Penny Arcade Disses CU Fans for Spamming Journalists to cover the Kickstarter

[Vervacious]

Time was the one responsible for the spam campaign, so I'm assuming he was upset when he read the Penny Arcade article and realized he'd caused some trouble. He mentioned on the comments that he was feeling sick, and made some other comments that I missed. And then he just quit posting. I think MJ was just worried that the guy was freaking out, and wanted to make sure he was okay. It was quite dramatic when it was all happening today. I'd say go read the comments for yourself, but we're up to nearly 95k comments on the kickstarter, so yeah...good luck w/ that.

[Slaughty8]

The funniest thing is that MJ personaly took care about that guy nicked "Time" and was worried about him adn he even called him becasue he was worried that that dude felt bad...what a joke. Seriously, I have never seen such immature ppl in my entire life, I fear all those hardcore CU fans, it is out of control and unprofessional. It is beyond anything I have ever seen and I've lost faith in this game and ppl behind it...i take back my pledge. Not gonna look at it again. I can't trust them.

It is like watching totally addicted ppl, who have hope that they will have a new world to lure in and forget about real life. MJ must be happy because he will just drain their money and be more and more wealthy. On his place, I would send those fanatics to a doctor or just give them lifetime ban for playing mmos. It is out of control. It just feels like watching lost and helpless ppl whos only hope for life is this game.

[vizzle]

Yea, I kinda agree. I've been looking at those comments on the CU KS every now and then, and it's just insane how crazy these people are about the game. Kind of a turn off imo. It's no wonder why several people have been trolling and making fake pledges.

I really got a big case of schadenfreude going on right now. It's a bit detestable that they were spamming journalists.

[Edge-]

Seriously, I have never seen such immature ppl in my entire life, I fear all those hardcore CU fans, it is out of control and unprofessional.

That's kinda what fandom is by nature. See: Fans of sports teams/book series/tv series/brands etc. Fans are by nature irrational, unprofessional (because they're not even professionals, they're fans), and kinda out of control.

[hyl2006]

The funniest thing is that MJ personaly took care about that guy nicked "Time" and was worried about him adn he even called him becasue he was worried that that dude felt bad...what a joke. Seriously, I have never seen such immature ppl in my entire life, I fear all those hardcore CU fans, it is out of control and unprofessional. It is beyond anything I have ever seen and I've lost faith in this game and ppl behind it...i take back my pledge. Not gonna look at it again. I can't trust them.

It is like watching totally addicted ppl, who have hope that they will have a new world to lure in and forget about real life. MJ must be happy because he will just drain their money and be more and more wealthy. On his place, I would send those fanatics to a doctor or just give them lifetime ban for playing mmos. It is out of control. It just feels like watching lost and helpless ppl whos only hope for life is this game.

your post doesn't make much sense at all. if anything, it demonstrates the CSE team cares about its followers, along with "Time's" maturity feeling sorry.

speaking of "immature", well, reread your post. overreacting and calling an entire fanbase fanatical or whatever delusional label makes you feel better when it was only a few who were sending out emails to various websites; no different than what's happened with other previous kickstarter fanbases.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 09:36 AM ----------

Yea, I kinda agree. I've been looking at those comments on the CU KS every now and then, and it's just insane how crazy these people are about the game. Kind of a turn off imo. It's no wonder why several people have been trolling and making fake pledges.

I really got a big case of schadenfreude going on right now. It's a bit detestable that they were spamming journalists.

excitement (and completely justified, given how WoW pvp and GW2 pvp have essentially bombed) is now the new "crazy"? you should probably look in the mirror with that logic.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 09:39 AM ----------

That's kinda what fandom is by nature. See: Fans of sports teams/book series/tv series/brands etc. Fans are by nature irrational, unprofessional (because they're not even professionals, they're fans), and kinda out of control.

exactly. stabbing monica seles on the tennis court is crazy. sending a few emails to news sites to cover a news story is anything but.

