Poll of the Day > [Serious] Why is there a general dislike for Kotaku and its writers?

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Miroku_of_Nite1
11/15/19 1:40:02 AM
#51:


Cracked went to shit about a decade ago at this point. But enough about that. My problem with modern game journalism is it seems to be filled with people who would've rather worked for the New Yorker, The Times, or Vice. But couldn't get the gig so they went with a technology/gaming publication and proceed to write out all their opinions under the guise of game journalism.

But you could argue that the rot was already starting 20 years ago when magazines under the Ziff-Davis media company started to hire college grad journalism majors to write their magazines, and not actual gamers. In the early days of EGM (and many other gaming magazines) you had to pass a gaming aptitude test. Writing was second to that. You had to show that you were a gamer, and knew what you were talking about.
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Nemesis347
11/15/19 1:47:14 AM
#52:


I did google but I just couldn't find anything besides the Catherine article and I see why some minority would take issue with that piece. But it's still only one piece, and I don't to fall for a fallacy of composition.

I'm just trying to get why the site is unpopular but so far it's only word of mouth.
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Etheos
11/15/19 1:51:15 AM
#53:


A writer there was found to have a relationship with the creator of one of the games that they wrote a review about. Now people hate the site because of ''conflict of interests'' is not appropriate for video game journalism. I wish I was making that up but it's really what happened.
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Black_Crusher
11/15/19 8:26:34 AM
#54:


A lot of these places are crap. I got a form letter email the other day from one of them, asking to feature one of my games but they forgot to enter the game's name in the body of the form letter lol.

If you can't be bothered with even the most basic of research and proofreading... no.
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Sir_Specter
11/15/19 12:24:29 PM
#55:


Wow lots of butthurt right wing snowflakes here sure are mad that Kotaku invaded their gaming safe space.

I dunno what they're ranting about, but really, gaming "journalism" just sucks across the board. It's made by and for the lowest common denominator. They blindly give inflated scores to every triple A game that comes out (barring unmitigated disasters like Anthem, which they were still overly kind to) after playing about an hour of it at most. They get frustrated and score games lower when they can't figure out how to play them because their workflow demands that they act like kids with ADHD and mash through everything so they can review the game and get to the next one.

The biggest problem is that the profession has no integrity by design. They HAVE to give big-name games certain minimum scores or those companies won't send them early copies anymore and then their reviews come out later than those of the more obedient dogs, costing them click money.
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Black_Crusher
11/15/19 12:27:14 PM
#56:


Sir_Specter posted...
They HAVE to give big-name games certain minimum scores or those companies won't send them early copies anymore and then their reviews come out later than those of the more obedient dogs, costing them click money.

True.

It's too bad they couldn't take that criticism and make better games from it instead.
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Sir_Specter
11/15/19 3:04:41 PM
#57:


Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...
But you could argue that the rot was already starting 20 years ago when magazines under the Ziff-Davis media company started to hire college grad journalism majors to write their magazines, and not actual gamers. In the early days of EGM (and many other gaming magazines) you had to pass a gaming aptitude test. Writing was second to that. You had to show that you were a gamer, and knew what you were talking about.


Do you have a source handy about the gaming aptitude thing? Not that I'm calling bullshit, just curious about it and what it entailed. It seems like the ideal solution to keep people like modern game reviewers far away from a business they have no right being in.
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Nemesis347
11/15/19 7:42:03 PM
#58:


Sir_Specter posted...
Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...
But you could argue that the rot was already starting 20 years ago when magazines under the Ziff-Davis media company started to hire college grad journalism majors to write their magazines, and not actual gamers. In the early days of EGM (and many other gaming magazines) you had to pass a gaming aptitude test. Writing was second to that. You had to show that you were a gamer, and knew what you were talking about.


Do you have a source handy about the gaming aptitude thing? Not that I'm calling bullshit, just curious about it and what it entailed. It seems like the ideal solution to keep people like modern game reviewers far away from a business they have no right being in.


I've been asking for sources but people give none.
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TheWitchMorgana
11/15/19 8:21:31 PM
#59:


i think there should probably be a distinction between game journalists and people who write about games. most of the sites people complain about are the latter. kotaku definitely falls into that (with maybe the exception of jason schreier)
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Miroku_of_Nite1
11/16/19 4:46:21 AM
#60:


Sir_Specter posted...
Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...
But you could argue that the rot was already starting 20 years ago when magazines under the Ziff-Davis media company started to hire college grad journalism majors to write their magazines, and not actual gamers. In the early days of EGM (and many other gaming magazines) you had to pass a gaming aptitude test. Writing was second to that. You had to show that you were a gamer, and knew what you were talking about.


