Final Fantasy XVI (16)

I think that's exactly what it is. They've been pushing these clickbait articles for quite a while now. For me personally it started where it was worth ignoring them in order to read the other quality pieces on there, they need to make money after all. But slowly there have been more and more of these shit nothing articles, copy and paste with no thought, barely even an edit it seems. It all tipped over the edge on the Final Fantasy "news" piece over the weekend. People were expressing their annoyance in the comments section then they just turned them off and deleted them.

I still find it bizarrely sad, used to love it there.

Their faux anger at everything seems so deliberate too. They are really stronghanded with their liberalism. Free speech is allowed if you agree completely with their point of view. The majority of people who comment on their articles actually seem pretty level headed for the Internet and they've actually got their own little community like the forum used to be.

I annoy myself how sad it makes me thinking about a website, but I used to look forward to visiting there everyday.

I read one of Keza MacDonald's articles over on the Guardian recently where she said how games journalists had to pivot in the face of the lack of games shows and uncurated access to devs over the heavily managed engagement they have to deal with these days - and how that had pushed them to seeking out stories from players, rather than the developers, and I have sympathy for that being challenging.

That said, the EG article did seem pretty weak. I only saw it immediately after it was posted with about 10 comments, and then much later once it had been closed, so I've no idea what went down in that time frame.

Some places like Kotaku also trying to race bait Yoshi P by asking him the question directly in interviews. The response wasn't the best, but to suggest it's malicious is really pushing it.

Yeah, I enjoyed the demo but I've got so many games to play and it's so near summer hols that I'll just wait and get it when it's cheaper.

I actually remember being a teenager and discovering EG, it was during the Tom and Ellie era. It was the quality of the writing, the no nonsense news section, the dry humour and the community that got me, it really stood out amongst the US based sensational bullshit - to the point I frequently saw US based users saying "I read Eurogamer" as a sort of badge of honour.

It's all completely gone now, hasn't it

TBF I don't think any gaming website is immune from changing their content model, especially when you have other sources like Twitter and Reddit for your immediate content, so a lot of stuff is just repeating press releases and mining a big game release for any kind of content, so for example the deluge of Destiny articles back in the day. I also believe that most popular content are stuff like guides these days so you really have to pitch something different to get the views but the paucity of comments on articles does show the direction the site is heading.

More on topic. Genuine question, any people here miffed about the lack of diversity? I'm assuming that no-one is seriously considering a boycott (?) but I wouldn't mind a perspective on how it makes real people feel

My only issue there was that it was largely from the mouths of bearded white guys. It's got a bit better but it would always make chuckle, I'm not saying you can't talk about representation as a white person but at some point you have to practice what you preach and you know not just hire white guys with glasses and a beard. Or you know, Matulef.

I read the response from Yoshi P about it, seemed terribly weak for an excuse but I also get the game maker's vision doesn't have to always do everything I want, and if I don't like I can, you know, not buy it. Obviously a strawman argument would be stuff as in "why isn't *insert minority in there". Regardless Game of Thrones, which this is directly influenced by this, has PoC in it and it's an incredibly weak argument to say that there were no brown people in Europe medieval times, especially a fantasy game where authenticity doesn't really matter.

Even with representation, sometimes its just not enough for people. People complained about a lack of black women in Overwatch for the longest time, despite having an already diverse cast at launch from American white men to Egyptian grannies. Then when they do include Soujourn, a black woman with mechanical arms and legs, it's not enough and there should be more African Americans. But also some even took issue with the fact that she has white hair and blue eyes and you just think you can't please everyone. Sometimes they bring up good points, one of the concepts for Ashe depicted her as a black woman til they changed it, but part of you thinks well, why wouldn't they just make her black? What conscious decision was made to change her to white and whats the reason for it?

Anyway, there isn't a huge boycott about this in the same vein as say Hogwarts Legacy had. 40 people on a Resetera forum thread that could easily be lying. Square's hardly losing sleep over it.

It didn't drive engagement on the website from their analytics and given the increased responsibility for what's published on a forum you host they decided it wasn't worth it. EG is a very different thing from when Raups was in charge and it shows.

Now, that's a name that I have not heard in a while.

I had to do a Google search, and I discovered that Rupert Loman is opening up his own "forum" (which should be interesting).

www.justabout.com/

What are the chances that it will be able to go head to head against the likes of Reddit and Resetera?

FF isn't mine either but this doesn't really feel anything like a FF game to me