Perhaps you should ask Snopes why it is that the leader of the White Helmets, Raed Al-Saleh, has unable to enter the US to receive various awards?

Or, God forbid, do some research and find out on your own -- but no Guardian links, please. ;0

What's wrong with Snopes? They usually do well researched, sourced fact checking.

I assume based on your sampling of "better" fact checkers that you are being sarcastic.

I do agree that the Guardian has a fairly obvious left leaning bias... but I think that's easily understandable considering the climate of the media in Britain to begin with. I imagine it's hard not to push further left when confronted with trying to combat the misinformation from the likes of the Daily Mail.

I guess you think Linko should have halted the GoG release and asked the developer to send him a new gif then, right?

This was a tweet promoting POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost. Two "gaming " magazines gave the game 0 on a 1 to 10 rating scale. Wonder why the game publishers might be pissing on games journalism? There are 100's of things people can choose to be offended by in that game if one "wants to be". But let's blame Linko, right? He should have overruled the game publisher, right?

Jason Schreier "renowned" games journalist just called all of the fans of a Youtuber Yong Yea alt-right and anti-Semitic because one of them accused him of drinking soy. Where's the anti-Semitism in that? Why are "games journalists" attacking Youtubers and their audience on Twitter? Don't they work in PR? Do you think he will be fired? Of course not...not even reprimanded.

Why? Because many of these "games journalists" are creating this war. They are stoking the fires constantly with their own rhetoric so people who hate them click on their articles and they get ad revenue from it. They were the ones who started that controversy when they called "gamers" basement dwelling neckbeards, entitled hyper consumers, whiny cry babies and on and on. 13 articles like that all published together in a span of 2 days. Starting the day listed on that Tombstone by a publisher who was review bombed by these same so-called games journalists.

But yeah, let's blame Linko. Oh, and he's responsible for global warming while we are at it too...

There's no such thing as "good" in this world, Fairfox. There's bad, and worse.

But seriously, if you wanted to know, you would, but you don't, and we'll leave it at that.

Ta-ta.

I don't use "fact checkers". I do research. And have been since 1992.

It's not about free speech, it's not even about someone losing their job unfairly. That's a thin veneer over the real issue that they're complaining about.

The real issue is that GoG did something they view as political (it's not), that goes against what "real gamers" want (it's not) that's only catering to an outrage mob (it's not) and that GoG should do what they want them to because them buying games here gives them the right to decide how GoG should run their business (it doesn't).

All the other stuff is just sad justification to try and convince people they aren't complaining about it for the real reason that they are complaining about it. Once you start talking to them about it than they start spinning wild conspiracies that go back years and how this is all an extension of gamergate (another example of "real gamers" behaving like shitheads for no good reason.)



it does not have to be black and white / either or.... what about releasing the game and not using that gif?

If the fact checker is well sourced than it acts as a nice means to review their sourcing start with some aggregated research.

I don't disagree that individual research to draw a conclusion is valuable and important but that ignores the fact that some of the information is not readily available to you that may be available to others.

i.e. The Guardian may receive leaked government documents that are important to the issue you're researching.... you would not receive this information in any other format. Said information shouldn't be discounted out of hand because you can't source it directly.

I'm a humanitarian, for chrissakes! So settle down. ;p

Put yourself in his position. A successful game developer sent you a gif to be used for promotion. You tweet every other game with a gif. Are you as a PR person going to make that decision yourself over the developer? Remember that Running with Scissors is a client that makes your company money.

It seems to me, all of you forget that hindsight is 20/20. You are pretending that a controversy should have been expected. It's POSTAL 2. It's an outrageous game. How could anyone have reasonably predicted there would be an outrage at GoG over a game that is well-known to be over-the-top? Of course the game itself was going to get a little flak, but no one could reasonably expect it to be targeted at GoG and RWS didn't have a problem with it.

if you are a good PR / CM you think about your organisation first and its image, he need to anticipate any fallout from any messages.

it would have been perfectly fine to promote Postal 2 on twitter without using that gif at all.

I don't see why people don't seem to understand this. I used to work for a major marketing company that did social media management for some big companies. As a contracted firm for that kind of work I can say with a great deal of certainty that had an employee done what Linko did on a clients account they would have been fired immediately, and they likely would have lost the contract.

It has nothing to do with whether it was right or wrong, all that matters is public perception. If you're a social media manager and you can't read what a public response will be to your messaging than you're a liability, not an asset. That's all that this comes down to... it's not about being fair.

Right...

And one of your major clients gives you a promotional gif to be used and that gives you the right to ignore them? Over a game where you can piss on EVERYTHING. You can use a cat as a gun silencer because it's screeching will drown out the sound of the gunshot. This from one of your clients who games journalism has unfairly maligned. You can't honestly tell me this game deserves a "0". That it's worse than shovelware?

You seem to give too much credit to the power of this PR/CM position. It's an entry level position. You are expected to please your clients like Running With Scissors. They are the one's providing your product that you earn money off. Not using their gif can be a big problem and potentially get one fired too. Remember how GoG talks of giving special attention to each new release in their schedule? This is definitely part of this.

But really, I get the sense you aren't really here to discuss anything. This is not my first rodeo with you either. You are going to make excuses for your pre-determined and unwavering side, no matter what I say and even when you came out accusing Linko of many PR disasters and proven it wasn't just him, you haven't budged.

It's definitely not black and white. You and others are clearly using hindsight and the results to blame Linko. I doubt he had the power to nix using the gif provided to him. And frankly, no one should have expected that outrage, because it's a game that pokes fun at hundreds of people, not just uptight games journalists. The same games journalists who constantly crap on gamers all the time these days.