2446: We’ve Reached Peak Idiot

At least, I hope this is peak idiot: I present to you an actual article that appeared in the actual business section of the Washington Post, which sported the headline “Is your dog’s Halloween costume sexist?”

No. No, your dog’s Halloween costume is not sexist. It is a costume for a dog.

Between this and Vice’s recent monstrosity of an article about Forza Horizon 3, in which the writer proceeds to spend 1,500 words using the Australian setting of Forza Horizon 3 (a game about nothing more than driving pretty cars very fast around pretty scenery) as an excuse to go off on a tirade against Australian politics in general (actual specific references to the game come in just two out of the article’s 13 paragraphs), it’s hard to imagine if online journalism can get any worse. It’s even harder to imagine exactly why there are people out there who still defend this kind of garbage.

I’ve been continuing to read old back issues of Page 6, Atari User, ANALOG, Antic and ACE recently, and one thing that repeatedly strikes me whenever I read any of these magazines is that the writers know their audience because they are part of that audience. And in the case of all those magazines, that audience is computer enthusiasts; who better to write for them than fellow enthusiasts? Should be a no-brainer, surely.

Nope; instead we get dross that reads like it was written by a recent Social Sciences graduate and which inevitably takes a negative tone of some description — usually of the “Here Are All The Reasons You Should Feel Bad for Liking the Things You Do” variety — rather than performing what, I believe, is a much more valuable function: bringing people together under the banner of the things they love, celebrating those things and perhaps teaching them some intricate, specialist details.

Take the old Atari magazines. Every single one of these, without fail, opened its first issue with a comment from the editor about how Atari computers are far more than just the games machines that people at the time apparently assumed they were. The stated aim of Page 6, ANALOG, Antic and Atari User alike was to explore the length and breadth of titles available for the Atari computer, teaching enthusiasts new things along the way. These old magazines had type-in BASIC listings with full breakdowns of what was happening where in the program, memory maps of the computers so you could learn to program in machine code, special techniques that could elevate your programming from “eh” to “wow!” and all manner of other stuff.

The most negative things ever got was in the editorial section, where editors would occasionally vent their spleen about Atari’s repeated failures to market their own products, or about how they had been let down by industry contacts. This was always framed as an explanation of why, say, the issue didn’t have a feature that readers might expect, rather than being the sole point of the article. The articles themselves were all positive in tone, often educational and far less frustrating to read than the daily garbage modern online journalists seem to be expected to churn out to order.

Times have changed, of course. Magazines used to be published monthly or, in some cases, bi-monthly. Internet publications are expected to be updated on a daily basis, otherwise they are seen as “irrelevant” and “not up to date”. With the amount of pressure on Internet writers, it’s little surprise that they pluck something out of their arse that they know will “get people talking” (i.e. is contentious for one reason or another) rather than spending the time to do proper research or to enthuse about the things they are passionate about.

There’s too much negativity in the world as it is, and it’s coming from all angles: both traditional media and social media. Negativity begets negativity, and the longer it goes on, the more cynical we get. We’re at a stage now where many people simply don’t trust the online press to cover things as an enthusiast would, and that’s going to be hard to recover from. Meanwhile, the Men In Suits see outrage-bait like the articles linked above as “successes” because they bring in the clicks and consequent advertising revenue.

Advertising impressions lie, however. An impression on an article in the commercial press doesn’t mean someone liked what the author had to say. More often than not, it’s the result of someone having a look at an article out of sheer disbelief that someone really wrote an article about dogs’ Halloween costumes being sexist, or about how Forza Horizon 3 depicts a “better Australia than [Australians] deserve”.

I wish it were possible to just make this mess stop, and for us all to go back to a world where enthusiasts write about the things they are knowledgeable about rather than everyone, everywhere trying to make everything somehow “political”. There’s a time and a place for politics, and, unless you are reviewing a game that deals with political issues — either through its narrative or its mechanics — then that place is emphatically not in the games press. Certainly not in an article about a driving game; and certainly not in an article about a driving game that exists solely to revel in the sheer joy of driving.

Also, you can dress your dog up however the fuck you like so long as you’re not hurting it. Make it extra slutty, take loads of photos for Facebook and immediately unfriend anyone who whines about sexism. You don’t need dickholes like that in your life.

1169: Suffering Fools

The Internet has ruined April Fools’ Day.

