GameFan editorial staff response
Che'
David B Halverson wrote:
>
> Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
> characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun. ^^^
Not only is your editorial staff completely inane,
but now we know you're fucking homophobic as well.
Does wonders for your magazine's crumbling reputation.
-che'
David B Halverson
Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun.
ridiculous for us not to address. Basically, what's going on here is
that we complained about the excessive amount of childish jokes in the
American version of Lunar 2, in our review. Mr. Ireland pulled all
advertising and support from our magazine in protest.
We consider ourselves to be _the_ RPG magazine (a title I think we
deserve, considering our extensive coverage of all RPGs... I mean,
compare our Final Fantasy VII coverage to every other mags... we gave
it _8_ pages opening the magazine) and it seems ridiculous that Working
Designs, the number one licenser of Saturn RPGs, should be on bad terms
with us. But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
the point size of the font. The retraction would say that we're not
_qualified_ to compare the American version to the Japanese one, as we,
as Americans, could never possibly understand the nuances of the
Japanese one. As many of our staff have been students of Japanese for
many, many years, this retraction would amount to us printing what we
know is a lie.
Nick Rox has played through Policenauts, a game that's entirely
Japanese text, literally 1000's of pages worth, and understood it
fully. And Mr. Ireland (who admits to not knowing any Japanese, save
for "Buy" and "Sell" commands) is claiming that Nick's incapable
of understanding a game written at a MUCH younger level? Mr. Ireland,
I should point out, has never met Nick. He just _knows_ that Nick
doesn't know Japanese. If you say so.
We offered Mr. Ireland the opportunity to say whatever he pleased in
our Postmeister column. We also offered a valid retraction (in the Ed
Zone) to Working Designs stating that we did not complete the US
version, the reason being that we received it on the last day of the
issue. Nick grabbed 10 hours into the game when it crashed at around
2:00 A.M. He then stayed up all night laying it out to make the
deadline. Had Victor simply called me when the review hit and spoke of
the more serious moments towards the end of the game we would
have gladly printed a retraction to any comments he could establish
were unfounded, long ago. But instead he jumped on the internet and
began trashing Nick. In the long run, I had to call him, and did so
with the best intentions.
We're amused that everyone here is treating this as some sort of
GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor (In the field of movie or
literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
with games?), or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
revenue that a good relationship with WD would provide. So basically,
what Mr. Ireland's saying is that WE don't have integrity, because we
decided to stand by our opinion, rather than get the advertising money.
That's not something I recall learning in Journalism class. As for
this "test" we declined... In lieu of the "retraction," Mr. Ireland
said that Nick could take a test at the E3... A test made by
Working Designs staff, supervised by Working Designs staff, and graded
by Working Designs staff. Tempting! I'm sure we'd be given a very
fair shot at that. Of course we declined!
And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes? (Mr. Ireland
thinks this is fully justified, and claims that since the world of
Lunar is our world many thousands of years later, all of its residents
would of course be telling jokes about contemporary commercial slogans
and such. Uh-huh.) We'll pass. So we didn't have the 40-50 hours to
actually beat the US version, we'll admit that. As if something really
great happened at the very end that would somehow erase the immaturity
throughout? And finally, about Die Hard Gamers Club. Look, they're
friends of ours, we'll admit that, and they're good advertisers. I did
start Die Hard Gamers Club, but left it to make GameFan magazine.
GameFan magazine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolis
Publishing, and I have no official connection with Die Hard Gamers
Club. I am definitely NOT their CEO. We don't favor them over any
other importer, and our import coverage helps the many other import
stores that advertise in our magazine just as much as they help Die
Hard.
So, basically, what this comes down to is Working Designs' vice
president whining about a negative comment in our reviews. If he wants
to threaten us with advertising and withholding product, fine. As if
we can't just buy his games in Japan a full year before their American
release. As for advertising, well, we'd love to have it, but its never
been our policy to cave in to advertisers. Even more unfounded, I
feel, is that the letter which Victor was so quick to print has
resulted in some of you attacking me personally. None of you know me,
what kind of person I am, or what my convictions are. You have no right
to judge me based on Lunar 2 comments.
