Eurogamer writer criticizes critics, loses his job, the Kraken is released

Does System Wars exist in an alternate reality? I just think it's odd that I haven't seen a thread about this whole enormous, bloated mess.
Did I miss it somehow? It's basically Gerstmanngate 2: The Reckoning. A big ol' s***tornado that just keeps on digging up dirt and tossing it out into the stratosphere.

I know y'all suck at clicking links and reading articles, so I'll quote the entire recap.

Well, that was exciting. The entire English-speaking world of videogames journalism just about convulsed itself into a coma yesterday because someone did that rarest of things in the English-speaking world of videogames journalism spoke openly, frankly and truthfully about something. If you've been having trouble keeping up with the dizzying pace of developments, allow us to lead you gently through the most concise and accurate timeline we can manage.

WEDNESDAY 24TH OCTOBER

- Eurogamer publishes an article by regular columnist Robert Florence, entitled "A Table Of Doritos". You can read it in its original form here. It's a critique of some questionable ethical practices in games journalism, which names three writers specifically Geoff Keighley of Spike TV, Lauren Wainwright of UK trade weekly MCV, and Dave Cook of website VG24/7. None are attacked outright, but the strongest criticism is reserved for Keighley and Cook, with Wainwright used only to illustrate a particular point about how a perception of suspicion can arise even when groundless.

- The article, which centres around an image of Keighley and some events at this year's Games Media Awards, attracts many complaints on Twitter from some of the journalists named or implicated in it, including Cook and Wainwright. These complaints provoke an angry response from John Walker, an editor on popular PC gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, who pens a piece on his personal blog, which is then widely circulated. It attracts a large number of comments, including this one from a poster claiming to be a former games journalist for a UK print publisher.

THURSDAY 25TH OCTOBER

- Eurogamer removes the section of Robert Florence's article relating to Lauren Wainwright, and attaches an apology to the piece. The site explicitly states that its action is "Following receipt of a complaint from Lauren Wainwright". Wainwright has previously tweeted that she considers the comments in the piece "libelous" [sic].

(Although Eurogamer claims "The article otherwise remains as originally published", in fact David Cook's name has also been removed.)

- Robert Florence announces via his Twitter account that as a result of this act of censorship he will no longer be working for Eurogamer. He absolves the site from blame in a series of tweets:

"I want to thank @tombramwell and @eurogamer for having me on board. I was saddened to hear what they've been through this past 24 hours. Yesterday was my last piece for Eurogamer. Here it is in amended form. [link]. I stand by every word of the original piece. I'm sure you understand that, with it being amended, I have to step down from doing the columns. Thanks if you ever read any of them. I'm as proud of the Eurogamer columns as I am of anything I've done in gaming. Again, thanks to @tombramwell for being one of the good guys. Also, don't blame Eurogamer for this. The threat of legal action brings unbelievable pressure. I am clear on who the bad guys are in this."

- Lauren Wainwright issues three tweets professing to be pleased with Eurogamer's actions and accepting their apology.

- At this point a storm of criticism erupts online, most of it aimed at Eurogamer and Wainwright. John Walker posts a second article on his personal blog, entitled "An Utter Disgrace" and again attacking the journalists who had defended the practices highlighted by Florence. Like the first it attracts a large number of comments, almost all supportive of his view. The piece includes the following passage (our emphasis):

"Wainwright states that she is simply a massive fan of this unreleased game, and with what I believe to be naive enthusiasm, hasnt thought through the negative implications of making her Twitter page look like its sponsored. It isnt. Even though Wainwright publicly lists Square Enix, publishers of Tomb Raider (screencap for when that inevitably gets edited out), as one of her current employers."

- At around this point, Lauren Wainwright locks her Twitter account, which is illustrated with artwork from Square Enix's new Tomb Raider game and which has come under intense scrutiny. She claims this is as a result of people sending her abuse. A search of the social-media platform does indeed reveal a large number of tweets directed at her, many of which are angry and a minority of which are crude personal insults.

- As the furore grows, Michael French the editor in chief at Intent Media, who are the publishers of MCV, the organisers of the Games Media Awards and Wainwright's employer issues a tweet:

"Some clarity: There was no legal action taken from Intent. We asked Eurogamer to remove cruel content about a staff member. They obliged."

- This rather ambiguous statement attracts numerous questions in response, all of which go unanswered. While it states that no legal action was taken, it doesn't say whether any was threatened. Some people note that it refers to legal action from Intent Media, whereas Eurogamer's apology refers to a complaint from Lauren Wainwright, not her employer.

