thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Last night during the NBA Finals, MS rolled out an ad for Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most anticipated games of the year. At the end of the ad, was a four-second portion tying in MS's Xbox and Smart Delivery.
Now, guess who retweeted this ad? And conveniently cut out those last four seconds?
If your guess is "Geoff Keighly", you
are correct!
So let's not beat around the bush: Geoff has a bit of a hard-on for PS. Look, I like PlayStation. A lot, in fact. I'm still holding out for a Tomba 3 and UmJammer Lammy 2 in the future, as fruitless as that wish may be . However, even with that love for the brand and its legacy, if I were in Geoff's position, I would have been a lot more responsible and professional than to retweet an ad that had an obvious 4-second portion for Xbox, and somehow cut out those last four seconds for...whatever "reason".
Regardless if Geoff did this intentionally or not, or if he was tweeted an edited version of the clip by someone who did such a thing, the fact remains that as one of the biggest names in the games media side of the industry, he has a responsibility to be as professional with his discussion and reporting as possible. He failed that responsibility last night, and this isn't the first time he's done so this year WRT things coming off as sly backhanded slaps towards Microsoft and Xbox. Need we even bring up how Cyberpunk somehow won "Best PlayStation Game" at the Gamescon awards? 'Ya know, over actual well-received PS exclusives like Ghosts of Tsushima?
WHAT?!?!? WHAT THE FU--
...Anyway...
This I feel is worth bringing up because it's showing yet again that there's a disdain within pretty prominent parts of the mainstream games media (Geoff, IGN etc.) towards Xbox. No, you never have these figures come out and straight up say they hate the brand, but it's the small things they do which reveal their true intent. This is very irresponsible of these types of media; it's one thing to have a preference, but to then let that preference transform into a strong bias against what you perceive as an "enemy" towards that preference, to the point where it subconsciously negatively influences your reporting on things falling outside of that preference...reeks of an abuse of power.
We already have to suffer from extremely biased, near propaganda-tier reporting from political MSM who are highly compromised by financial interests (corporate, foreign governments, etc.), and we deal with the same thing with modern-day film reviews (just look at the access media who caped for Disney when backlash towards The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel came through)...why must yet another medium suffer the same fate? Granted, I know of plenty of gaming spots that have actual neutrality and fairness to their discourse, reporting you name it.
The problem is, a lot of those respectable spots have much less influence than an IGN or Geoff, so it's on the shoulders of the IGNs, Geoffs etc. to attempt being fair and balanced with their reporting. Last time I checked, Geoff never retweeted an ad for a game with PlayStation marketing and cut off the portions of the ad specifically mentioning that, did he? Where were the IGN articles taking back the harsh words they threw at MS for supporting cross-gen after Sony did the surprise reveal of several of their once-assumed PS5 exclusives also coming to PS4 (and one in particular to PC, but that's a different discussion)? Is cross-gen suddenly a good thing now because Sony Too™, mainstream gaming media?
At the end of the day, these massive gaming sites and types are after popularity, clicks, and revenue. However, the fact they're willing to compromise on journalistic integrity, ethics, and balance in reporting in order to placate to the toxic elements of console warring (likely due to the fact some of the same sites/people are fanboys/fangirls themselves), is not only disgusting but also damaging. It's only helping to further binary extremes, echo chambers, and safe spaces for console fanboys/fangirls to congregate so they can pretend reality only works on their terms. It would be nice if more genuine gamers, the sorts who game on a range of platforms and ecosystems, stood up against this type of stuff.
Doing so would not equate to disliking PlayStation as a gaming brand; if anything, it shows you have genuine appreciation for the brand because it makes it harder for media to obfuscate things from you, the customer, that companies like Sony would rather you be ignorant about. If you see media of prominent positions shilling or showing strong biases for Xbox or Nintendo, they deserve the same type of treatment. However, I think it's no open secret that when it comes to a lot of the high-tier gaming personalities and media, there is absolutely a bias towards reporting on things in a way almost as if to "protect" the PlayStation brand, even if it comes at the expense of the other two (Xbox mainly, but sometimes Nintendo, too).
At the very least, I know for the time being Geoff is one less gaming personality I need to bother paying attention to. I will most likely skip The Game Awards this year as well, if he has any involvement in it. I think people like Geoff need to either be forthright with why they have a habit of doing "certain" reporting and engagement on social media the way they do, or just be acknowledged for the negative biases they regularly perpetuate towards a certain gaming brand, which really puts things sour with those of us who actually enjoy all three of the platform holders (and even other gaming sectors like PC, arcade etc.).
