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Among developers, media, and people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field. Schre

Among developers, media, and people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field. Schreier in particular is one of the best-sourced reporters in the industry. And let's be real for a sec: those circles that don't like Kotaku also correlate with reflexive reactionary politics cloaked in "pro-consumer" rhetoric waaaay better than anything else, like "interest in or respect for truth or reality".

ekianjo 9y ago
> people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field Checking today's Kotaku headlines: > That Time We Got To See Mario's Dick https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-1819859773 https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-18198... Yeah, my claim about it being a Tabloid is completely unsubstantiated, sorry.
- dinkumthinkum 9y ago
  Yeah, but this is a bit dramatic right? I mean, you can find many trivial stories on NYT or probably even more in the Washington Times; it doesn't mean these are garbage sources like the Inquirer.
- eropple 9y ago
  Huh! It's like there's a difference between filler stories, which are part of the modern views-based economy for news sites, and reporting. Can't for the life of me figure out why you'd elide that. (There's a reason why, in terms of general news, Buzzfeed, of all places, is well regarded for investigative reporting. And it's because other stuff pays the bills.)
imcrs 9y ago
He has a point though. The author chose lawyers as a comparison point. Why? Manual laborers work long hours. People with two or three part time retail jobs work long hours. Lawyers have a different set of qualifications and requirements than game developers do.
- dinkumthinkum 9y ago
  I think your point is a little hard to discern. Who do you think educationally game programmers are more similar to: Manual laborers or Lawyers? Other than the regulation of the latter, I think it is clear they are more similar to lawyers. Serious game programming requires fairly extensive knowledge in multiple disciplines of computing particular graphics and rendering, AI, at least some basic algorithmic knowledge and competency with programming that is much more technical than "make yet another web app in a hipster JS framework," to just be honest it. There are many people in the game development industry with MS degrees and even some PhDs. This I think is more similar professional "status" than brick laying, I think.
- csydas 9y ago
  I think that this is sort of missing part of the comparison in that it's meant to compare similar highly demanding jobs which require a specialized education. While labor is incredibly important and I respect the hard work, it's a different skillset entirely that doesn't have the same prequisetes. I would suggest the comparison is between professions with the same demanding hours and same demanding prequisetes, not just the hours. It's not to diminish other jobs with long hours, it's just they're not the focus of the comparison. (To further elaborate, my very first job was picking flat stone at a quarry, since it was popular for home gardens at the time and machines couldn't get the stones easily without breaking them. Long hours of hard work in the dirt and mud plus many split knuckles and crushed fingers. Still, I was able to do it as a 15 year old unsupervised and with no training. It was useful and hard work, but not really the same as the IT I do now, the majority of which is watching progress bars.)
wutbrodo 9y ago
Wait really? I assume you're talking about gamer gate obliquely: I'm not a gamergater (to be honest, I still barely even know what it means) and I had a vague sense of Kotaku that more or less aligned with "gaming tabloid". That's just based on having read a couple pretty dumb things from them, and the fact that every other Gawker property is pretty much a tabloid.
- eropple 9y ago
  Your experience with them may be negative, but the general social memes about Kotaku are one hundred and ten percent fostered by the regressive parts of the gaming community that don't like that they give people who have the temerity to not be white, cis, and straight a platform. (And 'ekianjo's body of work on Hacker News makes me disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.) I will go to bat for Schreier specifically, but there's a reason why they had Patrick Klepek and his Scoops around, too (until Vice came knocking, anyway). They are legit. Maybe now Waypoint edges them out as they seem really dedicated to doing good investigative stuff (Klepek and others), I dunno, but it's pretty much those two and Eurogamer doing the heavy lifting in the "widely read" spaces.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Yea I mean, I don't know anything about what Gamergate thinks, and I don't have as low an opinion of Kotaku as you're saying that GG does. Ive just never had any exposure to as _high_ an opinion as you have of them and was curious about it. Not really a domain I know much about, to be honest.
    - eropple 9y ago
      I have a high opinion of some of the people who work for them more than I do the outlet itself. I don't read it on a daily basis. But when news breaks that actually holds up, it basically comes from Kotaku, Eurogamer, or (lately) Vice/Waypoint, while the sites started by or pushed by folks who get thirsty about those three--the Reaxxions, ha ha ha, of the world--are mostly just angry whineboxes.
  - 9y ago

ekianjo 9y ago

> people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field Checking today's Kotaku headlines: > That Time We Got To See Mario's Dick https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-1819859773 https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-18198... Yeah, my claim about it being a Tabloid is completely unsubstantiated, sorry.

