Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits: Archive

Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits

October 2011

29 posts

1UP also decide to lead with the Arkham City... →

Their argument: It’s okay to post spoilers about Arkham City because COMICS. Y’know what else bothers me about this? Everyone’s justifying this spoiler by saying, “Well, y’know, it’s clearly to throw us off the scent. There’s got to be a twist later on!” Which, frankly, is equally shit - twists are far more interesting when you don’t see them...

September 2011

42 posts

“It looks like there are a lot of conflicted reactions [regarding the Batman:...”

– Brian Crecente’s response to criticism of Kirk Hamilton’s Arkham City spoiler. Let me tell you a little something about how other parts of the entertainment industry handle this sort of thing, Brian. Let me tell you how other publications deal with this sort of thing. In March or April...

Kotaku opens preview of Batman: Arkham City with... →

In Kirk Cameron’s Kirk Hamilton’s coverage of Batman: Arkham City he opted to go with a headline, a giant image and an opening paragraph all declaring something incredibly spoilery. I won’t repost the spoiler here for fear of ruining everybody else’s day, but suffice to day say we’re talking “Cliffhanger of ‘Aliens of London’ being immediately ruined...

“A couple didn’t make [my Decide-O-Tron list] because I worried they were...”

– Kotaku, Brian Crecente: Decide-O-Tron 8000 Extrudes My Ten Favorite Games [September 29th, 2011] Diablo came out in 1996, and didn’t make the list. It can still be purchased in stores in the US, UK, and Europe, although it has been excluded from the recent Diablo Battle Chest re-issue. ...

“We’ve all heard about how Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to make Pikmin...”

– 1UP.com, Chris Pereira: The Incredible Tale of How The Gunstringer Came to Be [September 26th, 2011] I would imagine that now David Cameron is Prime Minister of Great Britain we’ll probably never see those Avatar sequels, eh? Edit: Ah, Chris has fixed it now. He had to go and spoil our fun,...

“As a lover of first person games, the isometric camera system in Diablo III felt...”

– GameSpy, Bennett Ring: Diablo III Beta Musings [September 21st, 2011] This link was sent my way by reader Dyslexic Alucard, who writes, “While an article that addresses how certain POVs affect the atmosphere, feel, and gameplay of a game would actually be rather interesting, blindly asking...

“Game publisher Electronic Arts‘ massive online role-playing game, Star Wars: The...”

– GamesBeat, Matthew Lynley: Star Wars: The Old Republic may see 2012 release date [September 22nd, 2011] Frank Cifaldi sent this one my way, saying, “EA has NEVER committed to 2011 for The Old Republic. Having literally listened in on every investor and analyst call they’ve had this year...

“Gotham City Impostors, the unusual first-person shooter that’s not about...”

– Kotaku, Owen Good: Gotham City Impostors Carries a ‘Sensual’ Voice Option [September 22nd, 2011] Kotaku there, bringing you the hard-hitting news.

“Dead Or Alive 5 prides itself on being “entertaining”

– This is a genuine headline from VG247.

You’ll notice that a large chunk of comments left on some of our VGChartz blog entries by a fella named “Tom” have been removed. That’s because I did a little digging and discovered that they were actually being posted by none other than VGChartz proprietor and general sower of discontent Brett Walton himself. I posted a comment pointing this out, and suddenly whomp! - all...

A to Jump - Saturday, 12:30pm-1pm PST (8:30pm-9pm in the UK) [ Listen on PC ▪ Listen on Mac ] - Listen on the radio in Los Angeles! KLAS 89.7 FM Ben Paddon and Nick Simberg don’t really have a lot to talk about this week, but they’ll try to make the best of it. SPONSORED BY: Arrogance and idiocy Follow A To Jump on Twitter!

VGChartz Week - Day Five: An Open Letter to Brett...

Our final entry of the week is an open letter to VGChartz proprietor Brett Arnone Walton written by Nick Simberg, one of the former GamrFeed contributors who Brett screwed over. Hi Brett. Remember me? You said you would pay me for working for you, and then you didn’t. You admitted this. It is verifiable. With facts. And proof. I probably wasn’t the first person you took advantage of, but...

VGChartz Week - Day Four: Day Late, Dollar Short

Apologies for not posting this yesterday. I was quite violently ill, a fact that impeded my ability to attend a job interview. GamrFeed’s official Twitter account, which is apparently operated by Andy “GamingForever1” Garner, decided to take a cheap shot at me about that, by the way, which just goes to show how unprofessional they’ve been regarding these accusations....

VGChartz Week - Day Three: Joseph Jackmovich

Several weeks ago, Joseph Jackmovich came to me with concerns about ethic violations going on at VGChartz, the site he’d served on as a Weekend Editor for some time. We’d discussed the best way of disseminating this vital information, culminating in the blog post on Monday, the first in a planned week-long series of posts. However rather than attempt to defend his site against the...

“Pro Tip: Read a bunch of this blog: Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits....”

– VGChartz/GamrFeed’s own internal staff guidelines explicitly suggest avoiding getting mentioned on dis ‘ere blog. Whoops! Obviously this was originally a while back - last year, judging by the old blog title they’ve referenced, probably some time after July or August - but...

“I’m sure at some point, Mr Paddon will also bring his new friend Nick...”

– GamrConnect, Brett Walton: Website Issues - GameJournos.com: Breach of ethics by VGChartz editorial staff? [Additions made on September 13th, 2011] Earlier today, Brett added this to the post I quoted from yesterday in an attempt to make himself look prescient. It’s interesting to note that...

