Assassin's Creed: Unity Launch Debacle Pulls Spotlight Onto Game Review Embargos

RogueyWon (735973) writes "The latest entry in the long-running Assassin's Creed game series, Assassin's Creed: Unity released this week. Those looking for pre-release reviews on whether to make a purchase were out of luck; the publisher, Ubisoft, had provided gaming sites with advance copies, but only on condition that their reviews be withheld until 17 hours after the game released in North America. Following the game's release, many players have reported finding it in a highly buggy state, with severe performance issues affecting all three release platforms (PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One). Ubisoft has been forced onto the defensive, taking the unprecedented step of launching a live-blog covering their efforts at debugging the game, but the debacle has already had a large impact on the company's share value and the incident has drawn widespread attention to the increasingly common practice of review embargoes."

Comments

THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is about

[Anonymous Coward]

Not harassing women or minorities. Any game journalist who signs a review embargo agreement is a part of the problem.

Depends on Embargo Lift

[CajunArson]

It's one thing to prevent game review sites from playing one-upsmanship over each other by "leaking" early reviews (that are often incomplete and based on beta versions of the game). However, once you can buy the "finished" product, the only reason to have a continuing embargo is that you know the product sucks but you don't want to share that information.

Another strategy: Have game review sites flat out say that an embargo for a certain game is NOT lifting prior to the game going on sale. I know lots of NDAs have Fight Club clauses (you do NOT talk about the NDA).. but a clever game review site could probably get around that without actually saying "The Assassin's Creed Embargo Does Not Lift Until 11PM" or something similar.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[i kan reed]

Nah, the embargo agreements are perpetually tied to the right to review the next release early. Violate the terms? Well so much for getting any trailers on your site, assholes.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[dj245]

It's one thing to prevent game review sites from playing one-upsmanship over each other by "leaking" early reviews (that are often incomplete and based on beta versions of the game). However, once you can buy the "finished" product, the only reason to have a continuing embargo is that you know the product sucks but you don't want to share that information.

Another strategy: Have game review sites flat out say that an embargo for a certain game is NOT lifting prior to the game going on sale. I know lots of NDAs have Fight Club clauses (you do NOT talk about the NDA).. but a clever game review site could probably get around that without actually saying "The Assassin's Creed Embargo Does Not Lift Until 11PM" or something similar.

Its astonishing to me that anyone agreed to operate under such an NDA anyway. 17 hours is sufficiently long that you could aquire the game, play it for 2 hours to get a feel for it, 1 hour to record a video, edit for another 2 hours, and then post it with 10 hours left on the embargo.

Any game company having their embargo end long after the game is available is just begging for trouble. Or they know there is a very serious problem and they can't or won't delay the release.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[nitehawk214]

If a publisher starts withholding games due to the embargo, then why not make that a story and publish a review of "We were only allowed to see the trailer, but based on the bad faith of the publisher we suggest that NOBODY PREODER OR BUY THIS GAME, because obviously the game must be crap if they feel the need to have an embargo."

If people stopped preordering games and buying on release day... this stuff would stop pretty quick.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[mattventura]

Its astonishing to me that anyone agreed to operate under such an NDA anyway. 17 hours is sufficiently long that you could aquire the game, play it for 2 hours to get a feel for it, 1 hour to record a video, edit for another 2 hours, and then post it with 10 hours left on the embargo.

But the effect of doing so might make reviews less valuable. Some games might take far more than 2 hours to really get in to, while others might get worse after 2 hours by virtue of being too repetitive. Or, in the case of this game, you might not run into bugs in 2 hours.

Not that impulse buying a game before good, in-depth reviews have been published is a good idea to start with.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[BarbaraHudson]

A reviewer should be required to play AND finish the game

Do you have any idea how much time it takes to finish some games? SimCity 2k, for example?

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[Darinbob]

Anyone remember when games routinely provided demos and trials, both so that people could try before they bought and to get people hooked on the game play so that they'd go out and buy? Nowdays they expect that just using the name of some mediocre old games is enough that people will buy sight unseen.

