, like Fox "news" or various other "news" sites. Fortunately, a new site was created after this that will hopefully be "neutral" (I believe it is actually impossible to be neutral on any topic).

Also, #gamergate has been coopted by sexist assholes already. You claim that journalists gang up on people who disagree with them, but you neglect to mention the people who ganged up on those 2 feminists who rally around #gamergate. Really, #gamergate has been poisoned and anyone using that tag no longer has credibility. It'd be better if we made a new one and hope the harrassing assholes don't follow.
 
invinciblegod said:
Nice job using a strawman. They criticized things using a feminist viewpoint and are complaining that not enough games catering to them are made. They did not try to "prevent people from making games". Also, they own the publications so they can choose what to publish, like Fox "news" or various other "news" sites. Fortunately, a new site was created after this that will hopefully be "neutral" (I believe it is actually impossible to be neutral on any topic).
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"are complaining that not enough games catering to them are made".

So go out and make some. Spend a little less time telling everyone else in the world what terrible, horrible, no good, very bad people they are, and get off your behind and go make the games you want. Or at least try not to sabotage people who are putting their money where your mouth is.

When you "criticized things using a feminist viewpoint", what you are implicitly doing is saying "these are bad and shouldn't exist". When people start defending those things and you explicitly come out and call them all kinds of names and try to convince others that those kinds of people are dead or deserve to disappear, well... You reap the whirlwind, so to speak.

Plenty of people - myself included - have gotten death threats on the internet, so all that "waaah waaah I gotted a mean tweet" nonsense is just that, nonsense. I didn't see a lot of these guys white knighting up for Jack Thompson, or for anyone with whom they disagree ideologically.
 
So what are the odds in a few months Gamergate dies down and not a damn thing in the industry has changed?
 
flashoverride said:
"are complaining that not enough games catering to them are made".

So go out and make some. Spend a little less time telling everyone else in the world what terrible, horrible, no good, very bad people they are, and get off your behind and go make the games you want. Or at least try not to sabotage people who are putting their money where your mouth is.

When you "criticized things using a feminist viewpoint", what you are implicitly doing is saying "these are bad and shouldn't exist". When people start defending those things and you explicitly come out and call them all kinds of names and try to convince others that those kinds of people are dead or deserve to disappear, well... You reap the whirlwind, so to speak.

Plenty of people - myself included - have gotten death threats on the internet, so all that "waaah waaah I gotted a mean tweet" nonsense is just that, nonsense. I didn't see a lot of these guys white knighting up for Jack Thompson, or for anyone with whom they disagree ideologically.
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Sorry, I vehemently disagree with this. What you are saying is no criticism is allowed ever. Don't criticize Michael Bay movies because that means that Michael Bay movies are bad and shouldn't exist. Don't criticize burger king because it is bad and shouldn't exist. Movie critics, food critics, will all be popularly banned. "Reviews from a particular viewpoint" have existed for a long time. Such things are separate from "neutral" reviews, which is a relatively recent thing from the 1950's. Also, criticizing would not make it disappear. Did porn for men disappear? No, just there are now also porn for women. So by criticizing it, they made it known to developers that games like these could sell (though it is unproven if they will).

Also, just to be clear, I believe there is no such as a neutral review. For instance, imagine a hypothetical game about a pedophile hero (has no basis in reality and is not a metaphor for anything). Most people would be disgusted by such a concept. Would a "neutral" site cover it based only on mechanics? By covering only on mechanics, people would perceive that the game is "acceptable" or at the very least "non-offensive". If they don't cover it, they either don't know about it or deem it "unacceptable". Either way, sales would be reduced and future games would shy away from such a concept, thereby "discouraging" it. Would such a site be neutral? I think not.
 
If you want to know if you should buy a game, watch someone play it on Twitch. I don't read any game review site and haven't for over a decade. User forums, then YouTube, and now Twitch are much better indicators of whether I'll like a certain game. Although in actuality game review sites might be great, I wouldn't know, because like I said, I never even click their clickbait, let alone reviews.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
So that bit about the "Gamer" identity dying? turns out what is Dying is Gaming "Journalism". Mostly because they aren't actually journalists but as someone mentioned Tabloid writers and Paid reviewers. Things like Twitch and Youtube (those of us who Actually play and talk about it While we are playing) are taking off because we earn the respect of fellow gamers because we are Gamers.
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Very often a lot of the more popular channels on Twitch are girls showing their boobs. Respect!
 
cptnjarhead said:
Just like the News media.
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Most sites now are owned by a smaller subset of sites which in turn are owned by the same people who own the rest of the media. Shouldn't be surprised they operate the same.

The idea the internet is a democratic reflection of the public is a myth. Want to own gaming reviews. Buy or start a plethora of semi-recognizable game review sites (close the losers) until by sheer number you will out populate the independent or self-started sites.
 