[vizzle]

excitement (and completely justified, given how WoW pvp and GW2 pvp have essentially bombed) is now the new "crazy"? you should probably look in the mirror with that logic.

To the point where they're making 100,000 comments and spamming professional journalists with emails day in and out, yea, it's crazy.

[hyl2006]

To the point where they're making 100,000 comments and spamming professional journalists with emails day in and out, yea, it's crazy.

that's not much of an argument. DAOC had a ton of fans and great reviews. other KS projects had similar amount of comments as well.
a select few fans sending out emails , paralleling other KS projects btw, doesn't equate an entire fanbase as crazies.

try again, though.

edit: using your sound logic, we should label all americans as terrorists/crazies because of timothy mcveigh.

[SmudgePudge]

To the point where they're making 100,000 comments and spamming professional journalists with emails day in and out, yea, it's crazy.

'Professional journalists'? Let's not get crazy here. You are certainly welcome to your opinion about us 'rabid' and 'raucous' fans but pulling your support for the game because it has an active fan base?? Smells like a troll to me.

TotalBiscuit and Ben need to remember where they came from and stop acting like media princesses. Basically what we have here are a couple of journalists who have publicly admitted to compromising their journalistic integrity. What they are saying is that they made a journalistic decision based on outside influences. This is really no different than covering a story because a dev promised you something. Outside influence swaying your decision. It doesn't matter whether that decision was for or against a game.

The argument that journalists can't bow to pressure from fanbois is a shaky one at best. So, if the public is asking for a topic to be covered that means you shouldn't cover it? "We can't set a precedent". They act like this thing happens all time. TB claims 3700 people 'spammed' his channel. FFS do you know how many YouTubers would punch their mothers for 3700 people spamming their channel? Instead of bitching about it why don't you talk about it? Instead of acting like someone is parking their mud stained RV on your front lawn and dumping their toilet into your sewer, how about trying to win them over and turn the 1st world problem of too many repetitive YouTube comments into a positive for you?

And Ben realizes that his email is publicly available right? How many replies did he send to the rabid CU fans asking them to stop because he knew about the game? So some people got a little carried away and sent you a bunch of emails. It's not like you had to deal with ding-dong-ditch for 5 hours in the wee morning light. Good lord, the delete key is easy enough to find and if all the emails were copies it would have been a simple thing to create a filter. Harassment? Please, it's email. No one was ddos'ing you.

Bottom line is that they were influenced by something other than the merits of the content. That calls into question their journalistic integrity I'm afraid.

[Kelimbror]

'Professional journalists'? Let's not get crazy here. You are certainly welcome to your opinion about us 'rabid' and 'raucous' fans but pulling your support for the game because it has an active fan base?? Smells like a troll to me.

TotalBiscuit and Ben need to remember where they came from and stop acting like media princesses. Basically what we have here are a couple of journalists who have publicly admitted to compromising their journalistic integrity. What they are saying is that they made a journalistic decision based on outside influences. This is really no different than covering a story because a dev promised you something. Outside influence swaying your decision. It doesn't matter whether that decision was for or against a game.

The argument that journalists can't bow to pressure from fanbois is a shaky one at best. So, if the public is asking for a topic to be covered that means you shouldn't cover it? "We can't set a precedent". They act like this thing happens all time. TB claims 3700 people 'spammed' his channel. FFS do you know how many YouTubers would punch their mothers for 3700 people spamming their channel? Instead of bitching about it why don't you talk about it? Instead of acting like someone is parking their mud stained RV on your front lawn and dumping their toilet into your sewer, how about trying to win them over and turn the 1st world problem of too many repetitive YouTube comments into a positive for you?

And Ben realizes that his email is publicly available right? How many replies did he send to the rabid CU fans asking them to stop because he knew about the game? So some people got a little carried away and sent you a bunch of emails. It's not like you had to deal with ding-dong-ditch for 5 hours in the wee morning light. Good lord, the delete key is easy enough to find and if all the emails were copies it would have been a simple thing to create a filter. Harassment? Please, it's email. No one was ddos'ing you.