While the embargo is not a good thing, I gotta wonder what makes people buy games instantly when they're released. It also used to be common rule of thumb to wait a month for the first patches to come out or for the price to lower. Those buying on the first day are implicitly agreeing to become guinea pigs.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[Darinbob]

So avoid the developer, it's that easy. It's not like yet another lousy Assassin's Creed game is a must-buy. Boycott the next Far Cry, boycott the entire line of games from the developer. But the game makers know that the sheep will keep buying the games no matter what happens.

And why in the hell are people blaming the journalists here, except to get GG traction? We wouldn't even know of this if it weren't for journalists. The game MAKERS are the ones to be blamed here.

Everyone has known for decades that game journalism is pointless. It's never been good, it's always been either amateurs who can barely write or people giving positive reviews to any thing out there. Going to gaming websites to get factual information is as dumb as going to yelp to figure out where to eat (and yes I know plenty of people do both, but I never said people were smart). Anyone who's getting upset about this now must be a newcomer to gaming.

Re:Depends on Embargo Lift

[Darinbob]

I haven't even finished Simcity 1.

Bennett!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Bennett Haselton agree with this assessment? I can't form an opinion until he weighs in on this. He's a frequent contributor.

live blog

[synapse7]

Why mention a live-blog and not have a link?

I think this is it, correct me if I'm wrong.

http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/...

Don’t really get it

[DumbSwede]

I’m not really a gamer, but while game review embargoes may be bad, how-about you don’t rush out on launch day to get it.

One of the highest correlated factors to success as an adult is delayed gratification as a kid. How about we all slow down and not have to be first. The game will still be available in a week and you’ll know if it is teh luz or not.

Re:Don’t really get it

[RogueyWon]

There's certainly plenty of evidence by now to suggest that games with review embargoes tend to be poor, or at least not as good as they've been hyped as. Aliens: Colonial Marines was the big example from last year - review embargo until launch, then reviews mostly in the 4/10 to 6/10 range (with a fair few even lower). More recently, Destiny (critical consensus "fairly good but not even close to justifying the hype") and Driveclub (barely works, and underwhelming even when it does work) have been good examples.

By contrast, when a game is sent for review well in advance of release, the reception is usually much more positive. Recent examples include Bayonetta 2 (reviews 3 weeks early in some cases, near-universal praise), Alien: Isolation (America hates it, rest of the world loves it) and Dragon Age: Inquisition (not actually released yet, but reviews near universal in their praise).

The lack of pre-release reviews is generally a very strong indication in its own right that a game is not going to be good.

Re:Don’t really get it

[AmiMoJo]

This is just a consequence of all the viral marketing and use of social media for promotion. The advertisers try to create a buzz by engaging people in a conversation, getting them to comment on posts and so forth. When the game comes out the posts come thick and fast, and people want to be part of the conversation, one of the ones discovering the game and telling everyone else about it on day one.

Having said that you would think that by now people would have realized that it's more fun just to sit back and laugh at all the rage from people who paid to beta test it.

Re:Don’t really get it

[Solandri]

More succinctly, if you're developing a game and you know it's good, why would you turn down free publicity before release?

Halo Masterchief Collection - same type of issues

[mzkhadir]

People are reporting same type of issues on X1. Reddit has a site going dedicated to issues people are reporting. http://www.reddit.com/r/halo/c...

No surprise

[Khyber]

They released a half-finished game and KNEW it was half-finished. They'd hoped to ride on the sales and issue a patch later. They accomplished this with the review embargo, and they KNEW that was the purpose of the embargo - to allow them to get those initial sales out before the shit hit the fan.

There should be a lawsuit on this fairly soon, I'd imagine.

Re:No surprise

[RogueyWon]

In fairness, while they'll probably get away with it this time, recent history suggests that with major franchises, you can fool people once, but you pay the price on the next game. Some examples here:

Final Fantasy XIII: sold extremely well on the basis of hype and the brand. Was a terrible game in almost every respect. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a rather better game. Lightning Returns (the third installment) is actually a very good game. Both sold terribly, due to reputational damage from their predecessor.

Resident Evil 6: near-universally panned. Sold pretty well on the basis of a massive marketing campaign. Resident Evil releases since then have had a much better critical reception, but much lower sales.

