Consolevania/Videogaiden’s Rab Florence tells it like it fucking is: Shitstorm occurs.
on October 25th, 2012 at 4:30 pmYesterday, Rab wrote this excellent piece on PR’s “sway” on videogame journalism for Eurogamer.
It appears that he (and Eurogamer) got more feedback than he expected:
In the last day, the article has been hastily edited due to legal threats getting thrown about – Notably a quote from Lauren Wainright who cried “libel” at Rab’s remarks, and removal of any mention of the Twitter contest PS3 winner, VG247′s Dave Cook, who’s been stubbornly defending his position ever since in the comments and on Twitter.
An unedited version of the article is still available on NeoGaf.
This has also meant that Rab has stepped down from writing any more Eurogamer articles, which is a damn shame, as he was one of the only things worth reading.
RTG has it’s own issues with publisher PR. We’ve essentially been blackballed for review copies by many over the fact we’re not adding to their precious Metacritic average. It probably doesn’t help that we’re brutally honest either. Maybe DaddyBrown will write something about that at some point. I keep asking him to…
EDIT: It turns out the girl shouting libel (at Rab’s commentary about her Tomb Raider tweet) has been recently working for Square Enix.
She’s also protected her twitter in an attempt to cover up anything she’s said… You couldn’t make it up… More info on Penny Arcade.
You used to get review copies?
Yes, yes we did.
I’ve several copies here and there are several contributors to RTG that have promo/review copies of games sat in their collection, all of which were sent by various individuals across the games industry.
However, RTG is a small site, a blip in the larger picture that makes up the games industry, and so while we continue to maintain our integrity at the cost of being shunned by people I bent over backwards to get on our side, (our email address is now full of what can only be described as PR spam, as opposed to genuine correspondence where both parties have a vested interest – as it was for the first year of RTG), I don’t feel anything I have to say on the matter will have any bearing and will be, outside of our readership, ignored.
Have I given up? No, but I’ve resigned to the fact that I’m fighting a loosing battle. I like reviewing video games, whether it be here, 7outof10, or wherever, but I will NOT lie about the quality of any given product and as such my views cannot, or ever will be bought. I’d rather an army of angry video gamers I’ve never met call me an asshole for not liking their favourite video game franchise than being called a liar.
Here, here
Given recent events about PR and Games Journalism it’s even more important you carry on what you’re doing here.
Totalbiscuit had this to say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2keHyS_Ooo
Another good article from Penny Arcade:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/mcvs-lauren-wainwright-english-libel-law-and-the-gaming-press-why-this-stor
The games industry has become a fucking joke.