A question to start: Who do you complain to about an ombudsman? The answer: The OmbudsGod, of course. It seems our humble little blog has attracted his attention (It's not bad, I swear!) Thought you might be interested.
I'd also like to share a few bits of happy news with you all. It seems my ombudsmanly duties will only be increasing in the coming weeks. For one, I have taken on the position of Ombudsman for GamerFeed. Through a companion blog on their site, I will address issues specific to GamerFeed, and perhaps occasionally pertaining to the industry as a whole. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that this is a volunteer position that I was asked to take by the GamerFeed staff. Still, to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest, I intend to mention my position at GamerFeed whenever I mention them on this blog (Feel free to yell at me if I don't)
I'm also proud to anounce that I have also been named the official ombudsman for the newly formed International Game Journalist Association. This will entail moderation of the "ombudsman" section of the forums and semi-regular posting of articles for the Association web site. It's unclear right now how the exact split of content between the IGJA and this blog will end up, but I envision posting longer, more in-depth stories on the IGJA and using this blog for shorter stories and quick links. We'll see how this plays out, but rest assured that this blog will remain updated for the forseeable future.
In smaller blog news, if you look to the sidebar on the right, you'll see I've finally updated the links and story ideas. As always, if I've forgotten anything on either list, please tell me about it.
Finally, on a personal note, I just heard yesterday that I will be starting an internship with NPR.org at the end of the month. I guess that means I should start reading their web site, eh?
It's been kind of a rebuilding week here at the Ombudsman. To all you new readers, I promise, there's usually more actual content than this. To all you longtime readers, thanks for bearing with me this week and for all your support through the months. Here's hoping the momentum just keeps on building...
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
The IGJA and some numbers for you
Two small things for now:
One: If you are a regular reader of this site, you should go register as a member of the International Game Journalist Association right now! It's just getting off the ground at the moment, but it needs support from intelligent, thoughful journalists (like you fine readers) to make it a worthwhile endeavor. It's free to sign up and there are no club dues or anything, so go register and bookmark it while you're still thinking about it.
Two: To any who doubt the power of Slashdot, check out this graph of yesterday's visits to this blog (by hour). The 3,000+ visitors we got was nearly 60 times the normal daily average, and propelled the visitation numbers for so far in January higher than those for all of December. Now let's see if any of those visitors come back next week.
One: If you are a regular reader of this site, you should go register as a member of the International Game Journalist Association right now! It's just getting off the ground at the moment, but it needs support from intelligent, thoughful journalists (like you fine readers) to make it a worthwhile endeavor. It's free to sign up and there are no club dues or anything, so go register and bookmark it while you're still thinking about it.
Two: To any who doubt the power of Slashdot, check out this graph of yesterday's visits to this blog (by hour). The 3,000+ visitors we got was nearly 60 times the normal daily average, and propelled the visitation numbers for so far in January higher than those for all of December. Now let's see if any of those visitors come back next week.
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Well, it has "mon" in the title...
First off, can anyone translate this site for me?
Secondly, I thought you all might enjoy this caption from an E3 photo gallery that I found while doing some research for a photojournalism class:
Don't forget about Pokemon. Tecmo didn't, and its fans are still as devoted as ever.
I'm pretty sure Tecmo wouldn't mind forgetting about Pokemon's fans, as most of their money goes to Nintendo, who makes Pokemon. The Monster Rancher fans in the crowd were probably excited about the big pink thing and three winged girls pictured at Tecmo's booth. And here I was thinking DVDTalk.com was a reputable source for video game information. My mistake.
Then again, look at what they said about the N-Gage. If they think it's a "real contender," who am I to argue?
Secondly, I thought you all might enjoy this caption from an E3 photo gallery that I found while doing some research for a photojournalism class:
Don't forget about Pokemon. Tecmo didn't, and its fans are still as devoted as ever.
I'm pretty sure Tecmo wouldn't mind forgetting about Pokemon's fans, as most of their money goes to Nintendo, who makes Pokemon. The Monster Rancher fans in the crowd were probably excited about the big pink thing and three winged girls pictured at Tecmo's booth. And here I was thinking DVDTalk.com was a reputable source for video game information. My mistake.
Then again, look at what they said about the N-Gage. If they think it's a "real contender," who am I to argue?
A note on the NY Post
Welcome to the ridiculous number of new visitors coming our way courtesy of a link on Slashdot Games. Hopefully some of you (especially those in the VG journalism biz) will look through the site, like what you see and become regular visitors and contributors.