Call of Duty: Ghosts: Its predecessor, Black Ops 2, was actually a pretty interesting game, integrating RTS elements and branching storylines. Ghosts was a lazy, by the numbers pile of spunkgargleweewee. Its sales weren't fantastic by Call of Duty standards, but were still insane. The latest installment, Advanced Warfare, is much better, but is the slowest selling installment in the franchise in years.

So if Ubisoft put out another Assassin's Creed next year, expect it to tank in sales terms, no matter how good it is.

Re:But let's remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: an indie developer having sex with people potentially involved with the review of her games while lying to keep the whole ordeal a secret from people she knows (including her boyfriend), among a whole host of other things that are kind of standard with bat-shit-crazy women. Yes, the whole thing was/is blown way out of proportion, but she is simply not a very empathetic victim to rally around. She's like the crazy ex that we've all had at least once in our lives.

Quit buying games on day one

[MerlynEmrys67]

For that matter, quit buying them the first month or two. Let someone else debug them and when the game is worth actually playing, get it. Heck by then 1/2 the time the game has dropped in price 10-25% anyway.
I have given up on buying games before the first major patch, for that matter the first few if I am really interested and the reviews are that bad.

Re:Quit buying games on day one

[Skidborg]

Yeah. I play games that are typically three years old or older. By that point they are dirt cheap and all mediocre games have been filtered out and forgotten.

Re:Quit buying games on day one

[dave562]

I adopted a similar tactic. I have been burned one time too many. After the cluster fuck that was Watch Dogs, I will never buy a pre-release version of another Ubisoft game.

The same goes for EA, after the cluster fuck that was BF4.

It is better to wait a month or two, let everyone else deal with the public beta test period, and then get it at a discount.

Re:Quit buying games on day one

[eth1]

For that matter, quit buying them the first month or two. Let someone else debug them and when the game is worth actually playing, get it. Heck by then 1/2 the time the game has dropped in price 10-25% anyway.

I have given up on buying games before the first major patch, for that matter the first few if I am really interested and the reviews are that bad.

Or quit buying AAA titles at all. There are enough good indie games around that I haven't even got around to looking at the big names for the last two years. Even the pre-alpha/alpha/beta versions seem to have fewer bugs (and they get fixed faster) than a major release of a AAA title.

Makes you wonder just what the budget split is in the big studios between bling/marketing/executive leeches and actual development.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Lunix Nutcase]

If that's true, where is the outrage amongst the GamerGate crowd? The BBC article was last updated nearly 6 hours ago so there would be plenty of time for it to be the talk of the Gamer Gate crowd and yet none of them seem to even care. As the person above me points out if you watch Twitter for #GamerGate it's not even mentioned once.

Re:But let's remember

[alvinrod]

For once we have an article that has nothing to do with that idiotic subject and not only do you have to bring it up, but you also create a massive straw-man while doing so. Are you just trying to start a flame war or something?

Sounds like movie reviews

[_xeno_]

You can always tell when a movie is going to be - uh, "good" - when they refuse to show it to reviewers prior to it launching in theaters. Likewise, when a game has reviews coming out before it launches, you usually know it's going to be a good game.

Of course, the big problem with games is that for some crazy reason publishers rely on "preorders" to establish launch day sales. You get things like 10% off if you "preorder" the game instead of waiting for launch day, or you get special DLC that's only available if you preorder. I don't understand why publishers are so interested in preorders. But it's yet another way of trying to get people to purchase a product before they can review it.

Now if you don't mind, I need to stop my rant about preorders so I can go back another video game Kickstarter.

