Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[Brotherman Bill]

Which p4r article did they copy?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Shit, it's gone. That would make a great screenshot to spam IGN comment sections forevar

 

[Average Manatee]

The more damning fact is that they appear to have reposted the entire article almost verbatim without even attributing credit. Dirty pirates.

No, there is a (via p4rgaming.com) in there.

That's not exactly acceptable in the professional world. Copying 95% of the content from another article and posing it as your own is inexcusable in fields with standards.

 

[Zewp]

Here's the article's text, for those who missed it.

Nintendo has revealed it's consciously made its games easier, after internal testing saw 90 percent of participants unable to make it past the first level of the original Super Mario Bros.

In a Q&A during the company's 73rd annual stockholder meeting (via Play4Real), Satoru Iwata told shareholders that fewer and fewer people involved in an annual survey were able to make it past the Famicom game's first level.


"It may come as a shock to some of you that most gamers today can not finish the original Super Mario Brothers game on the Famicom," he explained. "We have conducted this test over the past few years to see how difficult we should make our games and have found that the number of people unable to finish the first level is steadily increasing.

"This year, around 90 percent of the test participants were unable to complete the first level of Super Mario Brothers. We did not assist them in any way except by providing the exact same instruction manual we used back then. Many of them did not read it and the few that did stopped after the first page which did not cover any of the game mechanics.

"We watched the replay videos of how the gamers performed and saw that many did not understand simple concepts like bottomless pits. Around 70 percent died to the first Goomba. Another 50 percent died twice. Many thought the coins were enemies and tried to avoid them. Also, most of them did not use the run button. There were many other depressing things we noted but I can not remember them at the moment."

Iwata goes on to explain that the main piece of feedback Nintendo received was that the company should make the game less difficult, as well as more violent.

"We asked for suggestions on how to improve the game. A majority of them wanted the game to be easier and they suggested many ways to do this. Some of them wanted a mandatory tutorial while others wanted more ways to kill things besides jumping on them. We explained that Mario could shoot fire balls with the Fire Flower power-up, but then they wanted Mario to start with more weapons like a sword or a gun.

"So, as a stockholder, you should be relieved to know that our games are easier in order to attract a wider audience. As a gamer, you might feel a little sad, and you should be. It is quite sad."

Rather amusingly, Shigeru Miyamoto then spoke up to say he tried to design Super Mario Bros. so that everyone could complete it, before admitting "I failed miserably."

So it seems a change in the average ability of the gamer demographic is why difficult games are more of a rarity these days. What do you reckon, do you long for more of a challenge when you sit down and play or would harsher punishments for dying in games like The Last of Us severely impair your experience? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Here's the original P4R article.

http://www.p4rgaming.com/majority-of-gamers-today-cant-finish-level-1-in-super-mario-bros/

 

[Zewp]

It made its way onto some Spanish site as well.

http://www.latercera.com/noticia/te...los-jugadores-actuales-no-pueden-con-el.shtml

 

[Spectacle]

The more damning fact is that they appear to have reposted the entire article almost verbatim without even attributing credit. Dirty pirates.

No, there is a (via p4rgaming.com) in there.

That's not exactly acceptable in the professional world. Copying 95% of the content from another article and posing it as your own is inexcusable in fields with standards.

The copied text is stuff that p4r claimed was statements from Nintendo, rather than editorial, so if it was real then repeating it on another site would be fair game.

 

[Average Manatee]

The more damning fact is that they appear to have reposted the entire article almost verbatim without even attributing credit. Dirty pirates.

No, there is a (via p4rgaming.com) in there.

That's not exactly acceptable in the professional world. Copying 95% of the content from another article and posing it as your own is inexcusable in fields with standards.

The copied text is stuff that p4r claimed was statements from Nintendo, rather than editorial, so if it was real then repeating it on another site would be fair game.

http://www.p4rgaming.com/majority-of-gamers-today-cant-finish-level-1-in-super-mario-bros/

It's not a matter of whether they can or can't copy it, it's a matter of clarifying who said what. P4Rgaming correctly block-quotes the (attributed) Iwata lines. IGN did not do that, unless the cached version I read screwed up the formatting or something. Without properly quoting someone could, for example, misconstrue IGN as the one responsible for some of these lines.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

https://twitter.com/Killage_Wizard/status/353171350556393472

 

[Jack]

Shit, it's gone. That would make a great screenshot to spam IGN comment sections forevar

Spoiler

 

[dnf]

wow that mario bike is kewl

 

[Zewp]

Shit, it's gone. That would make a great screenshot to spam IGN comment sections forevar

Spoiler

Sadly, I am a newfag and can not yet brofist, but have a manual one instead.

