It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped.

That is not the general consensus in the industry.

Really? All the articles I read said that his inexperience and his complete control over the whole process, including the marketing, caused the film to flop. The agreement seems to be that he shouldn't have been given that much responsibility.

That has everything to do with his skill as a director, not his level of involvement. And yes, marketing was the largest factor.

The local paper isn't it, and hasn't been for a long time.

The local paper is probably the most valuable source for news which actually has an effect on you dude. Local shit actually impacts you. I could go a year without watching national news and still be fine.

I'm hoping Cody's "History of Bungie" novel that he's mentioned before will be much more introspective. ;)

That's only going to work if people will talk to me. I've heard… things about how some people at Bungie see me. If it ever does happen, it would certainly come from a place of love. I mean, if my fan years were my age I could start drinking this winter.

Local papers have accountability people care about, and pay/own good news services like the AP. Want to get rid of the AP? Reuters? Bloomberg? Let your paper go out of business.

The problem isn't Kotaku or the article, it's that free news on the internet has reduced budgets of legitimate news sources while clickbait revenue streams are growing companies that only spew drivel. The result is that you no longer trust the integrity of reporters. Free news has made you cynical.

Want to solve the problem? Pay for your local paper.

You know what? Don't. Do you know those people?

Those people knew about the problem of Internet journalism. It was foreseeable twenty years ago. As an industry they chose to ignore it and avoid it, and that led to the current situation.

And the decline of due diligence in local reporting began long before the Internet was even a factor.

I went to a local newspaper out of J-school and within a week was told that no kind of fact-checking was ever done because there was no time for it.

There needs to be a way for good reporting and editing to be done, and for there to be reasonable revenue streams to support it, and reasonable costs for consumers to purchase it.

The local paper isn't it, and hasn't been for a long time.

It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped.

That is not the general consensus in the industry.

Really? All the articles I read said that his inexperience and his complete control over the whole process, including the marketing, caused the film to flop. The agreement seems to be that he shouldn't have been given that much responsibility.

It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped.

That is not the general consensus in the industry.

I wasn't arguing with anything anyone had said earlier in the thread. Seems my post came across that way to you, and I'm not sure why :-/

Due to the structures of forums, and expectations based upon previous conversations, our brains tend to interpret responses to a post as an argument unless it is explicitly stated otherwise. This is not news. We know this by examining how emails are perceived and how a well-placed emoticon can help clarify the tone of a response. This even happens in real life conversations with my wife. If I don't make it clear that my response to something is a side-note or a comment on the subject, it can easily be heard as a contrary opinion.

For feedback's sake, I read your initial response as an argument against the whole of Claude's post as well. Its positioning in relation to the post made it seem to me that you were arguing against the idea that a person could hold a skeptical position while at the same time being invested in the subject. I know that isn't what you intended to communicate, but it came across that way to me. Part of that interpretation lies at my feet, but accurate interpretation can be helped by explicit markers of the scope of your response. Just including the simple phrase, "I agree with this, but I want to comment on this" makes a huge difference.

Overall, I think you are a great communicator and I appreciate your thoughts. I only offer this because you were confused about why he interpreted your response in a way you didn't expect.

Basically, my post was triggered by a single line in your response to Fuertisimo where you said "you seem deeply invested in this". I was merely riffing off of that. With DBO being a Bungie fan site, any story about the making of Destiny is likely to drum up interest. I was just trying to bring up the fact that for me personally, I think articles like this are important for the games media. I wasn't arguing with anything anyone had said earlier in the thread. Seems my post came across that way to you, and I'm not sure why :-/

I should have been clearer; I meant it seemed he was pretty invested in everyone holding the same opinion as he held. (I was basing that off the fact that every time someone suggested they might take the article with a grain of salt, he jumped in with an aggressive defense - in some cases, with an attack.)

I didn't mean that he was (or should be, or shouldn't be) invested in the story itself.

