Proof that you shouldn't believe even the most reputable gaming sites

PogMoThoin

Here's proof that you shouldn't believe even the most reputable gaming sites.

Some guy has decided to fool game journalists by spreading false info about Microsoft's upcoming new Xbox console. The motive behind this scam was to show everyone what a bunch of amateurs some members of the press are. He documented everything on a tumblr blog.

I am a gamer. I don't work for Microsoft.

I, like most other gamers, am sick of seeing endless rumours and speculation citing "anonymous sources" or "insiders" with no evidence, no proof, no guarantee that they've been fact-checked or can be relied on.

The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily publish guesswork as news. So-called 'analysts' are no different - they make money by guessing. They're about as much use as a 'source' as I am.

So let's see how easy it is to be a 'source'.
At 1:41am GMT today I sent out an email to a bunch of gaming sites claiming to be a Microsoft employee working on the new Xbox.

I made up every single word of it along with a couple of specs copied from other rumours that have been appearing on the Internet.

This was a bit of an experiment to see just how easy it is to get a fake story taken seriously. And it is shockingly easy in the games industry.

It's not fair to quote the whole thing, read it here: http://x-surface.tumblr.com/

Dave_The_Sheep

Pocket-lint's response, in the original article:

UPDATE It seems that Pocket-lint has been had by the anonymous tipster who supplied the above information, and we're not the only ones.

A number of sites, who subsequently reported on the story, have also been fooled into thinking that a genuine insider - now calling himself X-Surface - revealed details on the alleged new gaming tablet and Xbox console. He outlines his entire plan, how we fell for it, and his reasons for doing so on a Tumblr site here.

However, he conveniently ignores the fact that at the end of our posting, we did finish the story above with a disclaimer. "Naturally, when a tipster is anonymous, there is some degree of trepidation attached to believing what they say verbatim. However, considering the facts Pocket-lint has been given, and the lack of outlandish claims, everything our source says is plausible," we wrote. And that's just it, everything said in the fake "tip" was plausible.

There were no outlandish claims - such as the next Kinect will be a inside a hat or the new controller will look like Charlie Chaplin's moustache. So we gave him the benefit of the doubt because there was little reason not to, considering the content and what we have heard before. We did suspect that we could be taking a punt on the validity, as the paragraph above and in the original story shows, but decided to publish anyway because, like you, we like to read rumours and hearsay. Let us not forget that iPhone 6 rumours appeared the same day as the iPhone 5 was launched, but we still want to read them.

Sadly then, X-Surface has fooled us, and in doing so has perhaps swayed us against bringing you genuine tips in future, such as the Opera Ice browser exclusive we ran at the end of last week, which also started out as an anonymous tip, but grew into so much more. That's perhaps the saddest part of all.

Otacon

I don't get it. Most of the sites who posted it mentioned the fact that it was an anonymous source. As soon as people read that, they know to take whatever is in the article with a pinch of salt.

I'm not what what the issue is.

Polar101

Otacon wrote: »

. As soon as people read that, they know to take whatever is in the article with a pinch of salt.

I'm not what what the issue is.

You expect too much of people - many people believe anything they read on the internet, especially if it is a news story.

dahamsta

Pocket-lint's response is just plain pathetic, trying to justify their credulity. They should have stopped at "We've been had" and left it there.

Otacon

Polar101 wrote: »

You expect too much of people - many people believe anything they read on the internet, especially if it is a news story.

Is that not the fault of the people rather than the sites/blogs/forums? Websites survive on clicks. These speculative stories interest people so of course they are going to post them. So long as they don't try to mislead people when a source is anonymous, their journalistic integrity is maintained IMO.

Doctor DooM

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Pocket-lint's response, in the original article:

Why would they reconsider their position on rumours if they believe they'd done nothing wrong in the article?

PogMoThoin

Otacon wrote: »

I don't get it. Most of the sites who posted it mentioned the fact that it was an anonymous source. As soon as people read that, they know to take whatever is in the article with a pinch of salt.