Do you have a source handy about the gaming aptitude thing? Not that I'm calling bullshit, just curious about it and what it entailed. It seems like the ideal solution to keep people like modern game reviewers far away from a business they have no right being in.


When Andrew Baran of EGM died ten years ago his fellow editors did a memorial to him. One of them mentioned it.

https://tinyurl.com/um68sss

Starting at 26:20

The games were Super Turrican, and R-Type III: The Third Lightning
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RoboXgp89
11/16/19 6:59:41 AM
#61:


i dunno
the constant updates of what game they are playing is annoying too
like I jus want to enjoy the game at my own pace and they can't stop writing blog post about it before it's even out
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BlackScythe0
11/16/19 11:43:33 AM
#62:


OniRonin posted...
Nemesis347 posted...
So no links?
spoiler alert: they're not going to link you because all the shit they're talking about either doesn't exist or is being massively overblown



So I actually was expecting to just go to google with "Why do people hate Kotaku?" and get an article immediately with sources explaining it so I could shove it back at you.

But that didn't happen, apparently this actually isn't easy to look up.

I don't care enough or really remember at this point what articles I can suggest to prove a point. My opinion on Kotaku was solidified years back, they have one really good investigative journalist Shrier or something I don't recall exactly. The rest of their stuff is click baity garbage that tends to be aimed at attacking the general gaming audience with excessive SJW bull shit.

If TC likes Kotaku, whatever I don't care. I don't think anyone feels compelled to try "proving" to him anything. Proving shit to people on the internet tends to be an exercise in futility anyways.
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Superlinkbro
11/16/19 2:07:24 PM
#63:


It's an awful site but Polygon is much worse.

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Nemesis347
11/16/19 4:25:45 PM
#64:


BlackScythe0 posted...
OniRonin posted...
Nemesis347 posted...
So no links?
spoiler alert: they're not going to link you because all the shit they're talking about either doesn't exist or is being massively overblown



So I actually was expecting to just go to google with "Why do people hate Kotaku?" and get an article immediately with sources explaining it so I could shove it back at you.

But that didn't happen, apparently this actually isn't easy to look up.

I don't care enough or really remember at this point what articles I can suggest to prove a point. My opinion on Kotaku was solidified years back, they have one really good investigative journalist Shrier or something I don't recall exactly. The rest of their stuff is click baity garbage that tends to be aimed at attacking the general gaming audience with excessive SJW bull shit.

If TC likes Kotaku, whatever I don't care. I don't think anyone feels compelled to try "proving" to him anything. Proving shit to people on the internet tends to be an exercise in futility anyways.


I don't even read Kotaku. I just thought their Outer Worlds review was good and decided to make this topic.
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RoboXgp89
11/16/19 9:43:50 PM
#65:


for example ProJared got implicated in something last year and before he could even respond the writers already had an article and the comment section was pretty toxic

a year later he cleared his name with a lawyer or whatever
but it's just publicity like that
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BlackScythe0
11/16/19 10:28:24 PM
#66:


RoboXgp89 posted...
for example ProJared got implicated in something last year and before he could even respond the writers already had an article and the comment section was pretty toxic

a year later he cleared his name with a lawyer or whatever
but it's just publicity like that


I wouldn't call it "cleared" but the stuff being said about him was definitely worse than reality.
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Zacek
11/16/19 10:41:06 PM
#67:


OniRonin posted...
Zacek posted...
I love the video review of Dragon Quest XI. I don't remember the name of the guy, but the video is the best review ever.
tim rogers is great

Thanks!
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Nemesis347
11/17/19 2:48:09 AM
#68:


RoboXgp89 posted...
for example ProJared got implicated in something last year and before he could even respond the writers already had an article and the comment section was pretty toxic

a year later he cleared his name with a lawyer or whatever
but it's just publicity like that


Wasn't all that this year?

