**UPDATE** Adam Sessler confirms he was whining about not getting a PS4 in advance of the launch to review it, thereby confirming his drama queen status and the name Madam Sessler. Video is found here....
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Unless you've been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your ears plugged, you've undoubtedly heard about the "internet explosion" that started on Twitter with Madam, sorry Adam, Sessler being a drama queen about something allegedly being so serious that it affects his livelihood.
Click on this link for an idea of how and where this started.
http://n4g.com/news/1381488...
The story started out so completely vague and nondescript with Adam Sessler acting like it's the end of his career and that he's considering other employment options. A relatively small amount of others made similar comments such as Marcus Beer who no one cares about anyway.
Basically, there are like 3 gaming journalists making a huge stink about this and LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE! But it's gotten to the point where "insiders" are claiming overheating issues already, as evidenced here...
http://misterxmedia.livejou...
The general consensus however seems to be that the biggest issue, which is eluded to by Marcus Beer, is that Sony isn't giving free, early PS4s to some of the journalists who obviously think more highly of themselves than Sony or gamers do. The situation also seems to be that Sony has opted to hold a staged review event in New York and has invited journos to that, which some don't like. What's conveniently ignored is that Microsoft have placed a similar review embargo without an event, but hey who cares about that right?
The meat of this blog is that journalists like Madam Sessler and his ilk who are complaining about this are just entitled brats who think they are somehow owed free, unfettered, early access to products simply because they are paid to give their OPINION about the product in what will either be a glorified ad for the product, or a vanity filled denouncement of it like their word is gospel.
NEWSFLASH: As a game journalist, you ARE NOT in the industry, you REPORT ON the industry. You have no entitlements, no special rights. You are, for all intents and purposes, a regular opinionated person who either went to school on how to get paid to tell your opinion and suckered someone into paying you to do so, or (in the more modern era of gaming jounalism) someone with a camera and a youtube channel that people watch, or even a glorified blogger. You're not important, and despite the vain ascertation that you're doing a public service and protecting consumers, you're not entitled to free stuff just because you feel your opinion is somehow worth more than someone else's.
There are plenty of reviewers out there who buy, out of their own pocket, the products they intend to review. AngryJoe is perhaps the biggest example of someone who spends his own money and works really hard to get COMPLETE (meaning he actually plays most, if not all of the game) reviews out in a timely manner. Now, does this mean that he gets them out as soon as someone with early access? Of course not. Does that matter to anyone NOT looking for hit driven income? Nope.
People like AngryJoe also have far more integrity and trust built up from gamers due to the fact that they aren't being bought off by free product with the expectation of a favourable review, or the fear of being blacklisted for violating review embargos.
You want to review the PS4, nothing is stopping you from putting down the cash to buy one and review it. Only the weak minded gamers of the world need to read early reviews to tell them what to buy. If there are problems with the console, rest assured that said problems will be posted on forums everywhere, and either refunds or replacements will be the result of said issues. That may suck in the end, but it has the added benefits of no one being beholden to the vice grip gaming journalism has on the gaming industry, as well as being far more trustworthy.
One of the worst problems with this non-issue, beyond the melodrama, is that these journos aren't even complaining about regular PS4s. They want debug units under the claim that they want to test out 3rd party external capture devices free of HDCP protection, a feature that won't be available to users at launch and is thus ultimately pointless to discuss until it is available.
I personally believe that not sending out debug units to every journo that thinks too highly of themselves that demands one is a brilliant move by Sony. Why? Well, even though there is no 100% guarantee that this won't happen anyway, sending debug units out only to trusted sources creates a better chance that some journo who is a hacker, or who has a hacker friend, won't use the debug unit to crack open the unit and begin the process towards pirated software, of course under the guise of "homebrew applications."
We've seen this gen with the PS3 that "insiders" can't be trusted and that's why the PS3 was eventually cracked for piracy after 4 years on the market. Do you think Sony wants that to happen even before the console is launched? I don't.
