Blizzard have announced all reviews for StarCraft II will be launching after the game’s worldwide release. Rather than being due to some heavy-handed embargo or PR shenanigans, Blizzard (see also: ActiBlizz) explained they wanted to ensure reviewers were able to experience the game in an identical environment to the general public. Games that require massive online communities often are reviewed on closed servers weeks before a game’s release.

I, for one, think this is going to make the reviews for the game much more interesting to follow. Everyone is getting access to the game at the same time, so the suspicious “exclusive” review won’t exist. Instead you’ll be left with such wonderful questions like, “Did Website X really complete the campaign and give the multiplayer a fair shake before stamping a 10 out of 10?” If we were a massive site with an unlimited budget (ahem!) would we assign the review to our most dedicated staffer; a person who would be willing to sacrifice 48+ sleepless hours just to get our review out first?

Thankfully, writing for Nukezilla is a labour of love. In our case the StarCraft II review will be placed in the most steady and capable hands of our very own Mark “Junglistgamer” Steward. Mark and I have been playing SCII during the beta and as NZ‘s new Reviews Editor I can promise you our review won’t be rushed out the door. Mark and staff have been waiting 11 years for this. If Blizzard’s latest is a masterpiece, a massive disappointment or something in between, we’ll be sure to give it a thorough spin around the block.

Please continue to follow our coverage of SCII. We’ll post our Battle.net IDs on the forums so the NZ community can jump into the fray with us online and squash what’s left of our meager pride. My life for Auir!

As part of a report draft into the future and sustainability of journalism, the US Federal Trade Commission proposed that, along with other measures, a 5% tax on consumer electronics could be used to subsidise newspapers and journalism.

The proposal, which I should note is just a proposal and “does not represent final conclusions or recommendations by the Commission or FTC staff; it is solely for purposes of discussion”, could mean a tax income of $4 billion. The document (.pdf), which actually goes into the interesting dilemma of how to sustain journalism, also suggests a tax on monthly cell phone bills (but calls it the “least desirable” as it would deter people using cell carriers), an advertising tax equating to $5-6 billion annually and a frequency spectrum tax on commercial programming.

While you might balk at the idea of tax on your consumer electronics, the FTC brings up the historical instances where government taxation has supported journalism. The report cites the the Post Office Act of 1792 which “[charged] less to recipients of newspapers than that charged to the recipients of letters” because of the value of newspaper journalism in spreading information to people “so they might ably discharge their duties as citizens.” The document also notes the tax breaks and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPS) as other governmental support of journalism.

In sum, newspapers have not yet found a new, sustainable business model, and there is reason for concern that such a business model may not emerge. Therefore, it is not too soon to start considering policies that might encourage innovations to help support journalism into the future.

There’s also the advent of the internet which has destroyed the usual bussiness model of selling ads and charging for access to the paper. While people like Rupert Murdoch are going to try and make money with paywalls (especially as online advertising revenue is so low), the problem is that bloggers can often do the work of journalists. We’re a prime example of bloggers who aren’t journalists, but occasionally do journalism and try to act in a journalistic manner. But of course (and unless you’re blind) you will have noticed that videogame journalism is hardly on the level of the New York Times, so relying totally on blogging (at least in the form it exists now) is, frankly, a bad idea.

Sustaining journalism is vitally important to a nation’s democracy. But the question is whether propping up old business models (models invented a long time ago) by taxing new platforms is the right thing to do. Again, all of these suggestions are just here for discussion and are not in any way final proposistions, but the topic is certainly interesting to bloggers as much as it is to newspaper journalists.

Here, time will tell what happens. I think a new model has yet to emerge because right now online adversing is about pure numbers, not about engagement. You, as readers, are intelligent and highly engaged and both interact and shape this website’s discussion, so surely that should be worth more than a lot of brain dead morons who just passively engage?

After publishing pictures and video of an allegedly stolen new iPhone, Gizmodo writer Jason Chen last Friday had his house in California raided by police. Officers came to Chen’s house while he wasn’t in and took four computers and two personal servers as well as other smaller devices amounting to a total of 22 of Chen’s items.