Do you have a link to the article? I don't doubt you, everyone did a piece on that when it first started, including Philip Defranco. But I cannot leave this on word of mouth, and if the article didn't pass judgement and just the comments were toxic, well, that's not their fault. I'm sure there were a million threads here bashing him.
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RoboXgp89
11/17/19 3:18:30 AM
#69:


the person he was talking to wasn't even a real underage girl, it was a couple of guys dressed as girls doing favors for his ex to get him in hot water,
his ex at that point was already having sex with other people while they were trolling
but kotaku ran a story like "proJared soliciting nudes from underage women on discord"

maybe you should try this thing called "memory" it could get you into a lot of places I hear
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Sarcasthma
11/17/19 7:04:46 AM
#70:


https://kotaku.com/youtuber-projared-accused-of-sexually-soliciting-fans-1834650673
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GetMagnaCarter
11/17/19 8:57:10 AM
#71:


Because on the internet many people want to hate and complain so they misinterpret and exagerate to distort and complain about what they made up rathe than what is.

Some of Kotaku's writers are guilty of this applying dubious interpretations and then write an article objecting to old games and don't offer anything significant worth reading. Many people object to this.

On the otherhand, there are also people who misrepresent Kotaku's articles and object to things they made up.
I understand that Gamergate started because a Kotaku writer had consensual sex with a woman he wasn't married to and people wanted to pretend it had something to do with reviews (and some still do despite the non-existance of the review)
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Nemesis347
11/17/19 12:10:48 PM
#72:


Sarcasthma posted...
https://kotaku.com/youtuber-projared-accused-of-sexually-soliciting-fans-1834650673


Thank you very much!

Hmmm, I have to agree that the latter half of the article (latter half if we don't take the updates into account) was unnecessarily judgmental. And I do think that they should put that last update at the top as Jared pretty much cleared himself of the most serious accusation, and accepted and apologized for the others.

Then again, this doesn't seem to have been a super big article. I'm going to read more of what the writer of that piece has done to see how prominent she is (she's a senior writer after all) and how SJW-y (am I using this right?) she can be.
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bulbinking
11/17/19 5:30:33 PM
#73:


GetMagnaCarter posted...
I understand that Gamergate started because a Kotaku writer had consensual sex with a woman he wasn't married to and people wanted to pretend it had something to do with reviews (and some still do despite the non-existance of the review)


If only you knew how bad things really are.
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blackhrt
11/17/19 5:41:56 PM
#74:


Blighboy posted...
Gamergate


Well, that is a old factor but part of a factor.
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Unbridled9
11/17/19 6:36:43 PM
#75:


Callmege posted...
What do I want to know from gaming "journalists":

1) what games are coming out
2) when they're coming out
3) if they've been cancelled
4) why they've been cancelled
5) what kind of game is game x
6) what features does it have
7) is game y any good
8) why is it good
9) is game z bad
10) why is it bad

What do I not want to know from games "journalists":

1) that Donald Trump is a dick
2) why he's a dick
3) how game w points out Donald Trump is a dick
4) that I'm a terrible human for enjoying game x
5) why I'm a terrible human for enjoying game x
6) how all gamers that I share superficial traits with are toxic
7) how that also makes me toxic because I share those superficial traits
8) what naughty word developer y said 15 years ago
9) how throwaway game z is really a thought provoking allegory for the underrepresentation of ethnic minority a/gender b/sexuality c in politics if you look past its shallow mechanics and really engage with the story
10) anything not related to what games I can buy, when, and if they're fun

Kotaku seems to do a lot more from list 2 than from list 1.


Basically this. They're not the worst but they're still pretty bad.
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Unbridled9
11/17/19 6:53:05 PM
#76:


GetMagnaCarter posted...
Because on the internet many people want to hate and complain so they misinterpret and exagerate to distort and complain about what they made up rathe than what is.

Some of Kotaku's writers are guilty of this applying dubious interpretations and then write an article objecting to old games and don't offer anything significant worth reading. Many people object to this.