I'm sure this reply will prompt Victor to jump back in with even
more witty commentary. I wish I could say otherwise but he seems to be
enjoying this. Be careful Vic, I wouldn't want you to waste any
Rayearth jokes on our behalf.
Thank you all for your consideration,
Dave Halverson and the editorial staff of GameFan
Victor Ireland
And finally, about Die Hard Gamers Club. Look, they're
>friends of ours, we'll admit that, and they're good advertisers. I did
>start Die Hard Gamers Club, but left it to make GameFan magazine.
>GameFan magazine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolis
>Publishing, and I have no official connection with Die Hard Gamers
>Club. I am definitely NOT their CEO. We don't favor them over any
>other importer, and our import coverage helps the many other import
>stores that advertise in our magazine just as much as they help Die
>Hard.
Had to start with this one first. Unless YOU, Dave Halverson, neglected
to tell the STATE OF CALIFORNIA, of which Die Hard Gamers Club is a
REGISTERED CORPORATION, that you are no longer the CEO, THEY have the
records wrong, and someone FORGED your signature on a legal document - a
felony. I have a registered photocopy of the corporation papers in a
file at our office. It CLEARLY states, as a matter of public record, for
which ANYONE with $5.00 and the ability to address an envelope can see,
that YOU, Dave, ARE the CEO, at least as of the first part of this year.
I understand that you have become one with Metropolis, and perhaps you
are no longer CEO (though I WILL check again as of tomorrow) of Die Hard
Gamer's Club. But, you WERE CEO up until at least the end of last year,
while serving as Editor of GameFan, according to papers filed with the
State of California. Wasn't (isn't) this a conflict of interest?
>But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
>OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
>yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
>the point size of the font. The retraction would say that we're not
>_qualified_ to compare the American version to the Japanese one, as we,
>as Americans, could never possibly understand the nuances of the
>Japanese one. As many of our staff have been students of Japanese for
>many, many years, this retraction would amount to us printing what we
>know is a lie.
The EXACT retraction terms were specified only because we knew that it
would otherwise be buried in the Postmeister or some other section with
black on blue text or something similar. Also, I didn't say that "YOU"
as a whole were not qualified to compare the literary content, but rather
that NICK was not qualified to make the comparison HE made.
> And Mr. Ireland (who admits to not knowing any Japanese, save
>for "Buy" and "Sell" commands) is claiming that Nick's incapable
>of understanding a game written at a MUCH younger level?
I know Hiragana and Katakana fairly well and a few select Kanji (picked
up while in Japan, mostly). Get with the program before making these
kind of statements. The LEVEL was not the primary problem. The issue of
NUANCE (look it up) in language, implied meaning, and the big picture WAS.
Nick's grasp of Japanese, no matter how wonderful you thought it was,
simply was NOT up to the task of comparing THIS. Which he basically DID.
IF he understood this, he would KNOW that the US Ghaleon was 100x more
articulate and interesting than the Japanese one. (I can supply proof
text of each version, if you care to continue this nonsense).
>We also offered a valid retraction (in the Ed
>Zone) to Working Designs stating that we did not complete the US
>version, the reason being that we received it on the last day of the
>issue.
Then WHY didn't you hold the review? Why didn't you STATE that Nick
didn't PLAY the American game for more than 10 hours? Why did Nick tell
me in a post not long after the review hit print that he didn't feel it
was "necessary" to play longer and mentioned nothing about a crash?
> (In the field of movie or
>literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
>ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
>with games?
Because then all games would read like Square's. Mono dimensional
characters are not that interesting.
> So basically,
>what Mr. Ireland's saying is that WE don't have integrity, because we
>decided to stand by our opinion, rather than get the advertising money.
> That's not something I recall learning in Journalism class.
You took a class? Funny, I thought they might have mentioned an editor's
responsibility to present factual information with a consistent point of
view in one of them thar things....
> And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
>situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
>received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
>jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
>joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes?
Which, were featured prominently in the PREVIEW two months before as an
example of Working Designs' "witty" humor, and part of the section that
said it was "ingeniously written." And, before you say that we changed
the game after the preview version, the section in question (near the
beginning, within the 10 hour play time Nick put in) did NOT change.
> Basically, what's going on here is
>that we complained about the excessive amount of childish jokes in the
>American version of Lunar 2, in our review.
