The 47 games of doom!

I constantly speak about the games on my to do list and it occurred to me that I have more than a few that will never be completed for one reason or another. So here is the overall list OF DOOM that I'm forever working on.

My goal is to complete the vast majority of these games but there are some titles that I can say already that I will never get around to doing. I've bolded the ones in question and will explain my reasoning thereafter.

Assassins Creed: BH – 270/1000
Battlefield 2: MC - 500/1000
Beatles Rock Band – 130/1000
Bioshock - 1000/1100
Bioshock 2 - 1150/1400
Bladestorm - 150/1000
Boogie Bunnies - 115/200
Borderlands 2 - 270/1125
Brothers in Arms - 1000/1000 (Missing seven 0 point achievements)
Call of Duty: B. Ops - 1200/1700
Call of Duty: WaW - 1000/1500
Catherine - 35/1000
Chromehounds - 700/1000
Condemned 2 - 50/1000
Dantes Inferno - 1260/1290
Disney Sing It HSM3 - 330/1000
Eets: Chowdown - 40/200
Fairytale Fights - 380/1000
Fallout New Vegas - 155/1655
Family Game Night - 1200/1850
FIFA 2012 - 1150/1250
Gears of War 3 - 1765/2000
Geometry Wars - 40/200
Ghost Recon FS - 1000/1205
GRAW - 752/1000
Guitar Hero Two - 320/1000
Halo ODST – 930/1000
Hellboy: TSOE - 840/1000
Ilomilo - 100/250
Kinect Adventures - 85/1000
Lego Harry Potter 2 - 200/1000
Lego Star Wars TCS - 260/1000
Madden 07 - 990/1000
Perfect Dark Zero - 150/1000
Risen - 70/1000
Spiderman 3 - 910/1000
Splinter Cell: DA - 670/1000
Star Wars: Republic Heroes - 365/1000
Supreme Commander - 110/1000
Texas Hold ‘Em - 105/200
The Sims 3 – 150/1000
Tomb Raider: Legend - 1065/1250
Vampire Rain - 650/1000
Where's Wally - 40/200
WSC 2007 - 550/1000
You’re in the Movies - 140/1000

Total outstanding - 22,483GS, 47 games, 910 achievements.

A fun list right? There are plenty of time consuming and challenging tasks on my to do list, even amongst the games I am resolved to completing. Titles like WSC 07, Risen, Fallout and Supreme Commander will probably take a few hundred hours between them. Throw in some tough online tasks in Splinter Cell and Perfect Dark, plus the arduous difficulty of things like Catherine and Battlefield 2 and I have a fight on my hands. Still there is nothing on any of those lists that I feel I cannot strive to complete without the right mix of time, patience and skill. Though I am fairly confident that some of these games will sit, incomplete, until the end of time - but I haven't written them off just yet..

As for the rest.........

There are twelve games I'll never be able to complete, and will never even make the attempt to.

A few are beyond my control. The Chromehound servers were shut a while ago, so no more points will ever be possible on that game. Likewise you need a US Xbox 360 to play Scrabble on Family Game Night (plus the servers are closed too, making one Scrabble achievement off limits regardless) as well as to get the last achievement on Madden 07. That one does irk me a little, as the achievement is for importing a draft class from the college football EA title - a game that only came out in the US. Madness. Finally, the last few Hellboy achievements were supposed to be tied to some free DLC. Unfortunately the game tanked and the DLC never saw the light of day - so no one will ever complete that game.

Four are skill based. The Beatles and Guitar Hero games require superb skills on expert difficulty and I'm just not up to the task. Sure I could possibly play the game for countless hours to get that good, but even then I would need a local co-op partner of equal skill to polish them off - I don't know anyone who would be interested so why put myself through it? I tend to play those games for fun anyway rather than points. Spiderman 3 only has achievements left for getting Gold (and Silver/Bronze) on all of the Trick Races, a feat that very few have actually pulled off. The controls and races are supremely broken and the times required have basically been set by developers. With 48 races all required flawless runs with zero mistakes - you can count me out. Finally, Geometry Wars, which is just brutally hard until you get that one perfect run. I do dabble with the game every now and then but cannot see myself ever getting it done. Ah well.