(As we write this article on the morning of Friday 26th, French has as yet issued no clarification on any of the points raised in response to his tweet. His only further comment was a reply to a tweet by Colin Campbell, a former UK journalist and magazine publisher now employed by IGN in California, which accused those who were criticising Eurogamer and Wainwright of "sententious, self-righteous cant".)

- Robert Florence reacts to the claims made in French's post by tweeting"And as for these suggestions that there were no legal threats I won't be made to look a liar. I was told what I was told." Eurogamer make no comment.

- By this point, Wainwright's actions have unleashed the Streisand Effect in full force. Critical articles about the situation begin to appear all across the web, the offending passage is repeated countless times on websites, blogs and forums, a Google Cached copy of the original is located and angry readers begin combing Wainwright's history for suggestions of corruption.

(Most of the articles appear on US-based sites, and many focus on the UK's libel laws, which are said to be heavily biased in favour of the plaintiff. It's an intriguing lesson in how outsiders see things in fact, bringing a libel case in the UK is prohibitively expensive and open to almost nobody as a result. And even if Intent had had a massive brainfail and tried it with this one, they'd have been laughed out of court in five minutes flat. Eurogamer's near-instant cave-in to the complaint is extremely baffling, as Wainwright didn't have a leg to stand on.)

- This search rapidly turns up a substantial amount of seemingly incriminating evidence. Much of it is based around Wainwright's assertion (as noted by John Walker) in her entry on industry directory Journalisted, in which she lists videogame publisher Square Enix as one of her current employers.

It quickly becomes apparent that Wainwright has written a great many articles about Square Enix titles for various publications, all of them lavishing extravagant praise on the products in question, but none of them disclosing her connection to the company.

- Mark Brown of UK-based gaming site Pocket Gamer uncovers and retweets a claim posted by Wainwright on Twitter stating: "Just to clarify on Square Enix: I've done consultancy work for them. I've never reviewed the products". He attaches to the retweet a link to an image on Wainwright's own website, depicting a glowing review of Square Enix's Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

- Brown adds shortly afterwards in respect of the quote" "I did have to squish it down. I removed "In the past" and "A lot of journalists do." That would make Wainwright's full original quote "Just to clarify on Square Enix: I've done consultancy work for them in the past. A lot of journalists do. I've never reviewed the products." Interestingly, the tweet refers to "products" plural, and conflicts with Wainwright's Journalisted entry listing Square Enix as a current employer.

(The apparent implication is that Wainwright thinks it's fine for a professional journalist to review a company's products while also working for that company on other products (and not disclose the fact), which is curious.)

- Wainwright, meanwhile, is busy deleting critical comments posted on her website, including on the page containing the Deus Ex review. And astonishingly, late on Thursday evening she also changes her Journalisted entry, exactly as predicted by John Walker's second blog post 12 hours before rather than changing the reference to Square Enix from "current employer" to "previous employer", she deletes all mention of the company from her profile entirely. We can only assume that someone had told her she wasn't acting suspiciously enough yet.

FRIDAY 26TH OCTOBER

- The story continues to not go away.

That, viewers, is the short version. We've left out all the stuff about the events at the GMAs which initially inspired Florence's column, partly because those are still covered in what's left of the Eurogamer piece. We've left out the diversionary side-issue whereby a few vile idiots posted disgusting misogynist abuse at Wainwright, enabling several games journalists to use it to attempt to deflect the legitimate criticism being aimed at her. We haven't mentioned the many misconceptions already circulating around the issue, such as the suggestion that Wainwright was involved in the GMAs tweeting incident (she wasn't).

We haven't highlighted how Intent Media has been at the forefront of debasing videogames journalism for years, along with VG24/7 and many others. We haven't even told you the story of how IGN's Colin Campbell, mentioned above and a winner of the GMA's "Games Industry Legend" award, is directly implicated in the practice of covertly selling review scores for advertising something this writer can verify from first-hand personal knowledge.

(Indeed, we haven't gone into how just about every single player in this entire sorry saga is a GMA winner, and how the awards are widely regarded as a badge of shame, even by some of their own recipients.)

All of that can wait for another day. For now, spare a thought for the journalist forced out of his job for telling the truth, and for the one still in hers for telling lies. We're watching keenly for a statement from Lauren Wainwright and/or Intent Media explaining their actions. We're not expecting it any time soon.

