SE, don't invite that journalist to Fanfest... ever.

[SaitoHikari]

You want to send a real message, SE? Asshole not only insulted your fanbase, he pretty much insulted your staff and wasted the producer's time with that dumbass question that painted us Americans (FFXIV players, other NA journalists, or otherwise) in an even worse light than whatever the developers may have already thought of us.

Don't invite or provide any press materials to anyone associated with the website ever again. Blacklist the fools. It's one thing to criticize game development or the direction of the company as a whole, but this guy had literally one job and decided to do it by coming in with a very clear agenda to disparage all parties involved at a freaking fan gathering of all things. One would think this is too harsh a punishment, until you consider that someone higher up must have come up with the decision to send this one specific person out of literally anyone else in their staff. And then you have to consider that an editor or two must have read the article in its entirety beforehand, and decided that this was a perfectly okay thing to publish. Do you really want to risk playing with fire at a more serious event with a supposed journalist writing a dumb piece for clickbaity [censored]s and giggles?

Want to be a dumbass at a fan gathering? Enjoy not being invited to press events for, say, FFXVI. Or enjoy not having any pre-release materials to write a review for FF7R. I am normally completely against censorship of the press, but one can't argue such a thing would even be censorship when this entire situation began as self-inflicted idiocy.

[Cyreil]

I sent RockPaperShotgun a strongly worded email with a request to remove my picture from the article. I doubt they'll actually respond or do anything, but at least they know my stance on it. Take this dude's words with a grain of salt. It's a badly written article from a person who clearly doesn't care enough to do his job competently.

I'm sorry you had to go through that. Your cosplay was amazing. Don't let him get you down.

[Tyrn]

From the the article and the comments their staff made no one who works for that site should be invited to anything XIV related again.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

To be fair, I don't find it THAT bad. Sure, he's a jerk, he doesn't understand a thing about it, and he lacks respect for cosplayers and RPers... but then again... that's what most people already think.

He's not a normie, that's a sure thing, but he's not a cosplayer, nor a RPer. It's a shame that his opinion is relayed, but he doesn't outright say that FFXIV players are all weirdos, fetichists, and what not. His final sentence is "When I think of Final Fantasy XIV from now on, I’ll remember the namazu. It’s big, it’s slightly unsettling, and I don’t really understand it. But it makes a lot of people smile.", which is basically "It's not for me, but it's cool". There IS some despise in that, but there is despise from everyone when it comes to MMO. Let's not pretend the world we live in is nice to cosplayers or whatever. This very forum is filled with people that insult weebs. That's exactly the same thing. Whenever I go to a group of IRL people and tell them that I'm a RPer (or even an IG group of people, to be fair), they look at me like I'm a psycho. That's how it is.

He doesn't bring anything to the table, but he isn't any more insulting than the community of the game. So... yeah, that's not that bad.

[Dualgunner]

Gaming journalism at its finest everybody.

[TheGrimace]

Man. What a trashy article.

[jameseoakes]

To be fair, I don't find it THAT bad. Sure, he's a jerk, he doesn't understand a thing about it, and he lacks respect for cosplayers and RPers... but then again... that's what most people already think.

He's not a normie, that's a sure thing, but he's not a cosplayer, nor a RPer. It's a shame that his opinion is relayed, but he doesn't outright say that FFXIV players are all weirdos, fetichists, and what not. His final sentence is "When I think of Final Fantasy XIV from now on, I’ll remember the namazu. It’s big, it’s slightly unsettling, and I don’t really understand it. But it makes a lot of people smile.", which is basically "It's not for me, but it's cool". There IS some despise in that, but there is despise from everyone when it comes to MMO. Let's not pretend the world we live in is nice to cosplayers or whatever. This very forum is filled with people that insult weebs. That's exactly the same thing. Whenever I go to a group of IRL people and tell them that I'm a RPer (or even an IG group of people, to be fair), they look at me like I'm a psycho. That's how it is.

He doesn't bring anything to the table, but he isn't any more insulting than the community of the game. So... yeah, that's not that bad.

But then who is this article aimed at, most gamers should have a vague understanding of liking things from a setting you enjoy. It kinda feels like it's aimed at parents and trying to whip up a bit of a moral panic about the horrors of MMOs but not actually having enough to pull it off.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

But then who is this article aimed at, most gamers should have a vague understanding of liking things from a setting you enjoy. It kinda feels like it's aimed at parents and trying to whip up a bit of a moral panic about the horrors of MMOs but not actually having enough to pull it off.

I think that's overanalyzing it. It's just a journalist that aims every gamer (or anyone that reads rock paper shotgun, not sure who that is) and got paid for that article, and decided to just... wrap the whole FFXIV thing because the longer the article, the more he gets paid for it. Plus he has a thing against ERP, and he thinks that makes him a vigilante, or something, but hey, everyone got an ego.

My whole opinion on that is just "Another article that's empty and not interesting, but at least, it's not that bad. Don't care, but I sure am glad my cosplay isn't in this."

[xbahax92]

I think that's overanalyzing it. It's just a journalist that aims every gamer (or anyone that reads rock paper shotgun, not sure who that is) and got paid for that article, and decided to just... wrap the whole FFXIV thing because the longer the article, the more he gets paid for it.

He still had a choice to stay neutral and distanced to all topics. He chose not to be and insulted likely everyone who is enjoying this game. It takes some guts to go to the director and producer to ask him about how players are erp'ing in a game. Its like the same going to your boss and ask him if his employees pay for "fun". Its everyones own business, and definetly not his. It was disrespectful against everyone who was sitting in that hall, yoshida and his team.

[TwistedTea]

...someone higher up must have come up with the decision to send this one specific person out of literally anyone else in their staff. And then you have to consider that an editor or two must have read the article in its entirety beforehand, and decided that this was a perfectly okay thing to publish.

Exactly,this is not just a lone individual. It's standard industry practice at established outlets to have at least an editor to approve an article before publication. They knew what they were doing;clickbait.

Enjoy not being invited to press events for, say, FFXVI. Or enjoy not having any pre-release materials to write a review for FF7R. I am normally completely against censorship of the press, but one can't argue such a thing would even be censorship when this entire situation began as self-inflicted idiocy.

Denying access to events as press,press privilege or pre-release, is not censorship. They can still write about events...from the comfort of their office.Doubt that the quality would be much better.

To SE:

Gaming journalism is dead.

It would be better to invest your resources into social media outreach and your fans.