After that we have a bunch of time sinks that I'm really not prepared to grind through. COD: WAW requires me to get maximum prestige for the last two achievements - no chance of that as I hate the MP and it is a minefield of hackers now anyway. GRAW requires hundreds of hours and countless Xbox accounts in order to rank and de-rank your accounts and get up the leaderboards. Plus, the top spots are often occupied by people who constantly boost to stop others getting the achievements anyway. Not worth it. Dantes Inferno is partially time and skill based, as you have to complete 25 supremely tough arena challenges (15 solo, 10 co-op) and they take up way more time and effort than I am prepared to put in. Finally we have Gears 3. I never expected to do either 1 or 2, but I eventually caved and got them chalked off. With this one though I have no intention of buckling. I aim to get to 1900 points and then leave Seriously 3.0 alone as it is a total chore and the only people who do have it are those boosters that have been prepared to grind it to death over a number of months. No thanks.

So of the 47 games I can complete (hopefully) at least 35 of them, and of that list there are probably about 16-20 that are fairly straightforward with a minimum amount of effort required. So here is to having the time and inclination to get them done.

ALL MY HARD WORK......RUINED!

Well I went right ahead and unlocked that SKX achievement on Condemned 2, which wiped out practially all of the progress I'd made towards getting 93% completion and put me in a bit of a jam in terms of getting everything I want to do actually done. What a fool.

Still when the chance to grab a notoriously tricky achievement crops up it's better to get it out of the way and then you don't have to worry about it further down the line. A friend has offered to help me get the two ranked achievements as well (as the online mode is a wilderness) so that will mean I can pretty much mop up the rest of the game solo. I really enjoyed the first Condemned back in the day so I'm curious what the second one will have to offer.

I suspect it will have gone down a (slightly) more mainstream route and not be as creepy or bewildering as the first. I could be wrong though, so here's hoping for more of the same. Assuming I can invest some time into blitzing through all of the multiplayer modes on my own then I could start the single player as early as next week, and with a decent guide for the hidden items etc then I should be able to make pretty good progress. Fingers crossed.

At least I've now chalked off A World of Keflings and Rockstar Table Tennis, so that is two more completions in the plus column. As things stand I'm at 297,117GS, with 293 completions and a 92.50% completion ratio.

That leaves me needing a further 2883 points, 7 completions and 61 achievements to hit all of my targets. Oh joy......

So out of my previous targets I'll have the following (added Brothers in Arms):

Bioshock - complete Brass Balls DLC - will give me 100g, 1 achievement and 1 completion.
FIFA 12 - complete Euro 12 DLC - will give me 100g, 3 achievements and 1 completion.
Halo ODST - complete firefight and Endure - will give me 70g, 4 achievements and 1 completion.
Tomb Raider Legend - complete DLC - will give me 185g, 7 achievements and 1 completion.
Bioshock 2 - complete DLC - will give me 250g, 15 achievements and 1 completion.
Brothers in Arms - complete 0 point tasks - will give me 0g, 7 achievements and 1 completion.

That's a grand total of 705 points, 6 completions and 27 achievements so I'll then be at (theoretically) 297,822GS, 299 completions and 24 achievements to hit my goal. So I'll still have 2178 points to grab from games I've already started in order to get those 24 achievements, and hopefully I can snag another completion along the way. The real issue is that Halo 4 is imminent, and that is likely to complicate matters even further. Perhaps my goal of having a lofty completion percentage is just going to have to be strewn by the wayside, but I sincerely hope not. I'm fairly hopeful that if I can invest a fair bit of time into Condemned 2 then I can salvage my initial target.

It just goes to show that I think about this kind of thing way too much and that, while I certainly play games for fun, I also like to set myself little challenges and benchmarks as well. It's something I've done my whole life, even going back to my Spectrum, NES and SNES days, so I see no reason to stop now that I actually have a fully implemented system (achievements) that helps me take that OCD to the next level.

An era of easy games, and Dark Souls

I drafted this piece nearly a year ago, as I was playing through Dark Souls, with the intention that it would have been a starting point for a website article. The idea never really got off the ground but it occured to me that I could post it up here so it wasn't a total waste. Enjoy.