Bottom line is that they were influenced by something other than the merits of the content. That calls into question their journalistic integrity I'm afraid.

So many points are wrong, including acting like receiving a flood of E-mails from thousands of people (when it is part of his job) isn't harassment. Ooook. What do you do for a living so I can give you a proper metaphor of how you can be harassed in a similar manner?

To be honest, your entire post reads like this:

- Factual thing #1 stated that happens -> Deny it happens
- Factual thing #2 stated that happens -> Deny it happens
- Anything else mentioned remotely -> Deny it happens.
- Overall message is nothing bad ever happens and anyone who says so is a liar.

[vizzle]

Lol, the funniest part is that those two accounts are both new. They're obviously part of this fandom that's trying to spread the news to every corner of the internet. Give it a rest, wipe the foam off your lips.

[SmudgePudge]

So many points are wrong, including acting like receiving a flood of E-mails from thousands of people (when it is part of his job) isn't harassment. Ooook. What do you do for a living so I can give you a proper metaphor of how you can be harassed in a similar manner?

To be honest, your entire post reads like this:

- Factual thing #1 stated that happens -> Deny it happens
- Factual thing #2 stated that happens -> Deny it happens
- Anything else mentioned remotely -> Deny it happens.
- Overall message is nothing bad ever happens and anyone who says so is a liar.

I have no idea what you are talking about with the 'Deny it happens' stuff. I'm not questioning whether anything happened.

I've been an IT professional for 15 years lol. No analogy needed. I remember when email first hit and people used to get 100s of penis enlargement emails on their Hotmail account before they sold to msft. Annoying yes. Harassment? Well you've clearly never actually been harassed. 'Thousands of people' is an exaggeration - even Ben didn't suggest it was on that level. I know that Time didn't receive a response from any media outlets and I certainly didn't although I only sent one email per outlet. A simple reply "Please stop spamming my inbox. I know about the game already." would have alleviated some of it.

Your reply has very little in the way of actual content but I am more than willing to discuss this with you.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 10:37 AM ----------

Lol, the funniest part is that those two accounts are both new. They're obviously part of this fandom that's trying to spread the news to every corner of the internet. Give it a rest, wipe the foam off your lips.

So my points are less valid because I signed up recently? You can do better than that. I definitely registered on this site because of CU and I definitely did so to 'spread the news'. Why is that a bad thing?

[unholytestament]

This is why we can't have nice things...

[Arlee]

I also agree with Ben on this one. People asking for something to be covered once (or hey even maybe twice) is fine, but spamming someone? No that's just bad behavior. Enthusiasm is fine, how that enthusiasm gets expressed can be a real issue.

The other thing here is.. yea the PA Report (and even Gabe and Tycho) do occasionally talk about independent developers and kickstarters, but generally that is just when they happen to see something they think is worth pointing people to. There is an assumption by many gamers out there if a website covers a few things in a category than they should cover all the things, which is just silly. If they don't feel like something is a good fit for them to report on (because it's their choice to make) than it's fine. Very few people will be persuaded by "aww come on cover it, it's awesome" over and over again. If you don't have anything new to say about why, repeatedly messaging someone about something is just going to piss them off, and generally when you want someone to do something you want pissing them off is the least effective way to accomplish it.

[SmudgePudge]

I also agree with Ben on this one. People asking for something to be covered once (or hey even maybe twice) is fine, but spamming someone? No that's just bad behavior. Enthusiasm is fine, how that enthusiasm gets expressed can be a real issue.

The other thing here is.. yea the PA Report (and even Gabe and Tycho) do occasionally talk about independent developers and kickstarters, but generally that is just when they happen to see something they think is worth pointing people to. There is an assumption by many gamers out there if a website covers a few things in a category than they should cover all the things, which is just silly. If they don't feel like something is a good fit for them to report on (because it's their choice to make) than it's fine. Very few people will be persuaded by "aww come on cover it, it's awesome" over and over again. If you don't have anything new to say about why, repeatedly messaging someone about something is just going to piss them off, and generally when you want someone to do something you want pissing them off is the least effective way to accomplish it.

