SERIOUS GAMES JOURNALIST NETWORK OF PRETENSION Debate is Live.

[Eel O'Brian]

that thread is full of unintended hilarity

i forgot about qt3, i need to post there some

hell, i might even use proper punctuation and grammar

[Howard Alan Treesong]

they are not happy with me at qt3 :'(

what happened at QT3?

[Eel O'Brian]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=49321

[Barry Egan]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=49321

can't wait to read this shit

edit:

initial impressions; Doug not as thrilling when up against people who can string cogent arguments together.  2/5. 

[recursivelyenumerable]

yeah, it's a bit disillusioning 

[Van Cruncheon]

nooooooooooo, whatever shall i dooooooooo

personally, i'm pretty pleased

(edit: though i'd like to know what those cogent arguments are)

[muckhole]

Time to go Jaffe on 'em and tell them you fucked all their mothers.

[duckman2000]

I don't know, there is some victory in getting thesaurus-having people to blabber that much in defense of something that is, really, pretty damned trivial.

[demi]

nooooooooooo, whatever shall i dooooooooo

personally, i'm pretty pleased

(edit: though i'd like to know what those cogent arguments are)

I think you did pretty good. I tugged one to it.

[Rman]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=49321

can't wait to read this shit

edit:

initial impressions; Doug not as thrilling when up against people who can string cogent arguments together.  2/5. 

The arguments basically centered on whether the symposium was either a waste of time, an exercise in pseudo-intellectual masturbation and the benefits of having such a conference.  My personal take on it is indifference.  I rarely read any gaming publication with at any length or consistency.  I do like what N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo bring to the table, actually covering games from a non-customer reviews fashion.  I know N'Gai has his fare share of haters and he sometimes tries too much with the film analogies, but I find him entertaining, nonetheless.

[demi]

ROFL, evilore coming in at the first mention of GAF. What a twerp. I'd flex him with the quickness.

[Crushed]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=49321

tales of symposium: dawn of the new wank

[Van Cruncheon]

it's hard to score a clear gaf-esque knockout with folks that have command of the language, but look at the responses: 50% personal attacks; 25% semantic complaints and nitpicks; 10% totally meta chatter; and 5% attempts at decent responses. it's gaf with a slightly more grammatically civilized veneer

[Crushed]

show them how a real review should be written, drinky

Because most of us gamers knew in our heart of hearts that this game was going to be something special. Shigeru Miyamoto, the game's often-lauded mastermind, frequently referred to the then-underway Zelda project as potentially his greatest videogame accomplishment yet.

doug shigeru

[demi]

I read all 9 pages of that thread. A resounding meh. Where is my ownage? I'm going to read a GAF thread now.

[cool breeze]

reading that QT3 thread makes me think I'm too stupid to post there

[tiesto]

When Tim Rogers is doing a better job than the current lot of "major editorial voices" out there, it's a sad day in the "games journalism" community.

I think you're going a bit too far with that one...

[recursivelyenumerable]

personally, i'm pretty pleased

(edit: though i'd like to know what those cogent arguments are)

it's not that the responses were particularly strong --- they weren't --- but they didn't provide you with much ammunition either, so your posts over the course of the thread kinda give off a cumulative tilting at windmills impression.  you seem to be taking all your legitimate frustrations with game reviewing practices in general and awkwardly marshalling them against this little symposium thingy, which looks to be fairly innocent as useless circlejerks go.

[drohne]

i doubt whether all the symposia in the world will infuse talent or discernment in people who haven't got any. and i doubt whether this symposium even includes the pederasty which every good symposium ought to

who wants a piece of shane elliot anyway

NOT ME

edit: i guess technically it's shawn elliot, but that conflation of shawn and shane is i think fortuitous

[Barry Egan]

I'm retconning my score to a 3/5.

Threadwinner:

DoomMonkey crying in his cereal  :'( :'( :'(:

What's great is that here we have 10 people who enjoy a fairly prestigious position in the game industry setting out to discuss the issues they have faced in that industry, and ol' Clever Doug here has a problem with the WAY they go about talking about it.

