And multiple times I've seen people (including in the last few days), showing you what is wrong with reviews. How objectivity is possible in speaking opinions. Yet each and every time, you ignore what people say and come back days later and repeat this same b.s. again. Objectivity is an ethical goal. It is even in the code you cite. It does not conflict with the subjective nature of reviews. One's perspective always flavours one's writing, but that's no excuse to be one-sided nor ideological

As to the code of ethics, someone just made a long list of those ethics that have been breached. Just citing the ethics code doesn't all of a sudden make these journalists follow it. Patricia Hernandez reviewed her roommates game. Any number of other glowing reviews which inexplicably seem to leave out the obvious flaws in games. As I asked before, how can one give a glowing review of Depression Quest yet somehow leave out that the game lasts less than 10 minutes and is only that long if you read slow.

Sorry, I was out for a few days, so I may have missed some replies.

I looked for the "long list of ethics that have been breached" but couldn't find it. Can you link? Again, I'm only interested in how ethics relates to subjectivity, I don't dispute that there some writers have breached some ethical foundations, I would just like to know what basis people have for saying objectivity has anything to do with ethics.

If you want to point out which part of the code relates to objectivity, I would be interested to see it.

Regarding Depression Quest, given the game is free, I don't think time matters at all. Personally, I would rather play a good free game that is 10 minutes long (and I'm not suggesting Depression Quest is a good game), rather than an average free game that is two hours long. I think the length of a game is only relevant if it relates to value - dollars per hour. I'm surprised that anyone would think that length of a game matters when it is free.

Some interesting comments were made in the last Giant Bomb podcast about the relationship in Japan between the press and developers. A guest was telling a story about how he had arranged a meeting with the developers of a particular game and the two people who presented for the meeting were (a) one of the people involved in development and (b) one of the high up marketing people - the implication being that the two were quite closely linked for some companies in Japan.

Aah, I found it, thank you for your response. My view on those things you have mentioned:

I don't think the compassion for people affected by the news coverage is intended to be a reference to consumers of the news story. I suspect this intended to be a reference to someone who might actually be affected by a story, like perhaps a family member of a deceased. I think its a long bow to draw to say all people who read your story may be affected by it and therefore you must show compassion to them, particularly when its an opinion piece and not coverage of news.

1.Label advocacy and commentary - that doesn't suggest subjectivity is unethical, just that it should be labelled. I think it is always obvious when a games writer is being subjective, isn't it? I think this is the closest point to there being some mention in the code of ethics about subjectivity, but I think there is an assumption that people are not smart enough to realise when someone says "I don't like the scantily clad women in this game", they are commentating.

I can't see how, advocating (expressly or impliedly) a SJW or feminist view breaches points 2 to 10. Its got nothing to do with plagiarising, gifts, favouring advertisers, pandering to lurid curiosity, etc, in my view.


Sorry, I got the story completely wrong. They were the devs of a game. They met with a Japanese publication. The two people they met with were the guy writing the story and the guy who organises the ads. The implication was that you need to organise some ads in our magazine with this guy, if you want this other guy to publish a good story for you.

OK I have trawled the all the comments I missed, this will be my last one for a bit.

I find this comment particularly interesting. The guy who "actually did what the journalists where supposed to do" did the exact opposite, in my view. He was so quick to rush the information out that he did not bother to check that the response to the facebook message he sent was accurate (or from someone who knew what he was talking about) before publishing it. Turning to my new favourite document in the world the SPJ code of ethics:

* Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.
* Remember that neither speed nor format excuses inaccuracy.

I wondered about this too. I'm sure there were some gg people who were upset about the Shadows of Mordor thing, and I asked about it at the time and I think someone mentioned it briefly, but it didn't seem to get much coverage at all. There was no twitter campaign, etc.

The video linked above is from Jim Sterling, not exactly a pro-gg guy.