In the official filings, the documents mark that the computers taken were used ‘œas the means of a felony’ but Gizmodo has already responded to the police by highlighting laws that protect journalists from police raids: ‘œUnder both state and federal law, a search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist’ said Gawker’s chief operating officer, Gaby Darbyshire.

Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media, said in an instant message to The New York Times ‘œAre bloggers journalists? I guess we’ll find out’.

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Whether blogging is a form of journalism or not is a tricky and well documented topic, and one that, with the increased importance of the internet, continues to expand. Are bloggers like me journalists? How do you define a journalist? Is Gizmodo journalism? Over the last 2 days, Gizmodo has been basking in the light of its iPhone 4 exclusive, with images, video and reams of text on the subject. As I’m writing this, they have hit over 20,000,000 pageviews and is making Gizmodo a lot of money.

A piece over at The Guardian is asking whether, because the phone was ‘œfound’, is Gizmodo actually committing an offence by paying a source for it? The author says that Californian law states that for something to be stolen ‘œthe person who took the property must have intended permanently to deprive the owner of that property.’ Seems to me selling it to Gizmodo would be depriving Apple of the phone. A phone which Apple now wants back.

So what? Why is this a big deal? A blog, that isn’t The New York Times or The Guardian, bought a story; what’s the problem? The problem is that Gizmodo is one of the top gadget blogs on the internet and they essentially broke rule #1 of journalism: Don’t pay for sources.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), a group that aim to improve journalistic standards, released a statement over a case where the American news channel ABC paid $200,000 to an exclusive right to ‘œan extensive library of photos and home video’ of a murdered toddler. The SJP denounced this practice ‘œunethical’ and said that ‘œdoing so compromises the credibility of the news and the intentions of the reporters.’ They also said:

The SPJ Ethics Committee says news organizations that pay sources, for whatever reason, while covering them inject themselves in those stories and develop an “ownership” interest. The public can legitimately question a news organization’s credibility and doubt whether its reports are fair and accurate.

Now this might not matter if this was merely a small blog, but for it to be one of the largest internet blogs in the world? Surely we, as internet users, should demand that bloggers, be it journalists or not, adhere to literally the simplest ethical guidelines? Never mind that the fact that this could technically be stolen property, has the internet fallen so low that our leading websites are, essentially, tabloids?

Be it $5,000 or $1,000,000, buying news and sources is unethical. There’s no sugar coating it. The National Enquirer, in 2008 was speculated to be up for a Pulitzer Prize, (the most prestigious prize in journalism) for its coverage of the John Edwards sex scandal story, a paper which openly admits that it will pay sources for stories. The broadsheet press were outraged that such a tabloid newspaper could win a prize so highly held. Is Gizmodo the internet’s National Enquirer?

Going by their next post on the topic, it sure looks like it. Gizmodo then posted the name of the Apple employee who lost the phone, with pictures and Facebook details of the man. So not only have Gizmodo paid for a source (something that it has not yet mentioned in a post), they have, essentially, ruined the Apple employee’s life. For hits. Whenever he goes for a new job, employers will Google his name and immediately know that this is the man that lost the iPhone. It’s irresponsible reporting, it’s a dick move and frankly, Gizmodo and its employees should be ashamed of themselves.

If Gizmodo is a tabloid, (and by pulling this kind of stuff, they are) then they deserve to be treated with the same scepticism and disdain that we treat The National Enquirer or The Sun. If one of the largest, most popular publications on internet doesn’t adhere to simplest codes of ethics, then doesn’t that reduce the overall quality of internet journalism? Surely if we want to increase the relevance and quality of blogging (which we do) then we (and I mean bloggers) need to write by simple journalistic standards? How are we going to advance the medium of the internet if we have one of the largest blogging sites paying money for stories and basically smearing this man who (shock-fucking-horror) lost a mobile phone? Blogs are news sources and they carry as much, if not more weight than The New York Times or The Guardian and so have a responsibility to be ethical journalists.

Is Gizmodo paying for sources worth it? Nevermind the obvious monetary gain 20,000,000 hits brings; is it worth the integrity of our industry and our medium?

