chokenspit

What I've learned: 1.) Gaming Journalism has no moral fiber or regard for ethics, and anything that threatens the status quo will be viciously attacked by them. 2.) Indie game devs are pretentious and overly loyal. 3.) People on the internet are vicious and don't know how to productively focus their anger. None of these are new revelations. This whole thing was overblown. What Zoe Quinn did was wrong, both privately and professionally. My problems aren't with her or the people supporting what she did, however, as it's just a part of society as a whole going down a dark path. My problems remain 100% solely with the gaming journalism industry. It's a sad state of affairs. I can't even find Kotaku's or The Escapist's guidelines for ethics, for example (If you can please point me there because I genuinely want to see them). Polygon has one, but it's pretty weak (http://www.polygon.com/pages/ethics-statement) and it's clear that they don't enforce it. In contrast, here's one from the LA Times (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2007/07/los-angeles-tim.html) or The Washington Post (http://asne.org/content.asp?pl=236&sl=19&contentid=335). I'm not going to get into a debate on whether those newspapers are good or if they agree with your views or not, but I can tell you that they are strict on enforcing these policies. I don't go to a gaming journalism site to read about anything except gaming industry news. I'm not interested in this cake that TOTALLY looks like a game character (save it for the viral video sites, seriously), what laws have changed regarding the acceptance of transgender people or anything related to pop culture. This isn't because I'm against these things or anything, it just isn't the right place for it. These sites have no vision. They want to appeal to the masses in whatever way they can because they must feel that's the only way for them to stay relevant. Maybe the fate of G4TV scared them or something. There's also huge ethical concerns in regard to developers and publishers who have games that are going to be reviewed by a site advertising on said site, or receiving freebies from developers in exchange for positive review scores. In this way, Developers and publishers contribute to the issues with gaming journalism too. They need to stop putting so much stock in review scores (See: What Bethesda did to Obsidian after Fallout New Vegas) and focus on what the people who purchase their products feel about it. The industry needs to change, but the reaction to this situation is not the way to go about it. It isn't a clear cut problem with one solution. It's going to take years and a slow reformation, and the members of the gaming press are going to fight it every step of the way because the way things are right now is extremely profitable for them. Thanks for reading, and sorry for rambling on, I just wanted to regurgitate my thoughts somewhere I guess.

Thanks for the info. Chris Avellone also mentioned to me on twitter that it was confirmed, but anything can happen along the course of developing a game so if it isn't there no big deal.

I'm not sure this has been brought up and I couldn't find anything, but I was wondering if different dialogue for low INT characters was going to be implemented in the final release of the game, as I notice that it isn't in the backer beta. It may seem small, but it was something I was looking forward to. This isn't a "make or break" thing or me complaining, and I'll still play it if it isn't implemented. Great work on the game, guys. I look forward to seeing what the final release looks like. Regards