[Amusing] Matt Peckham lol

I originally made a chocojournal entry on this, but the story just keeps getting bigger.

Matt Peckham, who became infamous lambasting NWN2 for being a D&D game, and causing 1up to retract his original review, has once again placed his foot in his mouth.

Anybody who's been following Fallout 3 has probably heard of the geurrilla preview that NMA admins got of Fallout 3 at Leipzig using press credentials granted by two gaming websites. (you don't have to read it)

Well Matt isn't too happy about it:

Quote:

I'd love to tell you all about the game, but frankly my hand-scribbled notes read like chicken scratch compared to the encyclopedic coverage provided by Fallout fansite No Mutants Allowed.

I can't remember the last time I saw a feature as meticulous, as literal, as utterly photographic. I'm counting somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 words of fastidious blow-by-blow obsessing over the 45 minutes Xbox 360 demo Bethesda's Pete Hines was running in the GCDC press center, a demo Hines explicitly instructed attendees not to record...no ifs, ands, or buts.

So, to be perfectly honest, I'm a little disappointed to see that these guys thought it'd be just dandy to apply "for the demo showing in name of another media company," video the whole shebang, then transcribe it with unsanctioned screen grabs. Me envious? You better believe it. I had a recording device too, and I would've killed to use it. But I didn't, because playing games is something you do in front of your computer or TV, not at the expense of a respected industry publisher.

It's not like Bethesda's running a sweatshop or a money laundering op or an underage sex ring, where going all 60 Minutes or Mother Jones on the company to expose moral turpitude might be justified. No, and not to sound all preachy, but this is how a couple kids with a camera and an illicit agenda screw it up for the rest of us by turning already paranoid-enough companies into impregnable PR fortresses.

Thanks a lot, guys.

So, because there's two whole pages of meticulous transcribing based on Brother None's notes and memory, Peckham assumes that they must have recorded it on video to use later, and release unsanctioned screencaps.

It's great, because all of the screenshots in the preview are those that have been released officially on Bethesda's website, and have been used in every magazine preview six ways to Sunday.

If anybody had secretly recorded video or audio, chances are that shit would be all over youtube. Let that not be a factor for Mathew Peckham, as surely such written word couldn't be the product of paying attention.

After being called on it, and instead of retracting his statement, Peckham dances around the issue:

Originally Posted by Brother None

I'm sorry? What unsanctioned screen grabs, all those screens have been release via Bethesda's website. What camera? What "video the whole shebang"? What "transcribing" of the whole event?

There are no new screenshots in there, all quotes are hastily scribbled as well. We could pay more attention to it because there were two of us and because we had little else to focus on, giving us more time to work out our notes directly. We applied under name of supporting companies, with their support, in my case it was the company itself that applied *for me* to the event, I didn't have to apply myself.

I'm not sure what brought on your disapproval. We didn't break Bethesda's no recording rules, and I'm kind of confused how you got that idea since there's no new screen material on the site and most of the quotes I had to double-check with other previews (especially Perlman's intro) because my notes were hasty. What exactly did we do wrong?

Originally Posted by Matt Peckham

Well if you say so BN (so maybe GT's the recording culprit?).

The thing is that Brother None mentions how they got the transcript of Ron Perlman's narrative from Gaming Trend, who may have recorded audio. Peckham, however, responds to the statement as if it is confirmed that somebody was secretly recording something and this is what has created a PR stonewalling, which Peckham initially blames on NMA.

It gets even better, since Matt tries to defend himself on NMA:

Originally Posted by Brother None

Yes I can. All we failed to do was mention we were reporting for NMA. Our press credentials were legit, our appointments were legit, made under our real names and for/by legitimate gaming sites. There is nothing in this whole thing that happened that was illegitimate or against the rules of GC or Bethesda. Hence "by the book."

Originally Posted by Matt Peckham

Right, but look BN, let's stop dancing around the core issue. I know its 2007 and go postmodernism and everyone's decided they get to apply their own personal interpretation of what "is" is, but in reality, by your own admission, you purposefully excluded your NMA creds because you knew you wouldn't get in. I don't care, I'm not passing judgment, I'm just observing a behavior that, in aggregate, makes my job that much harder. Boohoo, I know, but true any way you shake it.

First off, this is Matt Peckham, a reporter for PC World and 1up.com. Because Bethesda is suspicious now of reporters with press credentials from little known websites (fansites, even, with 1/10th the hits of NMA were allowed into the event), does not make Matt Peckham's job, or the job of any other PC World, IGN, Gamespy, etc., reporter any harder, since Bethesda isn't going to suspect that people with big name press credentials are really undercover fansite operatives.

Originally Posted by Matt Peckham

What, because Bethesda was up front about wanting to have a press only demo sans fansites, NMA's supposed to come off as heroic for sneaking in?

Yes, actually. People who get into places they're not supposed to be in order to report on what they find are normally called investigative journalists. BN and SuAside did what they did because of the information vacuum that was left by "professional" journalists like Matt Peckham, despite their reporting on the same demonstration. Now, because of the NMA preview, people are both more dissapointed and more optimistic about the project, because the information provided has allowed them to better make judgements on the project.

Originally Posted by Matt Peckham

Forums as a source for investigative journalism? There's never been a less credible source for anything in modern history. And don't mistake what I'm doing in a clearly marked op-ed blog for Ed Murrow-style hard-news style journalism.

Well his non op-ed material doesn't count as hard-news either, but apparently having an op-ed means he can fly off the hilt and slander two guys for abstractly making his job more difficult. Oh wait, what slander?

Originally Posted by Matt Peckham

The only slander here's coming from across the aisle, sorry to say. There's nothing false in my post (I don't lay claim to anything as absolute fact). You're obviously welcome to disagree with it.

Oh right, because it's an op-ed, and you state it as fact, but don't specify that what you're saying is in fact... fact, then it doesn't count as slander and Matt Peckham doesn't have to apologize to anybody for shit, no matter how wrong he is.

Originally Posted by Matt Peckham

You can't be "deceitful" and not break the rules, okay? Sheesh. What is it with all the bizarre wriggling here? It's like watching O.J. Simpson try on a glove...

And the hits keep coming...

Keep in mind, publications like PC World are paying for this quality of professionalism.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The guy is just feeling threatened because people who I am to assume aren't professional journalists did a better job of covering an event than he, a professional journalist, did. He just doesn't want his bosses to look at that and say to themselves, "You know, we could hire these two guys sneaky guys to do much better reporting and for less money. Let's do it."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Wait, did he compare himself to O. J. Simpson? I mean, who else besides him is "wriggling"?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The reasoning that Brother None and SuAside are using is that they got into the demonstration with a bit of deceit, but got their press credentials legitimately and therefore didn't break any of the rules.

It's possible to be a little deceptive and not break the rules, in most cases it's called bending them. Peckham seems to think that they're trying to wriggle out of the "fact" that they broke the rules, even though they didn't, they just didn't tell them they're also from NMA.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I don't quite understand why this Peckham guy is being suck a peckerhead. (lol obvious joke) This is reminding me of Derek Smart, this asshat is running around on multiple venues and hammering away at his delusional point hoping it sticks.

Won't this guy get fired eventually if he keeps dicking around instead of, you know, working?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, he's only picking a fight with a web community, so I doubt PC World is really going to care all that much what he does in a blog. The only really stupid thing he's done was review NWN2 like he hates rpgs.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?