RevStu

The was already a thread. It just died.

As i'll say again Robert Florence has himself set, he writes one of the most sucessful comedy programmes in Scotland known as burnistoun and a core writer on chewin the fat another massive program, aswell as writing for Mock the week.

Rab's an amazing guy and still known to be in and around Glasgow and years ago had the tv program/web series Videogaiden and consolevania.

This man has probably done more than Keighly and he's pretty much exposed a lot of what we kinda knew from Gretsmanngate.

This is why I do not trust big review sites / magazines much anymore. I like smaller websites like Blistered Thumbs where the reviewers have to buy their own copies of the games, because they will give you their honest opinion. If they feel ripped off by a crappy game, they will make sure you know about it because they had to reach into their own pocket to play it instead of having a big publisher send it to them for free, along with a bunch of other swag to help sway their opinion.

If you wait for reviews of that sort, you will get a much better sense of whether or not a game is worth buying. I find that it's not so bad to have to wait a few days to get the verdict if it means that the publisher's money is not influencing the reviewer. I have yet to see Angry Joe give a bad game a good review.

The was already a thread. It just died.

Thefatness16

Lies I say! Game reviewers are immune to bias! Well, at least they are supposed to be according to several posters on SW. :P

[QUOTE="Thefatness16"]

The was already a thread. It just died.

McStrongfast

Unless the story focuses on something like 360>PS3 or vice versa, that thread ain't gonna get much attention.

So what is the short version?KalDurenik

Rab criticizes journalists for silly practices and the whole Keighly picture and explaining with depth how gaming journalism is basically fooked then lists examples of why its fooked.

Rab gets sacked and we could have Gretsmanngate 2 on our hands.

Im firmly on Rab's side since 1.he's gen up a game lover 2.he's scottish and 3.He's a brilliant writer who writes for some amazing tv programmes here.

So what is the short version?KalDurenik

• Keighley surrounded by doritos followed by gaming bloggers retweeting a hashtag for advertising to win a PS3 makes Florence of Eurogamer curious.
• Florence writes an article saying how things are shady and some sound like straight up PR e.g. Wainright orgasms for everything Squenix.
• Eurogamer/Wainwright send libel threats to Eurogamer, at which the article was edited to remove mentioning of Wainright.
• Wainwright responds in twitter "Apology accepted" and something in the vain of applying her law classes to use.
• Florence either steps down or is forced to resign to avoid any libel threat.
• Both sides deny any threat or are not talking about it directly, but twitter posts hint that such threat existed. Florence is not confirming or denying whether he was fired or he stepped down.
• "GAF and 4 c h a n combine forces to see this standalone complex issue" alongside digital protest from Penny Arcade and more, showing what happened.
• Wainwright's profile shows she is a freelancer for Square Enix. She admitted it and denied doing any reviews for Square Enix or shilling (she is wrong. She reviewed Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and did countless previews).
• All this fiasco is too much for her and she privatize her twitter account. Next thing you know, she starts deleting tweets, videos and articles, and edits her profile to remove any mention of Square Enix freelancing.
• People find some comments of her thanking someone called Korina that used to work at Ubisoft.
• Korina Abbotused to work at Ubisoft and is currently the marketing executive at...Square-Enix.
• David Jaffe offers Keighley Mountain Dew.
• Gaming journalism.

Summary

I think it's a great article. Thanks for sharing!

In the end the only opinion you can trust is your own. Reviews are only good as a reference I find, I don't use them as the end all be all like so many people on SW do. There are so many flaws in reviews, many of them are questionable.

Take GS, lately I get the feeling they give out low reviews just to stir controversy and get more site traffic, and then I also get the feeling some sites will just give certain games high scores simply because of the name that's on it, or the fanbase that backs it. I found the review for ODST to be very questionable, there is no way that game deserved a 9. It was far too short and lacking for that.

Now if that was the guys honest opinion, then so be it. But really I seriously doubt that if ODST didn't have Halo on the box, say it was some other shooter name, it would have gotten that same score.

But in the end reviews are just subjective, no reason to get bent out of shape over it. But you would be naive not to believe that bias does exist in game journalism, it exists in news journalism and film journalism, it sure as hell exists in video games.

[QUOTE="KalDurenik"]So what is the short version?Thefatness16

• David Jaffe offers Keighley Mountain Dew.