A section editor from Australian lads’ mag Zoo was sacked recently for publishing an email, allegedly from a Rockstar PR rep, that suggests the publisher was pressuring the mag to publish a more favourable review of its upcoming Red Dead Redemption.

Toby McCasker, the mag’s former deputy entertainment editor, published only part of the email on his Facebook page, which said that ’œThis is the biggest game we’ve done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world.’ It also requested that Toby’s article ‘œreflects this – he needs to respect the huge achievement he’s writing about here.’

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PAX was a strange experience for me. I’ve never been to any sort of convention before, much less as Media/Press. It was great getting to meet and hang out with a lot of my internet friends, playing some games, and talking to some developers/PR people at the various booths on the show floor. But there were a couple of things that I thought would have made my experience a bit better ‘” this is Negative Gamer, after all.

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We just found this image on the internet on a website we have never heard of that’s not in a language we speak. So we posted it.

If this is indeed the Xbox Slim then it will mean all the unfounded speculation we’ve been doing for the last two years is totally correct.

Update: Some people are reporting this is actually an umbrella, we’ll let you know if we get confirmation of this.

Via: Gizmodo, VG247, CVG, Now Gamer

[I'm not saying the rumours aren't true, it would make sense for Microsoft to copy Sony's success in extending a product's life-cycle by bringing out a new, smaller model. I am saying, however, that some basic fact checking before posting breaking news would save a lot of embarrassment.]

Activision vs. Infinity Ward was big news, probably the biggest news we’ve had in this relatively slow news week. The internet and the gaming press exploded in analysis, counter analysis, Deep Throat style sourcing, unconfirmed reports and speculation. The update tag, a way of telling the reader a story has progressed, was used several times on single posts due to the speed and complexity of the story.

Our post took two attempts to write because the story progressed so dramatically while it was being edited. For a reader it was hard to keep up and for blogs and news sites, even tougher. The folks at Binge Gamer were even accused of being ‘œunsophisticated’ by none other than Michael Pachter for the way the released allegations of missing royalty payments.

On Friday morning, amongst all of the rumours G4, which had sourced the majority of the information, went down. Across the web, and possibly most notably on Twitter, playful speculation suggested that Activision had something to do with the downtime. Not many sites jumped on the story as most, like us, were keeping our eyes on the situation for more information.

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After my rant-of-sorts last night I figured I best explain myself a bit better.

A few weeks ago we ran a story about an iPhone developer named Jon Atherton who was seemingly sending out emails offering bribes to sites for writing about his latest breast-wobbling application. We since updated our reports to indicate that after getting a reply from the application’s makers, doubts have been raised over the authenticity of the bribes. TechCrunch, one of the most read blogs on the web, reported on these bribes as fact yesterday after doing precisely zero research.

Last month, after we were forwarded one of the emails with the bribe information in, we spent two days researching the company and those involved. We spoke to the person giving out the bribes, we looked into if this had happened before and interviewed those who had been sent emails and those who agreed to write for the money.

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A new outbreak of the H1Z1 infection has struck the video game’s media, who have attempted to cover up their embarrassment citing a ‘œslow news week’ as the reason for their lack of posts.

Wouldn’t happen under Thatcher

Scientist’s believe.

Over the past few weeks the gaming press have inconsistently cited at least two separate events, ‘œChristmas’ and ‘œNew Year’ as reasons for a reduced number of articles.

Video game journalists all live in the small Swedish town of Sjöbo which until recently was said by many to be able to survive the zombie apocalypse.

NGR has learned that most journalists have not been on holiday as they claimed, but have been slowly joined the ranks of the un-dead.

An insider, talking exclusively to NGR on the one remaining phone line in the town, said ‘œdoes this thing work?’

‘œHey, can you hear me!? N’Gai’s been bitten! You have to alert the army and get us the fuck out of here! Wait… I can hear it coming back! Brian keep them away from the door! Jeff, JEFF! OHFUCKIT’SGOTME! AAAARFU-’

The revelations have left many readers questioning the work ethic of gaming’s media.