Re: But let's remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not. But a few people getting death threats in an industry hardly means the industry is messed up. It just means those people were targeted for a variety of reason. Hell, John Smedly had his plane diverted because someone called in a bomb threat, but people didn't raise pitchforks over that. They just took the 'blame the victim' mentality and joked about how he had it coming after killing Galaxies or whatever, which is kind of ironic considering they accuse others of doing just that to women.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Mashiki]

You mean the gamergate guys who found the brazillian "journalist" who was attacking and doxxing anita? But she didn't want to do anything about it. Or people like geordie tait(who's anti-gg) attacking gamergate by calling for a new holocaust

Like the GG-harassment patrol which goes after anyone on both sides? Yep, nothing at all. Then again, I could ask where is the anti-side denouncing people like Briana Wu, Lee Alexander, or Mattie Brice.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't seen the gamergater folks gripe about ACUnity then you aren't looking at twitter, that and 8chan are where they live

About 50% of the tweets are from GamerGate people, and the rest are from people who haven't figured out how to search twitter.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23gamergate%20unity&src=typd

My personal favorite :

Unity reviews forced to come out late? Guess Ill have to buy it late, seeing as Ill be uninformed. Used. #GamerGate #OpSKYNET

— Mr. Strings (@OmniUke) November 11, 2014

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Lunix Nutcase]

I'm pretty sure i kan read was talking about any GamerGaters attacking the practice of game embargoes.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Mashiki]

Oh you mean the article where Jimmy Wales had to step in and openly state that the article in question had no neutrality. Where he called out several senior editors for engaging in a edit war, skewing it out of neutrality. Where he had to step in to the Gamejournopros article, openly stating that there "was collusion, and at best it could be called denied not debunked." That same article, where he's now called on the pro-GG side to write their own article, because groups like project feminism and editors with no desire for objectivity have tainted the entire thing.

Yep, we sure do like facts.

OK, Try This

[Kunedog]

OK, try this. Go discuss these AAA review embargos on a bunch of game news websites' forums or article comments and see if the discussion is censored on almost EVERY one of them.

Now try to discuss Nathan Grayson or Patricia Hernandez and see how much censorship and pure venom you encounter, by contrast.

Also notice that this AAA corruption story was somehow not subject to a week-long, industry-wide news blackout in hopes it would go away. And that the people reporting on it aren't being called harassers or mysogynists or terrorists in an attempt to intimidate them and distract from the criticism.

It is the behavior of the press that is the difference. The popularity of Gamergate is the response to the gaming press's cover up of journalistic corruption and smear campaign against gamers. None the media's lies can ever change that fact.

P.S. Similar AAA review "agreements" (for youtubers, etc.) were majorly publicized by Totalbiscuit (a major pro-Gamergate guy) long before the journalists. You're severely misinformed or underinformed, or both.

Re:But let's remember

[Mashiki]

1) They weren't invented crimes. They did happen, she openly admitted to banging 5 guys while in a relationship. Using her own definition of rape, she raped her current partner that she was in a relationship with.
2) No, getting ads pulled because they lied about the movement in the first place. This then further followed by Nick Denton supporting one of his writers stating to "bring back bullying, that nerds should be bullied" and so on.
3) So, critique is harassment? By the way, how does one harass someone when they refuse to debate something.
4) No one in GG has "pushed or published" a gamers bill of rights. That was the anti-GG sides attempt. However, dozens of sites and youtubers have changed their ethics and disclosure policies since GG has started. Including Escapist+8 other affiliate sites, IGN is working on an updated ethics policy, and so on. Youtubers like Total biscuit have also been more open, you might remember him--he's the one who broke the story on the Shadows of Mordor stuff.
5) No one is defending #1 or #3. Though they correct people like you who are getting their information from very specific sources. But it sure makes for a tasty story doesn't it.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Anonymous Coward]

It was outraged two days ago.

Here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Kotaku...

Kudos to IGN for criticizing Assassins Creed despite having advertisement for it on their site

Is the gaming media trying to hide behind the newest Assassin's Creed?

Assassin's Creed Unity press Embargo was, as expected, hiding significant performance issues on all platforms

Ubisoft make the new Assassin's creed embargo almost a full day after release (twitter.com)

Assassin's Creed Unity review copies featured no microtransactions in them whatsoever like the real game does for the public.

"I've told Ubi & will inform other PR: we won't accept a post-release embargo tied to a review copy again" -Stephen Totilo on AC:Unity

Why Assassins Creed: Unity matters to #GamerGate

On Twitter:
https://twitter.com/search?q=u...

Three primary places on internet for pro gamergate info:
1. #gamergate
2. /gg/ on 8chan
3. /r/kotakuinaction on reddit.