That’s the sentiment that seems to have been prevalent on social media for most of today. And to be fair, it has. Between Operation Rainfall’s teasing of games that will never exist (Catherine 2, The Last Story II, Theatrhythm Deus Ex) to the utterly cringeworthy press release I received earlier claiming that Doodle Jump is becoming a Broadway show (seriously, guys, 1) Doodle Jump hasn’t been relevant for several years now, and 2) try harder) it’s been a thoroughly irritating day to be online. Thankfully, a significant proportion of the press seems to have grown up a bit and is refusing to play along with these shenanigans, but there’s just as many reputable publications putting out exceedingly lame “jokes” that they really should know better than to post. The Guardian producing special liberal glasses that block Richard Littlejohn columns? Hilarious. The New Statesman rebranding entirely in Comic Sans? Oh, help me, Doctor Tendo, for my sides have split.

Thinking about it, though, I’m not sure April Fools’ Day has ever been particularly… well, fun. Sure, the stuff Google comes up with is often mildly amusing, but for the most part it seems to be a day where people think that lying as much as possible is an adequate substitute for being genuinely entertaining. That’s sort of mean when you think about it, really.

I’m trying to think back to a time before the Internet (yes, young ‘uns, we did live in such dark times once) and whether or not April Fools’ Day was fun then. I have a peculiar feeling that it wasn’t. I recall a time at school when everyone suddenly and inexplicably learned the word “gullible” simultaneously for some dark purpose, and it was a hellish few weeks of people making up outlandish stories and then jeering “HAAHAHHAAH GULLIBLE” and running away if you even looked like you were about to say “really?” April Fools’ Day is just like that, really. An opportunity for unfunny twats to be particularly unfunny twats and think they’re being Comedy Gods.

I know it’s all a bit of fun and I shouldn’t be so grumpypants about it. But as with so many things on the Internet, oversaturation leads to cynicism and active dislike. And over the last few years, we’ve seen so many painfully obvious April Fools’ Day jokes that it’s just a bit old now. By far the most laughable example was the Doodle Jump press release I mentioned earlier — that actually really made me quite cross, though I restrained myself from rebuking the sender with a tersely-worded response — but that’s far from an isolated example.

To quote my former editor Mr Jason Wilson: “Journalism isn’t about jokes. No one for a journalistic site should be making up shit. No one at a PR agency should be, either. Send me that BS and you go straight into my ‘you suck at PR’ folder.”

Quite. The news is enough of a disorganised mess in which it’s a nightmare for some stories to get noticed anyway; quit cluttering these channels up with your made-up crap. It’s not big, it’s not clever and it’s not funny.

This has been your Grouch for the day. Tomorrow I will write about something nice.

#oneaday Day 834: RUMOUR: Rumours ‘Rumoured’, Says Rumour-Monger

If you’ve ever started a conversation with “I heard that…” and then gone on to explain exactly how you heard somewhere/from some guy in the pub/from “The Internet” that something awesome/awful is going to happen, then I urge you to think before you speak in future. Because if you continue with that sentence, you’re simply feeding the rumour mill, and the rumour mill doesn’t produce good things and help us make the Bread of Truth. It produces garbage and poo, and then squishes it all out into the world’s most unpleasant pâté.

Tortured (and gross) metaphors aside, it’s a fact that I wish more people — particularly in the press — would cotton on to.

Today, for example, saw news that Liberty X “might be” reforming for a new album and a tour. Firstly, I don’t think anyone wants that, and secondly, the only evidence that such a reunion “might be” happening is the fact that they were photographed together outside the ITV studios and — get this — they were smiling. Stop the fucking presses.

There are a ton of journalism sectors that are particularly prone to this. Showbiz columns report who might be sleeping with whom. Sports columns report who might be moving to some other club for a disproportionately enormous amount of money. Music and arts columns report who might be working on what. And then, of course, there are the tech-related industries.

Anything related to Apple is accompanied by an inordinately huge amount of rumourmongering, for example. In the run-up to the company’s announcement of the third-generation iPad, all sorts of nonsense was flying around. This ranged from suggestions that it might not have a Home button to the frankly astonishing assertion that the reason iOS apps had started having textures like leather and the like in the background was because the new iPad would have a haptic display — i.e. one where you could feel textures as well as see them.