EODetroit said:
If you want to know if you should buy a game, watch someone play it on Twitch. I don't read any game review site and haven't for over a decade. User forums, then YouTube, and now Twitch are much better indicators of whether I'll like a certain game. Although in actuality game review sites might be great, I wouldn't know, because like I said, I never even click their clickbait, let alone reviews.
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Most people don't have the time to do this. "Hmm, I want to see if a game is good, what should I do? Read a 10 minute at most review or watch 2 hours of twitch for the just the intro so I don't know if the game become crap after level 20 (age of conan)?"
 
invinciblegod said:
Also, just to be clear, I believe there is no such as a neutral review. For instance, imagine a hypothetical game about a pedophile hero (has no basis in reality and is not a metaphor for anything). Most people would be disgusted by such a concept. Would a "neutral" site cover it based only on mechanics? By covering only on mechanics, people would perceive that the game is "acceptable" or at the very least "non-offensive". If they don't cover it, they either don't know about it or deem it "unacceptable". Either way, sales would be reduced and future games would shy away from such a concept, thereby "discouraging" it. Would such a site be neutral? I think not.
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Well, that's why you're not a journalist. Saying that no one can be perfectly objective is not the same as saying that someone performing a certain job - in this case journalist - shouldn't try to be as objective as possible. That's why there are schools and degrees and a professional code of ethics for journalists, and not for bloggers. When you disregard objectivity, it's no longer journalism, it's advocacy - either for or against.

Also, you could also just not choose to cover that game. Plenty of games of all types come out every year and don't get any reviews at all.
 
flashoverride said:
Well, that's why you're not a journalist. Saying that no one can be perfectly objective is not the same as saying that someone performing a certain job - in this case journalist - shouldn't try to be as objective as possible. That's why there are schools and degrees and a professional code of ethics for journalists, and not for bloggers. When you disregard objectivity, it's no longer journalism, it's advocacy - either for or against.

Also, you could also just not choose to cover that game. Plenty of games of all types come out every year and don't get any reviews at all.
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I got news for you. For all those "code of ethics" for journalism, its gone out the window the last 20-30 years and we live in a second era of yellow journalism.

You want to know a farce? It takes TMZ, an org that covers everything and just doesn't give a shit, to break open the recent NFL Domestic Abuse scandal, because "mainstream" journalism was too in bed not just with the NFL, but with their corporate sponsors to properly cover it.

They only jumped in AFTER TMZ made hay.

Journalism as an idea is not practiced - it is effectively dead in every industry, including the mainstream.
 
Question: did anyone ever take game "journalism" seriously? I always wrote it off as a bunch of manchildren trying to convince themselves their state school journalism degree wasn't a waste by writing about toys. Don't get my wrong, reviews and previews are absolutely useful, but ultimately they're writing about a toy, not spearheading a cultural upheaval.
 
cthulhuiscool said:
Question: did anyone ever take game "journalism" seriously? I always wrote it off as a bunch of manchildren trying to convince themselves their state school journalism degree wasn't a waste by writing about toys. Don't get my wrong, reviews and previews are absolutely useful, but ultimately they're writing about a toy, not spearheading a cultural upheaval.
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Well if that's your view, then to you the gamergate people would be the manchildren complaining about how other manchildren are trying to take away or insulting their toys.
 
I'm a disciple of (some) critical theory at Columbia University. I've been to many different events with panels of industry professionals ranging from academics to video games to media. I can say this is pretty prevalent across the board at the moment. If a question comes up regarding some sensitive gender, race, socioeconomic issue, the speaker's eyes usually widen and you hear some boilerplate response about some 'progressive' social agenda. --If you actually analyze this, it's not exactly progressive and heavily motivated by self-interest...but, whatever.--

Just my thoughts, this is the accepted form of installing oneself among the ruling elite. It's the equivalent of looking down at someone for not dressing correctly for a "Black Tie" charity event. The feigned compassion is exactly how these people get away with stepping up and telling others how to act.

Anyways, my list of news sources that I trust has shrunk a LOT over the years. [H] is one of the ones that is really good about allowing an open table of discussion.
 
invinciblegod said:
You claim that journalists gang up on people who disagree with them, but you neglect to mention the people who ganged up on those 2 feminists who rally around #gamergate.
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The key difference there is that game journalism websites operate on the idea that we can trust the opinions and the judgments of the people doing the reviews. Since when did anyone think you could trust the judgments and opinions of random twitter flamers, or people who email rape threats, etc? People aren't *ignoring* the attacks, it's just that the reality is there are assholes in the world and yes they do terrible things but it's a much bigger deal when someone you're *supposed* to be able to trust proves to be less than trustworthy. We want gaming "journalists" to be honest and open. If you want to get together with other journalists and decide what to cover and what not to cover, that's fine as long as you tell us that's what you're doing. If we find out you're not being honest then why should we listen to your reviews?

invinciblegod said:
Most people don't have the time to do this. "Hmm, I want to see if a game is good, what should I do? Read a 10 minute at most review or watch 2 hours of twitch for the just the intro so I don't know if the game become crap after level 20 (age of conan)?"
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If you don't have time to watch someone play a game for a couple of hours to determine if it's worth buying then how are you going to have time to PLAY the game? Especially when it's an MMO that you'll probably sink dozens if not hundreds of hours into?
 
Spewn said:
If you don't have time to watch someone play a game for a couple of hours to determine if it's worth buying then how are you going to have time to PLAY the game? Especially when it's an MMO that you'll probably sink dozens if not hundreds of hours into?
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Yes I have like 8 hours a week. I'm not about to spend a quarter of those hours to evaluate one game. Unlike when I was in college in which it seemed like I had 8 hours a day to play games, I now have to value my time.
 
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