A lot of this was discussed two days ago.

It's not Gamergate responsibility to go after Ubisoft, it's the game press's. And there are plenty of pro-GG that responded favorably to Stephen Totilo pushback against the embargo.

Why not just wait?

[rsilvergun]

Any major title is gonna see two things:

1. Patches.

2. Price drops.

So why not just wait for both?

Nvidia to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia plays the game every bit as dirty as Intel. In this case, Nvidia has created something called 'GAMEWORKS'- a proprietary closed-source library of routines specifically designed to collapse the performance of games on AMD hardware (or older Nvidia hardware). Nvidia pays shills to counter information like this in forums like this one, so let me give you one example.

The best current ANTI-ALIASING is a FREE, OPEN-SOURCE collection of methods from Crytek (the people behind Crysis and the original Far Cry). Their methods run with excellent performance on older hardware, and slightly favour AMD (because AMD hardware is always more shader-powerful than Nvidia at a given class). Not good for Nvidia. So Nvidia 'invented' TXAA- an horrifically bad AA method both in appearance and 'hit' on performance- but a method that runs far better on new Nvidia hardware than it does on new AMD hardware.

Nvidia actually PAYS developers like Ubisoft to NOT include the best, SMAA methods from Crytek (remember, they are free for any publisher to use). Instead, Nvidia only allows FXAA (also Nvidia created, but lightweight on all hardware, at the cost of not being so good), MSAA (the old fashioned hardware anti-aliasing that comes with horrible restrictions), and TXAA (hated even by Nvidia fanboys because of its impact on performance). EVERYONE is asking where SMAA T2X is on Unity- but as I said, Nvidia paid Ubisoft to exclude it.

TXAA is universally loathed (even HardOCP- the elitist PC gaming site that insists on benchmarking games with every possible setting set to max, regradless of the trade-off- stated that TXAA was such an atrocity, they'd always use SMAA in preference), but for Nvidia it is the perfect model for how they seek to ruin the gaming experience of everyone, in order to synthetically make Nvidia GPUs seem 'better'.

GAMEWORKS increases the number of TXAA like performance destroyers in a modern engine (Xbox One, PS4 or PC) exponentially. Ultra slow GPU libraries to handle trivial things like particles, AI pathfinding, occlusion calculations and the like. Remember, gaming PCs and new consoles are CPU rich- with CPU performance going begging across the commonplace 4-7 cores. No serious PC gamer runs less than a 4-core i5. The consoles have 8-cores a-piece.

Nvidia literally doesn't care if bouncing ten simple particles on your screen uses 30% of your GPU performance, so long as the same effect on an AMD GPU takes 80%. Nvidia is this dirty.

Disgustingly, Epic have taken a large Nvidia pay-off to make Gameworks the EXCLUSIVE 'enhancement' library of Unreal 4 (the current most successful licensed engine), and the team behind Witcher 3 (the most anticipated open-world fantasy game ever) have agreed to ruin the performance of that game on AMD GPUs (when it is released early next year) in order to gain Nvidia funding.

Remember how a week back, more than a decade after the crime, Intel got a TINY court punishment for paying sites like Anandtech to use bent Intel benchmarks 'proving' that the putrid Intel Netburst x86 CPUs were 'better' than the vastly superior (at the time) AMD CPUs? The owner of Anandtech himself made a point of informing his readers that one core was better than two (when only AMD had gone dual core), that 64-bit was pointless joke (when AMD invented x64, long before Intel licensed the tech from AMD), and that Netburst's intent to reach 10GHz showed that only Intel had the right tech and ideas.

Nvidia no more fears punishment (in the courts or court of public opinion) than does Intel. Nvidia relies on the vicious trolling of its PR teams to hurt its opponents, and to fool the public.

For how Unity looks (far, far from remarkable), it should run at least THREE times faster on given hardware, with the most pointless settings notched down. Or, it could be THREE times better at the current framerates- and truly appear 'next-gen'. Nvidia steals our possible, doable gaming experiences to enrich itself. Just as Intel loves bloated abstracted, buggy junk like .NET on Windows, because it synthetically needs a much more expensive Intel CPU to run well.