Basically, what's going on is that Nick did not play a game he reviewed
and implied he played, then ripped the writing to shreds with no factual
basis for doing so.
> So, basically, what this comes down to is Working Designs' vice
>president whining about a negative comment in our reviews.
(It seems "basically" is used far too easily as a transitional crutch,
don't you?)
Actually, I'm the President, but I'm also a client. I don't whine about
negative reviews. I respect the opinions of reviewers that PLAY our
games, then write about them. Nick doesn't fall into this category
lately. He ( and YOU, by your tacit (look it up) consent to his
"review") lied to the gaming public. We've certainly received lower
scores from other mags (as you were kind enough to point out). BUT they
put the time in to PLAY our games to the end, or at least near the end.
Nick did not. He was, therefore, way off base. I'm certain you've
received numerous letters telling you the very same thing. Perchance you
might print a few in the Postmeister? Nah....
>As if
>we can't just buy his games in Japan a full year before their American
>release.
Hear Hear! Why not make it Die Hard Gamer's Club special the month you
do the preview? Oh wait...darn! You already do that! Sorry, I thought I
had a boffo idea, but I guess you were ahead of me again...
> You have no right
>to judge me based on Lunar 2 comments.
You're the editor, aren't you? The magazine is under your direction, is
it not? You participated in Nick's lie, didn't you? Why shouldn't gamers
be pissed? Why shouldn't they have a basis to judge the job you're doing?
I mean, LUNAR:EB is one thing, but this is NOT an isolated incident.
The number of off-base reviews since last September (a strangely
disproportionate number coming from Nick Rox, BTW) has increased. An
EDITOR would listen, and correct the problem, without excuses.
> I'm sure this reply will prompt Victor to jump back in with even
>more witty commentary.
No, this particular commentary was a bit dry, and for that, I apologize
to all persistent enough to read to the end. Unfortunately, I had to
pepper this one with quite a few FACTS, and they tend to be rather dull
in nature. I solemnly swear to be entertainingly witty next go-round.
Don't Believe the Hype -
Vic
David
David B Halverson wrote:
>
> We offered Mr. Ireland the opportunity to say whatever he pleased in
> our Postmeister column. We also offered a valid retraction (in the Ed
> Zone) to Working Designs stating that we did not complete the US
> version, the reason being that we received it on the last day of the
> issue. Nick grabbed 10 hours into the game when it crashed at around
> 2:00 A.M. He then stayed up all night laying it out to make the
> deadline.
Why has the former policy of Game Fan changed? I remember (back in the good ole days),
You used to pound your chest with the fact that Game Fan plays and finishes games before
reviewing them. And you were eager to point out, this is unlike the "other mags." For
instance, in your review of Guardian Heroes, you state "If it's reviewed elsewhere as a
'Final Fight clone,' it's because the reviewer either didn't play LONG enough, can't read,
or just plain sucks." Can't this same criticism be used towards Nick's Lunar 2
review. Is ten hours really long enough to review an epic of an RPG? Hell, If I only
played the first ten hours, I would not have liked it either.
Has the pressure to get reviews out before any other magazine taken its toll? Your true
fans and readers don't care if your review of Game X appears in Game Fan a month after it
appears in the other mags, because they know that Game Fan actually plays the games
before reviewing them, but that's not the case anymore. I started reading Game Fan around
vol1 issue10 (it had reviews for Gunstar, Silpheed, and Landstalker). Of all of the
magazines available, I felt that yours was the best, despite the many flaws that many are
sure to mention. But things have definitely changed.
>
> We're amused that everyone here is treating this as some sort of
> GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
> that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor
When you say Mr. Ireland's translations are poor, are you just talking about Lunar 2 or
all previous Working Designs games. If I recall correctly, YOU personally used to
praise the translations by Mr. Ireland and Working Designs. Why has this changed?
What happened to "the gift from God company, Working Designs," "Vay is just an average
RPG but greatly enhanced by the excellent writers at Working Designs," You used to praise
the humor that Working Designs added, have you changed just because Nick doesn't like it.