 

Dark Souls is a relic of a bygone era, a game that demands just as much in terms of patience and persistence as it does in terms of skill. For most gamers it seems like such a challenge is simply too much, and it certainly didn’t come as much of a surprise when I spotted pre-owned copies of the game on store shelves only a day or so after its launch. The strategy guide was on prominent display too, and when I displayed an interest the manager gave me a wry smile and said that I’d need all of the help I could get. Dark Souls has done well for itself, but just how many people will ever make it through to the end credits seems to be less certain and that’s a shame. The real question though is probably one that can be asked on a broader scale: do gamers want difficult games anymore?

Personally speaking, I’m a bit of a relic myself in gaming terms. With my first gaming machine being the almighty Spectrum 128k, which had roughly the same capabilities as a dubious Mario gaming watch from a few years later. Games at the time were plentiful, cheap and usually as hard as nails. Seriously, if you know anyone that “completed” Jet Set Willy then I’d be eminently surprised. The same could be said of titles at your local arcade, where the challenge was less about reaching some mythical end screen and more about setting a high score that didn’t just prop up the ass end of the scoreboard. Back in the day games by their very nature were challenging and had to be so to get the best out of players and keep them coming back for another go.

Obviously, in terms of difficulty, the whole issue is entirely subjective as a game that may well stymie one player for months could last another, more experienced gamer, mere days. However, can you honestly think of a recent game that was so difficult you literally couldn’t complete it, a game that made you give up in frustration and never go back? The answer is probably no, as most people have no problem getting to the end of the majority of modern games. It’s certainly apparent that changes in the basic technology involved in making and playing games may well have played an important role in this trend, not to mention the changing make up of gamers themselves.

At the moment you can be knee deep in a game, swatting aside your foes as your press towards your ultimate goal. Suddenly the greatest force of evil known to man rears its head and says, “Put down that controller, or we’ll be late!” Yes, the wife is going to drag you off somewhere and there is naught that can be done, other than saving your progress of course. Such a simple mechanic and yet probably the single biggest reason that most games seem that much easier compared to their older brethren. Older titles had to be completed in one sitting, and while this usually made them shorter as a result it also meant they had much more tension and being down to your last life, energy bar or quarter actually meant something. Nowadays if you bite the big one, then you’re free to restart at your last save or checkpoint with no strings attached.

Without a sense of ultimate failure then where is the tension? Even playing a game on the hardest difficulty merely becomes a case of trial and error until you find the right route or merely get lucky in some way. Notable examples do exist, like the limited save features on Dead Space 2 or Hitman, or the brutal difficulty of games like Lost Planet and Ninja Gaiden where mere persistence will not be enough. However, these games have seemingly become the exception to the rule and when it comes to previews/reviews the sheer difficulty present is often mentioned above and beyond any other feature of the game, as if it was some kind of freakish, rarity to be examined scientifically from a distance rather than enjoyed. Instead of welcoming a challenging game, players often shy away from it and spend their time on something else.

Could this be down to the way games themselves have evolved though? Older titles, even stretching towards the NES era, used to just give you the basic controls in the manual and then throw you in at the deep end. Players had to rely on their own intelligence to survive, which often meant grasping the rules of the world they were pitted against and then reacting accordingly. Nowadays, even the biggest game world seems to have some kind of tutorial attached to it. Be it the most flagrant on screen pop ups that tell you which button is punch (usually the button you’ve been using to punch for five minutes) or the slightly sneakier route of having a short intro level or dungeon, that guides you through the mechanics without putting you in any extreme danger. With so many costs and implications attached to putting a game into the world it seems that developers cannot risk alienating people from the get go, annoying them with tutorials maybe, but not putting them off entirely.

Players now can rightly expect to complete pretty much any title that is set down in front of them, most of the time without much in the way of external guidance, and that is pretty much down to the way the market for games has developed. Old arcade titles and computer games were much cheaper to produce, and it wasn’t uncommon for entire titles to be developed by just one or two people. Now though entire teams are dedicated to just one title and the cost of failure is that much higher. Companies can no longer take the risk of making a game too challenging, as it is more than likely to be a stumbling block towards future sales, instead they have to provide players with an experience that balances the experience with the rewards on offer.

As the market for games has grown, so too has the make up of that market. The so called hardcore market of gamers has been joined by an equally large portion of players that simply may not have the time, skill or inclination to persist with a title that introduces you to the Game Over screen at an early juncture and then keeps it as your most constant companion. Similarly, as the average age of gamers continues to grow then those people that had a lot more free time to play games at a young age will find themselves with far more responsibilities in terms of work and family as they get older, thus meaning that an easier and shorter game is much more welcome as it will allow them to have the same experience without pouring in countless hours. 

Developers find new ways to lure in these gamers, by adding in tutorials, checkpoints and co-op play in a bid to keep their interest until the credits roll. Then a wealth of potential side-quests, online modes and collectibles can provide the extra content that the lack of difficulty takes away. So when the inevitable sequel rolls around, players will be more interested in picking up a game that has a story they are familiar with, controls they enjoyed and a more comfortable difficulty level than a game they just a few hours into and then got no further.

From a business perspective a decrease in difficulty is exactly what the market demands, as more and more people become drawn to the console market but do not have the time or disposable income to spend on a wide range of titles. However, such a move may also take away some of what makes games such an interesting medium. Instead of being challenged throughout a title, you are practically taking part in an interactive movie, with titles becoming increasingly linear and similar. The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that used to come from completing a title is simply replaced by a sense of “what’s next?” as gamers move onto the next big thing. Setting that high score or beating that almost impossible game are rapidly becoming things of the past, as if you’ve completed the latest Call of Duty or Gears title then you can safely assume that the vast majority of other players have too, and in half the time it took you, with one hand tied behind their back.

Dark Souls is a relic, but it is also a relic that drew me into its world for three weeks and over a hundred hours of my life. A relic that made me celebrate every hard fought boss battle, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact it took me ten attempts to finally emerge triumphant. A relic that is sadly becoming a much rarer breed in today’s marketplace of quick thrills and simplistic gaming. Not every game needs to be this hard but, thankfully, it serves as a pertinent reminder of why some games should be.

Back to normal

Well, it all got a bit preachy and strange for a minute there but sadly it is back to the everyday for now. I do actually enjoy debating gaming related issues and often feel that certain segments of the gaming press take themselves far too seriously. Such is life........

Anyway, I have been doing a few reviews recently so feel free to check them out (see the lovely links to the right - CLICK THEM, CLICK THEM NOW!).  I'm starting to think that Kinect dance games are rather like Indian food - you never get a bad one really. Seriously, I've never had a bad Indian meal - ever, from anywhere. Likewise most dance games work because, well, it's probably harder for them not to.

On the flipside it seems that making a good FPS is getting harder than ever, at least judging by 007 Legends and MoH: Warfighter. A couple of more bland and uninspired offerings you will be hard pressed to enjoy. Sure they have their moments but they are generally lost in a pea soup of tired design. Ho hum.

Aside from reviewing games that I have no further intention to play (my backup and wife's account gained nearly 2k in combined gamerscore, ha ha) I've also been chipping away at the master plan I'd previously laid out.

I'm thirty six games away from FINALLY being done with FIFA 12 and its tedious DLC. The whole notion of collecting mosaic pieces got old a long time ago - I mean they could have at least made it into some sort of competition or league structure, but noooooo........gits.

I've also managed to blitz through most of the Keflings DLC as well, so I should have that bad boy done with in an hour or so's play. Hopefully they don't churn any more achievements out for that one, but as it's at a weird 450 points so far I feel they may well cash in some more.

Against my better judgement I've also made an attempt to get started on the zero point achievements in Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway. I wasn't going to bother, but as it will be seven achievements (for zero gamerscore) and another completion I thought, why not? Just need one more person to help out and then I can get another game done with.

However, all of my good work may well be undermined - by ME. As I've been chipping away at the SKX achievement on Condemned 2. It requires me to kill nine unique players who have previously snagged the Serial Killer (1,000 MP kills) achievement. Now I've done precisely zero other achievements on the game, so it doesn't show up in my stats yet. However, after a good weekend of begging people to help and joining a profitable boosting session, I have 8/9 kills - with the last one already lined up. Oh dear.

This means that once that achievement pops all of my previous work will need re-evaluating. Brothers in Arms would help me out in that regard and I think I should still be able to hit all of my targets but we shall see. Here's hoping.

It also occurred to me that Halo 4 is incoming and my friends are going to want us to start up the campaign and so on almost immediately. So that will be another speedbump on my quest to get everything tidied away by the end of the year. Curses. I'm hopeful that I can rejig things enough to get everything done and dusted but it is going to be more of an effort than I previously thought.

Ah well, at least it will make life interesting. Bring on the pain.

Bribery, twitter and games journalism

The last couple of days have been fairly interesting to say the least, especially if you follow a lot of games writers and editors on twitter. Suffice it to say the industry has not exactly covered itself in glory but some of the perceived ideas and outcomes seem to have blurred the lines. Many people have since jumped on the bandwagon and it seems strange that the original issues are now just being diluted in a feverish quest for page hits.

Personally I'm not here to take sides as I'm very much on the periphery of the gaming industry, I focus solely on writing reviews and previews for two websites (that are owned by the same company) and outside of that remit I have very little else to do with the industry at large. I don't go to awards shows, I don't attend PR events and I don't meet up with other writers on a very regular basis. The only time this actually happens is when I get shipped off to Gamescom each year and, while I thoroughly enjoy meeting new people and have a good time, the main focus is always on trying to get the best information and articles I can for the people that read my stuff.

Oh, did I mention I don't get paid for this? I probably should before I get tarred with seemingly the same brush that most people do. Heck, I don't even get sent review copies for all of the games that we cover. In the past, when the site was starting out, I would pretty much buy every game that I needed to review. That statistic then probably got to about 50/50 in the last couple of years and then, in the last year, we have finally reached a standing where review copies provide the bulk of our material.

Anyway, let's break this down into what happened, the fallout and my ramblings (seeing as no one else is really answering the supposed issue at all).

What happened?

A week or so ago the GMA's happened. It's basically an awards show, where a bunch of publishers/stores/sites etc sponsor a shindig to reward the best publications and writers. People get to submit their nominations and so on in advance which is then whittled down to a shortlist and then a separate panel votes on the winner. Easy.

Now as part of this event a PR company was running a competition where people could win a free PS3 by retweeting a hashtag. Some people took exception to that idea and accused anyone taking part of having a massive conflict of interest. Cue a twitter row and then a bevy of articles.

As people probably know, or people who choose to read this anyway, the main cause of this furore was an article by Robert Florence over at Eurogamer (here). That's a link to the full article prior to the cuts, but more on that in a moment.

In the article Rob (or Rab if you prefer) takes a rather broad swipe at the strange, almost symbiotic, relationship between the gaming press and gaming PR. He does this by pointing out that there is often a fine line between having a merely good relationship and one that is far too close for comfort. However, ever since then there seems to have been some kind of meltdown. Part of which is brought on by Rob himself and part by other people.

Now, when you are writing an article about the possibility of corruption in the gaming industry it's a topic that is inevitably going to stir up some controversy. Rob knew that going in, heck most of his articles on Eurogamer have stirred the hornets nest in one way or another. That's what he does and that is exactly why he was hired. To say otherwise would be foolishly naive.

However, what Rob also seems to do is take an active delight in what he writes about. It is easy to say "well someone had to say it" but there are ways and means to get your point across without appearing to victimise individuals. On the one hand you have Rob saying this (I've added the emphasis):

"I want to make a confession. I stalk games journalists. It's something I've always done. I keep an eye on people. I have a mental list of games journos who are the very worst of the bunch. The ones who are at every PR launch event, the ones who tweet about all the freebies they get. I am fascinated by them. I won't name them here, because it's a horrible thing to do, but I'm sure some of you will know who they are."

It's an issue we may well be aware of. Heck even in my small time capacity I'm aware of it. People who write about games purely and simply to get free shit. You only have to be at E3 or the so called 'industry only day' at Gamescom to see that. So called writers wandering around with whatever they can carry and doing very little in the way of work or journalism. But to say that is an industry wide endemic may be a touch off the mark - those people, by and large, are amateurs. People that write for their own little website and have somehow managed to wangle their way into an event they should never really be a part of. I'm sure there are people in the 'serious' side of games journalism that have been given, and accepted, free stuff too but it all comes down to how they act. If they get a bunch of swag and give it away to their readers, stuff it in a drawer or never even mention it to anyone - have they been comprised? Has their integrity been shattered in some way? I doubt it.

The problem with Rob's article is that, precisely before making his statement not to name names, he did exactly that. Blurting out the names of two writers so they could be held up for scrutiny (I don't really include Geoff Keighley as he, or his show, are quite clearly sponsored by a variety of companies). Does it really matter that when questioning whether they were 'corrupt' or not he added the proviso, "I'm sure she isn't"? Not really, because you can already see that he has made up his mind, and the whole gist of the article is to help the reader make up their mind too. These people were WRONG and are PROBABLY corrupt. He could have made the self same point without naming any names (as he stated) but chose not to. He chose that probably knowing what the fallout would be.

The article in general merely scratched the surface of its potential argument while throwing two scapegoats out to dry. Is tweeting a hashtag to enter a competition advertising? Yes it is. Is doing so somehow completely overriding all of your journalistic integrity? Unlikely.

Likewise he seems to state that while people can be games journalists they cannot also be fans of said games. If you get a new game and tweet about being excited to play it (maybe with a picture - you devil). WRONG. If you announce your excitement of upcoming games. WRONG. If you use a backdrop from one of your favourite game series. WRONG. Only he never states exactly why these things could be wrong. Are we meant to assume that all games writers cannot possibly be critical of their favourite series? Or would it be safe to assume that they could be even more critical? Who knows.

The first thing I see when I notice someone has a Tomb Raider backdrop is not that it's an advert, merely that said person is probably a fan of the game - and the same could be said for the vast majority of people in the same situation. Could it be seen as an advert? Well it's possible, but probably more possible if you were writing an article about game industry corruption. For the average person it's just a picture and they move on.

Entering a competition, or defending said competition, are hardly the bastions of corruption they are made out to be. Perhaps if Rob had actually gone into some depth about grossly expensive press trips, PR days out (that sometimes have nothing to do with the games in question) and a stream of swag sent to writers doors then he would have had a point. Though again that would only be true if he could somehow prove that these nefarious deeds had ever been reciprocated by the people attending them. Had bad games got good scores or received positive coverage? We don't know and neither does that article, as it makes a generalisation without having the facts to back them up. A hashtag competition, entered by more PR people than actual journos if truth be told (a fact conveniently overlooked) is hardly the starting point of a slip slide into hell.

The general thrust is a world where PR control all games writers which couldn't be further from the truth. But more on that later.

What happened next (aka: THE INTERNET!)

Then the inevitable happened. Someone asked for the comments to be removed, Eurogamer obliged and Rob resigned. An unfortunate chain of events, but that was nothing compared to what would follow.

As ever with the internet, and games writers in general, something had to be done. So a flurry of articles and opinions started to form. People had already gotten testy over the hashtag competition itself, so with the resulting article being censored now came the cries of freedom of speech and so on.

Industry veterans like Ben Kuchera and Stu Campbell gave their five cents and were queueing up (along with sites like Killscreen, Forbes and the rest) to try and interview Rob to get his angle on the events that transpired and how badly he had been treated. The leading voice amongst these people was John Walker (Rock, Paper, Shotgun) a writer held in high esteem amongst the community.

They came out and said it was appalling that Rob had been fired (he actually quit) and laid the blame solely on the shoulders of a writer named in the article who had asked for the comments, questioning their morals, to be removed. Interestingly none of them even so much as mentioned the second writer whose name was also removed - strange that.

Now I agree with freedom of the press, as having the right to quote and respond to people is vital in society. However, yet again it is worth noting that the article in question would have been absolutely fine with names omitted - the reason they were not was to simply get a response. Which begs the question of why everyone was shocked when that is exactly what happened.

Now John, to his credit, was less interested in the competition and all of that nonsense. His main concern was the fact that another writer had been censored, in his view unjustly, and that the discussion of PR in games was being ignored. He has some valid comments if truth be told but, for me, the only mistake anyone ever made here was actually stating publicly that they wanted the comments removed. If this had all happened behind the scenes with no public gallery then it may have worked out much differently.

(Though I will point out that John also seems to believe that the article in question would have had minimal impact on either of the two people mentioned. I wonder if John would have, after reading that piece, ever consider hiring the two writers in question should the opportunity arise? Or would his view have been tainted by Rob's article - again, it comes back to perception and intent.)

No, my issue with the posts by John Walker (and the numerous other people trawling this affair for a few hits - at least John kept it to his own blog) was the quite obvious impact it inevitably had. The GMA awards, the article itself and the censorship of it were actually fairly well confined to begin with - with most of the flare ups only being between PR and games industry people, plus a number of disgruntled Eurogamer users.

Then articles sprung up in sites across the globe, and every article suddenly had a certain writers name attached to it, blaming her solely for Rob's departure (again, for the back rows, he resigned - admittedly he did so on principle but it was still his own choice). Comments boards were outraged and people were throwing up and retweeting links to articles decrying her behaviour.

Then the internet happened.

People started bombarding her and her employer with insults, abuse and the rest. They started to trawl through her history and try to find any hint of possible corruption and conflict of interest in her actions. In short: the trolls emerged. They all point with glee about the fact the writer in question is now trying to remove any issues from her resume and so on. Considering most observers state this should have been done anyway then how can her doing WHAT YOU WANTED now be a source of derision?

After a round of wailing and gnashing of teeth we had the obvious attempts to calm things down. Rob Florence stated that he didn't endorse insults, John Walker informed us that anyone who said certain things should chop off their hands. And yet.........

John Walker made a few quotes that I find especially interesting:

"Those are the two things she did wrong. Both, I believe, were stupid. The latter, I believe, was despicable."

"And now, thanks to the magic of the Streisand Effect, which (she) undoubtedly brought down on herself."

"(She) absolutely should be condemned for her actions this morning."

The word despicable, for me, is usually reserved for the worst the world has to offer. So in this instance I find it unbelievably harsh, to then follow that up to say that the writer in question has brought this all on themselves and should be condemned, well......

When John Walker (who has 7000+ followers and who knows how many fans on RPS) decries someone in a very public way can he honestly say he didn't expect to send some bile her way? Can he honestly stand back and say 'oh, I didn't think that would happen - it's awful.' I rather doubt it. The same can be said for Rob himself who must have known the impact his article would have on the two people he named even then. All of the other public, and iconic, gaming figures too must know how the internet works. When someone in a position of authority, someone that people look up to, points a finger and tells their rabid fans how awful someone is - what do they think would be the outcome? Multiply that by all of the other senior writers and websites that leaped to Rob's defence and the torrent of abuse was inevitable.

Again, I have no issue with people having the discussion. Talking about the effect of PR. Talking about the state of the industry as a whole. It's the only way we can all grow and learn. After all gaming is a big business now, but it's still a very small place to work - so when people start to call one another out, publicly, then the end result is going to be exactly what happened which is one writer being set upon by the rabid fans of countless websites that are somehow emerging as paragons of virtue in all of this. Wrongly in my opinion.

These writers may well be respected and may well have valid points but their actions have merely served to exacerbate an already bad situation. Saying someone had 'brought this on themselves' while standing next to the fire with a handful of coal is about as far from the moral high ground as you can get.

PR vs Writers

In my opinion the real problem with Rob's article and the subsequent defence of it by numerous people, including John Walker, is the seeming misunderstanding of the influence PR has on the gaming industry at large. While they are constantly slapping each other on the back and saying a discussion about the chummy relationship needs to occur you have to look at the facts.

We live in an age of gaming magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, podcasts and video channels, the number of outlets for gaming information is frankly staggering and the ease with which a new site can pop up can't be ignored. Back in the day gaming news was purely down to magazines, or newspapers, and previews and reviews were held in much higher regard mainly because they just weren't as regular or as mainstream. It wouldn't surprise me if opinions could easily be bought back then - as it would have much more of an impact due to the confined nature of the readership and medium. Now though?

Well who do you bribe?

Serious question.

If you make a terrible game and pass it onto the PR company to 'sell' then there is only so much they can do. They can invite writers to press junkets, hold fun days with swanky cars and C-list celebrities, heck they can send out a novelty sausage with the games name emblazoned down one side. But that will not stop the game from being bad.