I guess this kind of stuff just gets drowned out in the more controversial stuff. There wasn't really anyone on the other side so it was a less interesting thing to discuss. I would have expected somebody might have advocated for a boycott of the game but I think it was just too damn good in the end..

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/letdevsspeak-takes-off-after-game-journalists-ridicule-devs/

I'm totally baffled how important it seems for the haters who did say something and not just what has been said.
If Anita Sarkeesian or Joseph Goebbels would have said something true, I'd actually be happy about it.

It was all about the statement that chess is a highly feminist game although many hundreds of years old and if you look at the role of the queen it's totally true.

There is a huge difference between posting

A) "#GamerGate is a misogynous hate and harrassing movement made by straight white male neckbeard virgins"
(Without any further arguments for this point following, it's mostly used as an undisputed premise to denounce the other side and is not open for debate.)

and

B) "In my opinion, #GamerGate is a misogynous hate and harrassing movement made by straight white male neckbeard virgins, because...."

Real hate movements always choose option A and so does nearly the whole anti-#GG crowd, because they never want their main premises to be open for discussion.

Fun fact. Originally chess did not have a queen, but a Vizier. The queen was a later western addition (including the mobility of the piece, and the bishops and double moment of pawns) and was actually called "Mad Queens Chess" :)

For reference, here's the "archived" original blog post. Warning, it might take a while to load:
https://archive.today/54pIE

Because you have said "posting", I'm not sure if you are talking about writers or journalists or just losers like me who write on forums, but I'll assume you mean journos or psuedo-journos.

There are some obvious differences in those statements, but I don't think they are huge. To me, it's clear that both are opinions even without the words "in my opinion". I don't think adding "because..." followed by an explanation would make option B any less offensive or insulting to those who associate themselves with that group.

In terms of whether something is open for discussion, having any kind of discussion is quite a modern phenomenon in media and certainly not something that is a part journalism in a traditional sense - newspapers, television news, etc, even news websites have limits on what they will permit discussed. I don't think that that has anything to do with ethics, save that discussions should be limited or not permitted when they have potential to prejudice a fair trial.

Potential conflicts with 1,2,5,6 and 7 the way I see it. And to be fair, there should be a way to express issues related to SJW or feminist views without a conflict while still being objective.

The reviews I have a problem with (in these terms) fail one of two basic ways.

First, they give an overly glowing review seemingly blindly ignorant of any faults of the game. In other words its a glorified advertisement of the game and often times from a reviewer how personally knows the developer. In the case of Depression quest, it's hard to believe a review can leave out how short it is. As to it being a free game, it didn't become "free" until the controversy started. It was not free when it first hit Greenlight. And even being free, there was an awful lot of "please donate to me personally and I'll give some to charity and write more games" for being free.

Second, the opposite. Some unduly demonization of certain games seemly because of hatred of the develop himself or some aspect of the content. Many times these reviews seem to be piling on, finding every fault they can throw in the review, while barely acknowledging any good about it at all (if at all).

As I said about Christian movie reviews I've seen. They can be done well. One can point out dogmatic issues while still giving a complete review of all general aspects. The conclusion will certainly be different being based a particular ethos, but a review can still be fair in that context. I could imagine a review pointing out the benefits of the game play for those willing to look past the oversexualization of the characters. There are fair and honest ways of "slamming" a game for its content.

When Roger Ebert was alive and doing movie reviews. I happen to enjoy action films. Ebert has always had a sense of disdain for the genre. Still, I could trust him to give a fair review (obviously lower rated than I would rate it) but it was fair to the rest of the aspects of the movie. As such I was able to judge from his reviews (even past his personal bias to the genre) where that movie might rank versus other action films.

Unfortunately, too many times, with those ideological reviews, so little else is discussed except its deficiencies and why no one should buy it, that the review is useless to anyone without the same ideological framework. Or the opposite, that the pros to the ideology are promoted so vigorously with no mention of the obvious flaws.

I just read the weekend posts, and will give a longer reply to your post to me later, just want to interject here some rhetorical humor. It is amusing yes?

