Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits: Archive

Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits

April 2011

44 posts

I suddenly remembered why I disabled Questions in the first place - to encourage people to use the comments. I’ve disabled Tumblr’s “Ask a Question” feature and replaced it instead with a link to my FormSpring account. I’ll still answer questions on FormSpring, but they won’t intrude on the site unless they’re of particular note.

servbot42 asked: Just like to point out that before the pile of crap he produced today, Mr. Devries was just the "Pokemon" guy, who wrote something once a month, and by wrote I mean "reposted things people on message boards had run into the ground a few years beforehand". This guy has a history of shittiness.

And now, an article from IGN carefully calculated... →

The headline is “Fake of or Gay: Yoshi and Turok”, and posits that the dinosaur and the dinosaur hunter may be homosexual. The logical train derails early with the assumption that because Birdo, ostensibly Yoshi’s partner, is transgender which, according to IGN writer jack DeVries, is “enough for Yoshi to join the club.” There is no attempt made to repair the train...

Who knew posting a screengrab of a tweet followed by an animated GIF of Jim Carrey dancing would cause so much commotion? No one with any bloody common sense, that’s who. It’s pretty clear what I’m celebrating, here - the departure of a cancerous element from an otherwise exceptional gaming site. Anyone who reads anything deeper into it than that is either having difficulty...

Anonymous asked: So what's your excuse for taunting him on Twitter?

Anonymous asked: You are a dick mate, what on earth was the purpose of that Brad Nicholson post? He is leaving GB so you decide to immaturely make that post? What happened to gamers deserve better?

Anonymous asked: A dramatic pity post about you taking an indefinite hiatus and 4 days later you are already back. I love what you do but seriously? That whole indefinite hiatus post makes you look like a pity grubber when the hiatus is that short of a thing.

Is IGN working?

Here’s a list of things you can’t do: Read bullshit “news” articles Assimilate a scathing review that ends with a score of 7.5 out of 10 Try and find something of value on the site Play with the idea of revisiting the site, only to conclude that doing so would likely cause a brain haemorrhage Compare their awful, awful grammar and low-quality writing with a halfway...

The PSN may be down, but IGN brings you the... →

Hooray, I suppose? Look, we know Xbox Live is up. We know this. How do we know? Well for a start, I’ve been using Xbox Live all weekend, but that aside if it’d gone down there’d be a serious reduction in snarky “Well, 360 users can still play alone, a-hurr-hurr-hurr” jokes from game journalists and a number of snarky “Xbox Live is down too, looks like the Wii...

A to Jump - Saturday, 12:30pm-1pm PST [ Listen on PC ▪ Listen on Mac ] Ben Paddon and Nick Simberg discuss the latest gaming news, and review Mortal Kombat plus another recent release… but which one? Meanwhile, Skyler learns the truth about Maxine’s affair with Chad, and Rollo awakens from his coma. SPONSORED BY: A life-altering disease, a company that makes warm things colder, and a...

See you on Saturday, kids.

Indefinite Hiatus

In the past I have called out for help to make ends meet. I decided not to do that anymore because there are only so many times you can ask for help before you become That Guy. However despite my silence in recent months my situation only gets worse. I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s become apparent I can no longer maintain this blog and work on my other problems at the same...

“In the previous game, falling from too great a height was a constant concern....”

– MTV Multiplayer, Adam Rosenberg: ‘Portal 2’ Trailer Illustrates The Dangers Of Falling From Great Heights [April 12th, 2011] Wise words there from a man who apparently didn’t bother to play the first Portal. Update on May 16th 2011: Adam just sent me an email apologizing for the...

“Refenes did have some choice words for Kotaku, who reported on a lot of the...”

– QUOTED FOR TRUTH - GamrFeed, Joseph Jackmovich: Team Meat: Kotaku Is ‘Smut and Lies,’ Multi-Plat Worth the Hassle [April 12th, 2011]

The Sixth Axis also decide that Xbox World 360... →

This is because they are morons.

Somehow Platform Nation took the "Dwayne Johnson... →

No. No. You do not get to pull this sort of misleading bullshit, Daniel. It’s bad enough you have this misleading headline: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson to Star in Upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Movie? But then you follow it with this misleading opening line: At least, that’s what the Rock is allegedly cooking. No it fucking isn’t. It’s something he’d like to be...

“Hey, you remember the Into the Pixel exhibit at last year’s E3, right? Oh,...”

– Fuckwittery of Yesteryear - Joystiq, Ben Gilbert: Into the Pixel goes into the auction on eBay [February 16th, 2010] Ben Gilbert there, showing love and compassion for Joystiq’s readers. As the reader who submitted this quote to me pointed out, this is something of a trend with sites like...

Kotaku promote game with "Lesbians" in title... →

Fortunately I don’t need to offer a commentary myself, as Kotaku commenter Outi left this spectacular rant, for which I imagine he/she will find him/herself cornfield’d or possibly banned. OF COURSE you had to check it out. I mean, it has the word “lesbian” in it! If it had been just “Spider-Queens of Mars” you wouldn’t have cared. But since...

