Fallout 3 - Preview & Interview @ NMA

So it would be like me going under the press pass of GamerDad and also gathering info for RPGWatch?
 
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They were not univited guests. They were they as the invited representatives of the sites that sponsored them. They also happened to be NMA members, and last I checked Bethesda had not even blacklisted the site, and it is certainly no criminal organization. According to Pete in the Q&A they are even reading and "in contact with" NMA. Again: if some site with an invitation to an event decides for whatever reason to send a representative that is also an NMA member, who obviouly had no chance to misbehave at an earlier event yet, I simply see no problem. Its not like they gave wrong names, stole the tickets, or snuck in in black Ninja suits. Nor have the particular NMA members uttered any death threats against Devs afaik. TES forum members have several times been at Beth press events as representatives for one site or another, giving both enthusiastic and critical accounts. If Bethesda feels they need to change their system because of that, than they are the morons, and NMA is right about them.

If all of what you say is true then why didn't they explicitly go there as and for NMA, you know, proudly wearing NMA T-shirts, singing the NMA hymn, flipping their NMA V.I.P passes in everyone's face? :biggrin:
Obviously, Bethesda turned down one NMA member according to Brother None. So we'd have to assume that Bethesda did for some reason not want to invite someone from NMA.
If NMA members then turn around and sneak in behind Bethesda's back using a different site's credentials then that's just that... "sneaking in". Whichever way you put it or want to spin it.
Besides, if they were going for that other site then why did the article end up on NMA? And did Bethesda know of and approve of an article based on this event getting published on NMA? Is Pete Hines d'accord with a pic of him showing up on NMA? Would he have agreed to have his picture taken had he known where it was going to be posted? Would he have agreed to the interview and given these answers had he known where it would end up?

It's simply a matter of appropriate conduct and fairness to be open about your agenda and who you are and who you are reporting for (there is a reason that at professional press conference journalists are required to stand up, quote their full name and the publication they are reporting for before asking their question). Especially if you run around waving the "journalistic integrity" banner all over the place as Brother None does. Start with the man in the mirror... blahblahblah... is what I'm saying here ;) .

So it would be like me going under the press pass of GamerDad and also gathering info for RPGWatch?

I think it's generally perfectly OK to go to these events for several sites. A lot of professional journalists who sell their articles to a variety of different magazines do just that. But if you are pretty much a "persona non grata" as one would have to assume for NMA members (since they were not invited and had one staff member turned down) and you then use a sort of "backdoor" method to get in regardless is where things might start to get complicated if Bethesda should choose to draw consequences from this event.
 
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They were not invited as NMA because to Bethesda NMA is just a fansite, and they don't invite anyone from fansites, only "press" - be that a real rule or a pretext, but thats the reason they give. Now, if a member of a fansite comes for a gaming press site, I don't think they have any rule against that, even if they might not be particularly delighted in this specific case. I think its a prefecctly valid backdoor to use, as I said other fans have done it before. And I don't think BN is persona non grata. He is uncomfortable, but he is probably the most active poster on the FO3 forums, he is civil, he is mostly but not solely critical and negative. Now if it had been Roshambo who went to the press event, I might agree with you. :)
 
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So it would be like me going under the press pass of GamerDad and also gathering info for RPGWatch?
No, because you could use RPGWatch´s press pass.
 
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They were not invited as NMA because to Bethesda NMA is just a fansite, and they don't invite anyone from fansites, only "press" - be that a real rule or a pretext, but thats the reason they give.

No, they gave no reason according to the article... Silencer, who applied in the name of NMA, was turned down with no reason given.
The fact remains that Bethesda did not know which publication these guys were really reporting for and that they did not know that they were effectively demo'ing and giving an interview to NMA since that's where the article ended up. I don't see the article on Gamernode or Madshrimps. I see it on NMA only.

Now if it had been Roshambo who went to the press event, I might agree with you. :)

Haha if Rushing Rambo would have busted Bethesda's Fallout 3 presentation I would have demanded HQ shaky-cam footage :biggrin: .
 
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The reason was give for earlier contacts, IIRC, BN should know.
You have a point in that Bethesda did not know that an article would appear at NMA, but then I don't think that those they invite have to sign anything that states that, what, and where they have to publish. And since many journalists work for more than one outlet, that wouldn't make sense either. So I still can't find anything very evil in this coup. Even less so because the resulting preview is detailed, factual, and fairer even in the commentary than I would have dared expect.
 
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So I still can't find anything very evil in this coup. Even less so because the resulting preview is detailed, factual, and fairer even in the commentary than I would have dared expect.

There is no coup. They stole some seats from a couple of 'journalists' and good on them. It's a little bad ass and for that a definite cheers. However, the article itself panders, which detracts heavily from what's honest to deem fair. In it's language, structure and tone it plays heavily and obviously. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's the nature of an opinion piece and the more daring you are to explicitly state that leads at times to a more sensational read. Again, that can be aces... Zero Punctuation.