Re:Nvidia to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck nvidia.

They also downgrade their own older hardware using driver updates.

I caught them doing it to me once.
I was using tv output for various things. A new game comes out that REQUIRES their newest driver.
You simply can't play without this driver version. So i upgrade.
Tv output goes to black and white only. No possible way to fix this. I tried EVERYTHING.

Contacting them they pretty much claimed they never had color tv output. I was lying. That was unsupported and never should have worked.

(when the card would still do it correctly if i used an old version of the driver. OR if i never let ANY video driver load. the hardware itself worked perfectly fine. i would have color output for the bios and boot screens. right upto where win loaded their newest driver. and then black and white only.)

And their solution to my issue? "You should buy our latest greatest new video card!"

That was the last time i ever used nvidia. And i haven't missed them at all. Not one damm bit.
And no longer have to do the driver shuffle dance to make everything work right either.

So fuck nvidia. They were shit shady scumbags in the past. And i really doubt that has improved over time.

Re:Nvidia to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is pretty full of shit. But I wouldn't expect you to understand this unless you had a background in signal processing, computer graphics, statistics, etc.

TXAA is superior w.r.t. what the graphics industry calls 'temporal aliasing' - that is micro-polygons (sub-pixel sized) that have a varying (over time, with a high enough frequency that causes temporally jittering) coverage values that cause pixels to flicker over time as those micro-polygons move within the sub-pixel space.

This is especially the case for things like high-frequency geometry, for example highly detailed grass/trees/etc that aren't implemented as texture maps and don't have long-distance LOD levels, where a grass leaf waving in the wind varies across sub-pixel space within a single pixel but never leaves it, for example -and is heavily multiplied when you have many of these micro-polygons within a pixel (eg: 1 blade of grass covering 3.2 pixels, one behind it covering 2.1, one behind it covering 1.3, and one behind it covering 0.7 pixels - all slightly moving about).

TXAA addresses this by statistically sampling mean coverage values and producing a coverage value that combined with other micro-polygons in the pixel and their relative standard deviations, produces a smoother lower frequency coverage value over time than not - reducing the temporal flickering.

This has nothing to do with being an anti-AMD algorithm, in fact it's an adaptation of what has otherwise been an industry standard super-sampling mechanism in REYES style rendering in the movie industry for almost 20 years.

Stop talking shit. The way you've worded this propaganda piece, and how you've spread it across Disqus, multiple /. articles, and god knows where else makes you look like an AMD shill astro-turfing to save your life - which for all we know is exactly what you are.

Re:Nvidia to blame

[higuita]

simple... AMD have not enough money to pay others to do that.

When you have profits, you can do that, when you are losing money, downsizing and trying to recover. That money should be used to PR the game studios for better optimization and improve the drivers (that they know that have problems in several places)

Re:Nvidia to blame

[Kartu]

In Fermi times Anandtech was comparing cherry picked OCed nVidia GPUs to stock AMDs.
"Trustworthy", give me a break.

Re: THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is ab

[Anonymous Coward]

One side wants to address issues with the entire gaming industry. Yes that includes corruption, sex, bribes, etc.

The other side wants to scream sexist as loud as possible so no real conversation can happen.

Re:But let's remember

[Mashiki]

Having consensual sex with someone is a crime? On what planet? Oh and [citation needed] for claim about what she claims is rape.

Yep, according to her. If you're in a relationship with that person. Here's your citation It's long though. Really though, gamergate as a whole moved beyond this after about 5 days, when people kept digging and found exactly how much cross-collusion was going on. Anyone who's either in the industry, or has watched the industry has known for 20 years that there was "favors for friends" and collusion. This just broke the proverbial camels back.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[poity]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Kotaku...

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[poity]

It's the JOB of the media to hold these companies accountable and to be transparent when they cooperate with these kinds of things. When the media does its job properly, as in this instance, you don't need Gamergate to do anything.

The fault in your reasoning lies in that you're expecting Gamergate to take over the job of these news outlets and to do their work for them. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Gamergate will continue to scrutinize the media for wrongdoing, and point them out when they abandon their responsibilities.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[tbannist]

You must be new here, "SJW" is the new "liberal". As a straight white conservative male, everyone you hate is a obviously an "SJW", because it's just another synonym for evil, like liberal, progessive, gay or female.