I'm definitely not advocating spamming. I didn't do it myself and asked people not to do it in the KS Comments. But saying that you aren't going to cover something because of a spam campaign is wrong. It's not like people were using a zombie network and sent thousands of emails. He should have at least attempted to reply to the individuals spamming his account and asked them to stop.

[Fencers]

You are certainly welcome to your opinion about us 'rabid' and 'raucous' fans but pulling your support for the game because it has an active fan base?

This is actually quite common in video gaming and in other mediums. Especially in music.

It is also perfectly valid. As by choosing one's art & entertainment one is making a decision about themselves as much as about the art or entertainment.

"I don't support that scene because I find it distasteful" is a statement of culture.

TotalBiscuit and Ben need to remember where they came from and stop acting like media princesses. Basically what we have here are a couple of journalists who have publicly admitted to compromising their journalistic integrity.

I can't recall either person admitting anything of the such.

A pundits opinion and view is by the nature punditry superior, or rather, carries greater weight than a fan or audience opinion. That is why they pontificate. Which is all their opinion. As in an Op-ed.

[Kelimbror]

A simple reply "Please stop spamming my inbox. I know about the game already." would have alleviated some of it.

1) You said some

2) It's not the responsibility of someone else to teach others how to behave appropriately nor is it appropriate to blame someone else for their actions. Oh well they could have just asked us to stop being jerks and we mostly would have. Listen to how ridiculous that sounds.

[unholytestament]

I'm definitely not advocating spamming. I didn't do it myself and asked people not to do it in the KS Comments. But saying that you aren't going to cover something because of a spam campaign is wrong. It's not like people were using a zombie network and sent thousands of emails. He should have at least attempted to reply to the individuals spamming his account and asked them to stop.

To what end? It wouldn't stop new people from sending emails, and it would probably encourage the people who were hell bent on spamming.

And not covering it because of a spam campaign is perfectly valid because covering it following the spam campaign would lead the spammers and others to believe the campaign worked. The last thing we need is legions of fans thinking they can harass sites into giving their pet kickstarter exposure.

[Remilia]

I'm definitely not advocating spamming. I didn't do it myself and asked people not to do it in the KS Comments. But saying that you aren't going to cover something because of a spam campaign is wrong. It's not like people were using a zombie network and sent thousands of emails. He should have at least attempted to reply to the individuals spamming his account and asked them to stop.

That wasn't directed to you. That was in general.

But saying that you aren't going to cover something because of a spam campaign is wrong.

There is nothing wrong with not reporting something due any reason. It doesn't matter if it ranges from 'it looks like a monkey' to 'it's an annoying spam campaign'. It is their site anyways.

Bibi can ban everyone for shits and giggles and no one can do anything about it, although that'd be a bit lonely.

[SmudgePudge]

1) You said some

2) It's not the responsibility of someone else to teach others how to behave appropriately nor is it appropriate to blame someone else for their actions. Oh well they could have just asked us to stop being jerks and we mostly would have. Listen to how ridiculous that sounds.

Again, I'm not defending the CU spammers. I think that bitching about it without attempting to deal with it is lame though.

[Edge-]

'Professional journalists'? Let's not get crazy here. You are certainly welcome to your opinion about us 'rabid' and 'raucous' fans but pulling your support for the game because it has an active fan base?? Smells like a troll to me.

Organizing spam initiatives to try to get coverage for a game you like (using the generic you, not specifically you) is kinda an irrational thing to do. And yeah Ben Kuchera is a professional gaming journalist. He has business cards and everything. He even gets paid!

TotalBiscuit and Ben need to remember where they came from and stop acting like media princesses.

Which means...what? They have an obligation to talk about every game ever? No, it means that they can keep doing what made them famous, which is talking about what they feel is important (or what their editors feel is important) and sharing their points of views. They have no obligation to talk about any specific game unless their boss (neither of them currently have bosses though) tells them to.