The ironic thing is that we've all seen the journos write articles about how we, as gamers, act like spoiled entitled children when we have a problem with things like Mass Effect 3's ending, and yet here they are acting far more entitled and spoiled than any of us could ever be because they aren't getting free PS4s a minimum of a week before it launches.
Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft should all stop giving out free product to reviewers, as should all 3rd party developers. They aren't entitled to free product because they aren't IN the industry, they report on it. Once you see a reviewer feel like they are being ignored, you get to see what kind of reviewer they really are and the end result is that they can't be trusted either way. Force them to buy the product they want to review. Their opinion is no different from anyone else's so they don't deserve special treatment.
Madam Sessler and the rest of the crying gaming "journalists" are really only thinking about their ad revenue money anyway, and don't give a damn about "informing consumers" of potential problems. If they weren't, then who tells the consumers about problems first wouldn't matter so long as the same problems are being reported by multiple sources.
The integrity of gaming journalism is so lacking, one could be forgiven for asking if it ever existed to begin with.
Charging for early access has started to become a regular practice in several AAA games, and the gaming community should not tolerate this.
Don’t uh… don’t pay for it then? 🤷♂️ It’s 3 days early, let people who can’t wait pony up to pay for early access. I’d hope people have more control over themselves if they don’t want to pay extra. I personally, do not see an issue with the option. If I’m hyped for a game and they give you early access, I’ll pay. If it’s something I can wait to play on “actual release” I won’t pay extra. It’s as simple as that.
Except your entirely mistaken if you think it's "early access"
Theyre just charging you extra to play it on release. So gullible.
It's not early access...it's playing on release...early access is when the game isn't finished and needs a little more time...you also get it months in advance.
Let's not get confused here..
Microsoft has been doing premium edition early access for awhile(Forza and Starfield recently) ...so why is it an issue now when Ubisoft does it?
It can't be the gamepass excuse as Ubisoft has day one subscriptions as well.
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SoulGame Studio’s inaugural game is a brilliant mix of genres that will delight you to no end.
'People like AngryJoe also have far more integrity and trust built up from gamers due to the fact that they aren't being bought off by free product with the expectation of a favourable review, or the fear of being blacklisted for violating review embargos.'
This paragraph couldn't be any better. I agree with you entirely. Freebies for a supposed critic immediately destroys any credibility they held.
Ok I'll explain something that clearly you do not understand as made evident by this comment right here:
"One of the worst problems with this non-issue, beyond the melodrama, is that these journos aren't even complaining about regular PS4s. They want debug units under the claim that they want to test out 3rd party external capture devices free of HDCP protection, a feature that won't be available to users at launch and is thus ultimately pointless to discuss until it is available."
HDCP is the technology preventing people from copying direct stream footage of BluRay movies into an easier format and share them. However it has now been applied to games on the PS4. Sony has stated that they will patch the console in the future in order to remove it and people have shown it's still clearly possible to record the footage. HOWEVE and this is a BIG freakin however, if you accuire the footage from some form of workaround it is still illegal to post ANYWHERE and by ANYONE. Essentially what this means is that there will be no footage of a game released unless it is under Sony's direct say so. What this essentially means is that for any review of a game the media sites will have to rely on canned and already released footage. Saying that the removal of HDCP is "a feature that won't be available to users at launch and is thus ultimately pointless to discuss until it is available" is incredibly naive. Journalists and reviewers depend their livelihood on the fact that they will be able to freely distribute footage in order to showcase games to consumers. Now keep in mind, that my opinion on what I beleive their all upset is completely speculative until one of them comes out and confirms why they are upset. As with this blog. But HDCP at launch basically means their will not be game reviews for any of the PS4s games until the patch is applied.
Developers also need debug kits and they are more important than some reviewers.
Those "insiders" are making stuff up ;)
These crybabies need to grow up...
Who needs a Dev Console when you could get a simple HDMI splitter which strips the HDCP out of the line.
I would like free stuff but I never get free stuff and I know that...