The Corruption is Already Getting Proper Coverage

[Kunedog]

Link to a single gamergate anything attacking this practice.

From this post and others, it's clear that you are horribly misinformed. But you should know that gamers weren't truly angry and forming a widespread movement immediately after Nathan Grayson's and Patricia Hernandez's journalistic corruption was exposed. There was still some good faith that the news sites involved had the shred of integrity needed to take responsibility and clean up their own houses.

Gamergate only exploded after the cover-up, week-long universal blackout, and finally the launch of the (still ongoing) coordinated smear campaign on August 28. None of that appalling gaming press behavior has happened with this embargo story, so there's nothing for Gamergate to point out.

In the unlikely event that almost every gaming site censors discussion of the embargos, enacts a news media blackout (a bit late for that), and then begins slandering anyone who even mentions the embargos as misogynists, harassers, and terrorists, then maybe a Gamergate-type revolt will be needed.

P.S. Similar AAA review "agreements" (for youtubers, etc.) were publicized by Totalbiscuit (a major pro-Gamergate guy) long before the journalists. No, Gamergate doesn't have any particular aversion to exposing indie or AAA corruption.

You are completely correct

[Sycraft-fu]

And I am one of many people who harp on the "Never preorder games!!" thing. So why do people do it? Two reasons:

One is they just get caught up in the hype. They are all excited and wanna have it as soon as possible. Silly, but human nature and it does happen time to time.

The other is that companies try to bribe you. They offer bonuses that you only get if your preorder, or that you have to pay for later. So there may be some day one DLC, but you can have it "free" if you preorder.

It is still, of course, and extremely bad idea to preorder and people should be talked out of it at every opportunity. Wait until it is out and reviewed, then decide if you want it.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[nedlohs]

The worst example of this are the embargo dates. For those who don’t know, some publishers will put an embargo date for any sort of review. Usually this on a day or two after the release date, so all the pre-orders will go through first before the reviews start popping up. Breaking this embargo often leads to a legal issue and straining a relationship to the point of no return. There have been cases where embargo dates can be ignored if the review is a favorable one.

      - http://xgamejournalist.wordpre... from September.

2. Embargoes should be banned. Just make it so journalists cannot ever accept an embargo or non disclosure agreement, consequences be damned. They should be like in other forms of media, where they do their own research and publish what’s important, regardless of company opinions.

      - http://nintendo3dsdaily.com/ni... from September.

Re:It's what some GG people SAY it's about

[Boronx]

Game journalism will always need the support of the industry, because gamers want game porn far more than they want hard hitting investigative journalism on games.

That's not strong enough: *nobody* wants hard hitting investigative journalism on games. If gamergate really got what they say the wanted, what they would find out is how stupid, lost and uncivilized people in the game industry think gamergate types are.

Gamergate suffers from a problem common among those who take an entertainment medium too seriously: they think they are something that they are not.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[ultranova]

Any game journalist who signs a review embargo agreement is a part of the problem.

But then again, so is any gamer who buys a game before reviews are available. It's doesn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that a company that doesn't want their product reviewed is probably not competing on quality.

That this is an AAA game and part of a succesful series simply makes things worse, since it means if the company wants to push some anti-consumer move - a new form of DRM, in-game advertisements, whatever - they'll do it here and trust the brand to overcome the backlash to normalize it.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[goose-incarnated]

When the hell did it become misogynist to refuse to support a domestic abuser like Zoe Quin? Actually, when did it become misogynist to attack a female because of the things she's done? I fear most of the anti-GG don't know what misogyny means.

Hatred of particular women != hatred of all women.

Re:But let's remember

[goose-incarnated]

It's not suspicious, even if there were a relationship. And there actually was not a relationship it was just sour grapes from an ex boyfriend trying to get revenge.

I see this repeated a lot - where do you get your information? The rant from her ex-boyfriend (quite a long rant - she admits to cheating on him with five other guys) specifically states that he did not think that she traded sex for reviews. Why does everyone keep saying that he said that?

