This doesn’t track at all. The big sites and journalists may be on EA’s side on whether it’s good to have girls in their games, but I guarantee that those same sites will flip to the opposite track if EA bones up the revenue scheme for Battlefield V.
The business model in place means that none of the if-based assumptions that you have made would affect the workings of that model, and that you are putting a lot of faith and trust in journalists to always ‘do the right thing’ when needed. Governments are usually quite skeptical over the reliability of journalistic self-regulation.
Regardless, the website still gets the advertising money, and the journalist gets a portion. ESA run E3, journalists go to E3. ESA now decides for itself that loot boxes are ok, and they want to self-regulate; do you think journalists will have the willpower to not follow the tag-lines of the ESA spokesperson? The same journalists that might miss out on reporting E3 in order to get that sweet E3-led Internet traffic ad revenue if they don’t get a ticket?
Also, do you remember the story of Jeff Gerstmann, formerly of Gamespot?
This bizarrre round about word smithing has to be an materials engineer.
Are you an engineer @preciousgollum1?
Must we keep playing the Guess Who game?
There’s important stuff to talk about, such as how North American & European trade organisations are about to clash on many different issues, some of which will affect the games. Won’t somebody please think of the games!?
No. I’m actually putting my faith in the things that have happened in the past. EA won awards in 2014 for being one of the best LGBTQ employers in the US. Journalists reported on that, and highlighted the positive news. In the previous year, EA launched Battlefield 4 with a bunch of issues, and was voted Worst Company in the World by dissatisfied gamers. Journalists reported that as well. If you look through the history of reporting on EA, Blizzard, Activision, Ubisoft, etc, the majority of it goes back and forth as they screw up or alternatively do right.
I have never, ever seen real journalists ignore the bad things a company does just because it does some good. It’s a ridiculous assertion. Find a legit journalism outlet that does this.
Yes. In fact, I’ve yet to see a positive report about the ESA sticking up for lootboxes. They range from neutral to “can you believe these schmucks?” so I think journalists are pretty jaded about the ESA’s response so far.
As for Jeff Gerstmann, so what? He was let go and Gamespot was wrong to do it. He moved on and started Giant Bomb, and I wager he’d say it was for the best in the end. Take a look at Gamespot and Giant Bomb now and tell me which won eventually. That’s not even covering the fact that CBS Interactive owns both sites now anyway.
@preciousgollum1 After finally reading all of your posts in this thread, all I have to say is this: If you were the lead designer of a WWII FPS, and were starting from scratch, I would be curious to see the design document for your game. To keep things simpler, let’s keep it to say just the SP campaign. Even just a brief abstract highlighting the differences between your game and the competition’s would be helpful. Then I would be curious if, after reading it, I or anyone else might buy your game. Based on some of what you’ve already written here, I might actually consider it, assuming you could pull it off.
Somebody that I showed the Battlefield V trailer to described the trailer as looking like a ‘Cartman game’, i.e a trailer that would excite the sensibilities of Eric Cartman from South Park.
Cartman Voice:… "Ah! body on tank hehe…“Woah look the girl got shot” “Uh-oh, Tanks!”. “Yeah look at those guys jump through the window”…“Hah that guy got cruuushed” “Haha those guys got crushed too!”"Holy-Sht… there’s rocket strikes you guys… you guys loOk oh awesome everyone is toast". Oh crap that guy is choking me. HEY NOT COOL… oh look its that girl again awww awesome she brained the sht out of that guy… TAKE THAT! Guy. KEEEWL.
Kyle asks: “What time period was it set in? Was that WWII?”
Cartman: “Who gives a sh*t you guys that was awesome!!!”
So… my design document includes a trailer that… err… doesn’t remind people of a ‘Cartman-game’.
Watch the RedLetterMedia review on Solo: A Star Wars Story from about 21:00 onwards, which highlights how ‘nontroversy’ is used to bait journalists and the public into debating whichever product.
So, I’m not suggesting that journalism ignores criticising thse companies, but it does serve a role in keeping people in a state of craving news about the things both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in equal measure, especially when that patch might fix your game ‘any day now’.
It is basically like reporting on The Emperor’s New Clothes…
I think you really should try cutting the pills in half, because they’re making you paranoid. There is no vast conspiracy between content producers and the media.
It sounds like you imagine it like a WWE match where the two met before the interview and scripted everything out. “At some point I’ll ask you about Lando’s sexuality so we can continue to push our Liberal homosexual agenda,” says the writer. “Yeah, and i’ll make it just a little ambiguous so we can fuel the inevitable online debates,” replies Kasdan.
It doesn’t happen. The reality is that it was a dumb question from the writer and an even dumber answer from Kasdan. He probably got into hot water for saying it. What he should have said is something like “Star Wars is a fictional universe filled with aliens and sentient robots. Trying to classify one character using traditional terms of sexuality is a fool’s errand and I’m not going to try.” In fact it’s probable that a PR person sent him a Q&A doc ahead of the interview that had a prepared answer for any question about sex in Star Wars, but he didn’t read it.
I’ve worked in PR for more than 20 years. I have lots of friends who are journalists, but we never get together and conspire to manipulate the narrative. Maybe I’m just bad at it, though.
So maybe dial it back a bit. There are way simpler answers for why things happen the way they do than the one you imagine.
If if sounds like that to you, then either I have not managed to make my point clear enough, or you haven’t been reading carefully enough.
Then why don’t you stop acting like a pretentious douchebag and more clearly articulate what you really mean?
So if journalists and the public crave good and bad stories about EA…? That’s bad because…?
I’m just not understanding your concern here. Journalists will report everything they can. Good PR departments will try to spin everything they can. Good journalists will take that spin apart and report the facts.
In this case, the facts are that EA/DICE ran a WWII game trailer featuring a woman with a prosthetic arm and some nim-bobs lost their minds about it. EA/DICE then emphatically stated that this is their game and tough titty if you don’t like WWII games with women fighting in them. What else do you think is going on?
This is indeed what happened.
There’s little reason to go any further. The folks complaining were douchebag losers.
This thread has been an awesome read.
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Reading this thread has given me a headache on multiple days. For one thing @preciousgollum1 never actually just comes out and says what he means. Everything has to be a two page college essay skirting around the point.
What is a 'Nim-bob? Is ‘Nim-bob’ one of those facts?
Based on the context, I assume it means douchebag.
If @preciousgollum1 isn’t a 19 year old kid with a man bun sitting in an artisinal coffee shop while he surfs the net and works on his philosophy degree I will be sorely disappointed.
What? Bad read. He’s a 50-65 yr old engineer who sees flashy, inclusive, stupid WW2 and doesn’t get it. Because he isn’t a 19 yr old with a man bun.
I don’t think he’s being dishonest or whatever you guys think, but he’s trying way too hard to connect a web of disconnected things and see some pattern that isn’t there. Because that’s how engineers often think (imo, i know a lot of engineers, and often they combine technical brilliance with a distorted comprehension of the world with idiosyncratic language. Often with lots of " " because they take things literally.)
This is not an attribute of engineers, but rather one common amongst humans from all walks.