Basically what we have here are a couple of journalists who have publicly admitted to compromising their journalistic integrity. What they are saying is that they made a journalistic decision based on outside influences. This is really no different than covering a story because a dev promised you something. Outside influence swaying your decision. It doesn't matter whether that decision was for or against a game.

You can never remain 100% objective, but journalists are pretty good about not being "bribed". That doesn't mean that they can't be influenced at all. If you have a good relationship with a journalist, or you write an awesome pitch, they're far more likely to cover whatever it is you want them to cover. If you write shitty pitches, or spam the fuck out of them, they're not. Coming from the PR side of things for a while, this is super important. You can tell them that this game exists, but if you aren't giving them a compelling reason for why they should care, they're not going to bother. They have tons of pitches coming in all the time, plus they're working on their own stories (interviews, checking out rumors etc.) They're not just sitting there waiting with bated breath for you to email them a tip.

The argument that journalists can't bow to pressure from fanbois is a shaky one at best.

No, it's totally legit. If a small group of people are spam mailing you about a game and aren't giving you any reasons for why the game is important to cover other than, "Us 15 people really like it!", then why cover it? The most likely solution is going to be that the journalist ends up pissed off (so if he/she does cover it, they won't be nice about it), or they'll just block your emails after a while.

So, if the public is asking for a topic to be covered that means you shouldn't cover it?

You're mistaking "the public" with "a small group of dedicated fans". There is a difference.

Instead of bitching about it why don't you talk about it?

Because you're pissed off at the people spamming you, and therefore not interested in being pleasant in your discussion of the topic. Because rather than covering what you think is interesting and of interest to the most people (the thing that Ben and TB have been doing forever), they are covering something that they don't think is interesting simply because they've been "bullied" into it.

Instead of acting like someone is parking their mud stained RV on your front lawn and dumping their toilet into your sewer, how about trying to win them over and turn the 1st world problem of too many repetitive YouTube comments into a positive for you?

Instead of spamming the hell out of someone to try and get them to cover the game you're interested in, how about you collectively get together and come up with a way of making the game interesting the the journalist/youtuber without being obnoxious as all hell? You can levy that comment both ways, and in reality the onus is on the fans in this situation. They are the ones that want the game covered, they need to make it interesting to the writers.

And Ben realizes that his email is publicly available right?

You can find most people emails with relative ease. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to spam mail them if you want them to be on your side and write about your game/product/whatever.

How many replies did he send to the rabid CU fans asking them to stop because he knew about the game?

This I'd be curious about. If he asked them to stop and they didn't stop, that's an issue on the fan side only. If he didn't, he's part of the problem, but that doesn't absolve the fans that spammed him either.

So some people got a little carried away and sent you a bunch of emails. It's not like you had to deal with ding-dong-ditch for 5 hours in the wee morning light.

No, but when your inbox is usually filled with people writing you pitch after pitch after pitch for various games, getting spam mailed for the same stuff every day is beyond obnoxious and makes it difficult to get to all your other emails. Having worked with journalists a bunch in the past, this is almost universally true.

Good lord, the delete key is easy enough to find and if all the emails were copies it would have been a simple thing to create a filter. Harassment? Please, it's email. No one was ddos'ing you.

Do you enjoy getting spam mail?

Bottom line is that they were influenced by something other than the merits of the content. That calls into question their journalistic integrity I'm afraid.

If the content had merit to begin with, he may have written about it earlier. But whoever was "pitching" him, didn't make it a compelling story initially. So rather than do the sensible thing and find another way of making it compelling without being obnoxious, he/she (and others) decided to wage a spam campaign against the journalist. That_never_works.

Seriously, this is like, how to not pitch journalists and how to get them to ignore your game 101. This is why companies hire communications professionals to deal with journalists (or at least have someone who has an inkling of what to do) and the like. Yes, fan tips are always nice and welcome, but fan spam is not.