By the way, Do you read and understand Japanese? Because, if you don't, you personally
cannot say that Working Designs messed up Lunar 2, just because Nick says so. Uhh, I liked
the Scarlet Letter, but, ummm, my buddy Fred, sayz the book was better, so I guess, umm, the
movie actually sucked.
Thanks
David Michael Zdyrko
d...@dmv.com
http://members.aol.com/davidz71/saturn/saturn.htm
Toruwa
In article <4m4f0g$1a...@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>, SMR...@prodigy.com
says...
>
>And finally, about Die Hard Gamers Club. Look, they're
>>friends of ours, we'll admit that, and they're good advertisers. I did
>>start Die Hard Gamers Club, but left it to make GameFan magazine.
>>GameFan magazine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolis
>>Publishing, and I have no official connection with Die Hard Gamers
>>Club. I am definitely NOT their CEO. We don't favor them over any
>>other importer, and our import coverage helps the many other import
>>stores that advertise in our magazine just as much as they help Die
>>Hard.
>
>Had to start with this one first. Unless YOU, Dave Halverson, neglected
>to tell the STATE OF CALIFORNIA, of which Die Hard Gamers Club is a
>REGISTERED CORPORATION, that you are no longer the CEO, THEY have the
>records wrong, and someone FORGED your signature on a legal document - a
>felony. I have a registered photocopy of the corporation papers in a
>file at our office. It CLEARLY states, as a matter of public record,
for
>which ANYONE with $5.00 and the ability to address an envelope can see,
>that YOU, Dave, ARE the CEO, at least as of the first part of this year.
>
>I understand that you have become one with Metropolis, and perhaps you
>are no longer CEO (though I WILL check again as of tomorrow) of Die Hard
>Gamer's Club. But, you WERE CEO up until at least the end of last year,
>while serving as Editor of GameFan, according to papers filed with the
>State of California. Wasn't (isn't) this a conflict of interest?
Bang! The law will always get you in the end. Funny to find out that
the editors of Gamefan are like sleazy landlords--trying to fool everyone
because they think they are to stupid to know the law. I've had fun
busting landlords. I'm having fun watching this. BTW, I'm going to snip
the rest of the post to save bandwidth, but I have to say, anyone
(Gamefan) who thinks you can directly translate Japanese to English with
using some type of editorial license is a fool. Literal translation
gives you phrases like "Jerry Seinfeld tastes good" rather than "Jerry
Seinfeld is a good actor whose character has relish" if you translate
"Seinfeld no yoi aji dashi teimasu ne." Go get 'em, Vic. BTW, if
Gamefan is suggesting that the mass of gamers buy import RPG's because
the translation here will be so bad, then the lunacy of that statement
speaks volumes about the intelligence of Gamefan. Last time I checked,
the majority of American gamers can't read Japanese. So, I guess Gamefan
is saying "no story (but an "accurate" one) and pretty pictures beats
knowing what's going on and getting even more enjoyment out of the game.
Toruwa
Waiting for Gundam X
Toruwa
In article <4m42ih$5...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, gam...@ix.netcom.co
says...
(snip: comments about what great Japanese translators they are)
Since you mistranslate a Guardian Heroes ending ("here Valgar saves the
soul of the Undead Hero") I simply can't believe your claims of years of
experience in Japanese. Especially "Nick Rox," who apparently is 19
years old. Ho boy, he's an expert.
Toruwa
Anata no baka.
Toruwa
In article <4m5jdf$2...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, jg...@cornell.edu
says...
chief eunuch, I mean chief editor of Gamefan used a fake E-mail address.
Loser.
Toruwa
nukulkij poom
gam...@ix.netcom.com(David B Halverson ) writes:
> Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
>characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun.
Idiot. After reading this post, I've lost any respect I had for your magazine.
Try playing more than three hours into Lunar:EB and you'll feel otherwise.
>We usually don't reply to such postings, but this one seemed just too
>ridiculous for us not to address. Basically, what's going on here is
>that we complained about the excessive amount of childish jokes in the
>American version of Lunar 2, in our review. Mr. Ireland pulled all
>advertising and support from our magazine in protest.
A valid complaint. But not to the degree that Nick Rox led one to believe
in his written review of the game.