I’m not even sure I can put words together with this one, but alas, for you I will continue. Kotaku, or more commonly known as The ‘˜Tak has hired a porn star to write about picking up girls at a LAN party.

The article features Raven Alexis who is a professional pornographer. Her site, which I’m not linking to, features pictures or her performing sexually explicit acts and pictures of her fully naked. And she is writing on The ‘˜Tak. Seriously.

The article gives you several ways to talk to girls, because you’re a stereotype gamer who can’t put a few words together in front of a girl without ejaculating in your trousers. It features such gems of advice as:

Offer her some of your energy drinks or pizza. There is nothing more romantic than offering a girl a nice, refreshing taste of your Bawls…or Red Bull.

Or:

Plant a fake virus on your friend’s computer, and then come to the “rescue” very loudly and triumphantly as she looks on.

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I started hearing rumbles about Kill Screen magazine back in September. It’s a videogame mag aimed at the prose-and-meta loving pretentious folk like myself. At that time the project was just starting its fund drive, and heralded with a Wired article it looks like things are stirring again.

The magazine is being run by people who you’ve likely never heard of but who write long articles that although I don’t read, I appreciate existence of. Before I sound like too much of an arse; the reason I don’t read them is because most of the praised articles are published in places like Esquire and the New Yorker. That’s great at reaching the “fnaar fnaar” crowd*, but I prefer my articles a bit more grounded. I also can’t afford printed goods.

Just to hammer home the point that the magazine won’t be generic and terrible, the Wired article says that “the content won’t be the same game old previews and reviews. Killscreen’s prose aims to answer larger questions like ‘What does it mean to play games?’”. Fnaar.

Keep an eye on their blog, and this one, for future developments.

Via: Joystiq

*It may be just me who associates “fnaar” with posh people laughing.

Regular readers will know of our containing coverage of the web game Evony. Have a watch of the above video and see what you think. Quite interesting I would say. (Spot the bit where they talk about information we found). Their legal action against bloggers appears to be loosing traction fast.

[This is the fourth video in this short series about how to set up and run a videogame blog. This video deals with finding and defining your content.]

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Hey did you hear? Gamespot (who are evil sell-outs) gave Modern Warfare 2 an 8.5 then were paid to give it a 9.0! Quick, let’s tell everybody! Or better: report the fact this is fictional nonsense, but bask in the drama and add sentences like “but is this the truth!?”, “it’s obvious this is not even remotely dodgy, but is it?” or even “now, I’m not saying Gamespot did 9/11, but why is nobody else?”.

The truth is that Gamespot gave the PC version an 8.5 and the console versions a 9.0. Their reviews came out a day later than most, which will be explained in a bit. Morons on the internet can’t comprehend this much complexity so started posting (in a variety of forums I’ll not link to) that the review score was ZOMG-bias changed. It wasn’t. I have no idea how much pressure Gamespot were under to give the game a positive review, if any. Considering they weren’t even given a free copy of the game (see the quote below), I’m going to assume not much. Thankfully this story has yet to be copied up into the larger publications, and hopefully it never will.

GamerLimit, using the powers of asking questions, spoke to Gamespot who explained the situation in no uncertain terms, and actually garnered some respect from me with their explanation of why their review was “late”.

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The word ‘˜news’ gets thrown around a lot these days: from clichéd openers to consumer reports on the possible health benefits derived from spending money on products shown in consumer reports. Outfits for your beloved pets and the latest celebrity snatch showing have often been touted as subjects of importance. While lesser stories such as job security and economy have quite rightly been smothered from harming our sensitive inclinations of ego.

Oppression through fear mongering was once a lone stallion in the heresy of reporting, but it’s been such a stud that the paddock is now filled with illegitimate bullshit-offspring and the sheep who want to follow them around. The world of video games was basically founded on the principals of ‘buy this stuff’, but that is where a clear line is drawn. Everyday news can’t put in spoilers what tomorrow is going to hold, it can influence you, intimidate you, slightly molest you. But at the end of the day it does not explicitly show will happen to you as a person in the future.