Summary

There was already a thread about this last night. No one cared.charizard1605

I care.

I got distracted by that sexy green armor.

Oh god :lol:

This is why I do not trust big review sites / magazines much anymore. I like smaller websites like Blistered Thumbs where the reviewers have to buy their own copies of the games, because they will give you their honest opinion. If they feel ripped off by a crappy game, they will make sure you know about it because they had to reach into their own pocket to play it instead of having a big publisher send it to them for free, along with a bunch of other swag to help sway their opinion.

If you wait for reviews of that sort, you will get a much better sense of whether or not a game is worth buying. I find that it's not so bad to have to wait a few days to get the verdict if it means that the publisher's money is not influencing the reviewer. I have yet to see Angry Joe give a bad game a good review.

Timstuff

I have often noticed that many reviewers get free things when a game comes out, I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

[QUOTE="Timstuff"]

This is why I do not trust big review sites / magazines much anymore. I like smaller websites like Blistered Thumbs where the reviewers have to buy their own copies of the games, because they will give you their honest opinion. If they feel ripped off by a crappy game, they will make sure you know about it because they had to reach into their own pocket to play it instead of having a big publisher send it to them for free, along with a bunch of other swag to help sway their opinion.

If you wait for reviews of that sort, you will get a much better sense of whether or not a game is worth buying. I find that it's not so bad to have to wait a few days to get the verdict if it means that the publisher's money is not influencing the reviewer. I have yet to see Angry Joe give a bad game a good review.

ShadowMoses900

I have often noticed that many reviewers get free things when a game comes out, I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

Kind of, they don't get a vacation but instead get to play a review game at some luxurious resort for a week or whatever. It's obviously a way to butter them up, and I think that games journalism really needs to be more objective. I love Geoff Keighley and think he is one of the best journalists in his field, but I have to admit he comes off as a puppet for game publishers who use him to get their game out their more, instead of to provide an objective analysis of their games.

[QUOTE="Timstuff"]

This is why I do not trust big review sites / magazines much anymore. I like smaller websites like Blistered Thumbs where the reviewers have to buy their own copies of the games, because they will give you their honest opinion. If they feel ripped off by a crappy game, they will make sure you know about it because they had to reach into their own pocket to play it instead of having a big publisher send it to them for free, along with a bunch of other swag to help sway their opinion.

If you wait for reviews of that sort, you will get a much better sense of whether or not a game is worth buying. I find that it's not so bad to have to wait a few days to get the verdict if it means that the publisher's money is not influencing the reviewer. I have yet to see Angry Joe give a bad game a good review.

ShadowMoses900

I have often noticed that many reviewers get free things when a game comes out, I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

Awesome.

I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

ShadowMoses900

It's just the reviewer. They take them off to some place like Hawaii or Italy, and make them review the game there. They make sure the reviewers are as happy as possible, before they review the game.

[QUOTE="Timstuff"]

This is why I do not trust big review sites / magazines much anymore. I like smaller websites like Blistered Thumbs where the reviewers have to buy their own copies of the games, because they will give you their honest opinion. If they feel ripped off by a crappy game, they will make sure you know about it because they had to reach into their own pocket to play it instead of having a big publisher send it to them for free, along with a bunch of other swag to help sway their opinion.

If you wait for reviews of that sort, you will get a much better sense of whether or not a game is worth buying. I find that it's not so bad to have to wait a few days to get the verdict if it means that the publisher's money is not influencing the reviewer. I have yet to see Angry Joe give a bad game a good review.

ShadowMoses900

I have often noticed that many reviewers get free things when a game comes out, I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

It quickly becomes apparent that Wainwright has written a great many articles about Square Enix titles for various publications, all of them lavishing extravagant praise on the products in question, but none of them disclosing her connection to the company.

McStrongfast

That sounds a lot like astroturfing, which is considered unfair and illegal in both EU and US.

Good read, and I don't see any problem with the unedited version. Getting fired for that? Sucks.SaltyMeatballs

He didn't get fired, he "resigned". Judging by his tweets and words on the matter, he did it willingly since they amended his article, and I have to applaud him for standing up for journalistic integrity.

There was already a thread about this last night. No one cared.charizard1605

[QUOTE="SaltyMeatballs"]Good read, and I don't see any problem with the unedited version. Getting fired for that? Sucks.SPYDER0416

He didn't get fired, he "resigned". Judging by his tweets and words on the matter, he did it willingly since they amended his article, and I have to applaud him for standing up for journalistic integrity.