TL;DR: Geoff, you're going back in the box.
Now, guess who retweeted this ad? And conveniently cut out those last four seconds?
If your guess is "Geoff Keighly", you
are correct! So let's not beat around the bush: Geoff has a bit of a hard-on for PS. Look, I like PlayStation. A lot, in fact. I'm still holding out for a Tomba 3 and UmJammer Lammy 2 in the future, as fruitless as that wish may be
. However, even with that love for the brand and its legacy, if I were in Geoff's position, I would have been a lot more responsible and professional than to retweet an ad that had an obvious 4-second portion for Xbox, and somehow cut out those last four seconds for...whatever "reason". Regardless if Geoff did this intentionally or not, or if he was tweeted an edited version of the clip by someone who did such a thing, the fact remains that as one of the biggest names in the games media side of the industry, he has a responsibility to be as professional with his discussion and reporting as possible. He failed that responsibility last night, and this isn't the first time he's done so this year WRT things coming off as sly backhanded slaps towards Microsoft and Xbox. Need we even bring up how Cyberpunk somehow won "Best PlayStation Game" at the Gamescon awards? 'Ya know, over actual well-received PS exclusives like Ghosts of Tsushima?
WHAT?!?!? WHAT THE FU--
...Anyway...
This I feel is worth bringing up because it's showing yet again that there's a disdain within pretty prominent parts of the mainstream games media (Geoff, IGN etc.) towards Xbox. No, you never have these figures come out and straight up say they hate the brand, but it's the small things they do which reveal their true intent. This is very irresponsible of these types of media; it's one thing to have a preference, but to then let that preference transform into a strong bias against what you perceive as an "enemy" towards that preference, to the point where it subconsciously negatively influences your reporting on things falling outside of that preference...reeks of an abuse of power.
We already have to suffer from extremely biased, near propaganda-tier reporting from political MSM who are highly compromised by financial interests (corporate, foreign governments, etc.), and we deal with the same thing with modern-day film reviews (just look at the access media who caped for Disney when backlash towards The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel came through)...why must yet another medium suffer the same fate? Granted, I know of plenty of gaming spots that have actual neutrality and fairness to their discourse, reporting you name it.
The problem is, a lot of those respectable spots have much less influence than an IGN or Geoff, so it's on the shoulders of the IGNs, Geoffs etc. to attempt being fair and balanced with their reporting. Last time I checked, Geoff never retweeted an ad for a game with PlayStation marketing and cut off the portions of the ad specifically mentioning that, did he? Where were the IGN articles taking back the harsh words they threw at MS for supporting cross-gen after Sony did the surprise reveal of several of their once-assumed PS5 exclusives also coming to PS4 (and one in particular to PC, but that's a different discussion)? Is cross-gen suddenly a good thing now because Sony Too™, mainstream gaming media?
At the end of the day, these massive gaming sites and types are after popularity, clicks, and revenue. However, the fact they're willing to compromise on journalistic integrity, ethics, and balance in reporting in order to placate to the toxic elements of console warring (likely due to the fact some of the same sites/people are fanboys/fangirls themselves), is not only disgusting but also damaging. It's only helping to further binary extremes, echo chambers, and safe spaces for console fanboys/fangirls to congregate so they can pretend reality only works on their terms. It would be nice if more genuine gamers, the sorts who game on a range of platforms and ecosystems, stood up against this type of stuff.
Doing so would not equate to disliking PlayStation as a gaming brand; if anything, it shows you have genuine appreciation for the brand because it makes it harder for media to obfuscate things from you, the customer, that companies like Sony would rather you be ignorant about. If you see media of prominent positions shilling or showing strong biases for Xbox or Nintendo, they deserve the same type of treatment. However, I think it's no open secret that when it comes to a lot of the high-tier gaming personalities and media, there is absolutely a bias towards reporting on things in a way almost as if to "protect" the PlayStation brand, even if it comes at the expense of the other two (Xbox mainly, but sometimes Nintendo, too).
At the very least, I know for the time being Geoff is one less gaming personality I need to bother paying attention to. I will most likely skip The Game Awards this year as well, if he has any involvement in it. I think people like Geoff need to either be forthright with why they have a habit of doing "certain" reporting and engagement on social media the way they do, or just be acknowledged for the negative biases they regularly perpetuate towards a certain gaming brand, which really puts things sour with those of us who actually enjoy all three of the platform holders (and even other gaming sectors like PC, arcade etc.).
TL;DR: Geoff, you're going back in the box.