The video games industry is far from immune, either. Rarely a week goes by without one outlet reporting on some rumour from a mysterious, anonymous source and the “story” then being picked up by every other news site on the Web as if it were fact. This particular rumour mill goes into overdrive as a hardware generation starts to wind down and people start wondering what the next generation of consoles might look like. Inevitably, the vast majority of stories turn out to be absolute bollocks, and on the rare occasions when an outlet or reporter writes something that turns out to be true, there’s at least a day’s worth of smug, self-satisfied cries of “Called it.”

No you didn’t. You were throwing darts blindfolded, and you happened to hit a lucky bulls-eye. Your other fifteen darts are embedded in the barman’s testicles, the barmaid’s left boob, the right ear of that hard-looking dude who drinks absinthe by the pint and the TV that was showing the Bolton v Wigan match. (Everyone is angry. I’d run, if I were you.)

So why do we persist on reporting on these festering sores on the very arse of journalism? Because they attract attention, particularly if they’re controversial. If one site prints a story that Liberty X is reforming, or that the next Xbox will feature a system to prevent used games from working on it, or that the iPhone 5 really, totally, absolutely positively is coming out this time, then that will attract commenters like flies around shit. And that means page hits, advertising revenue and the little graphs that make the men in suits happy moving in an upward direction. Who cares if it’s absolute nonsense dreamed up by someone who cleans the toilets at Microsoft? Print it!

I make a point of not reading any stories that start with the prefix “RUMOUR:” now. And should I ever find myself back on the news desk for a popular gaming website, I will most certainly do everything in my power to avoid reporting on such nonsense — unless some actual investigation turns up something interesting, of course. But blindly parroting another site’s “anonymous source”? No. Just no.

So, then, I reiterate: think before you speak/write/publish. Because rumours are rarely helpful. Remember that time it spread around the whole school year that you’d shat your pants when in fact you’d just sat in some mud?

Yeah. That.

#oneaday Day 779: Snark Pit

I’ve kind of had it with snark. The whole “let’s piss on everything” parade that shows up any time something vaguely interesting or cool happens is getting really rather tiresome, and over the last few weeks and months I’ve actually been taking steps to minimise my exposure to it by simply unfollowing people on Twitter who prove to be irritants in this fashion. (British game journos, you don’t come off well in this poll, by the way, naming no specific names.)

Unfortunately, on a day like today, which held among other things the promise of a hotly-anticipated iPad-related announcement from Apple (which turned out to be “The New iPad” with its shiny retina display and quad-core processor… yum) it’s difficult to avoid said snark. It seems that for a lot of people nowadays that if something isn’t to your own personal preference, then no-one should enjoy it.

At this point I’ll say that I’m well aware I’ve been guilty of this in the past, and for that I apologise. (The X-Factor is still unquestionably shit, though. There is no valid argument in favour of a show that gave the world Jedward. I’m just not going to rant at length about the subject any more.) I am trying my best these days to see arguments from both sides, but unless you’re some sort of level 99 mediator, you’re always going to come down on one side or another. So long as you don’t force your views on others and expect everyone to agree with you, everyone should be free to do that. (Unless it’s about something dickish. I think we can pretty much universally agree that those who judge people based on skin colour or sexual orientation can all pretty much just bugger off and sit on a spike.)

I digress. I was talking about snark, and specifically relating to today’s Apple announcements. The new iPad is, by all accounts, a lovely-looking device, and the Retina display is sure to raise some eyebrows. As per usual for an Apple event, the company came out with its usual stuff about how it believed we were entering a “post-PC” era and about how people supposedly “preferred gaming on their iPad” to consoles and computers.

Contentious comments, for sure, but firstly, they’re marketing hyperbole — Apple announcements are press events, after all, and a company as big as Apple is never going to be humble about its achievements or lofty ambitions — and secondly, it might not be quite so unreasonable as you think. Already many households are making use of iPads for simple tasks such as browsing the Web, checking email, watching TV and movies, playing games, keeping themselves organised and all manner of other things. And the sheer number of people who have downloaded Angry Birds, whatever you may think of it (I hate it) should give you pause when considering the gaming-related comments.

But instead of thinking these points through rationally and considering the perspective that Apple might have been coming from, in it was with the snark about how wrong Apple was and how much bullshit they were talking. Up went the defensive walls, and a veritable barrage of snark was fired over the parapets towards anyone who dared to say “hmm, hang on, that’s actually quite interesting, and possibly plausible”. (I’m not saying their comments were true, rather that they deserved greater consideration than immediate outright dismissal.)

