"Games journalist gotta games journal"

[kane_magus]

The only real problem with this comic is that instead of being depicted as a monk, the dev would, in too many cases, be more accurately depicted as a second, bigger scorpion (which is itself riding on the shoulder of what we shall call a "typical video game consumer," depicted in this scenario by Lennie Small, or perhaps Hodor).

Here is the associated blog.

(EDIT) Oh, and this is apparently what prompted the Penny Arcade comic/blog. Kotaku whining about being "blacklisted" sounds like so much bullshit to me. (And I'm not saying it's bullshit because I think it didn't happen, because I don't doubt for a minute that it happened, or that I think it's a bad thing, because I don't, at all. I just think it's bullshit that Kotaku has the gall and overly enlarged sense of self-entitlement to whine about it, that's all.) What, because Bethesda or Ubisoft isn't giving them early access shit or whatever other special "perks" Kotaku has become conditioned to accepting anymore? Because Kotaku forwards leaked info for unfinished games in the same manner that computer-illiterate grandmothers forward asinine chain emails? Because Kotaku is, on the whole, a festering shitpile?[1] Yeah, color me shocked that they'd get blacklisted. There are things that Bethesda and, especially, Ubisoft have done that I don't agree with or think are even remotely above board, but in this particular case, if they did indeed "blacklist" Kotaku, then I don't really blame them. Hell, if anything, I applaud them for it. What the hell is stopping Kotaku from doing what most reviewers of products have had to do for decades before now (i.e. go out and fucking buy the games on their own dime after they've been released and then write the review or whatever at that point)?

Fuck Kotaku. The fact that they're feeling butthurt because they're not getting special treatment from a couple of companies anymore is all the reason I need to never bother reading anything they ever write in the future. (Not that I read most of their shit now or for years before now, anyway, outside of extremely rare occasions like this, when I'm linked to them by someone else, which was indirectly by Penny Arcade this time, I guess.)

Hell, I wish all game companies would "blacklist" all games media outlets in this manner. Then, maybe, said games media outlets would actually do their fucking jobs as so-called "journalists" rather than depending almost exclusively on handouts. With that said, though, fuck the game publishers/devs as well, because they're doing their own brand of dirty, underhanded shit when it comes to the review process, themselves.

And, of course, the comments under that Kotaku whine are full of ass-licking sycophants, petting up poor widdle Kotaku and telling them what a good job they're doing. It's sickening.

(EDIT 2) On the other hand, the fact that I'm apparently, ostensibly on the same side of this particular issue as goddamn Breitbart, of all things, makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Because Breitbart is orders of magnitude worse than Kotaku will ever be, generally speaking. (/EDIT 2)

[1] - Type "Kotaku is" into Google, and the first four suggested search terms are "bad," "biased," "garbage," and "trash." Google didn't pull those completely out of the ether. I don't disagree with those suggestions. They're pretty accurate, based on my own observations. (/EDIT)

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

While I can certainly understand (and to a good degree agree with) the suggestions for Kotaku, I wouldn't doubt a good portion of those (particularly "bad" and "garbage") are probably caused by their horrible new webpage layout. Ok, shouldn't call it "new" anymore I suppose, "current" instead.

I certainly know I stopped going there regularly (and removed bookmarks to the site) after they finally made the switch for all versions of their site. (I think the Canadian version stayed with the old format longer.)

But there's no denying that the content is seriously lacking on that site now. At most I'll check it once in a blue moon just in case they announce some game is in the works that I might find half way interesting, but given the level of interest I have in modern games nowadays thanks to all the DLC Whoring, Broken Beta Releasing, etc tactics employed by publishers and developers... yeah, really don't bother visiting it very much.

Also, while I understand all the other suggestions google gave me for kotaku, for me the second suggestion was... "lego sexist"... O.o

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I remember I used to try to link to the .ca versions of Kotaku back in the day, as well, since they still used the old, better format on that, but then all of their sites adopted that same, terrible, Gawker-style shit. So yeah, that's at least part of the reason why I also stopped visiting Kotaku, myself. Mainly, though, it was because Kotaku started getting up to Destructoid levels of asininity that I stopped visiting it.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

And yeah, that "lego sexist" thing showed up in my list of suggestions, too, though it was the bottom-most one for me. "Kotaku is cancer" was another one I got, but that's just the result of 4chan horseshit, since "cancer" is one of their typical, can't-think-of-anything-better insults.