> We consider ourselves to be _the_ RPG magazine (a title I think we
>deserve, considering our extensive coverage of all RPGs... I mean,
>compare our Final Fantasy VII coverage to every other mags... we gave
>it _8_ pages opening the magazine) and it seems ridiculous that Working
>Designs, the number one licenser of Saturn RPGs, should be on bad terms
>with us. But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
>OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
>yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
>the point size of the font. The retraction would say that we're not
>_qualified_ to compare the American version to the Japanese one, as we,
>as Americans, could never possibly understand the nuances of the
>Japanese one. As many of our staff have been students of Japanese for
>many, many years, this retraction would amount to us printing what we
>know is a lie.
You could take Japanese for six years and still barely achieve the reading
level of a kindergartener. That's not a slam on you, but it reflects how
difficult Japanese is to learn. Unless you have a native speaker, there's
no way you could possibly glean all the nuances of a game like the Japanese
Lunar:EB.
> Nick Rox has played through Policenauts, a game that's entirely
>Japanese text, literally 1000's of pages worth, and understood it
>fully. And Mr. Ireland (who admits to not knowing any Japanese, save
>for "Buy" and "Sell" commands) is claiming that Nick's incapable
>of understanding a game written at a MUCH younger level? Mr. Ireland,
>I should point out, has never met Nick. He just _knows_ that Nick
>doesn't know Japanese. If you say so.
Again, I don't doubt Nick's ability to read Japanese, but unless he's spent
some major time in Japan or was raised in an environment in which Japanese
was spoken, I contend there's no way he could've understood EVERYTHING in
a Japanese game. Hey--my roommate's taken college-level Japanese for four
years, but I'd hardly call him qualified to read all that text.
> We offered Mr. Ireland the opportunity to say whatever he pleased in
>our Postmeister column. We also offered a valid retraction (in the Ed
>Zone) to Working Designs stating that we did not complete the US
>version, the reason being that we received it on the last day of the
>issue. Nick grabbed 10 hours into the game when it crashed at around
>2:00 A.M. He then stayed up all night laying it out to make the
>deadline. Had Victor simply called me when the review hit and spoke of
>the more serious moments towards the end of the game we would
>have gladly printed a retraction to any comments he could establish
>were unfounded, long ago. But instead he jumped on the internet and
>began trashing Nick. In the long run, I had to call him, and did so
>with the best intentions.
And we all know the Net is a better source of info than yours or any other
mag will EVER be.
> We're amused that everyone here is treating this as some sort of
>GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
>that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor (In the field of movie or
>literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
>ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
>with games?),
These are freakin' video games, you moron. Not movies, not literature. If
WD chose to keep every single line of text exact to the Japanese versions,
I guarantee that about 2/3 of it would go over our heads, mainly due to the
differences between the American and Japanese cultures. So some "American-
ization" is necessary.
or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
>revenue that a good relationship with WD would provide. So basically,
>what Mr. Ireland's saying is that WE don't have integrity, because we
>decided to stand by our opinion, rather than get the advertising money.
The "Jap bastard" and SFA issues would prove otherwise, but hey, I'm not
an editor of a major game magazine, so what do I know?
> That's not something I recall learning in Journalism class. As for
>this "test" we declined... In lieu of the "retraction," Mr. Ireland
>said that Nick could take a test at the E3... A test made by
>Working Designs staff, supervised by Working Designs staff, and graded
>by Working Designs staff. Tempting! I'm sure we'd be given a very
>fair shot at that. Of course we declined!
That's funny, if Nick really knew his Japanese like you suggested earlier,
then he'd have no problems passing any kind of language test, would he? Or
is Vic actually right?
> And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
>situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
>received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
>jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
>joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes? (Mr. Ireland
>thinks this is fully justified, and claims that since the world of
>Lunar is our world many thousands of years later, all of its residents
>would of course be telling jokes about contemporary commercial slogans
>and such. Uh-huh.) We'll pass. So we didn't have the 40-50 hours to
>actually beat the US version, we'll admit that. As if something really
>great happened at the very end that would somehow erase the immaturity
>throughout?
Lessee, you played through roughly 1/4 of the game. So does that mean the
other 3/4 of the game is automatically like the first 1/4? ANyone with half
a brain cell would realize that that's not the case.