A small clarification: While I do think that the NY Post column was "obviously false and irresponsible" that wasn't really the point of my post. As I said earlier, "it's not really my place on this blog to argue with opinions; it's an editorial, and the author is entitled to make whatever arguments he wants." The comparison to the Enquirer was only to show how little respect the Post gets in the mainstream journalism world. I'm flattered to be the rallying point for the pro-video-game side on this one, but in general I'm here not to give my opinions on the issues, but on the coverage of those issues.
Update: 10:26 am I found a post on the Slashdot thread that makes my point beautifully:
I live in NY - work in NYC every day. The NY Post is known as the "rag" newspaper here. No one who really puts any thought into life really takes anything it has to say seriously, except for perhaps the sports section. It is generally right-wing, blockheaded, and sensationalist wherever possible.
Well put. Also, another Slashdotter gave a stinging indictment of the press in general:
Any time they report on something I know something about, they get it wrong, sometimes really, horribly, mind-blowingly wrong. So do they only get it right when I don't know enough about the topic? Why should this be any different?
What do I have to do to get comments like these on this blog?
A small clarification: While I do think that the NY Post column was "obviously false and irresponsible" that wasn't really the point of my post. As I said earlier, "it's not really my place on this blog to argue with opinions; it's an editorial, and the author is entitled to make whatever arguments he wants." The comparison to the Enquirer was only to show how little respect the Post gets in the mainstream journalism world. I'm flattered to be the rallying point for the pro-video-game side on this one, but in general I'm here not to give my opinions on the issues, but on the coverage of those issues.
Update: 10:26 am I found a post on the Slashdot thread that makes my point beautifully:
I live in NY - work in NYC every day. The NY Post is known as the "rag" newspaper here. No one who really puts any thought into life really takes anything it has to say seriously, except for perhaps the sports section. It is generally right-wing, blockheaded, and sensationalist wherever possible.
Well put. Also, another Slashdotter gave a stinging indictment of the press in general:
Any time they report on something I know something about, they get it wrong, sometimes really, horribly, mind-blowingly wrong. So do they only get it right when I don't know enough about the topic? Why should this be any different?
What do I have to do to get comments like these on this blog?
Friday, January 2, 2004
December '03 wrap-up
Happy New Year, readers. Finals are over and the holiday craziness is behind us, so it's time to get back to the nitpicking. In an effort to play catch up, here are some short comments on a few stories I noticed in December.
- Thanks to the entire world (okay, okay, three people) for pointing me to an outrageous editorial from the New York Post's business section which urges readers to dump their Take Two stock because of the moral wasteland that is the Grand Theft Auto series. There has been much talk in forum threads about the articles comparison of playing a game to child abuse and securities fraud, and there's nothing I can really add to that discussion. Even if I could, it's not really my place on this blog to argue with opinions; it's an editorial, and the author is entitled to make whatever arguments he wants.
That being said, I don't think the article was properly classified as a business editorial. Except for a few justifications thrown in at the end, the article is rooted in the authors moral outrage rather than hard financial facts. As one Ombudsman reader put it: " the reasoning seems to spring from the authors own personal moral beliefs and not harder or more in depth research." Basing financial advice on such beliefs is pretty foolhardy, for one, and pretty irresponsible journalism for another. My theory is he used the overriding theme of a stock "analysis" as an excuse to get the editorial published somewhere in the paper.
Anyhow, I'd encourage readers not to get too worked up over this. It'd be like getting worked up about an National Enquirer story saying that video games cause AIDS. It's obviously false and irresponsible, but no one really respects the Post or the Enquirer anyway. - The New York Times had a rather large feature on the biz called "Playing Mogul" It's a long read, but definitely worth it, if just to see how our industry is perceived by the Paper of Record (TM) (R) (C) (All Rights Reserved). Chris Kohler and the commenters over at Kobun Heat (scroll down) got pretty worked up about some of the philosophy and general opinions in the article, but the only thing that really got to me was the total lack of any mention of the GameCube. Given Nintendo's history in this industry and the relative dead heat they are running with Microsoft's box worldwide, there's no real excuse for not even mentioning it. Other than that, there are no major problems that I see from a journalistic standpoint; he did a decent amount of research and presented it in a way that would appeal to a non-specialized crowd. A good base to start from if the Times wants to start taking games more seriously.
- On a lighter note, I came across this analysis of video game magazine covers in the course of some random surfing. The author takes the interesting tack of placing magazines from other sections into the "games" area of a bookstore and comparing and contrasting. I have absolutely no authority to speak on the aesthetic matters the author discusses, but I found them fascinating nonetheless.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Headline Headaches
Thanks to CNN's e-mail alert system for alerting me to a story by Marc Saltzman, a technolgoy freelancer for Gannett News Service. The story is headlined Expand games with music, video add-ons, which is a fine headline, as that is what the story is actually about. It's the sub-headline that confused me something awful:
Game console accessories can add depth to your game play. Add-on controllers make driving and flying games more realistic, and memory cards let you save games so you can continue your play later.