On the otherhand, there are also people who misrepresent Kotaku's articles and object to things they made up.
I understand that Gamergate started because a Kotaku writer had consensual sex with a woman he wasn't married to and people wanted to pretend it had something to do with reviews (and some still do despite the non-existance of the review)


No. It didn't. That event was extremely important but it was more of a straw on the camels back situation as opposed to the sole reason. Distrust with the gaming media had been building for a long while precisely because of the increasing political slant, dishonesty in the media, and so-forth. Even outside of politics it was well known that review companies would regularly accept bribes and the like for their reviews. Depression Quest was massive because it was utterly blatant that the game suuuuucked and there was personal bias in the review. However, even the incident with Quinn could have been handled if it wasn't for the 'Gamers are dead' articles that came out shortly after. That ruined any chance of there not being a massive blow-up.
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The_tall_midget
11/17/19 7:19:03 PM
#77:


Unbridled9 posted...
No. It didn't. That event was extremely important but it was more of a straw on the camels back situation as opposed to the sole reason. Distrust with the gaming media had been building for a long while precisely because of the increasing political slant, dishonesty in the media, and so-forth. Even outside of politics it was well known that review companies would regularly accept bribes and the like for their reviews. Depression Quest was massive because it was utterly blatant that the game suuuuucked and there was personal bias in the review. However, even the incident with Quinn could have been handled if it wasn't for the 'Gamers are dead' articles that came out shortly after. That ruined any chance of there not being a massive blow-up.


Hey, look at that, someone who actually knows what's he's talking about rather than being sjw's (see most journalists) who froth at the mouth while shaking and saying "GAAAMMMEEERRRR GAAAAATTEEEE!!!"
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Unbridled9
11/17/19 7:46:07 PM
#78:


The_tall_midget posted...
Unbridled9 posted...
No. It didn't. That event was extremely important but it was more of a straw on the camels back situation as opposed to the sole reason. Distrust with the gaming media had been building for a long while precisely because of the increasing political slant, dishonesty in the media, and so-forth. Even outside of politics it was well known that review companies would regularly accept bribes and the like for their reviews. Depression Quest was massive because it was utterly blatant that the game suuuuucked and there was personal bias in the review. However, even the incident with Quinn could have been handled if it wasn't for the 'Gamers are dead' articles that came out shortly after. That ruined any chance of there not being a massive blow-up.


Hey, look at that, someone who actually knows what's he's talking about rather than being sjw's (see most journalists) who froth at the mouth while shaking and saying "GAAAMMMEEERRRR GAAAAATTEEEE!!!"


You'd think that they'd realize it wasn't about sexual discrimination simply by the fact that games with female leads (Tomb Raider, FFXIII, HDN, etc) were still selling and quite well. Or at least that the issues people were having were not related to sexism.

The reality is that the GG movement never fully solidified behind a unified cause which is why it's so easy to scapegoat them as being sexist. Get 100,000 people riled up and you'll probably get 100 who are legit sexist against women in gaming. Focus on those 100, ignore the other 99,900, and you've got a case for 'gamers are sexist'. It doesn't help when a lot of the people who were outraged also did not read gaming articles in the first place (largely because they didn't trust the media in the first place and hadn't for years).

That's not to say it wasn't important. It showed that the gaming community wasn't going to yield to the ideals of political correctness easily and that a medium could exist effectively without a media to cover it; thrive even. Also that, for games, the most important thing was to ensure the ability to enjoy them regardless of the underlying political message as games that have relied heavily on said message have repeatedly gotten flack and flopped. However, despite GG no longer being 'important' to say the least the issues raised continue to be important today as the post I quoted earlier showed.
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Raddest_Chad
11/17/19 8:23:41 PM
#79:


I put them on ignore after it became apparent it was a social justice site inserting absurd themes into games rather than a games site with maybe some annoying content here and there. I dont know if its changed much over the past few years because I wont bother going back just roll my eyes, which I expect.
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RoboXgp89
11/17/19 9:26:04 PM
#80:


it's not even that you can't talk smack in a video game now a mature rated one with out SJW's freaking out and basically wanting to call the cops, dude like one person says something they don't like in a M rated game and they're writing articles about it, well maybe your kids shouldn't be playing it
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Nemesis347
11/18/19 8:47:45 PM
#81:


Welp, after someone linked me to an article that I agree was wrongfully judgemental, I read another one by the same writer defending Ninja (of whom I have no opinion of since I'm "old" for his audience). Basically she shot down typical SJW allegations of him being misogynistic.
So now I feel like this writer has somewhat balanced opinions which is good.

But yes, I did come across some opinion pieces, but they always felt like that. The informative pieces tend to be just informative, chiefly among them Jason Schreier.

However, I'm not blind. I know Americans are very divided now and each side has their faults and virtues, and I see how Kotaku leans on one side of the cultural schism which would cause some people on the other side to dislike them.

My point being, I now understand a little better why some people have a low opinion of Kotaku.
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