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

[Edax]

Agree but the title of the article already says "what this fanfest taught me" and anyway maybe i missed something but i dont see anything there that is factually misconstrued. The concert is being mentioned as a "karaoke" is not libel. Libel would be in the line like... "we paid for a concert and they did not perform it at all" even though it was performed. It's an opinion piece just to highlight what he learned.

He goes on a long aggressively negative piece about the housing content and falsely mentions the timers are set at 30 days. This has nothing to do with the fanfest and nor could he argue "good faith" as a legal defensive, given his intention of harming the reputation of SE.
He also states as fact "it’s hard to believe the creators of the game aren’t aware of this most MMO of player behaviours". "this most MMO of player behaviors" meaning he is stating as fact that the most common behavior of MMO players is to solicit sex. Anyone who is not a MMO player would be given an entirely false picture of the game and of MMO players. In essence, vilification with false statements: Libel.

In all probability, SE would not seek legal action because of the negative publicity that that would entail, but I think that "journalist" has put himself and RockPaperShotgun in potential legal danger. Journalists that are reporting on the events should be doing just that, but this hatchet job goes off topic to rant about the game with false statements. He's not even taking about the fanfest when he's ranting about housing and insulting MMO players. If he was only just slamming the Fanfest, he might be legally safe, but he decided to make a review of the games and it's players without facts. I think there's legal issues if a gaming website made a game review that are filled with lies because that stops being opinion.

[Enla]

I don't think SE will actually pursue legal action. However it would not surprise me if Rock Paper Shotgun was never given another review code or press pass to future events due to this article and the behavior of the person that wrote it. That tends to be how most gaming companies operate when a piece of unflattering media, true or otherwise, is published after extending an arm to the one writing said media. Biting the hand that feeds you is never good from a business standpoint.

[Camiie]

It's an excellent example as to what modern journalism has become. Take a look at almost any major news site and I guarantee a good chunk of articles will be things that aren't actually important/genuine news or are designed to provoke outrage and division. The latter of which is exactly what the article linked in the OP accomplishes.

Exactly right. Modern journalists seem to be more akin to radio shock jocks or just plain old internet trolls than news reporters. Instead of trying to answer "Who, What, When, Why and How?" they instead ask themselves, "Who can I rile up today? What will rile them up the most? How much attention will I get? Why the heck wouldn't I? When do the responses start rolling in LOL?"

Also, even among the somewhat more serious journalists there seems to be a general disdain for people they perceive as outside their social, professional, and/or ideological bubble. Those people are different than me? They must surely be psychologically damaged, biologically inferior freaks who are fully deserving of my ridicule. Are they even people? No! If they were they'd be like me!

[ColorOfSakura]

Those kind of erotic rp houses are quite frequent on Mateus and Balmung.

As someone from Mateus who is involved in the roleplay community, no they really aren't that frequent. There's a couple but that's really about all. Most RP houses on Balmung and Mateus are Adventuring Companies or Taverns.

Also here's the thing: Yes, there are some people who are paying in-game gil for possible ERP in a roleplay setting. But honestly who in the community actually cares? It's not really RMT since its literally just two players trading gil between one another without an actual explicit agreement to why in-game currency is changing hands. SE won't just ban people for trading gil. These people aren't paying real world money for ERP (and I feel that Yoshi-P maybe thought the guy's question was specifically stating that they're paying *real money* for it due to how it was worded, which they aren't.)

There's a lot worse and more egregious things happening in-game with regards to RMT stuff - like people paying real money for content clears on Savage and Ultimate content (which also involves people autopiloting your account using your login credentials, which is *also* against the ToS.) The ERPers are basically just keeping to themselves and not bothering anyone, just leave them alone - pretty much everyone in the RP community does. Its honestly not that big of a deal.

Like - the article is gross because it mocks the playerbase and makes a lot of wild assumptions, and his question to Yoshi-P was not only wildly inappropriate but also straight up misrepresentation of the community. But let's be real here: a large portion of this community acts like the RP community is some cringe-y thing they don't want to be associated with. Like, people at FanFest cheered for the Datacenter restructuring specifically because they were happy that both Balmung and Mateus were being moved away from Aether, and there's been a lot of very poor jokes about Balmung and Mateus finally being quarantined from the "normal servers". The community has this obsession with RP and ERP and has turned it into a meme. Are you guys actually all that surprised places like Kotaku and RPS are commenting on it when the community jokes about it *constantly*??

[Barraind]

Litteraly making a fool of ffxiv fans, especially cosplayers, basically treating them as some kind of fetichists...

Yeah, cause there werent heavily upvoted threads on Reddit and facebook about dudes getting stepped on by the Tsukiyomi's or anything...


His article is clearly written as someone who doesnt play the game and hasnt been to a lot (if any) of fanfests, blizzcons or meetups.

That said, as someone who has been to many and helped organize a few, he isnt wrong about it. He's not in on the running gags, and being not in on it is, uh, frightening.

Also, the entire point of these is to meet guild/fc/raid members, drink a lot (with those people) and have a lot of... "personal time" (with one/some of those people). I can give you numbers from EQ and SWG fanfests, and... experience from some blizzcon's. Have heard and seen nothing to say 14's fanfest is any different. The amount this is ever talked about is downplayed astronomically, ha.

He goes on a long aggressively negative piece about the housing content and falsely mentions the timers are set at 30 days

The lodestone lists 30 days as the trigger for auto-demolition.

[Edax]

The lodestone lists 30 days as the trigger for auto-demolition.

The loadstone lists 45 days as the trigger for auto-demolition.

[ChaseNetwork]

I don't believe Square Enix should EVER pay for journalists to do anything for any reason. If a journalist is going to come, they best come on their own dollar, or their employer's dollar.

That being said, I also don't believe Square Enix should bar any journalists, no matter how shitty they are, from attending. While I don't agree with this particular journalist's methods or behavior, it sets a bad precedent to start consoring journalism.

As far as the ERP part of this discussion. I don't believe he was wrong to ask that. Sure, it's not the right mood for it, but when ever is? That being said, Yoshida's answer was certainly typical, even if not satisfying.
ERP is in no ways small in the FFXIV community. Nor is it at all trying to hide. Nearly 24/7 there are PF's (On Primal, typically from the Hyperion server) for ERP. On Ultros in Limsa Lominsa, I frequently saw people shout chatting about "whoring out ERP". These people do get reported and they do not get dealt with. Simply answering "Not allowed by the ToS" is not a suitable answer to this sort of question in the current state.

[Nestama]

The thing about the ERP question is probably the way he asked it (also that it wasted 7 minutes of a one hour Q&A). In one video, those who attended the private Q&A said he was asking about RMT ERP. So that alone made the question no longer about ERP, but RMT and why Yoshi-P likely said "not allowed by the ToS."

[Deceptus]

That said, as someone who has been to many and helped organize a few, he isnt wrong about it. He's not in on the running gags, and being not in on it is, uh, frightening.

The same could be said about any fan festival. But the point is, as a guest and more importantly as a journalist, he should have remained unbiased and respectful to the community.

He doesn't have to like or approve of what people are doing, just report the facts.

[Gralna]

All I really got from the article was that the guy couldn't write anything of his own, so he did a hatchet job of taking several other kotaku articles from years ago and mish mashed them till the sort of resembled something he could attempt to call his own.

https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-xiv...ps4-1827024591
https://kotaku.com/two-final-fantasy...par-1796692020
https://kotaku.com/inside-the-brothe...xiv-1820520915