“Elves are sexy. Vulcans are sexy. Pointy ears in general are sexy, but not so...”

– Kotaku, Mike Fahey: Taking The Cosplay Too Far: Surgically Altered Elf Ears [April 7th, 2011] ABC News is allowed to report on this “craze”, no matter how late to the party (or how full of shit) they are. But it’s not gaming news Mike, so what’s your excuse?

Nintendo have no 1st party games coming out this... →

That’s the only logical conclusion to reach, isn’t it? I mean, just look at those charts! They’re absolutely conclusive, no doubt about it. Look, if you want to make wild stabs in the dark and speculation about what Nintendo might be doing at the moment, go for it. But don’t try to present your barely-plausible ejaculations as concrete fact.

Game developer likes games. →

Apparently the revelation that Gabe Newell’s favourite games are generally rather innovative, ground-breaking, genre-inventing titles is in some way worth shitting out 56 farcical words about. Oh, but this is Joystiq, isn’t it? We have to make special exceptions for them - they’re allowed to post shameless zebra feces as news so long as they wrap it in a thin veneer of...

TGN.tv isn't done stealing content, paraphrases... →

Here’s a brief recap of yesterday: TGN.tv fuckwit Chriss Raven posted scans of an entire eight-page article about Max Payne 3 from the latest issue of Edge Magazine. After he got called out on it he took the scans down, but wasn’t above leaving an abusive comment or two here on the blog in which he said everybody does it, and it’s just a few pages and not the entire magazine, and...

“Can An Earthquake Cancel Some Lady’s Skimpy Photos?”

– Kotaku, Brian Ashcraft, today. No further commentary needed.

TGN.tv writer and street magician Chriss Raven... →

The entire thing can be read here in full along with my response, but here are some highlights: You people are acting like like children, or some minorities from a certain country. Whatever your reasons for being children are, I still took down the article, and no, not because Kieran D was puffing smoke and being an internet superhero, he didn’t email anyone and if he did, then [Future...

The Rock mentioned that he’d like to be in a Black Ops movie. Surely that’s news, yes? No. Fuck off. That is all.

“An EA employee’s LinkedIn profile suggests the publisher will support Sony’s...”

– VG247, Brenna Hillier: Rumour: FIFA 12 to release on NGP along with usual suspects [April 4th, 2011] If you need to point out the sheer obviousness of the story you’re reporting in the first line, chances are it’s not really something you need to report on. But perhaps the real crime...

TGN.tv have now deleted the scans of Edge Magazine’s eight-page Max Payne 3 article, possibly because the esteemed Mr. Kieran D left them a comment informing them he’d be passing the link on to Future Publishing’s legal department. Alternatively they realized they were being shitcocks and took it down out of some sense of guilt, but that’s not very likely now, is it?

This morning I didn't know anything about TGN.tv.... →

Where some journalists are content to merely cite a magazine and perhaps post scans of screenshots, TGN.tv’s Chriss Raven goes one step further and posts scans of Edge Magazine’s entire eight-page article about Max Payne 3. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, they refuse to name the site they got the scans from “out of journalistic integrity”. Here’s a tip: If you...

“More than schoolgirls, salarymen or neon lights, when video games want to evoke...”

– Kotaku, Brian Ashcraft: When You Think Of Japan, Think Of This [April 4th, 2011] Bashcraft has written about trees. Trees. Trees blossoming. In Spring. As trees do. As trees do worldwide, in fact. This is the single most ridiculous, preposterous, fucking irrelevant thing Bashcraft has ever posted....

Game Journalists Are Sexist Fuckwits

I’d like to launch a new blog specifically for the coverage of sexism in game journalism, and I’d like to invite one or two people to join me in such an undertaking. If this is something you’d be at all interested in being a part of, drop me an email and we’ll talk.

Napster Guy meets Minecraft Guy, PC Gamer decides... →

Here’s a tip, PC Gamer - if you feel it necessary to start your news post with the words “This is not strictly news” then it’s probably wise to err on the side of caution and not post this shit as “NEWS”. Oddly, whichever PC Gamer wrote this didn’t feel confident enough about the subject matter to put their name on it. I can’t for the life of me...

Kotaku member criticizes minor aspect of website... →

Kotaku issues “Stars” to commenters as a way of differentiating those who nod sagely and agree with everything that goes up on the site, and those who post snarky comments on non-gaming articles. A user with a Star is usually held in higher regard as a trusted, respectable member of the community with something sensible to say, whereas unstarred users are second-class citizens who you...

As it is April Fools Day and gaming news sites will be filled with all manner of bullshit that is, by and large, indistinguishable from their usual bullshit, I’m taking the day off to do something more constructive. Such as, for instance, transcribing “War and Peace” in Egyptian hieroglyphs, or working on that campaign to get Jim Carrey nominated for an Oscar. See you on...