I'm not what what the issue is.

Did you even read the article? The whole point is that this is not journalism, it's just copying and pasting anything you can get your hands on without any attempt to verify it.

Kiith

It's no different than, for example, football transfer news. How many people take it as fact when someone posts an ITK tweet. It's not news, it's a rumour. If they keep posting them, they're bound to get it right at some stage.

I've heard that the next Xbox needs 1.21 gigawatts to run...

Otacon

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Did you even read the article? The whole point is that this is not journalism, it's just copying and pasting anything you can get your hands on without any attempt to verify it.

How are they going to verify it? Going to MS would probably just get them the stock 'cannot confirm nor deny' response. As I said, so long as they didn't mislead, I don't mind that they posted the story.

Dave_The_Sheep

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Why would they reconsider their position on rumours if they believe they'd done nothing wrong in the article?

I just thought it was interesting that they thought they'd done nothing wrong.

I don't see this as a massive deal though. The sites that picked it up aren't ones that I'd go to at all for gaming news, or any kind of news for that matter. They rely on people visiting their pages and clicking links. As such, they're always going to try and grab people's attention even if it means that their info may not be 100%. It also isn't particular to gaming news websites, but all types of news sites that copy off each other all the time.

gizmo

Looks like this isn't going to die down any time soon. While I'm not sure which order the following occurred in due to the lack of timestamp on the blog, one way or the other, Rob Crossley (Associate Editor, CVG) isn't best pleased...

From the blog...

Just a small update: I would like to add that although everyone I emailed had a professional manner about them (even after finding out that it was fake), there is one person who, even upon receiving the original “rumour” email, was completely unprofessional, childish, insulting and downright ugly in his comments.

Whether he believed the story or not, his angry and egotistical response was absolutely shocking. That person is Rob Crossley, the associate editor for CVG - and he has shown himself to be the most repugnant person I’ve ever known in the gaming world.

I would hope he doesn’t speak to every tipster like that - he accused me of being 18 years old with no job, right off the bat (oh how wrong he was).

I didn’t want to call anybody out by name, but as I have received multiple insulting emails since the truth came out, I felt I should do so with him.

Crossley has tweeted excerpts from their exchange and, based on their content, it seems he dealt with the matter professionally. Of course, he may have taken exception to the generalisations on the blog and followed up with the supposed insulting emails but until we see more, it's kind of hard to tell either way.

Tweet #1
Tweet #2
Tweet #3
Tweet #4

r3nu4l

Have to say I like Rob Crosley's new Twitter bio

EDIT: gizmo got there before me

Interesting.

In fairness, it's very hard to believe anything you read about devices in the development phase these days. Even the major firms will deny they are working on something up until release day and then say 'Yeah, we were working on that feature, isn't it cool?'

Gotham

At this stage, I'm sure you are all aware that most big reviews are paid for. I've had first hand experience in this and it disgusts me.
This stuff has been in games journalism forever.

Here is some great material:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=43728693#5405

images might be NSFW
http://imgur.com/T4cYBwD,GT0QFYM,IMpMYOi,Y5Tema0,ByiLqel

Jonny7

Not sure what the big deal is here

It's just a rumour from anonymous source.. I am sure the articles point it out as such

If they try to pass it off as fact, then yeah, that's pretty shoddy.

Rev Hellfire

gizmo wrote: »

Looks like this isn't going to die down any time soon. While I'm not sure which order the following occurred in due to the lack of timestamp on the blog, one way or the other, Rob Crossley (Associate Editor, CVG) isn't best pleased...

From the blog...


Crossley has tweeted excerpts from their exchange and, based on their content, it seems he dealt with the matter professionally. Of course, he may have taken exception to the generalisations on the blog and followed up with the supposed insulting emails but until we see more, it's kind of hard to tell either way.

