A few days ago, Game “Journalist” Ben Kuchera, tried to defame and call out Forbes’ writer Eric Kain for an article he posted on a NEW Super NIntendo game called Nightmare Busters that’s about to be released. Accordingly, the game was NEVER released. The article talked about how the game could be played by emulation for years, and that for some time, that has been the only means of playing it.
Kuchera went on a twitter rant calling Kain out. Kain has since updated and changed the article to apologize for any sort of implication of support to piracy. That’s not good enough for him, and decides to go even further digging at him.
First, let me set the stage for you. Forbes has pretty much been considered an outsider in the gaming press, one need only type in “Mass Effect 3 Forbes” on a Google search, and you’ll see what I mean. Heck, I discussed that debacle last year. It was even revised and published on Learn To Counter’s web page. It appears that Forbes actually engages into better discussions on game journalism and games than most outlets do on the internet. Of course, when you criticize and question the capabilities of the gaming press, you strike quite the nerve with them.
Second, let me say this: Emulation to me is not what I consider a hefty crime, despite the law of the land. Emulation is a way of preserving game history for when we can no longer play games of old on systems that are on the verge of death. We’re at the cusp of hundreds of games being completely forgotten or being labeled “irrelevant” because of “dated” mechanics. The gaming industry is hardly interested in preserving older games unless they can repackage them at an even higher price with “HD” textures.
People who make these emulators do this out of their passion for gaming. Hundreds of hours have been poured into developing these things. How else could we emulate the Neo-Geo?, the Turbo Graphix 16?, Sega CD?, The Commodore 64? Or even DOS-Games that have been long dormant or forgotten? or the deep search results of abandonware? There are many games where emulation is the ONLY feasible way someone can experience hundreds of classic games. Kuchera even wrote about the BSNES emulator! Where was the outrage to that article?!
So called journalists can discredit emulation all they want, but don’t tell me that they haven’t used it for their classic games articles. They’ve used Youtube videos for a number of their pieces. Where do you think people have probably recorded those videos from? I highly doubt every single video was done with a video capture card.
Kuchera has called out bad journalism or bad practices by journalists in the past, but he’s being just as bad as the people he’s called out, especially with changing his Twitter header to a “Deal With It” image.
Penny Arcade should be ashamed to have a journalist on their web page who is just as hypocritical as the rest of them in the field.
For more on this, go to Something Awful’s post on it. and a nice image of “magic” twitter deletion.
UPDATE: Something else I want to bring up as well, is in regards to Twitter. I’m sure that game journalists will proclaim that their Twitter is a more of a personal thing and not part of their professional side, I beg to differ with that. When you’re in the public spotlight, your attitude should stay as professional as possible. Kuchera’s posts in this matter are a prime example of what you shouldn’t say or act as.
Is there anything wrong with saying you didn’t like something? Or updating your day to day routines on there? Not at all. But don’t think that if you’ve posted stupid things on these social networks that it won’t come back to haunt you or that it won’t put you in your place. It most assuredly will.