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[Aighearach]

So you're saying, every time you're sexist, whoever tells you it is offensive is an "SJW?" Horse-pucky.

Re: THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is ab

[dave420]

You seem to not understand.

One side wants to address the sexism in the gaming industry

The other side harasses women for simply being women, and makes up all kinds of excuses as to why they're harassing these women, even though their evidence is strangely missing.

The calls of sexism are valid, and if you can't see that, you really are part of the problem.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[goose-incarnated]

She's done a lot more than domestic abuse. Look up what she did to the FYC; no "alleging" - she freely admits to what she did. Sabotaging charities, in most peoples books, makes you a despicable person regardless of whether one is a male or a female. This particular female is peculiarly toxic. Calling her out on it doesn't make one a misogynist.

Actually, calling out particular females and their actions as despicable doesn't mean that one hates all females. Only the misguided anti-GG argument say's that attacking a select few females means that you hate all females. That is certainly irrational.

Re:But let's remember

[AmiMoJo]

Your citation is the blog of her jilted lover? A guy who is clearly not going to provide an objective or even truthful account of events?

This is why GamerGate has no credibility. The only "evidence" available is bullshit, and they just seem to think that repeating the same lies over and over will make people believe them. It's a thinly veiled excuse to attack women, nothing more.

Re:It's what some GG people SAY it's about

[Kielistic]

No it is not a known lie. Repeating that enough doesn't make it true. The two of them had a very friendly relationship. She got positive media coverage for a game that would have been completely ignored otherwise (or "press" as you call it). Around the very same time (within weeks) they were sleeping together. Most people would criticize that.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[tbannist]

Actually I'm pretty sure that SJW's are puritans in disguise at this point.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that comments like that make my point. SJW is just another de-humanized group for people to project their personal devils onto.

Every time something comes along, the first thing they start screaming about is "sexism" or "muhsoggyknees." Strange that it just keeps happening over and over again, you know like with Matt Taylors shirt(who was made by a women).

Most of us are made by a woman, but I'll assume you mean the shirt. The people who are upset about this, and it doesn't seem like there's that many of them (your mention of this was the first time, I'd heard of it), are more upset that he wore it to a major press event and that no one thought to say, "Hey, before going on international television, maybe you'd like to change into something more appropriate?" To them, at least, this is indicative of a casual sexism endemic to the sciences and science reporting, where female scientists are judged by the appearance and male scientists by their accomplishments. The fact the shirt was made by a woman wouldn't actually matter to them and would appear to be disingenuous deflection because it's not the shirt, it's the where and the why it was worn that matters to the critics.

I'm sure though that you'll also find that the majority of people in gamergate are left-libertarians. And the majority of anti-gg are left-authoritarians.

I would suspect that you're suffering from the false-consensus effect and projecting your beliefs onto other people in Gamergate, possibly also the halo effect with respect to the people who don't like Gamergate. Of course, if you are correct about Gamergate having a libertarian base, then everyone else would be relatively more authoritarian, virtually by definition since just about the only group less authoritarian than libertarians are anarchists.

Additionally, when I spent some time looking over the posts on the Gamergate hash tag, I noticed several references to culture war against the left, and in particular how offline conservatives should follow Gamergate's tactics (against Gawker and Kotaku) to deny left leaning publications advertisers, which is certainly not what I would expect from a mostly left leaning group that advocates against corruption in journalism. For that matter, why do some of these supposed libertarians think that censorship of views they dislike is a valid solution to "corruption"?

Beyond that, I wasn't actually talking about Gamergate itself, which is a somewhat random assortment of people who all happen to be outraged about vaguely similar things and have twitter accounts, but more specifically about the people who use SJW as a pejorative epithet (which may or may not significantly overlap the people in Gamergate). Of course, on the other hand, I'd never heard of the SJWs until a bunch raging Gamergaters start spewing it all over Slashdot, so there is that.

Re:THIS is the kind of thing that GamerGate is abo

[ganjadude]

let me know when an accused male domestic abuser is given the same innocent until proven guilty thing. until then Id says its been pretty equal. thats what women want right??? equality???