Poll: What do you think of the Escapist's new Ethics Guidelines?

[This is re-great-table]

I figure this would be an appropriate place to put this.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

I've seen too many people confuse ethics with morals.

 

[Spambot 3000]

They seem good to me, I don't know what you're complaining about.

 

[Agayek]

Ok first off I know you were half joking with the first part but in all seriousness I do not hate the consumer (although there are serious issues with the gaming community's behavior) and I sincerely believe that any of these rules being enforced in the way they are described there would be bad for game's journalism, which would in turn be bad for both the wider gaming community and myself. As for them revealing their social lives rule A states Authors can befriend or give and receive financial support to and from devs, but MUST make this information readily available to the public. It clearly states that any friendships that are formed between journalists and developers must become readily accessible public knowledge, which I believe is both ethically unacceptable and would make it impossible to get any sort of inside information as people would know exactly where the info came from. It should be remembered that forming relationships in order to get insider information is an essential part of journalism and without it all we would have is what gaming companies want us to know.

For someone who doesn't hate the consumer, you sure are going out of your way to make it easy for them to be abused.

 

[firebobm173]

Ok first off I know you were half joking with the first part but in all seriousness I do not hate the consumer (although there are serious issues with the gaming community's behavior) and I sincerely believe that any of these rules being enforced in the way they are described there would be bad for game's journalism, which would in turn be bad for both the wider gaming community and myself. As for them revealing their social lives rule A states Authors can befriend or give and receive financial support to and from devs, but MUST make this information readily available to the public. It clearly states that any friendships that are formed between journalists and developers must become readily accessible public knowledge, which I believe is both ethically unacceptable and would make it impossible to get any sort of inside information as people would know exactly where the info came from. It should be remembered that forming relationships in order to get insider information is an essential part of journalism and without it all we would have is what gaming companies want us to know.

For someone who doesn't hate the consumer, you sure are going out of your way to make it easy for them to be abused.

Oh come on man, I really do want what's best for game's journalism. You can call me wrong or deluded or whatever you want please at least acknowledge that I sincerely believe that all of this is bad for journalism and would make it so that games journalism would be reduced even further into corporate pr. We don't need more gamespots in the world. As for "consumer abuse", what's the worst that could happen? Somebody promoting a game that their indie dev pal made? I mean there's a conflict of interest there but it is a far, far cry from abuse. While a certain amount of nondisclosure does mean that shady things can go on, it's also the only way journalists can make contacts to get insider info in the industry. A certain amount of corruption will occur, as in every business and institution in existence, but it's a necessary evil for getting info that gaming companies don't want us to know.

 

[Agayek]

Oh come on man, I really do want what's best for game's journalism. You can call me wrong or deluded or whatever you want please at least acknowledge that I sincerely believe that all of this is bad for journalism and would make it so that games journalism would be reduced even further into corporate pr. We don't need more gamespots in the world. As for "consumer abuse", what's the worst that could happen? Somebody promoting a game that their indie dev pal made? I mean there's a conflict of interest there but it is a far, far cry from abuse. While a certain amount of nondisclosure does mean that shady things can go on, it's also the only way journalists can make contacts to get insider info in the industry. A certain amount of corruption will occur, as in every business and institution in existence, but it's a necessary evil for getting info that gaming companies don't want us to know.

When have I ever said or implied that I thought you didn't believe your stance was for the best?

I simply disagree with you on that stance. I believe protecting the consumer and their interests is of more importance than allowing the press to lie to their faces.

As for what's the worst that could happen? That's easy. It looks something like this:

Critic: "Everyone should totally go check out Game. It lets you do X, Y, and Z, and it's totally freaking awesome. Go buy it now."
Customer: "You know, I heard Game is fucking amazing. I'm gonna go spend some money on it."



Customer: "What the fuck, this game is shit! The controls don't even work half the time! And the dick that sold it is refusing to give me a refund! Why would you recommend this?!"
Critic: "Sucks to be you, dude." <Critic high-fives his dev friend who's busy counting a stack of cash>

That's not an acceptable situation, and it's something that's all too easy to create when there's no ethical guidelines in place.