It only continued when, as usually happens in Apple announcement events, software started to be shown. The new versions of iMovie and GarageBand for iOS drew particular ire, with various Twitter users making acidic comments about how awful the music people makes with GarageBand supposedly is, and how terrible the “movie trailers” facility of iMovie is.

Once again, no consideration was given to the audiences that these features might be directed at. As a former employee of the Apple Store, let me assure you there is absolutely no love lost between me and the tech giant of Cupertino, so I have no “need” or contractual obligation to defend them — and also, a company the size of Apple certainly doesn’t need my defence either. But as a former employee, I know that Apple customers aren’t just high-falutin’ creative types, gadget freaks, tech snobs and people with more money than sense. I know that people who walk through the front door of that store range from very young to very old; from experienced computer user to complete beginner. I know that there’s a considerable proportion of that audience who came to Apple because of its products’ reputation of ease of use. I’ve even taught plenty of those people how to achieve simple tasks in products such as iMovie and GarageBand, and to see the looks on their faces when they realised that yes, they could be creative with their computers despite their lack of technological knowhow was, to use a word Apple itself is very fond of, magical.

As such, I feel it’s grossly unfair and downright blinkered for people (including professional commentators in some situations) to completely dismiss a considerable proportion of Apple’s audience and declare a feature to be “awful” or “crap” simply on the grounds that they don’t see the appeal, or think that its results are cheesy. (They are, but imagine if you had no idea how to edit a video and suddenly discovered you could put together a slick-looking movie trailer from your holiday footage and upload it to the Internet. You’d be pretty stoked, and you wouldn’t care that it was a bit cheesy. If you were inspired by this ease of use, you might even look into the subject further to find out how to take more control over the stuff you were creating.)

I’m using Apple as an example today since the announcement is still pretty fresh in everyone’s mind. But the presence of snark can be found pretty much any time something interesting is announced or discussed, especially in the tech or gaming industries. You can count on there being an unfunny hashtag pun game mocking the story within a matter of minutes; endlessly-retweeted “jokes” trying to look clever; and, of course, protracted slanging matches any time someone calls these people out on it.

And, you know, I’ve had enough. If you have a valid criticism of something, by all means share it and back up your point. But if you have nothing to say other than “I think this is crap, therefore everyone else should too” then kindly keep it to yourself. Because, frankly, your opinion isn’t anywhere near as important as you think it is.

#oneaday Day 745: Miss Catherine O’Gyny

I’ve been rather disappointed by the attitudes I’ve seen over the last couple of days, from people who, though in many cases I’ve not had the opportunity to speak to directly, I would consider to be my peers — those working in the game journalism business, and specifically those from the UK.

What I’m referring to here isn’t a blanket problem with all UK game journalists or the industry at large, but it is a relatively widespread one, and one which I don’t particularly want to get into direct finger-pointing about. I do, however, feel that it is worth mentioning.

Context: Last night there was a launch party for the impending UK release of Atlus’ excellent Catherine. If you’re not familiar with Catherine, it’s a bold, daring game that doesn’t shy away from adult themes, and explores the concepts of relationships, commitment, infidelity and the power of sex through well-written dialogue, well-realised characters and some very striking, surreal imagery. Despite its subject matter, it never oversteps the boundary into tastelessness, and the vast majority of the game’s sexuality is implied rather than made explicit.

So of course it would be an excellent idea to launch the game in a strip club. Of course that would be a sensible idea, particularly given that there is no strip club (or indeed any strippers) in the game, which handles sexuality in an understated, tasteful manner which respects the player’s maturity.

Some people on Twitter quite rightly spoke out and said that they felt this venue for the game’s launch was totally inappropriate. Some brought out facts and figures to back up their arguments. But surely even without facts and figures, anyone with half a brain could see that hosting a launch event for a game in a strip club is just a terrible, terrible idea.

Apparently not. The people who raised objections to the venue were told by some attendees that they were taking things too seriously, that they were trying to unfairly tar people with the “sexist” brush, that it wasn’t really anything to worry about. Arguments got heated in many instances. I kept well away from the whole thing and observed — usually the best choice in this sort of situation.

The issue that really bugged me, though, was that for many of those who were at the event — I wasn’t, I hasten to add — it seemed a simple matter to dismiss the inherent misogyny in hosting an event at such a venue. The objectors were accused of “overreacting”.