It fucking annoys me SO MUCH when a jackass like Douggie here has a problem with something and then criticizes other people for not addressing that problem in exactly the way he thinks they should.

Everybody is addressing it in their own way, man. Just like you're addressing it by being a frothing idiot, and I'm getting angry with you for it.

It's ironic. Like rain. On your wedding day.

and the follow through

Gawrsh, Sandy Vagina: I'm sorry I made a post regarding my opinion on a web forum dedicated to industry opinions! Maybe I should have held a symposium!

 

Runner Ups:

Evilore popping in to the thread when GAF gets mentioned and then redeeming himself  on page 7 with his "obsession" comment. 

Bill Dungsroman ownage on the tail end of page 9.

[Van Cruncheon]

bill is usually in better form than that, truth be told. i expected to flinch at least once!

[Eel O'Brian]

reading that QT3 thread makes me think I'm too stupid to post there

nah, ten-dollar words don't amount to much in this economy

having a broad vocabulary doesn't make a poster any less of a gibbering mongoloid than someone who only posts FAIL or DO NOT WANT gifs

[Van Cruncheon]

reading that QT3 thread makes me think I'm too stupid to post there

nah, ten-dollar words don't amount to much in this economy

having a broad vocabulary doesn't make a poster any less of a gibbering mongoloid than someone who only posts FAIL or DO NOT WANT gifs

totally. Qt3 has a lot of former USENET dorks who developed a "thesaurus culture" throughout their tenure. never stopped 'em from saying the stupidest shit.

[Van Cruncheon]

personally, i'm pretty pleased

(edit: though i'd like to know what those cogent arguments are)

it's not that the responses were particularly strong --- they weren't --- but they didn't provide you with much ammunition either, so your posts over the course of the thread kinda give off a cumulative tilting at windmills impression.  you seem to be taking all your legitimate frustrations with game reviewing practices in general and awkwardly marshalling them against this little symposium thingy, which looks to be fairly innocent as useless circlejerks go.

that's a pretty apt summation, actually, although you missed the cntext: qt3 is CRAWLING with wannabe game journos who worship these dudes.

[Van Cruncheon]

leper willco

[cool breeze]

reading that QT3 thread makes me think I'm too stupid to post there

nah, ten-dollar words don't amount to much in this economy

having a broad vocabulary doesn't make a poster any less of a gibbering mongoloid than someone who only posts FAIL or DO NOT WANT gifs

yeah, but I'm already pushing it with my mumbling incoherent talk, having to type up paragraphs of that stuff would be annoying.  Plus everyone seems to be serious.  I like it here. 

[demi]

I am offended the list of journos included Gerstmann and not Mr. Davis

[y2kev]

Elliot's defense was incredibly demure. I think that's sort of admirable, even becoming of a symposium!

I've already said it was probably a mistake to use that word, but the whole gaming industry could use some "reformers" in getting the ball rolling (and addressing a number of those problems you mention in your first post).

The most interesting proposition in the thread was seeing if Shawn would review Nightmare of Druaga. I'd love to see how he'd do it.

[pilonv1]

god that thread was garbage. waste of three minutes

[y2kev]

Oh, and another thing: are the personal attacks par for the nonchalant repartee course over there? I've read Qt3 before and I've always come away with the impression that everyone is fairly level-headed...and when they aren't, they get called out rather brutally. That was kind of GAFish.

[Van Cruncheon]

that's kinda bill's (an a few others') schtick. it's a holdover from the omm forum days, when flaming each other (following an adjective-heavy formula) was par for the course. it's not really that common there, these days, and bill's kinda worn out his welcome.

[Tabasco]

I'd venture it's because they don't really like the games they review that much, but they sure do love their sense of industry participation. I don't care if the questions in a "symposium" are leading, but it's gotta be asked: why is the shit that gets written so damn inaccurate when it comes to the basics of any B-list game?

I remember hearing Shane B. and Jeff Haynes recalling their trip to Konami's secret mountain Kojima Lair to play MGS4 early and give feedback.  No moneyhat in the world could have bought what making those guys feel important did.