I think we agree, for the most part - I think we just misunderstood where the other was coming from. :)

Without getting into the specific discussion between Fuertisimo and Levi, I do believe articles like this are important to some of us. Forget the fact that its about Destiny, I get excited any time I see an gaming-related article that comes close to actual journalism. For years, gaming magazines and websites have done little more than re-distribute press releases, with little or no original content of value. Like any other industry, there are interesting stories surrounding videogame development. Some gamers don't care, and I totally get it. I find behind-the-scenes stories fascinating, but the secretive nature of game development means we rarely if ever get an honest look at how games are made.

This article in particular suffers due to lack of clear and identifiable sourcing, as Levi pointed out. It makes it tough to keep track of "who supposedly said what", or how much is being mashed together by the author, etc. But Schreier does have a great track record, so I'm hesitant to write it off as clickbait BS the way I might if a similar article was written by some other members of the gaming press. If nothing else, I see it as an attempt to do more than parrot PR announcements, so I think it is significant in that regard.

I'm not exactly sure why you might think that someone saying "I'm going to take this article with a grain of salt" means they don't care about the subject material.

I didn't actually say that, nor did I mean to imply it :) I was saying that some people aren't interested in reading about what goes on behind the scenes, and I understand why. That's all.

I care about the subject material a great deal - more, probably, than the majority of people reading this thread. But I'm not going to take it as truth as it stands.

The story he puts out jibes with the story I've gotten, over the years, from various sources, in a lot of ways. It also CONFLICTS in several (important) ways. (I'm not going into detail; the pieces I've gotten were explicitly off the record.) I'm not saying that makes the Kotaku article wrong, and my sources right - I'm saying that often, there are multiple interpretations of a single event, and that one particular narrative might not do the situation full justice.

I read this with the same interest as others here; I don't have Levi's aversion to gossip. (Heh - that makes it sound like I'm a gossip hound. I'm not, but when something is written about a subject that's near to my heart, I'll read it and THEN toss out the parts I think are crap, rather than saying "I don't need this in my head".) And I think it's an interesting piece, and it sheds light (possibly accurate light) on a number of hard-to-understand decisions. But I don't believe it's 100% accurate, and I don't believe that anyone who suggests they're withholding judgement should be chastised for doing so.

The fact that Schreier is respected by a number of people here is good - but it doesn't change the fact that some of what he wrote is at odds with stuff I'm pretty sure is true.

::shrug::

Everyone needs to make their own decision about how accurate this is - or even whether they want to bother reading it. And it's definitely an interesting conversation topic - as evidenced by the two large threads on this forum alone. But folks who express skepticism should be allowed that opinion. That's really all I was trying to say.

I completely agree with all of this.

Basically, my post was triggered by a single line in your response to Fuertisimo where you said "you seem deeply invested in this". I was merely riffing off of that. With DBO being a Bungie fan site, any story about the making of Destiny is likely to drum up interest. I was just trying to bring up the fact that for me personally, I think articles like this are important for the games media. I wasn't arguing with anything anyone had said earlier in the thread. Seems my post came across that way to you, and I'm not sure why :-/

Without getting into the specific discussion between Fuertisimo and Levi, I do believe articles like this are important to some of us. Forget the fact that its about Destiny, I get excited any time I see an gaming-related article that comes close to actual journalism. For years, gaming magazines and websites have done little more than re-distribute press releases, with little or no original content of value. Like any other industry, there are interesting stories surrounding videogame development. Some gamers don't care, and I totally get it. I find behind-the-scenes stories fascinating, but the secretive nature of game development means we rarely if ever get an honest look at how games are made.

This article in particular suffers due to lack of clear and identifiable sourcing, as Levi pointed out. It makes it tough to keep track of "who supposedly said what", or how much is being mashed together by the author, etc. But Schreier does have a great track record, so I'm hesitant to write it off as clickbait BS the way I might if a similar article was written by some other members of the gaming press. If nothing else, I see it as an attempt to do more than parrot PR announcements, so I think it is significant in that regard.

I'm not exactly sure why you might think that someone saying "I'm going to take this article with a grain of salt" means they don't care about the subject material. I care about the subject material a great deal - more, probably, than the majority of people reading this thread. But I'm not going to take it as truth as it stands.