 

[Doradorado]

It's a step in the right direction and I'm proud that The Escapist is trying to improve themselves, trying to give the industry the treatment it deserves instead of going on Twitter decrying gamers as losers/cishet white males/etc like so many others

 

[Agayek]

the first time I ever heard about Siskel and Ebert.

Funny you should mention Ebert [http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/rogers-little-rule-book]...

There's plenty of resources out there available to you for you to come to your own opinion on whether or not a game is worth buying. If your biggest fear is that people will take a single reviewer's word and base their buying habits on that alone, then no amount of journalistic integrity or ethical guidelines in the world will prevent something like that from eventually happening. And if you honestly believe consumers at large are stupid enough to do something like that, then they fully deserve to be taken advantage of. I for one, have more faith in people than that though, so journalists reporting on what they think of a game made by someone they're personally, even intimately, involved with doesn't really concern me, because I'm my own judge as to whether a game is worth buying or not, and it will take more than one person's opinion to convince me it is.

There are indeed plenty of resources out there to form one's purchasing decisions on, one of the more important of which is the critical review of the game. There should be a legitimate expectation that the review is the author's opinion free from external bias or pressures. This is true for books, movies, TV, cars, computer parts, hell, any and every industry that has legitimized reviews. Why is it such a taboo to expect game reviews to meet the exact same standard?

 

[FlatCat]

As you all know, in the wake of #gamergate and the events surrounding it the Escapist has introduced new ethical guidelines [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/12223-The-Escapist-Publisher-Issues-Public-Statement-on-Gamergate.5]. While I personally don't approve of them and think they're too much like this [https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/508371343096565760/photo/1] and not nearly enough like this [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/08/videogames-are-for-everybody/], I would like to know what the rest of the community thinks about these changes.

I dislike them but it's a free website run by other people. If they want to be social justice warriors and run a site that is strictly censored, it's their right to do so. The community doesn't have to like it but the community can also leave anytime.

The whole Gamergate/Zoe/Whatever thing is so unimportant to me. I'm more concerned about universal healthcare, wars being started, Russia infringing on the rights of Ukraine - I just honestly could not care LESS about the whole #gamergate issue. It's a joke.

TL;DR:
Some woman screwed around on a guy. Guy got pissed and started a PR campaign against girl. Nobody who didn't actually screw them should care, imo. All of the people involved just make me feel glad I don't know any of them. Even reading their chatlogs and such made me ill. Yuck.

 

[Mikeybb]

RPS was I site I went to often. I don't anymore. They have showed where they want their focus to lie; games through a political and social issues lens. That is fine. Their site, their rules. More power to them. However, not all gaming outlets need to put this item at the top of their agenda. If diversity is truly important other outlets can surely exist in parallell to places like RPS. The Escapist seems to be one of them. I'm all in favour for the new guidelines.

Same.

RPS was my haunt.
I lurked there and read everything they put up daily.
Adblock off of course.

Now I'm here.
Partly in response to ethical statement, partly in response to the attitude of the staff, partly for the content.

I used to visit The Escapist weekly.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Honestly? Pretty much this:

Frankly, I feel gaming news has always been sort of a joke. Many articles that pass as "news" on most mainstream gaming websites clearly have a stated opinion by the author or staff. Sometimes it's painfully obvious that the author has an axe to grind about a particular subject. It's not a news article anymore at that point, it's an editorial. There's nothing wrong with stuff like that, but they should be labeled as editorials instead of news. Ideally, news articles should simply present pertinent information from reliable sources and let the reader reach their own conclusions.

As for transparency, it comes with the territory of being a journalist (or at least it should). Any perceived conflict of interest could be damaging to the publication, so it's better for journalists to err on the side of caution and disclose such things in advance, either to their boss so someone else can write the article or within the article itself.

But don't take my word for it. Here's a professional's take on the subject: