Kotaku and Deadspin

[Transient]

Remember a few years back when Gawker was annihilated by Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel? Well, the Gawker family of news blogs included Kotaku, Deadspin, The Onion, Gizmodo and a few other sites, which were eventually bought by a private equity firm earlier this year. Lately they've been making shitty changes to the sites, like adding autoplaying video ads with audio enabled and telling editors what they could and couldn't report on (which is a violation of their union contract). Editors at Kotaku and Deadspin complained on their respective blogs, and G/O Media removed the posts. Earlier in the week one of the Deadspin editors got fired for refusing to "stick to sports" and every other editor quit in protest, so Deadspin is essentially dead.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/10/deadspin-rip

The future of the other sites is up in the air, particularly Kotaku, since the editors there have been so vocal over the last few days. Hopefully their union steps in and causes a fuss. But I wouldn't put it past G/O Media to fire everyone and hire random blogger kids to write shitty fluff pieces for minimum wage from now on. :disgust:

[MKJ]

ugh

[phantasmagoria]

Kotaku is already a load of fluff written by woke blogger kids, so business as usual then?

PC Gamer

[seremtan]

Kotaku is already a load of fluff written by woke blogger kids

woke ragebait = clicks = revenue

[Transient]

Kotaku is already a load of fluff written by woke blogger kids, so business as usual then?

Sure, there's some fluff, but they also break stories every once and again, and I manage find at least one interesting or important article a day there.

[Mat Linnett]

Yeah, Kotaku gets a lot of flack (although mostly from the dumbfuck Gamergate crowd), but it does have a very strong and respectable thread of investigative journalism running through the site.

Jason Schreier in particular does massive, industry changing work that is always well researched.
He's the guy who broke the story about crunch at Rockstar, an important topic that has since gained enough traction that developers are finally unionising.

It's a metric fuckton better than garbage like IGN, and gaming journalism will be poorer for the loss of it.

[seremtan]

why is there even a need for game journalism? (serious question)

if you want to know if a game is going to be any good just go on Twitch and watch LIRIK or someone

[Captain]

I don't read game reviews or visit any of those sites, but if what Mat said is true and journalism led to improving working standards in an industry that breaks its own people, I'm all for it.

Good luck getting an Amazon-I mean-Washington Post establishment "journalist" to expose worker exploitation and support unions.

[MKJ]

why is there even a need for game journalism? (serious question)

if you want to know if a game is going to be any good just go on Twitch and watch LIRIK or someone

game journalism and game reviews are two different things, I suppose.
Kotaku also had that entire backstory about the disaster that is Anthem, or the article where they've talked Mortal Kombat animators getting PTSD from having to develop fatalities.

[Captain]

Mortal Kombat animators getting PTSD from having to develop fatalities.

:olo: seriously?

EDIT: Read the article, that's pretty fucked up that they were forced to reference actual murder videos.

[Transient]

why is there even a need for game journalism? (serious question)

Why is there even a need for sports journalism?