[QUOTE="charizard1605"]There was already a thread about this last night. No one cared.TheEroica

[QUOTE="TheEroica"][QUOTE="charizard1605"]There was already a thread about this last night. No one cared.Heil68

[QUOTE="ShadowMoses900"]

[QUOTE="Timstuff"]

This is why I do not trust big review sites / magazines much anymore. I like smaller websites like Blistered Thumbs where the reviewers have to buy their own copies of the games, because they will give you their honest opinion. If they feel ripped off by a crappy game, they will make sure you know about it because they had to reach into their own pocket to play it instead of having a big publisher send it to them for free, along with a bunch of other swag to help sway their opinion.

If you wait for reviews of that sort, you will get a much better sense of whether or not a game is worth buying. I find that it's not so bad to have to wait a few days to get the verdict if it means that the publisher's money is not influencing the reviewer. I have yet to see Angry Joe give a bad game a good review.

SPYDER0416

I have often noticed that many reviewers get free things when a game comes out, I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

Kind of, they don't get a vacation but instead get to play a review game at some luxurious resort for a week or whatever. It's obviously a way to butter them up, and I think that games journalism really needs to be more objective. I love Geoff Keighley and think he is one of the best journalists in his field, but I have to admit he comes off as a puppet for game publishers who use him to get their game out their more, instead of to provide an objective analysis of their games.

Well then, you can't really trust any reviews really. I mean in the end they are all subjective of course, but is the reviewer giving his honest opinion? Or are they just conforming to pressure from ad revenue or being "bribed" so to speak with nice hotel rooms and free stuff and whatnot?

In the OP one of the links takes you to a page that shows some of the common practices used by reviewers, one of them talked about how a reviewer might suck at a game but won't give the game a bad score to piss off the publisher, so they will give the game a score of "73", which in GS terms is 7.5 I guess.

I think this happened with Zelda and Infamous. Also one of the worst practices it lists is one where the reviewer doesn't even really play the game at all, he might play a level or 2 and just take a couple of images from the game or film some segments and then give the game a high score based off of the name alone.

This apparently happens with reviewers that review the game before anyone else.

So what is the short version?KalDurenik

A lot of journalists are full of sh*t. The ones that criticize that group for disgracing their profession are out of work. The users that don't read everything blindly accuse others without knowing what they're saying and inadvertently help the ones who are full of sh*t by giving them cheap fodder to dismiss rather than being forced to be held to criticism thrown at them

In short, it's the usual.

[QUOTE="SPYDER0416"]

[QUOTE="ShadowMoses900"]

I have often noticed that many reviewers get free things when a game comes out, I have even heard of cases where the reviewer and his/her family will get an all expenses paid vacation. Is that actually true?

ShadowMoses900

Kind of, they don't get a vacation but instead get to play a review game at some luxurious resort for a week or whatever. It's obviously a way to butter them up, and I think that games journalism really needs to be more objective. I love Geoff Keighley and think he is one of the best journalists in his field, but I have to admit he comes off as a puppet for game publishers who use him to get their game out their more, instead of to provide an objective analysis of their games.

Well then, you can't really trust any reviews really. I mean in the end they are all subjective of course, but is the reviewer giving his honest opinion? Or are they just conforming to pressure from ad revenue or being "bribed" so to speak with nice hotel rooms and free stuff and whatnot?

In the OP one of the links takes you to a page that shows some of the common practices used by reviewers, one of them talked about how a reviewer might suck at a game but won't give the game a bad score to piss off the publisher, so they will give the game a score of "73", which in GS terms is 7.5 I guess.

I think this happened with Zelda and Infamous. Also one of the worst practices it lists is one where the reviewer doesn't even really play the game at all, he might play a level or 2 and just take a couple of images from the game or film some segments and then give the game a high score based off of the name alone.

This apparently happens with reviewers that review the game before anyone else.

[QUOTE="Thefatness16"]

The was already a thread. It just died.

McStrongfast

[QUOTE="ShadowMoses900"]

[QUOTE="SPYDER0416"]

Kind of, they don't get a vacation but instead get to play a review game at some luxurious resort for a week or whatever. It's obviously a way to butter them up, and I think that games journalism really needs to be more objective. I love Geoff Keighley and think he is one of the best journalists in his field, but I have to admit he comes off as a puppet for game publishers who use him to get their game out their more, instead of to provide an objective analysis of their games.