dinkumthinkum 9y ago
Yeah, but this is a bit dramatic right? I mean, you can find many trivial stories on NYT or probably even more in the Washington Times; it doesn't mean these are garbage sources like the Inquirer.
eropple 9y ago
Huh! It's like there's a difference between filler stories, which are part of the modern views-based economy for news sites, and reporting. Can't for the life of me figure out why you'd elide that. (There's a reason why, in terms of general news, Buzzfeed, of all places, is well regarded for investigative reporting. And it's because other stuff pays the bills.)

imcrs 9y ago

He has a point though. The author chose lawyers as a comparison point. Why? Manual laborers work long hours. People with two or three part time retail jobs work long hours. Lawyers have a different set of qualifications and requirements than game developers do.

dinkumthinkum 9y ago
I think your point is a little hard to discern. Who do you think educationally game programmers are more similar to: Manual laborers or Lawyers? Other than the regulation of the latter, I think it is clear they are more similar to lawyers. Serious game programming requires fairly extensive knowledge in multiple disciplines of computing particular graphics and rendering, AI, at least some basic algorithmic knowledge and competency with programming that is much more technical than "make yet another web app in a hipster JS framework," to just be honest it. There are many people in the game development industry with MS degrees and even some PhDs. This I think is more similar professional "status" than brick laying, I think.
csydas 9y ago
I think that this is sort of missing part of the comparison in that it's meant to compare similar highly demanding jobs which require a specialized education. While labor is incredibly important and I respect the hard work, it's a different skillset entirely that doesn't have the same prequisetes. I would suggest the comparison is between professions with the same demanding hours and same demanding prequisetes, not just the hours. It's not to diminish other jobs with long hours, it's just they're not the focus of the comparison. (To further elaborate, my very first job was picking flat stone at a quarry, since it was popular for home gardens at the time and machines couldn't get the stones easily without breaking them. Long hours of hard work in the dirt and mud plus many split knuckles and crushed fingers. Still, I was able to do it as a 15 year old unsupervised and with no training. It was useful and hard work, but not really the same as the IT I do now, the majority of which is watching progress bars.)

wutbrodo 9y ago

Wait really? I assume you're talking about gamer gate obliquely: I'm not a gamergater (to be honest, I still barely even know what it means) and I had a vague sense of Kotaku that more or less aligned with "gaming tabloid". That's just based on having read a couple pretty dumb things from them, and the fact that every other Gawker property is pretty much a tabloid.

eropple 9y ago
Your experience with them may be negative, but the general social memes about Kotaku are one hundred and ten percent fostered by the regressive parts of the gaming community that don't like that they give people who have the temerity to not be white, cis, and straight a platform. (And 'ekianjo's body of work on Hacker News makes me disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.) I will go to bat for Schreier specifically, but there's a reason why they had Patrick Klepek and his Scoops around, too (until Vice came knocking, anyway). They are legit. Maybe now Waypoint edges them out as they seem really dedicated to doing good investigative stuff (Klepek and others), I dunno, but it's pretty much those two and Eurogamer doing the heavy lifting in the "widely read" spaces.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  Yea I mean, I don't know anything about what Gamergate thinks, and I don't have as low an opinion of Kotaku as you're saying that GG does. Ive just never had any exposure to as _high_ an opinion as you have of them and was curious about it. Not really a domain I know much about, to be honest.
  - eropple 9y ago
    I have a high opinion of some of the people who work for them more than I do the outlet itself. I don't read it on a daily basis. But when news breaks that actually holds up, it basically comes from Kotaku, Eurogamer, or (lately) Vice/Waypoint, while the sites started by or pushed by folks who get thirsty about those three--the Reaxxions, ha ha ha, of the world--are mostly just angry whineboxes.
- 9y ago