The story he puts out jibes with the story I've gotten, over the years, from various sources, in a lot of ways. It also CONFLICTS in several (important) ways. (I'm not going into detail; the pieces I've gotten were explicitly off the record.) I'm not saying that makes the Kotaku article wrong, and my sources right - I'm saying that often, there are multiple interpretations of a single event, and that one particular narrative might not do the situation full justice.

I read this with the same interest as others here; I don't have Levi's aversion to gossip. (Heh - that makes it sound like I'm a gossip hound. I'm not, but when something is written about a subject that's near to my heart, I'll read it and THEN toss out the parts I think are crap, rather than saying "I don't need this in my head".) And I think it's an interesting piece, and it sheds light (possibly accurate light) on a number of hard-to-understand decisions. But I don't believe it's 100% accurate, and I don't believe that anyone who suggests they're withholding judgement should be chastised for doing so.

The fact that Schreier is respected by a number of people here is good - but it doesn't change the fact that some of what he wrote is at odds with stuff I'm pretty sure is true.

::shrug::

Everyone needs to make their own decision about how accurate this is - or even whether they want to bother reading it. And it's definitely an interesting conversation topic - as evidenced by the two large threads on this forum alone. But folks who express skepticism should be allowed that opinion. That's really all I was trying to say.

This article in particular suffers due to lack of clear and identifiable sourcing, as Levi pointed out. It makes it tough to keep track of "who supposedly said what", or how much is being mashed together by the author, etc. But Schreier does have a great track record, so I'm hesitant to write it off as clickbait BS the way I might if a similar article was written by some other members of the gaming press. If nothing else, I see it as an attempt to do more than parrot PR announcements, so I think it is significant in that regard.

That's quite the mouthful. This is always the problem with trying to figure out what's happening in the games industry. Insiders can't speak because of NDAs or other fear of retribution, so they always need to be quoted anonymously. Essentially it boils down to whether or not you trust the journalist has credible sources that are telling the story accurately.

I'm guessing in this instance he does, because there are several things in the story which could be considered damaging to both Bungie and Activision, and if what was said was false they would sue for libel. He's really going out on a limb publishing what he did. I guess we'll find out if Bungie or Activision pushes back.

You seem awfully invested in this. Levi didn't say it was bullshit, he said he didn't have enough basis to decide if what he was reading was accurate, so he'd rather not make judgements. That's a completely reasonable point of view, and he shouldn't need to defend himself for it. It's clear you believe it's gospel (or close to it) - but he doesn't believe that. Can't you just let him have his opinion?

And you're dreaming if you think Activision is going to sue over an article like this, true or not; the bad press from the lawsuit would SWAMP whatever negativity the article generates.

Kotaku has jumped forward leaps and bounds in terms of the quality of their journalism in the past year.

Kotaku now is a very different site than it was 2-3 years ago. I've been quite impressed with their turnaround.

But lifehacker is good people.

Yep. Been reading them from their start.

The disaster/[crunch]-time-hell that Bungie has gone through is management's fault, not Joe's. They shouldn't have let it get as far as it did before pulling the plug. I can't take the argument that they were kept in the dark because there was content being developed based on the story.

So, yeah. Management probably messed up by letting it get so far before pulling the plug. It's easy to make that call now, but at the time I suspect they were doing what they thought was best for the game.

It sure is easy to look back and criticize isn't it? This much I know, I'd struggle to lead a studio as large as Bungie and not make mistakes or let things slide for too long. It's a hard job and I'm certainly willing to cut Bungie leadership a little slack.

Past few months? Try years. For a long long time I had them specifically banned in my host file (trying to go to Gawker would intentionally redirect me to good ole' 127.0.0.1) so I could not even accidentally follow a link and give them a page view or advertising cent.

The only Gawker site I like is Jalopnik, but even that is arguably rubbish most of the time. The "reporting" there is a joke, but it's a frequently updated car blog that posts a lot about new cars, Nurburgring times, and a lot of actually irrelevant crap that I find interesting. I certainly wouldn't trust anything "breaking" from it, though.

i used to read Gizmodo every day, but then they banned my account about 4 years ago after pointing out a mistake (content, not grammar) in an article. If i see a gizmodo article in my facebook feed now that looks interesting, i just google it and try to find the original source material.