 

[DalekFlay]

If this is our game journalism thread let it be known an honest representative of bro gamers everywhere died today, Ryan Davis from Gamespot/Giant Bomb.

Feels weird, 'cause I have heard his voice a thousand times watching quick look videos from them.

 

[AstroZombie]

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/ryan-davis-1979-2013/1100-4685/

The consolation we can feel from that is miniscule compared to the hole that Ryan’s absence will leave in our lives. That’s not a hole that is possible to fill; it’s just something that we’ll just have to get used to walking around with, and that will not happen for a long, long time.

The fat jokes just write themselves.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Dammit. GB is the pod cast i always listen to.

This sucks. I can not even come up with something witty.

 

[circ]

That's ok, I can (witty pending).

I guess it's just...

Bomb now.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Even weirder, the reactions in yonder thread. http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?73177-Oh-no-Ryan-Davis-has-passed-away

He seemed like a nice guy and it sucks for his family, but holy hell. Maybe I'm a monster (Since I'm on the Codex it's possible) but I haven't even been so emotional over the deaths of family members, much less random e-celebrity.

 

[sea]

Ryan Davis, although frankly I thought many of his opinions on games were stupid and that he wasn't a very good gamer, was a genuinely nice person and extremely social and entertaining. In a lot of ways he was the glue that kept Giant Bomb together. Considering that Patrick also left them recently I have to wonder how this will affect the site. Definitely a lot of lost charisma either way, and it's not going to be the same from now on.

To be honest, given his health it's not that surprising (though cause of death hasn't been released), but regardless of that it's just tragic that he died literally three days after being married. Screw Giant Bomb, his widow must be going through hell right now.

 

[Metro]

Those videos were terrible and the man basically did nothing for a living but no one deserves to die randomly in their thirties.

 

[LundB]

He seemed like a nice guy and it sucks for his family, but holy hell. Maybe I'm a monster (Since I'm on the Codex it's possible) but I haven't even been so emotional over the deaths of family members, much less random e-celebrity.

I suspect a lot of the emotional response from random forum users is exaggeration. Same reason some (perhaps most?) people on the Dex act edgier than they actually are.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Even weirder, the reactions in yonder thread. http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?73177-Oh-no-Ryan-Davis-has-passed-away

He seemed like a nice guy and it sucks for his family, but holy hell. Maybe I'm a monster (Since I'm on the Codex it's possible) but I haven't even been so emotional over the deaths of family members, much less random e-celebrity.

This is not unusual. People love to be dicks on the Internet for various reasons.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

He seemed like a nice guy and it sucks for his family, but holy hell. Maybe I'm a monster (Since I'm on the Codex it's possible) but I haven't even been so emotional over the deaths of family members, much less random e-celebrity.

I suspect a lot of the emotional response from random forum users is exaggeration. Same reason some (perhaps most?) people on the Dex act edgier than they actually are.

Also gaming is a young enough interest that there haven't been that many prominent deaths, so I think there's less of a tacitly understood appropriate level of emotional response. When in doubt, I think people tend to err on the side of emotionality b/c it seems like its what they're supposed to do.

 

[Excidium]

Ryan Davis, although frankly I thought many of his opinions on games were stupid and that he wasn't a very good gamer, was a genuinely nice person and extremely social and entertaining. In a lot of ways he was the glue that kept Giant Bomb together. Considering that Patrick also left them recently I have to wonder how this will affect the site. Definitely a lot of lost charisma either way, and it's not going to be the same from now on.

To be honest, given his health it's not that surprising (though cause of death hasn't been released), but regardless of that it's just tragic that he died literally three days after being married. Screw Giant Bomb, his widow must be going through hell right now.

Isn't Patrick the jew-looking kid that everyone hated?

 

[Menckenstein]

 

[sea]

Isn't Patrick the jew-looking kid that everyone hated?

Yes, though he was probably one of the smarter ones even if I thought his opinions were annoying and exceptionally wishy-washy based on the argument he was trying to make at any given time.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Patrick

one of the smarter ones