Fact is, the video games industry has always been male dominated and, despite the number of prominent women who are now involved, is still a male-dominated industry. Hosting events like this is not going to make women (and, indeed, some men) feel welcome to the industry, and from the outside it just looks sleazy — both for the industry at large, and for Catherine, too, which, as a genuinely thought-provoking, mature game for adults, it does not deserve. None of that is an overreaction. The industry needs to be more inclusive.

All this isn’t the first time the reaction of many UK media types has bugged me, however. Late last year, industry trade publication MCV held the Games Media Awards ceremony, during which people from across the industry were to be celebrated for their achievements. It should be a prestigious, high-profile ceremony — and to some extent, it is. However, all trace of credibility for the event was lost for me when I clapped eyes on its Twitter feed, which was encouraging attendees to get as drunk as possible and show up naked, and continually promised “industry boobs” — a supposedly hilarious joke whereby if the account got enough followers, they’d show a picture that actually turned out to be the flabby chest of one of the gentlemen had reviewed the UFC Personal Trainer product for Kinect. IT’S CLEVER BECAUSE IT’S NOT ACTUALLY SEXIST BUT LOOKS LIKE IT IS, DO YOU SEE?

I have always been of the attitude that an awards ceremony should be a professional affair — dinner suits, shiny shoes, that sort of thing. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a bit of fun with it, but the babbling of the GMAs’ Twitter account really seemed to cross the line with its crass humour, so I happened to mention it one day on Twitter, noting how the behaviour of whoever was running the account had actually put me off wanting to find out more about the ceremony.

I was promptly retweeted and mocked for, again, “taking it too seriously”.

In my experience, “you’re taking it too seriously”, “I didn’t mean it” or “I was just having a laugh” are some of the weakest defences that there are. They show complete disregard for the other person’s feelings and put across the notion that it’s all right to do or say anything you want, so long as it’s “a joke” or not meant to be “taken seriously”. The other person should just lighten up, stop being such a stick-in-the-mud, take the pole out of their arse.

The Games Media Awards got their comeuppance when sponsors Grainger Games ended up acting like a bunch of dicks, however. The hypocrisy of some, who had previously been advocating the crass humour of the Twitter account, now lambasting Grainger Games for its inappropriate behaviour in person was almost amusing.

In the case of the Catherine event, I feel very disappointed in the way many UK journos have behaved. While I’m sure the event offered a great networking opportunity, the fact that it appears no-one saw fit to object to the venue and instead were more than happy to hoover up the free drinks is a bit sad. It’s highly likely that there were some people there — male and female — who would have felt very uncomfortable in that situation, but felt like they would be unable to mention it for fear of ruining the networking opportunity, or the relationship they might have with public relations representative. The fact that those who weren’t there who did object to the venue were promptly called out and, in some cases, ridiculed, is really sad, and the flimsy justifications and excuses offered by those who were in attendance are what I find particularly disappointing.

In order to fight the perception of the games industry as an all-boys’ club in which only twentysomething men can participate, events like this need to stop happening. There’s no good reason the launch couldn’t have taken place at any old bar — but I have a horrible, sleazy, sneaking suspicion that the strip club venue was chosen precisely because it has provoked the discussion it has. You know the saying… “any publicity is good publicity”, right? Would people be as aware of Catherine if all this hadn’t happened?

In short, I just think that the industry is better than this. And if this is the direction that members of the industry think it is appropriate to go in, then I’m more than happy that my current career sits on the sidelines and concentrates more on the analytical, business side of matters rather than flashy, over the top, exclusive events like this.

#oneaday Day 579: The Littlest Hobo Journalist

I’m writing this sitting on a hard concrete floor outside a café because I’m using their Wi-Fi but I’m not confident enough in my German to go in and order something.

The fact that you can do this is pretty impressive, though. Laptops have been around for donkey’s years, but the ability to sit in another country, outside, on the floor, getting pins and needles in your legs, and access the Internet is pretty remarkable when you think about it. It’s certainly changed the way a lot of people can do their jobs. Journalists used to sit in offices, now they sit on the floor of German streets like netbook-wielding tramps. (Given the wild growth of my facial hair during my trip, that might not be an altogether inappropriate comparison. I’d shave, but I can’t be arsed at the moment.)