MonsieurX

Well then, you can't really trust any reviews really. I mean in the end they are all subjective of course, but is the reviewer giving his honest opinion? Or are they just conforming to pressure from ad revenue or being "bribed" so to speak with nice hotel rooms and free stuff and whatnot?

In the OP one of the links takes you to a page that shows some of the common practices used by reviewers, one of them talked about how a reviewer might suck at a game but won't give the game a bad score to piss off the publisher, so they will give the game a score of "73", which in GS terms is 7.5 I guess.

I think this happened with Zelda and Infamous. Also one of the worst practices it lists is one where the reviewer doesn't even really play the game at all, he might play a level or 2 and just take a couple of images from the game or film some segments and then give the game a high score based off of the name alone.

This apparently happens with reviewers that review the game before anyone else.

[QUOTE="MonsieurX"][QUOTE="ShadowMoses900"]

Well then, you can't really trust any reviews really. I mean in the end they are all subjective of course, but is the reviewer giving his honest opinion? Or are they just conforming to pressure from ad revenue or being "bribed" so to speak with nice hotel rooms and free stuff and whatnot?

In the OP one of the links takes you to a page that shows some of the common practices used by reviewers, one of them talked about how a reviewer might suck at a game but won't give the game a bad score to piss off the publisher, so they will give the game a score of "73", which in GS terms is 7.5 I guess.

I think this happened with Zelda and Infamous. Also one of the worst practices it lists is one where the reviewer doesn't even really play the game at all, he might play a level or 2 and just take a couple of images from the game or film some segments and then give the game a high score based off of the name alone.

This apparently happens with reviewers that review the game before anyone else.

blue_hazy_basic

lol You guys think I'm so biased.....but take a look in the mirror.

I tend to like IGN's reviews, doesn't mean I agree with them or really trust them per se, but for the most part my personal opinions on games tends to matchGreg Miller and Colin Moriarty. I don't agree with them on eveything of course.

I don't care what 360 scores or doens't. I hope Halo 4 is good and it will probably get high scores, doens't bother me.

[QUOTE="MonsieurX"][QUOTE="ShadowMoses900"]

Well then, you can't really trust any reviews really. I mean in the end they are all subjective of course, but is the reviewer giving his honest opinion? Or are they just conforming to pressure from ad revenue or being "bribed" so to speak with nice hotel rooms and free stuff and whatnot?

In the OP one of the links takes you to a page that shows some of the common practices used by reviewers, one of them talked about how a reviewer might suck at a game but won't give the game a bad score to piss off the publisher, so they will give the game a score of "73", which in GS terms is 7.5 I guess.

I think this happened with Zelda and Infamous. Also one of the worst practices it lists is one where the reviewer doesn't even really play the game at all, he might play a level or 2 and just take a couple of images from the game or film some segments and then give the game a high score based off of the name alone.

This apparently happens with reviewers that review the game before anyone else.

blue_hazy_basic

I don't think it's entirely corrupt, it's impossible to make the worst game come off as even decent without having your BS called on you, it's why the latest Medal of Honor is tanking so hard, because EA knew there was no saving it and they didn't bother giving pre review copies. It is unfortunate you can't trust an industry meant to help you with your purchasing decisions, but it's getting better I think, cases like this and the Jeff Gerstmann incident a few years back seems to be opening the eyes of the gaming public to the corruption and bias in gaming media.

Thank you for making a coherent thread on this topic that super600 failed to do. It existed before yours, but was so poorly worded that no one had a clue what's going on.

It's also interesting how most sites have avoided this grenade of an editorial piece on the state of gaming journalism. For more insight I'd recommend reading John Walker's blog.

Thanks for posting this, TC. I'd read Walker's original blog, but I was missing a lot of context. This is very helpful.

Quite ironic that this was originally posted on eurogamer,by far the worst of all popular review outlets.

Well this incident is new to me.

It was a great read and I'm obviously not surprised by it.

In any case, yes this is a mess. Especially when you read the original blog with the added context of all of this. It's shocking how no website covered this at all. I remember the outcry over the Gamespot incident back in 2007. This seems to be something similar, why is no one reporting on it?charizard1605

You said before that no one cares....why would you be surprised now that no one else is reporting on this?

Anyway I think it's because similar things happen to other publications and they don't want to draw attention to themselves. Also it's Eurogamer, no one here in the US is really familiar with them.