While these sentences are technically true, they have absolutely nothing to do with the article in question. The short article, which discusses the EyeToy and XBox Music Mixer, mentions nothing about steering wheels or flight joysticks. Saltzman does note that the PS2 memory card can be used to record short video messages with the EyeToy, but as far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with saving games "so you can continue to play later."
How does a headline like this get published? Did some mid-level editor simply do a google search for "video game accesories"and write a sub-headline based on the results? Is the editor being bought off by some maker of steering wheels and flight sticks that insisted he mention their products in his headline? Did he think that the fact that you need a memory card to save games nowadays was especially newsworthy?
None of these are very likely, but it's hard for me to picture any other way that a headline and a story could have so little to do with each other. I welcome your theories.
Game console accessories can add depth to your game play. Add-on controllers make driving and flying games more realistic, and memory cards let you save games so you can continue your play later.
While these sentences are technically true, they have absolutely nothing to do with the article in question. The short article, which discusses the EyeToy and XBox Music Mixer, mentions nothing about steering wheels or flight joysticks. Saltzman does note that the PS2 memory card can be used to record short video messages with the EyeToy, but as far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with saving games "so you can continue to play later."
How does a headline like this get published? Did some mid-level editor simply do a google search for "video game accesories"and write a sub-headline based on the results? Is the editor being bought off by some maker of steering wheels and flight sticks that insisted he mention their products in his headline? Did he think that the fact that you need a memory card to save games nowadays was especially newsworthy?
None of these are very likely, but it's hard for me to picture any other way that a headline and a story could have so little to do with each other. I welcome your theories.
Monday, December 8, 2003
News-itorial alert: Andrew Burnes - Voodoo Extreme
Update (9:40 p.m. 12/10/03): Mr. Burnes has additional opinions to share now that Rockstar has reportedly agreed to take references to Haitians out of future copies of Vice City. According to Burnes' story, this development shows that, "hypocrisy and bandwagon bashing have gone too far." Thanks for the updating us on your feelings, Andrew.
Andrew Burnes has some strong feelings about those wacky Haitians who are up in arms about their portrayal in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I know this not because I read an editorial Burnes wrote, but because I read a "news" story that he wrote on the subject. Congratulations, Mr. Burnes, you've written a news-itorial.
From the article:
Colour and kreed should not matter, but they suddenly should once x is of the y community? Give me a break - should we now all go protest that you can kill white people in Vice City? Should Elvis impersonators protest because they were once killed in a Grand Theft Auto game? No, they shouldn't, and nor should the Haitian community. Repeat after me - it's a game [Cockney accent]you muppet[/Cockney accent].
The writer's opinion and views should not matter, but they suddenly should when you're writing about x instead of y? Give me a break - should we all go write our personal opinions into the end of all our news stories? Should game journalists be given free reign to editorialize because they once wrote a subjective game review? No, they shouldn't, and neither should Mr. Burnes. Repeat after me - it's a news story [Condescending accent]you muppet[/Condescending accent]
The Voodoo Extreme story is almost worse than the previously covered WCBS-TV report because the its editorializing is overt instead of hidden throughout. It just goes to show you that neither side of this argument is immune to biased reporting.
Andrew Burnes has some strong feelings about those wacky Haitians who are up in arms about their portrayal in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I know this not because I read an editorial Burnes wrote, but because I read a "news" story that he wrote on the subject. Congratulations, Mr. Burnes, you've written a news-itorial.
From the article:
Colour and kreed should not matter, but they suddenly should once x is of the y community? Give me a break - should we now all go protest that you can kill white people in Vice City? Should Elvis impersonators protest because they were once killed in a Grand Theft Auto game? No, they shouldn't, and nor should the Haitian community. Repeat after me - it's a game [Cockney accent]you muppet[/Cockney accent].
The writer's opinion and views should not matter, but they suddenly should when you're writing about x instead of y? Give me a break - should we all go write our personal opinions into the end of all our news stories? Should game journalists be given free reign to editorialize because they once wrote a subjective game review? No, they shouldn't, and neither should Mr. Burnes. Repeat after me - it's a news story [Condescending accent]you muppet[/Condescending accent]
The Voodoo Extreme story is almost worse than the previously covered WCBS-TV report because the its editorializing is overt instead of hidden throughout. It just goes to show you that neither side of this argument is immune to biased reporting.
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