Gamescom is coming to a close, with today being the first of two days that are only for the public. The “entertainment halls”, as the public section is called, are markedly different from the relative peace and organization of the business area. Where the business area is clean, bright, not crowded and with no crap all over the floor, the entertainment area is the exact opposite in every sense. It’s dirty, dark, crowded and the floor is carpeted with discarded leaflets from a thousand different vendors trying to promote their products.

It’s interesting to see, though — having only really been to PAX and Eurogamer, there’s a marked difference in the way the public presentations are handled. For starters, rather than holding behind closed doors panel discussions like at PAX, game developers and publishers get up on stage and put on a show for the audiences right there in the show hall. There’s a lot of shouting, a lot of “call and response” audience interaction, and a lot of scantily-clad women flinging T-shirts into the crowd. I haven’t caught a T-shirt yet, but I did take advantage of the English language Guild Wars 2 presentation to sneak a go on NCSoft’s new WildStar MMO today — it’s really rather good and I suggest you check it out if you get the chance.

I never thought I’d say this, but I am tiring of sausage. Currywurst is awesome, and I really wish we had that curry ketchup easily available in the UK, but when sausage is the only kind of food that’s within easy reach (as appears to be the case once you’re inside Koelnmesse — easier said than done with the German security guards today bringing a whole new dimension of Jobsworthness to their interactions with the public) you start to tire of it surprisingly quickly, particularly when it appears to be a staple at breakfast time, too — honestly, I saw a guy yesterday having a plate piled high with nothing but about ten sausages. The guy obviously needed his protein.

I fly back tomorrow evening and I feel like I’m ready to. Cologne is nice and all, but I’m tired of being self-conscious about my German and the fact I don’t appear to know any nouns. It will be nice to have a rest in my own bed — but not for long, as very shortly I’ll be moving house, which is exciting and awesome.

For now, though, it’s time to go and find some food that isn’t sausage for dinner.

#oneaday Day 151: Not To Be Read Until 4pm

This won’t be news to any of you, but sometimes in the games industry, you find out things and you’re not allowed to talk about them. The technical terminology for this is an “NDA” or non-disclosure agreement, or an embargo preventing publication of something until a particular time.

It’s obvious why publishers insist on this sort of behaviour: it allows them to control how and when information gets released. This means that they can effectively control the press to release the information that the company wants talked about at a specific time, ensuring that it doesn’t “clash” with anything else and get upstaged by something cooler.

Still, when something gets embargoed until a particular time, you’d expect the information that was being held back to be complete, wouldn’t you? Not so in the case of today’s Call of Duty Elite announcement, which explained what the service would be but failed to mention anything useful like how much the premium option would cost and indeed what the premium service actually offered, compared to what free members would get.

The practice of embargoes seems to be a relatively recent one. I don’t remember them being mentioned all that often before a couple of years back — but then, I wasn’t involved in the games press full-time at that point, so this sort of nonsense may well have been going on for years.

The thing is, though, it ultimately hurts everyone. People tease embargo reveals all day, then EVERY FUCKING SITE UNDER THE SUN releases the same information at the same time when the embargo expires, and then I don’t read any of it. If you follow games sites on Twitter and you do happen to be interested in the coverage, you’ll probably only click on the first link you see. This means it becomes a race for whichever outlet can get the content live and tweet it first. Sensible outlets will have prepared the material well in advance, of course, but sometimes that doesn’t happen and you end up with sloppy, rushed reporting.

Then sometimes you wonder why on Earth certain pieces of information are embargoed. I had a press release from NVidia earlier today talking about their new pair of wired 3D glasses for 3D Vision-equipped PCs. It was embargoed until 5pm Pacific on the Sunday just gone. It’s a pair of 3D glasses — not the most exciting thing in the world, even if they are under $100 for once. Why did that need to have a timed reveal?

As with most things in the industry, if one person does it, everyone has to do it. Gone are the days* when a developer could just go “Yeah, I’m experimenting with a thing. It’s pretty cool. Might not go anywhere though.” No, now it has to be a countdown to an announcement of a teaser trailer which leads to a countdown to an announcement of an exclusive reveal of the first gameplay footage which will coincide with an exclusive reveal of one little piece of information that no-one gives a shit about. (OMG! The main character’s eyes are directly scanned from an actor/rapper no-one’s heard of! Fuck off.)

I’ve never worked in the music, film or “general” journalism industries so I can’t say for certain whether this sort of thing goes on in them. But somehow I doubt it’s quite so tightly controlled as the ever-peculiar games industry.

* The exception to this is, of course, the indie development industry, who rarely, if ever, use embargoes and are usually pretty candid and open about the projects they’re working on. And all credit to them — honesty gets them far more respect from me than an intricately-planned campaign which drives journalists and consumers alike utterly crazy.

#oneaday Day 104: Acrid Black Smoke

Earlier today, a story broke that divided opinions somewhat. The point and content of the story at this stage isn’t especially important or relevant to what I’m particularly interested in right now, but the gist of the arguments that people are having is that it was a report based on anonymous sources that sounded like “just another rumour”.

And perhaps it was. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Anonymous sources aren’t the most convincing sources of information to some people, thanks mostly to their anonymity. But these are people who would likely be immediately fired if their names were attached to things which are—presumably—supposed to stay secret for now.

Again, not the point I’m trying to make.

The point I am trying to make is the surprising amount of negativity the story in question attracted, and the subsequent high-school clique-style bitching and sniping that ensued on Twitter between high-profile members of the industry for the next few hours. People laugh and joke about passive-aggressive status updates from people who want to bitch about someone without naming them—”I wish SOMEONE would stop being such a jackass!”—but this was taking it to a whole new level, with, in some cases, high profile representatives of respected publications taking the passive-aggressive approach and arguing with thin air, presumably to try and make some kind of point.

I’m not going to name and shame anyone because there’s no point in doing that and it wouldn’t achieve anything. All I am going to say is that any time something like this erupts, I’m surprised and disappointed in people. Perhaps the story in question will turn out to be nothing—or perhaps it will turn out to be something big. Regardless, it was a rumour, and an interesting one at that, and people will want to know it. The original article made it very clear that it was a rumour based on things that anonymous sources had said. People can make their own minds up whether or not to believe it, but there’s really no need for all the bitching and sniping.

It is, sadly, a hallmark of the Internet, though; comment sections were described on a radio show earlier today as “the bottom half of the Internet” due to their relentless negativity—a fact which made Charlie Brooker sit up and take notice, unsurprisingly. But why? Why the hate? Why the behaving like teenage girls?

Perhaps I’m just too much of a nice guy. I don’t hate anyone, and I respect the work of others. I’ll slag something off if it’s genuinely bad, but I don’t hate things for the sake of hating them like some people seem to. And whatever the reason for people’s reactions to the story which broke earlier (still not getting into it!) there’s certainly no reason for the ugly and thinly-disguised jealousy which has been evident this evening.

If people could just be a bit nicer to each other and a bit less negative about everything, the whole world would be a much more pleasant place.

It’s nice to want things.

Day 452

#oneaday, Day 323: A Little Balance On The Gaming Issue, Please

An hour ago, the BBC aired an episode of Panorama, our go-to investigative journalism programme, on the subject of video games. The subject, predictably, was the ever-present “are video games addictive?” question that has been raised and not answered many, many times prior to now.

The programme made a few fair points that are more common sense than anything else. Firstly, those with addictive personalities are prone to becoming addicted to games. Many games have in-built reward mechanics which those who get easily addicted to things will… well, get addicted to. Social games like Farmville, MMOs like World of Warcraft and popular multiplayer titles like Call of Duty all take great pains to ensure a regular stream of rewards and gratification being sent in the player’s general direction. Whether it’s a “medal”, a “completed quest” or simple experience points, there’s a constant flow of something that leads the player to believe they’re achieving something. Those who become addicted to things easily can use that as a justification.

Secondly, the programme pointed out that parental controls need to be used more effectively. Many children and teenagers are given free reign on their use of video games and as such don’t limit themselves on how much to play, to the exclusion of other things. Parents need to get better-informed about the facilities available to them to control their children’s playing habits. This is, sadly, something that many parents are very resistant to, despite the fact that the tools are there for use, particularly on the Xbox, which offers some of the most robust family controls that there are—as does the Mac, oddly enough.

There were no concrete conclusions drawn, however. The “conclusion”, if you can call it that, was that more research was needed from an independent body.

The thing is, this discussion has been going on for decades now, and no-one has thought to actually do that research in an appropriately investigative and non-biased manner.

