Any journalist who continues to not only re-hash the self-aggrandizing bull**** of greedy and abusive games-industry managers, but goes further and writes about these people and their behaviour in unquestioning, positive terms … is open-season for ridicule right now. We’ve had enough; developers are starting to get really pissed at journalists who kow-tow to the rich and the powerful, while ignoring the people who actually, you know, *make* the games they’re supposed to care about.
By no means the worst example, but Nathan’s recent pieces on Michael Pachter were the last straw for me, personally.
Nathan, a writer for EDGE online, could perhaps benefit from the following observations. I’m not a researcher, I’m not a journalist, but I think there’s more than enough circumstantial info here to suggest that Nathan should have been a lot more careful about presenting Michael’s comments in such a positive, accepting, unquestioning, light.
- Michael Pachter is not necessarily a “member” of the Games Industry. A cursory examination suggests he’s a financial-analyst, with little or no experience of game design, development, production, publishing, etc
- Michael said some grossly offensive things, and industry professionals are – quite rightly – rather upset
- Michael appears to have blessed the continued, deliberate, abuse of employees; this is dangerous stuff – he’s potentially aiding and abetting the ruining of people’s lives
- He apparently makes a large amount of money because people trust him to advise them on the industry; the reaction to his appalling commentary is in danger of costing him tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
- Any claim from him that he’s been taken “out of context” needs some serious examination; it does NOT deserve to be simply published without critique. Are you a journalist, or an outsourced PR assistant?
- Everyone in the games industry is well aware that “unpaid overtime” exists in many other industries
- The claim that Pachter “give[s] informed industry advice to investors” needs some substantiation; a quick Google suggests a lot of people would disagree; beyond the financial predictions (which he’s veered away from here), where’s his “informed” advice coming from? There’s even a satire blog about him: “My word is Money, Bitch. Listen Up”
- Much of the ire is based on the video itself; many sites chose to re-quote each other simply because that’s faster than doing a manual transcription. That doesn’t mean we were all too lazy to watch the actual video