GWENT seems to prove that CDPR have jumped onto the "whatever is currently in fashion" bandwagon of gaming that Valve has. Can't wait to see a class-based multiplayer shooter ("Overwatch-like") and a Witcher MOBA.

Why false friend? Doesn't it have the same meaning in English, too?

yes it does, hence the term "Working or peanuts".

Well, sort of. It's just worth pointing out that we never use "Peanuts" in German to mean the nut (unless you're one of those corporate types), and we also essentially use it as a synonym for "Lappalie", which is not really how we'd use it in English.
That's the thing: we've basically imported the expression "working for peanuts" into German as "für Peanuts arbeiten", and then people have carried the word "peanuts" over to anything that is unimportant or unimpressive. Something can be "Peanuts" in German if it was really easy and no real achievement.

That's entirely incorrect. What it embodies is the recognition that corporate "journalism" has only the pretense of high standards, which is underscored by ChaosFox's acknowledgement re the rarity of genuine investigative journalism. How much better it is is arguable, but there is nothing inherently wrong with the concept in and of itself.

There's already a Witcher MOBA on iOS ;P

What you're missing is that reputations are earned. When I say that genuine investigative journalism is rare, I mean that it largely only comes from some of the "established" media like the BBC, The Times, The Boston Globe and The New York Times. If an independent/amateur journalist reveals something noteworthy and real through another channel, (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook), the more reputable outlets will usually verify it and pick it up. But being established isn't enough anymore - even stalwarts like The Independent, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph have become agenda-driven rags.

No matter how much you may dislike institutions like the BBC, ARD, Reuters, New York Times and so on because their presentation of news is inconsistent with your worldview, the fact remains is that they are trusted because they have a proven track record of accuracy and honesty. Maybe not perfect, and there may be lapses in journalistic judgement, but those lapses seldom come from a bad place. Compare that with outlets such as Breitbart, Fox News, Vice and HuffPost, for whom dishonesty and a lack of integrity are key to furthering their respective agendas. Don't even get me started on InfoWars.

I think a good rule of thumb is: if your news outlet was established after the 1970s, treat it with absolute suspicion. The newer, the more suspicious.

Thing is, the economic climate in this world is such that you almost have to take this approach to be able to meet market expectations. The only way I can see to get around this is to develop alternative methods of funding that insulate companies from the dynamics that are bringing about a Borg-like standardization of corporate management.

I would posit that it is precisely because the institutions you cite do *not* do what you claim they do, that newer institutions like Fox have been able to take root and proliferate, because if that wasn't the case, the masses would not be so profoundly ignorant that they are easily taken in by swine like Rupert Murdoch.

In defense of all the aforementioned companies, Konami alone is legendarily incompetent, to the point of absurdity.

The money THOSE idiots have left on the table leave me breathless and is part of the reason they left the game industry.
Their treatment of Hideo Kojima over MGS5 getting over budget is ridiculous when you compare it's dev. cost to many of its contemporaries. Only fools would've expected hit to make budget considering all the costs of next gen. games, esp. AAA ones. They should've been grateful he managed to finish it for $20 million under $100 million.

Not really, there's plenty of examples of non-conventional games doing well in recent years, they just need to be marketed in a more clever way.

MOBA on touchscreen sounds like a hellish experience.

The problem is that people watch too many movies and seek large-scale conspiracies where there literally are none. Without the institutions I quoted, we wouldn't have had the Watergate Affair, we wouldn't have had the revelations regarding the Catholic Church's cover-up of child abuse in the priesthood, we wouldn't have had the investigations against FIFA.

But investigative reporting is seldom international or presidential in scope. In fact, most lay people would probably deem most reporting uninteresting. Most cases of corruption and negligence are smaller in scope. The BBC, for instance, has been instrumental in uncovering cases of abuse at nursing homes in the UK. The New York Times has been responsible for countless investigations into FDA corruption. They don't lend themselves to sensational revelations.

Also, there's a lot of investigative reporting going on that you're not aware of. Investigative reporting is not an easy thing to do - even if there is news, it's often hard to get people to go on record and provide evidence. Most of it ends up dead-ending because going public without evidence can be tantamount to libel. It's also dangerous - even local journalists here in my city in Germany have been threatened by left-wing and right-wing extremists for investigating far-left and far-right violence and crime.

And let's not forget that law enforcement is a lot more effective than it was 50 years ago. At least in the West, most corruption is unearthed at law enforcement level before reporters even have a chance to get wind of it, and all they're left to do is report on the investigation instead of performing it (like the recent egg scandal here in Europe).

People flock to charlatans like Rupert Murdoch and Alex Jones and allow them to proliferate because people want outrage, moral panic and sensationalism - it makes them feel important and self-righteous. The world, sadly, is a lot more boring than that.

Without alternative sources of corporate funding, how can those companies be competitive *and* maintain a semblance of independence?

Crowdfunding (at least to get the ball balling), and there's some smaller publishers who show the willingness to fund "indie" projects.