Tweet #1
Tweet #2
Tweet #3
Tweet #4

So basically they set out to prove that unverified sources shouldn't be trusted automatically and get in a huff when it actually does happen.

sarumite

I like pocket-lints response

"It turns out that the information below was an elaborate hoax."

Elaborate?

ShadowHearth

They do say its from annonimous source.
If you believe blindly any media, then there is a problem in you, not media.

TerrorFirmer

Don't see any problem. It was published as unconfirmed info, and pretty much all articles said as much, and it does seem pretty credible. Fail to see the point of the whole thing, really.

wnolan1992

I don't understand people's issue... A site reports on a rumour, calls it a rumour, says it's from an anonymous source...

If you believe it as fact then you're at fault, not the site.

People crying over standards of journalism? Really? FFS lads, it's video games. It's not like a speculative article about the Xbox 720's specs is going to cause war in the middle east or something, it's just something to talk about on forums to pass the time.

MajesticDonkey

My opinion is, seeing as rumours seem to be the "trend" of news now, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the article itself. I would much prefer however if there were no rumours published, so journalists would actually go to the bother of finding out the news.

Agricola

Yeah, as long as all news postings are clearly flagged as rumours from anonymous sources, then theres no problem.

The gaming industry is just that, the gaming industry. It isnt life and death, and as much as many of us would like it to be given the same weight as news bulletins about Syria, it will never reach that level of seriousness and consequently journalists in this industry will never be held to incredibly high standards. Previous poster made a good point in that this rumour mill has the same function for gamers as the transfer rumour mill does for football fans. Just a bit of craic, aimed at whetting the appetite and unless its a stated, backed up fact, you wouldnt want to be betting your house on it.

The blogger does seem to have an axe to grind and when things didnt go his way with the CVG dude, he attacked him for no good reason.

Generally speaking though he has a point. Ive listened to lots of podcasts that come out of professional games sites in the last few years and some of them have an approach to the job which is slapdash to say the least. The old "copy/paste/publish news from other sites" joke does the rounds alot from what Ive heard and theres no smoke without fire!

Star Lord

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

My opinion is, seeing as rumours seem to be the "trend" of news now, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the article itself. I would much prefer however if there were no rumours published, so journalists would actually go to the bother of finding out the news.

Trouble is, without exclusive access, or "anonymous" information, they wouldn't have anything to report on until official announcements are made.

Agricola

Yeah, you cant blame them. They have staff who require wages and where are they going to get the money without ad revenue from websites hits.

Varik

CNN shut down their Investigative Journalism division as are many others, that's worth talking about. Some guy trolling to get his name out and get a few page views of his own is not.

ScumLord

The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily publish guesswork as news.

What utter nonsense. All news media is like that, the only time they're not is when they know they'll be sued so they restrict their rumours to average citizen and say whatever the advertisers tell them to say.

This guy sounds like he's picked up a limp cause and decided to start stirring **** to make himself sound like a hero for pointing out the painfully obvious.

VinLieger

Dont see the big deal as long as the publications post "unverified source/rumour" somewhere in the article, if people still then take the rumour as gospel its their own fault, and i get the distinct impression that whoever this is simply has some personal beef and is trying to get back at people, also notice how he doesnt back up his claims about rob crossley with any evidence which makes him guilty of the same thing hes accusing the journalists of doing

mcgovern

Does anyone remember when some football fans made up a footballer, and posted rumours of said, non-existing footballer signing for a premier league club on a message board? Within days most of the UK papers where reporting this "exclusive".
I know other clubs message boards / forums, where they regularly post fake rumours, just to see what newspapers publish them.

This is the level of journalism these days.

Grumpypants

I don't see the fuss some sites got an anonymous email and posted it in the rumour sections. No one ran it as exclusive or as a factual report.

It is silly season for ps4 / xbox 720 rumours at the mo it's no worse than posting a half life 3 rumour !

Ok half life is not something to joke about