The reviews will roll in and they will still be negative. Metacritic and the like, for all of their faults, quickly highlight any anomalies and shows a fairly reasonable representation of how well a game has performed. So are the PR going to try and put money/games/consoles in the pockets of every writer they can find in order to change their mind? Of course not. But they have to play the game, they have to sell that product as if it's the best thing in the world and, guess what, the writers will smile, be nice and make small talk. Then the game will get a bad review anyway. For people to believe that a free meal and a game would be enough to make people sell out is nothing short of ludicrous.

With so many sites pushing out so much news then they will be eager to lap up exclusives, accept review copies of games to get content up early and attend events to get preview material. It's in the sites best interests to get that information as well as the PR's interests to put it out there. People will gradually gain contacts, make friends even, meet new writers and generally become more familiar with each other - but that is not down to some nefarious deal or self-serving interest - it's simply human nature. If you talk to people on a regular basis then the walls come down, and that's the same in any walk of life. Some journos and PR don't get on at all, but they keep things professional, others get on like best friends and can STILL keep things professional.

The GMA's are often pointed at with derision, as some kind of corporate buy in where peoples pals get rewarded and the true grafters suffer. But is that really the case? People who are good writers win and the rest do not. Plus, if it weren't for having corporate sponsors who would host such an event at all? No one, and then the community at large would miss out. The GMA's aren't for the readers, that's where people seem to be confused, they are for the writers. So if they want to get together and celebrate the best among then, let their hair down and sing bad karaoke - so what? I mean, is just attending a sponsored award show going to change how they write or view games. Does anyone actually believe that? No - it's back to this mythical issue of perception.

PR and journalists don't have to be rivals, as Rob seems to think, as they can maintain a friendly relationship and still get their jobs done. They could be worst enemies and also still get their job done - but it would be a damn sight harder on all involved.

The real issue here then is perception (what a word). The perception that PR have the keys to the kingdom, the perception that writers can be bought. Well here is the final newsflash.

It doesn't matter to readers.

It doesn't matter because some readers believe that anyway. The presence of press events and freebies doesn't fuel their opinions, just like the lack of those things wouldn't diminish their beliefs either. I gave a game 70% and people actively took to the sites forums to say that I'd been bought by rival publishers to give a competitor a low score. So not only do readers believe we are corrupt, they also believe that we are there to be bought by rival companies, as if review scores come down to who pays the most in a strange tug of war.

Readers build up a connection with writers, magazines and sites that they like, and trust, they also have the capacity to form their own opinions about games and the content in front of them as well. Some of them may perceive bias and contention in an article, but the majority will assume (as will probably be the case) that it was written as honestly as possible.

In short it's in everyones best interests for their to be a cordial PR/writer relationship, as it ensures that readers get good, timely, content on a regular basis and everyone wins. There are always going to be exceptions to every rule, and I'm sure sometimes people do cross the line and do so wilfully - but to tar the whole of the industry with the same brush is a colossal leap of imagination. Similarly it would be nice to sit down and discuss things in a calm rational manner - but the way to set that in motion is not to write a name and shame piece, nor is it to label people as despicable and set loose a horde of trolls in their direction. Whether that was your intention or not.

The games industry is, I believe, in a much better place than it used to be. Sure there is a plethora of PR but most sites, which is to say most well known sites, handle them professionally and keep their conduct above reproach. Does entering a competition cross the line? I don't think so, others do, but the real question should be: are most games writers corrupt? And the answer would be emphatically no.

What have we learnt?

In truth, probably nothing. In a few days everything will be as it was with only the careers of a number of writers being any worse for wear. It's true that the original issue may have been lost, but had it been handled in a subtler way (or at least with some editorial restraint) then we could have been having a rational conversation.

I love games. I love writing about games, talking about them and even anticipating them. So when people say the whole industry is corrupt and start to quickly point fingers at one another, form battlegrounds and make a mess - it upsets me, it upsets what I thought the people around me stood for.

Hopefully everyone involved will move forward and bridges will be rebuilt, I doubt it in some cases, but frankly for all of this I have still met some of the best people I know thanks to games. So I have you take my incoherent ramblings in good faith.