[patrickula]

Who's the bigger wanker: the wankers who have a wankfest about "videogame journalism" or the wanker who spends 9 pages on a forum fighting about this "symposium" before it even happens?

[Human Snorenado]

Who's the bigger wanker: the wankers who have a wankfest about "videogame journalism" or the wanker who spends 9 pages on a forum fighting about this "symposium" before it even happens?

Well, if the wankers hadn't had their wankfest that one wanker on the forum wouldn't have had anything to wank about for nine wankin' pages.  Wanker.

[Human Snorenado]

Also, almost all of the QT3 wankers over there missed the bigger point:  that the very notion of "videogame journalism" is absurd.

[recursivelyenumerable]

There are no 'toys journos' as far as I can tell.

you can't tell very far, apparently!  a simple Google search yields a bunch of examples e.g. from www.toycyte.com "... Fair enough, but being an intrepid toy journalist of a rather inquisitive nature, there were just some things I needed to know. ...", from www.figures.com "Think You Have What it Takes to be a Toy Industry Journalist??  Figures.com and Action Online are looking for a few good writers ...", from http://www.action-figure.com "I'm gonna ask all of you who are still undecided on this line to go out and do something. When these come out in April...buy the Hulk. Why? cos then you will understand why just about every (if not EVERY) toy journalist is going nuts over this line. No ToyBiz hasn't bought us all off, they don't need to!"

and many, many more.

[patrickula]

"Games criticism" might be a better terminology to move forward with (Shawn Elliot would probably agree with this).

[Himu]

Who cares.

[cool breeze]

people who are embarrassed by articles written by a 'game journalist' who thinks games should be on the Wii because of heart and wish to somehow carve themselves into a pretentious hole instead of a manbaby japan wankery one

[Himu]

people who are embarrassed by articles written by a 'game journalist' who thinks games should be on the Wii because of heart and wish to somehow carve themselves into a pretentious hole instead of a manbaby japan wankery one

I agree his first blog post was really what the hell, but his second one was pretty good.

[Don Flamenco]

"Games criticism" might be a better terminology to move forward with (Shawn Elliot would probably agree with this).

but they aren't free to criticize.  they could never give a super high profile game less than a 9.  

[TVC15]

There's some fairly obvious proof that Prole's troll at Qt3 was a failure by his own standards:  Dave Long agreed with him.  Prole would never want that outcome in one of his threads.

[Himu]

Is Dave Long that guy at gaf with the ridiculous avatar of the asian guy getting his cock bit?

[Don Flamenco]

Is Dave Long that guy at gaf with the ridiculous avatar of the asian cock getting his cock bit?

yeah.  I've always wondered if that's him or some ridiculous 90s Genesis ad.

the qt3 thread is kinda sad.  only that bill guy got trolled.  otherwise, they're all too intelligent to provide real flamebait.  I think they may have educations and lives. 

Elliot's response was a bit saddening too, like he's aware of the reality that game journos are just above Gamestop employees and QA testers.  Now I feel bad

[cool breeze]

on gfw radio Shawn seemed to made it clear that he didn't think there was really such a thing is game journalism and referred to himself and others and enthusiast press

[patrickula]

Enthusiast press seems accurate.  I guess what I'm saying with the criticism thing is that's something that they should perform beyond mere buyers-guide reviews.

Drinky probably fast forwarded through that part of the podcast(s).  To him they're the self-proclaimed literati.

[duckman2000]

They don't seem very enthusiastic about games, though. Nitpicking and fault-finding isn't enthusiasm, it's, well, nitpicking and fault-finding.

[recursivelyenumerable]

wrong thread lol, nothing to see here

[dammitmattt]

The thing I always liked about Shawn is that he didn't take himself too seriously and he knew his place.  The same was true with Jeff Green and the rest of the GFW crew.  That's why he didn't fit in with 1up Yours.

[Eel O'Brian]

plus he hated shit like CONFIRMED and FAIL

you could almost hear him flinch whenever some messageboard jenkem was spoken

[Van Cruncheon]

There's some fairly obvious proof that Prole's troll at Qt3 was a failure by his own standards:  Dave Long agreed with him.  Prole would never want that outcome in one of his threads.

it's failure overall because the phrase "self-titled literati" was a stupid choice of words, which is why i shouldn't argue on the interwebs and play persona 4 at the same time -- but i just can't imagine the internet being so important that i'd stop jerking off to teddie. they're nitpicky enough to pick up on my slip-up, and they're smart enough to realize it wasn't contextually validated. i am disappointed in myself, although i got almost 10 pages out of it and a LOT of defensive posturing, which means insecurities were clearly in play and thus i was definitely onto something. (you can almost always shut me down in 1: "we don't care, dork.") opportunity: squandered. ah well. can't rock 'em all! onward and upward.

that said, i made bill flinch a bit, and i always like deflating the old omm forum crowd just to remind them they don't have the market cornered on old-school flaming.

[TVC15]

They don't seem very enthusiastic about games, though. Nitpicking and fault-finding isn't enthusiasm, it's, well, nitpicking and fault-finding.

I think that has to do with the enthusiasts being nerds, not that they aren't enthusiastic for games.

[Tabasco]

http://shawnelliott.blogspot.com/2008/12/symposium-part-one-review-scores.html

16000 words of . . . something.  Including Prole idol Tom Chick!

[dammitmattt]

http://shawnelliott.blogspot.com/2008/12/symposium-part-one-review-scores.html

16000 words of . . . something.  Including Prole idol Tom Chick!

I really tried to start reading it.  Robert Ashley's bit was okay because I generally like him, though it's the same old story (reviewer stops reviewing games, falls in love with games again).  The rest of the first couple thousand words is a pretentious gobbylagook that's an absolute chore to read.  These guys need editors.  Badly.  At least Gerstmann sounds the least pretentious of the lot and knows his place, who his reviews serve, and why people read them.

The worst part is that I just wasted 5 minutes reading something that gave me absolutely zero insight into the topic.  Isn't the whole point to learn something?

[cool breeze]

I'll probably print this out and read it as I poop

I did check out what Tom Chick wrote in the first section since he always confused me a bit in his approach, but it is basically what I assumed.  He's the type of guy who believes that since people can't avoid the expectations and hype, they should embrace it.  Kind of shows with no hyped games making his top list.

[dammitmattt]

I'll probably print this out and read it as I poop

I did check out what Tom Chick wrote in the first section since he always confused me a bit in his approach, but it is basically what I assumed.  He's the type of guy who believes that since people can't avoid the expectations and hype, they should embrace it.  Kind of shows with no hyped games making his top list.

It's just as bad if you let "hype" affect you positively or negatively.  Both are unavoidable since we're all human.

[Van Cruncheon]

that was a lot of prose to say a few things everyone with an attention span beyond that of the average gaffer already knew. yadda yadda we're not in bed with the publishers; whoa hey scores make for bad intarweb dialogue; argh i can't assign a score to something subjective. SNOOOOOORE.

again, my challenge to them stands: review "nightmare of druaga" honestly. it's not a great roguelike, but i doubt any of them can articulate why. if one of them succeeds, it will be through dedicated research and an attempt to understand a game in a genre no-one plays, and in the process of self-discovery they might realize why their readers consistently mistrust them.

[cool breeze]

I'm not saying it's a negative or positive thing he's doing.  Actually it's worse to let the hype affect you since you get 10/10 for a name (GTA4) rather than the actual game.

[Van Cruncheon]

aaaand like i said -- trollishly -- in the qt3 thread, they're ignoring the obvious pink elephant in the room: that nobody trusts videogame reviewers, given the gross inconsistency of their standards. oh, maybe we kinda sorta trust the regular byline, but we as readers inevitably turn to suspicions of bias and politics because we can't fathom why else the greater body of writers are so fucking AWFUL at reviewing, well, everything. it's not even about scoring; it's about not being able to articulate WHY they love gta4 despite the glaring flaws, and why they can't meaningfully discuss dynasty warriors despite the game being very mechanically sound to a LOT of gamers. why should i listen to anyone who can't get the basics right?

[cool breeze]

No, they do talk about whats good in these games.  They just use non-descriptive words like 'heart' to describe, uh, something.