Apparently people are having trouble with the text-sharing site I used for Brett Walton’s email to Nick Simberg, so I’m going to just go ahead and post it here. From: bwalton@vgchartz.com To: nsimberg@vgchartz.com Subject: Re: September pay Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 11:45:03 +0000 Nick, Listen I don’t want this to get nasty as I think you’re a great writer and someone...

VGChartz Week - Day Two, Part 2: The GamrFeed...

Earlier this year, VGChartz quietly launched a podcast, the GamrFeed Weekly. A few weeks later, it quietly died. But, as show contributors Austin Adamson and Nick Simberg have informed me, it didn’t have to end that way. Carlos Macias is no stranger to the world of podcasting. His bio on VGChartz mentions various gaming podcasts with names like Viral Play and Kenzins GameCast. It struck him...

VGChartz Week - Day Two, Part 1: PAX 2010

In September 2010, VGChartz sent Nick Simberg, one of their senior editors at the time, up to Seattle to cover PAX. The following month, he discovered it would have been better if he hadn’t gone at all. 2010 wasn’t halfway over when VGChartz realized they needed to send someone to PAX Prime in Seattle. The call was put out to their writers, but no one was available. No one except Nick...

“It looks like he plans to go further and reveal more “unethical”...”

– GamrConnect, Brett Walton: Website Issues - GameJournos.com: Breach of ethics by VGChartz editorial staff? [September 12th, 2011] UPDATE: Brett has edited his post yet again, this time posting actual, proper lies. Fun fact: It’s actually illegal to withhold payment in the US. Although it...

Disqus, the service I use to enable comments on the blog, is apparently having some technical issues preventing me from approving comments. If your comment gets queued for moderation, please be patient - I’ll approve it as soon as I’m able. Cheers. Update: Ah, it’s working again. Carry on, wayward sons.

VGChartz Week - Day One: The Advertorials

Brett Walton and Chris Arnone, VGChartz’ top dogs, will insist on telling you that “VGChartz has always been run in an ethical way and that hasn’t changed and isn’t going to change.” This week, you’ll find out that, actually, that’s not entirely true. Which is a bit ironic. Edit: Apparently Schick is Wilkinson-Sword, not Gillette. Who knew? Well, people who use Schick and Edge,...

“Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is the only game in [Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection]...”

– Destructoid, Ian Bonds: Review: Mortal Kombat: Arcade Kollection [September 10th, 2011] This is, in fact, not true - Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was only made available for the 360. Mortal Kombat II, meanwhile, was released on the PlayStation 3, although like UMK3 it was pulled after Midway went out...

A to Jump - Saturday, 12:30pm-1pm PST (8:30pm-9pm in the UK) [ Listen on PC ▪ Listen on Mac ] Ben Paddon and Nick Simberg try to pretend that breakdown I had on the air last week didn’t happen. SPONSORED BY: Donuts! Follow A To Jump on Twitter!

Next week is going to be an interesting week. Y’see, for the last few months I’ve been sitting on a fairly sizable amount of inside information about a fairly large gaming news site. It’s probably a name you’re familiar with, but it’s probably not the one you’re thinking of. Starting Monday I’m going to start distributing that information in bits and bobs...

Destructoid, SixthAxis, Escapist Piss Their Pants...

It’s easy to get carried away, isn’t it? So easy to get carried away that you can forget basic information. Information that should already be floating around with the rest of the random assortment of sewage in one’s head. “Xeroxeroxero” at The Sixth Axis let him/herself get a little carried away when it was brought to their attention that the Steam Support pages...

Real Talk: A Conversation with the Hip-Hop Gamer

I had an interesting Skype conversation a couple of hours ago with Gerard Williams, better known as the Hip Hop Gamer. We spoke at length about his plagiarizing of content from other sites, and we touched upon a few other subjects. We were completely honest with each other; honest, civil, friendly. “Real talk,” as he kept saying. I was open with him about how I felt about his work -...

It’s difficult to take anything Kotaku has to say about Dead Island’s “Feminist Whore” thing seriously when hours ago they posted a photo gallery of Japanese women licking door knobs. Although that may explain why their coverage of the news is limited to a “matter of fact” news post with none of their customary editorializing.

A List of Recently Stolen Content on The Hip Hop...

I’ve since spoken to Hip-Hop Gamer about this subject. Click here for more details. I’ve gone through the content posted on HipHopGamerShow.com over the last two weeks (basically anything posted to their site from August 25th to today). Here’s a list of every article I’ve seen that appears to have been stolen from another source. This list doesn’t include non-gaming...

Guess who wants to start blogging again? I mean, properly blogging?

Zombie Massacre: The Movie Based on a Game You've...

Update: In response to Gareth Murfin’s comment posted below, I have amended some of the information in this post. We can thank our lucky stars that Zombie Massacre, Uwe Boll’s latest cinematic abortion, isn’t directed by the man himself (he’s opted to co-produce instead, with the film itself being directed by Marco Ristori and Luca Boni) but the film is based on a fairly...

“A CEO with a big personality? A game with a high-profile delay? Disgruntled...”

– Joystiq, Arthur Gies: Anonymous Tumblr account accuses Crytek of employee mistreatment [September 5th, 2011] Well you can’t blame us for reaching that conclusion when you includes links to a bunch of shit relating to Team fucking Bondi, can you?

A to Jump - Saturday, 12:30pm-1pm PST (8:30pm-9pm in the UK) [ Listen on PC ▪ Listen on Mac ] Ben Paddon (Goodfellas, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Nick Simberg (Big Momma’s House, Scary Movie 2) talk about videogames. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, their mother’s meet in secret to shake their heads disapprovingly and wonder where they went wrong. SPONSORED BY:...