When the language runs to places such as "poor man's" from what amounted to all of thirty seconds screen time or references to the combat using limited terms like "just rtwp" it falls into the same catergory as Yahtzee's piece. He does it well. This reads like two guys at their very first 'media event'... I hate that term, it's infotainment at best... seriously, it's video games don't expect Globe and Mail type journalism. Demand better but don't expect an expository into gradations of fun. Anyways, reads like probably one of the first times they've seen a crappy alpha build demo (they're always crap, even when they're well done a certain rough and ugliness is just par for the course) at an event such as this and by all means possibly wanted to get a gaming woodie from what they were going to be shown. I don't think anyone is so stalwart as to not be honestly swayed. However, this piece meanders and it panders without the pudding and Belgium jokes while falling into stereotype with juvenile digs, novice expectations and flat humour.

If people want to take a baseball bat or knife to something, do it well. Don't half ass it under guise or pretense. Be honest in it and with craft... and honest to god, be a little less to defensive about it too. Wow.
 
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The reason was give for earlier contacts, IIRC, BN should know.

Here:
Nope, no conspiracy [to keep Fallout fans out]. He was simply letting me know to be on the lookout for coverage from NMA on the game. We hadn't allowed fan sites access to the game, because we are only showing the game to gaming press at this time. Given that both of the guys got press access, they got to see the game.

It's a little bit embarrassing that you're trying to be overly critical without even bothering to do basic factchecking, Mori. SuA is still writing the article for MadShrimp. I offered GamerNode a second look, but their current preview is fine, so I'm writing on another game from GC for them (they did ppost on it). You could say both me and SuA freelanced it at GC, and our pay was an invitation to Bethesda's Fallout 3 showing. Tagging that evil is a stretch, trying to continue to push that Bethesda might go all beserk is kind of hard when there's no sign of that, right now

In it's language, structure and tone it plays heavily and obviously.

Wow, what a paranoid post.
 
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I don't think you're nefarious, you just wrote a very clumsy piece. I was very clear about that.

Your opinion is duly noted.

While I would agree that Mo has become a fucking troll over the past months I think he has a point this time. It is possible this action has done a lot of smaller sites a disservice.

The fact that NMA exists at all could possibly do a lot of smaller sites a disservice. I'm not going to worry about that. We got in through legitimate if deceitful means, we never lied, we were civil and courteous there, we wrote a preview that's well-received and not a huge insane flamefest. If Bethesda's takes exception at any of this, that's kind of their problem.
 
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Your opinion is duly noted.
If Bethesda's takes exception at any of this, that's kind of their problem.

I agree.
I also diagree with father lamats asessment of the preview. No pulitzer, but not nearly the worst I have seen either. Opinionated, true - but were the others not, only in the opposite direction?
So, enough sucking up to NMA for now!
 
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Good work and great job. :)

Pete Hines
"The problem is however that they've had years to think about what they wanted and create a view of what Fallout 3 should be that could never be possible today. They're still stuck 8 years back in their views of Fallout 3. It simply wouldn't work."

How absurdist can you get, wouldn't it be funny to see someone actually try and defend this crap. :biggrin:

Secondly reguarding potientially damaging other small sites;
This would kill any chance bethseda had to dominated the media, if they were that dumb, word would spread like wildfire.

They would be adding to the number of sites that would be willing to print negitive comments about them and reenforcing the current internet wide oppinion that the big game sites that laugh on cue and grab their ankles for an early chance to preview/review while constantly making sucking, gurgling and slurping sounds can't/won't print a real review.
 
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Nooooooo... dammit. Couldn't you find someone with a brain who agrees with me instead of Matt Peckham? Sammy was right in his comment on the previous page. This is (at least beginning to get now) fucking embarassing :biggrin: .

Matt Peckham doesn't strike me as stupid, just a bit obtuse.

But I agree this kind of stopped having a point a while ago, so it's fine to drop at this point
 
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What Mo meant is that Peckham is the go-to guy when a site like 1up wants to have an RPG slaughtered. His reviews often don´t leave the impression that he bothered to base his text on playing longer than a few hours.
 
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Are you sure he even plays them that long? His reviews are a joke!!
 
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I finally got a chance to read this thread, and I'm sitting here with a big smile on my face!

Next time Bethesda may have to make a stronger effort to keep out the "undesirables." That's tough. Chalk one up for gonzo journalism!
 
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Matt Peckham @ NMA said:
It's just that annoying little hangover everyone's blithely ignoring about how deception empowers the public relations cloud when it comes to future information sharing.
I want you to confiscate my computer if I ever write anything as vague and insensible as this sentence.
 
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