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I have now safely arrived in New Jersey after several days of being tired and moving very fast. Upon arrival Chelsea gave me a wonderful “Welcome to America” present as you can see above. It’s Sherlock Holmes’ actual magnifying glass! Obviously it hasn’t taken long for me to put it to good use.

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Do you suck? If yes, please stop reading.

NG is once again (or more accurately, still) looking for more people to join the ever growing team that keeps this place rolling. Specifically we’re looking for people who have time  to write three or four news posts throughout the week.

If you are fed up with the current online gaming media and their attention seeking articles, negligible effort and all around craptacular results, then step right up. This place has been growing fast over the past year and shows no sign of letting up. To keep the pace we’re going to need more writers.

If you can write, “get” what this place is about and have the time and passion, then please send in the following things; A brief paragraph or two about yourself and why we should hire you. Two sample news articles, the kind of which you would expect to write for us. Experience is not needed. Drop me an email at wardrox[art]negativegamer[durt]com with your samples and/or any questions you have.

All positions at NG are currently volunteer only, but I may let you borrow my jet from time to time.

For those interested in the discussion of games journalism; I present to you an episode of Pondercast tailored to your needs. Pondercast is a podcast I’ve been subscribed too since it began as it’s a gaming podcast that talks about smart-people topics. Skipping merrily over the light-weight news to the more meaty topics people like me love to listen to.

As I’m not one to beat too much around the bush with my views on games “journalism” I was asked on as a guest for this episode. You can go to the official Pondercast page here (which has details of when in the podcast we touch on each topic), or listen to the 74min show in the embedded player below. Also, points to those who can find all the holes in my arguments. There are many.

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You call your site NegativeGamer, you deserve to be ignored on principle.

That comment was left by Kieron Gillen on this really interesting response to my recent article about game journalism.

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I don’t think the current model most blogs run on will last beyond the next five years. Also, I’m sorry for mild overdose of non-game related chatter on the site of late.

Here is the RSS feed for these Vlogs.

People are sell-outs, the industry is too small and nobody cares.

Let me first explain what I mean when I use the term ‘œjournalism’. Nobody uses the phrase right, and I’m not going to buck that trend. Ignoring all the proper definitions, I see journalism as the act of reporting on news and events. In doing so the journalist makes sure to find the truth as best he or she can, and has a strong emphasis on investigation. This is what I want ‘œjournalism’ to mean.

Annoyingly for me, very few people agree. Most people who write about videogames take the untroublesome definition of journalist as a person who writes about news. To me, that makes you a writer. A very good writer perhaps, but still a writer. (Most examples of ‘œgreat videogame journalism’ I get pointed to are just examples of good writing.)

So many have reached for the title it has become almost meaningless. Get a domain for $8, install WordPress, subscribe to Kotaku and re-word the popular news in your unique, edgy style. Pop! You can now attach the phrase ‘œvideogame journalist’ to the end of your name and be happy with your accomplishment. Now get off my lawn.

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After my near-death experience with a power cut that lasted several whole minutes the usual crew talk on this week’s show about:

• Brandon and Gandy are on the poverty line
• Gandy has terrible taste in music and wanted this to be the break
• Half Left lives on the floor
• The FTC public option will destroy liberty
• Australia is a silly place
• I really enjoy Jack Thomson’s press releases

All that and an announcement about how you can get the limited edition black NG T-shirts for only £10! Gosh! Also, thanks top Pyroph I think we have a working link for the Zune Marketplace.

MP3, iTunes (review us here), Zune, PodFeed, Podcast.com, Digital Podcast, Any other RSS

After compiling data from more than 20 ‘œfirst’ or ‘œexclusive’ reviews, I have found that the final score given is 6% higher than average. Even when the extremely off-centre reviews are removed, and the average score of each publication is accounted for, there remains more than a 4.5% discrepancy.

In the data shown below I have tried to find as many ‘œfirst’ reviews as possible from recent years (something, as best I could find, hasn’t been done before). Obviously I can’t find them all, and equally obviously I am no master statistician. However, the results speak for themselves. If you just take the scores given and subtract the average score that game got, you find the early reviews score an average of 5.88% higher.

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