I was reading through a few Formspring answers from Leigh Alexander (I think) the other day and she made the very good point that those of us out there who write about games can’t be called “journalists” in the same sense as those who write for, say, national newspapers on breaking stories. Our role as members of the games press involves reporting on carefully-disseminated information provided by PR companies, critiquing products on general release (occasionally before general release) and sometimes interviewing a developer from the industry. There’s no real “investigation” there, there’s no hard-hitting stuff. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but given that mainstream media tends to come down on the more negative side of the fence when investigating gaming, I think there’s certainly scope for a counter-argument: someone who does know the industry well investigating the burning issues. And investigating them thoroughly using established journalistic, sociological research techniques.

Who’s going to be the first person to step up and do that, though? More to the point, would anyone read it or take it seriously? Gamers, by their very nature, are defensive creatures, having been made out to be “the bad guys” by the mainstream media once too often. And those not “in the know” are often inclined to have their minds made up by sensationalist stories in the aforementioned mainstream media.

What we need is balance. What we need is a hero.

Wait, what?

#oneaday, Day 319: Report This Post, It Contains Opinion

There is an increasingly popular—and increasingly worrying—tendency for games journalism and writing about games (which some people are keen to point out are two different things) to be judged as “broken” or “lame”.

On paper, you can perhaps understand why this is. Gaming is one of the most popular subjects for wannabe writers to pebble-dash the Internet with, and there are so many people out there who want to do it “professionally” that a good 90% (I made that up) of gaming-focused sites out there can’t even pay their writers, however awesome they are. As such, there is a lot of crap out there, but it’s generally quite easy to spot, and there’s certainly no need for sites like this.

Fellow #oneaday-er and all-round lovely grumpy chap Ian Dransfield of Play Magazine wrote an impassioned rant on this subject. I highly recommend you go and read it. Now. Go on.

I agree with the Dransfield. No kind of journalism should be homogenised, automaton-written garbage. It should have scope for individual opinion and comment, and certain outlets should have the opportunity to develop distinctive “voices” on the matter. It’s worked for our newspapers for years, after all—for all the shit everyone gives the Daily Mail about their bizarre and often misguided opinions, at least they stick to their guns. Similarly, were the Daily Express ever to write about anything other than Princess Diana, the nation would be in uproar.

One of the things that bugs me most about today’s games journalism is the plague that is N4G. For the uninitiated, N4G is a community-driven news-aggregation service. Community members may post articles to a “pending” queue, and they then have to get ten “approvals” in order to show up in the main news feed.

Fair enough, you might say. It separates the wheat from the chaff, surely. And surely the people who have approval rights must all be published professionals, right?

Wrong. Anyone can submit any page to N4G with no requirement that the article be your own. Get three articles approved by the community (a simple case of rounding up ten Twitter/Facebook friends to help you) and voila—approval rights. This then means that your opinion has as much weight as someone who’s been doing the job for fifteen years.

This may still not sound unreasonable. So let me show you the drop-down menu of options available for “reporting” an article if you believe it to be “inappropriate”:

Yes, you have read that correctly; one of the options for reporting an article as unworthy of appearing in the N4G news feed is that it is “lame”.

N4G is seen as a primary means of promoting games-related articles, and sure enough, it does seem to generate a lot of hits for sites, so I can’t fault those people who do take advantage of it to get more readers to their sites—fair play to you. I can say with some honesty, though, that I have never used it as a place to go to find out the latest news. The whole thing is too chaotic, too run by people who write comments after reading only the headline and not the article and—ugh—it makes me mad, I tellsya. I can’t take it seriously in the slightest.

My main issue with it is one of the things Dransfield points out in his article: who are these people to say what is and is not “relevant”? What gives them the right to brand something as “lame” simply because it doesn’t have “HALO IS A REALLY COOL GUY” in the headline? What gives them the right to ignore a supposed “duplicate article” on a subject which offers some opinion or additional facts over and above what has already been written first, in haste?

Absolutely nothing. Traditional news outlets and even longer-established specialist press (such as publications for music and films) aren’t held to account in the same way. But games journalism, being a younger industry, seems to be held to entirely different standards, and judged unnecessarily harshly. There is a lot of negativity surrounding the games press, and not enough positivity. Trolling and flame wars are particularly prevalent on articles about games, and platform-specific articles seem to bring out the very worst in the community.

Here’s food for thought then: in a world where we’re so concerned about free speech a goodly proportion of the Twitter population in the UK (and beyond) is supporting the legal fees of someone they’ve never met, why are we so harsh on this particular breed of writers? Why shouldn’t they be able to write what they feel, rather than what will “get hits”?

If you would like to share this post with the community, then please feel free to make use of the buttons below.