First congratulations for realizing ethical differences are only huge in ethical terms, otherwise they are certainly obvious, yet 'small'. ;)

I see discussion around news as quite historic (reader's letters, corrections having equal visibility to originals, public announcements to crowds, etc, etc...) The authoritative model of establishment media "we're your source of truth" is the exception... surprise, (not...) it's another development that correlates with the march through the institutions abandonment of objectivity... that said, at least you don't strawman these statements as conspiracy theories like our colleague Vaina who ignored the post of mine making exactly the argument; that conspiracy, collusion, cooperation are in some way a matter of degree on a common axis.

And taking the opportunity, as you see you have the opinion that discussion is a recent phenomena in media. I have the opinion it is quite old. Is either of us being objective in those opinions? :) Think about it, cos that's the key point you are raising on your earlier reply to me: you think the subjective and the objective separate like black and white, whereas I...

Lastly, I find revealing that you compare journalism to a trial. ;) And wonder how you define fairness in justice / legality objectively...

with letthedevsspeak another few points that antiGG loved to use (most devs are against it, its destroying devs, game devs should rise up against gg or face dire consequences) is losing steam. And what do i read here?
"On the upside, Eurogamer has added a ‘right to reply’ clause to their ethics policy". Yet another ethics policy change. And people say GG has zero effect.

I agree there are potential conflicts, but this potential for conflict exists without SJWism or feminism. I've never heard any #gg'er say SJWism or feminism is fine, as long as it doesn't break other ethical obligations (if that is your view, we are in agreement), it is only SJWism and feminism is, in and of itself, unethical.


I would say ignoring the faults of a game (assuming they are faults and not just something to do with preference - and in the case of Depression Quest I suspect they are the latter) is not unethical (unless done intentionally), its just a bad review.

I think a free game that asks for donations is still a free game.

Again, giving a bad review of a game because you have an axe to grind against the developer, is in my view an ethical issue, but giving a bad review of a game because you hate some aspect of the content, is perfectly acceptable and ethical. You might disagree with the review, but the reviewer isn't unethical. Sure a reviewer could overlook that overly sexualised aspect of a game, for example, but why should they? If it affected the enjoyment of the game for them, that's fine. If you read the review and think you don't care about that, then you know you can still enjoy the game (or read someone else's review).

This is a personally reasonable point of view. A great argument for having a variety or reviews from a variety of reviewers with different perspectives. I could not agree with you more. But, in my view, the points that you make, whilst perfectly valid, have absolutely nothing to do with ethics in games journalism.

no, no it isn't. :)

I think you'll find Klumpen didn't say there was a huge ethical difference, just a huge difference. As I said, there is no "ethical difference" between the two statements whatsoever.

But reader's letters are vetted by the publisher and only published if the publisher so choses. Likewise #gg could have written to the publishers of the gamers are dead articles or the people who didn't want to discuss Zoe Quinn and the publishers of those articles could have chosen to publish those letters or not.

I think you'll find corrections having equal visibility to originals being a very modern idea (in the last 40 years or so).

I'm not sure how announcements to crowds fits in with journalism, but maybe journalism is different in your country :)

Neither of our opinions are objective. They are both subjective. And it is entirely ethical for us to publish those opinions. Its not that complicated is it?

I didn't compare journalism to a trial at all. Its a generally accepted ethical obligation on journalists to ensure that their reporting does not affect a fair trial. This is referenced in the SJP Code of Ethics "Balance a suspect’s right to a fair trial with the public’s right to know. Consider the implications of identifying criminal suspects before they face legal charges."

The importance of this ethical obligation is two-fold: It ensures the accused is not prejudiced and also ensures that the accused cannot avoid a trial completely by reason of the media coverage. And that's my point. That is a widely accepted ethical obligation that most journalistic codes of ethics will contain, I'm really still hoping you'll be able to state (as concisely as the SJP Code of Ethics) a principal that says journalists should express their SJW or feminist leanings.