Ra-aight.

How have I not asked the question correctly (in 3-4 different ways, as you recall)?

If the problem lies in differing definitions of 'diversity' (which I doubt as you have explained your reasoning about TLOU2, Andromeda and BF5 and it clearly coincides with the whole diversity equals poor quality games), then I can say for semantics reasons we can define it loosely here.

I think most people would agree introducing diversity in entertainment goods, means giving members of minorities (racial, gender, sexual orientation etc) larger, more meaningful roles. So yes, making some of the supporting characters black, gay, women would increase the diversity of the game.

So now that we have a common a framework to work on, are you still of the opinion that diversity leads to poorer quality games and movies?

There seems to be huge anti gay sentiments going on in the eastern part of europe and certainly arabic parts of the world, from that observation it would seem that yes.. diversity kills gaming fun

No. And I never was. Simply having black, gay or whatever charactrs isn't a problem. Pushing agenda and making it a priority over other aspects (like good story or polished gameplay) - THAT is the problem.

It was YOU, who started to talk about "correlation" between pushing SJ agenda and diversity in the first place.

I don't know much about the industry but i will say a previous employer of mine was getting slammed by negative reviews in third party review sites (the nature of which i was not privy too, but considering i pointed out a defect we had delivered to a customer and the solution they came up with was to 'quietly' cover it up; and of course their attempts to get me to help them commit fraud lends credence) all workers were asked to write positive remarks on set websites and that they said they would falsely flag us as real customers.
so reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt & it's why I advise people to consider things based on whether or not negative reviews seem all that bad instead of the prevalence of good reviews.

Game magazines and "games journalism" first sprang from the advertising departments of software / hardware companies. It was advertising sometimes masquerading as journalism. (Remember Atari Age Magazine in the early 80's or Nintendo Power soon after?)

Over time "games journalism" grew into independent third party outlets. They started to become more objective journalists and grew trusting audiences...

... but...

... as the games industry grew larger, it started "softly" demanding good reviews for access. If a journalist wanted access to developers, exclusives, party invitations, or even early codes, companies demanded "favorable" journalism. This started skewing games journalism back toward advertising again.

Add to the mix that traditional "games journalistic" outlets are in readership decline and you get a recipe for games journalism being complete advertising while "games journalists" feeling boxed in -- and even angry -- toward gamers who are becoming both more discerning of games products and more savvy of subjective "journalism."

Alongside this contraction / loss of readership, games journalism has also strayed from reviews -- more technical and objective explorations of game value propositions (is this game worth the price?) -- to more academic sociological theory and analysis (what does this game mean to society?). While there's certainly room for analysis in academic settings and journals, most gamers are looking first for simple, consistent, "objective" reviews from game magazines (and their video equivalent)... and a growing number of modern games journalists aren't interested in providing reviews. They're interested in analysis and sociological context... and... often staunchly defiant to opposing viewpoints / analysis.

IMHO the growth of YouTube reviewers was great counterpoint to the problems above... but... as ad revenue is pulled from YouTube and channels are desperate to survive, I'm sure even YouTubers will in time be steered toward positive "journalism" for access.

And so it goes...

Same old arguments from the same old people. No one's changing their minds, tribal warfare is a helluva drug.

Game journalism is mostly crap because: A) Most of it is written by job starved college grads working for nothing, and B) the way websites make money is getting you to click and share their articles, and they know you do it when the headline annoys you or backs up your biases.

It seems weird that many gamers don't seem to realize that the best way to stop this clickbait nonsense is to NOT click on or give the time of day to these sites.

There we go!

Honestly guys, use the eyes on this thread to share out good stuff that people make which isn't solely relying on pissing people off. The reader drives change, not the writers

Sadly, it doesn't work that way. You can convince a few people her to ignore VG247 but most of the folk on the internet (and twitter in particular) will still make them traffic.

I can agree that simply arguing isn't a productive way either but simply ignoring the problem of dishonest reporting (and outright fake news) is what allowed this kind of journalism go unchecked.

Shouldn't it be your first and foremost concern, that you ignore that site (and others that you think aren't worth your time and clicks)?
Why bother over what others do?
And yet - you will never convince all (or even most of the) users of these site(s) to change their behaviour (you said it yourself in the last paragraph), so why bother?

Live and let live...ignore articles that others wanna read...stay away from sites that others visit.

It seems as if the behaviour that we ourselves can't refrain from, is exactly the behaviour which we expect others to refrain from...

Edit: typo

Because those others aren't going to abide by live and let live principle. After being persuaded by sites like VG247 that I'm a subhuman that should be eradicated they will try every shred of their influence to make me (and people like me) to be gone.

Those are rare though, and only in certain circles.
I've actually seen screenshots being posted more and more, which loses the impact of being a source or even being trustworthy, and that's the entirely wrong way to go.
Sure, use screenshots to point out what's bad, but use an archive site or https://dontvis.it/ to verify source.

Now if only someone would combine certain add-ons into one, that would make sure many people use it.

At the same time, constantly highlighting said site's issues does little either. At this point, it's wasted energy. VG247 has good stuff, it has bad stuff. It all falls down to the writers and how much the parent company likes to take into rage bait.


It honestly does no one any good being mad all the time in all truth