And finally, about Die Hard Gamers Club. Look, they're
>friends of ours, we'll admit that, and they're good advertisers. I did
>start Die Hard Gamers Club, but left it to make GameFan magazine.
>GameFan magazine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolis
>Publishing, and I have no official connection with Die Hard Gamers
>Club. I am definitely NOT their CEO. We don't favor them over any
>other importer, and our import coverage helps the many other import
>stores that advertise in our magazine just as much as they help Die
>Hard.
That's nice. Good to see you're not associated with anything who rips off
consumers so badly (did someone mention $6 cover price?)
> So, basically, what this comes down to is Working Designs' vice
>president whining about a negative comment in our reviews. If he wants
>to threaten us with advertising and withholding product, fine. As if
>we can't just buy his games in Japan a full year before their American
>release. As for advertising, well, we'd love to have it, but its never
>been our policy to cave in to advertisers. Even more unfounded, I
>feel, is that the letter which Victor was so quick to print has
>resulted in some of you attacking me personally. None of you know me,
>what kind of person I am, or what my convictions are. You have no right
>to judge me based on Lunar 2 comments.
You're absolutely right--we have no reason to judge YOU based on Lunar2
comments. Be we do have the right to criticize you over questionable
contents of a magazine in which you're the editor-in-chief. I don't care
what your convictions are--the writing quality of your magazine is purely
crap.
> I'm sure this reply will prompt Victor to jump back in with even
>more witty commentary. I wish I could say otherwise but he seems to be
>enjoying this. Be careful Vic, I wouldn't want you to waste any
>Rayearth jokes on our behalf.
Hell, I'm enjoying this. And also resorting back to browsing through your
mag at the game store, instead of actually buying it, like I've been doing
during the past few months.
Poom
aj...@ccn.cs.dal.ca
OK. I've been lurking on this newsgroup since, oh, September. Whether
this makes me qualified to respond, I dunno, but I can't resist the urge
to reply. Agree or disagree, all I ask is that you listen.
> Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
>characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun.
Bad opening comment. Kind of tasteless, but irrelevant to the topic at
hand so I'll let it slide.
>We usually don't reply to such postings, but this one seemed just too
>ridiculous for us not to address. Basically, what's going on here is
>that we complained about the excessive amount of childish jokes in the
>American version of Lunar 2, in our review. Mr. Ireland pulled all
>advertising and support from our magazine in protest.
I don't read your magazine - I browse it at a local VG store - so I can't
comment on the validity of this account. I have no reason to not to
accept it as the truth, so I will.
> We consider ourselves to be _the_ RPG magazine (a title I think we
>deserve, considering our extensive coverage of all RPGs... I mean,
>compare our Final Fantasy VII coverage to every other mags... we gave
>it _8_ pages opening the magazine) and it seems ridiculous that Working
>Designs, the number one licenser of Saturn RPGs, should be on bad terms
>with us. But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
>OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
>yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
>the point size of the font.
Understandable. A bit excessive on the details, but understandable. I
read the review and articles in question, and I share the opinion that
they were unfair.
The retraction would say that we're not
>_qualified_ to compare the American version to the Japanese one, as we,
>as Americans, could never possibly understand the nuances of the
>Japanese one. As many of our staff have been students of Japanese for
>many, many years, this retraction would amount to us printing what we
>know is a lie.
This seems excessive. And I would have to agree with you here. Unless I'm
missing something...
> Nick Rox has played through Policenauts, a game that's entirely
>Japanese text, literally 1000's of pages worth, and understood it
>fully. And Mr. Ireland (who admits to not knowing any Japanese, save
>for "Buy" and "Sell" commands) is claiming that Nick's incapable
>of understanding a game written at a MUCH younger level? Mr. Ireland,
>I should point out, has never met Nick. He just _knows_ that Nick
>doesn't know Japanese. If you say so.
Haven't followed it, can't comment. But I will say I am... less than
thrilled with Nick Rox both as a reviewer and a writer.
> We offered Mr. Ireland the opportunity to say whatever he pleased in
>our Postmeister column. We also offered a valid retraction (in the Ed
>Zone) to Working Designs stating that we did not complete the US
>version, the reason being that we received it on the last day of the
>issue. Nick grabbed 10 hours into the game when it crashed at around
>2:00 A.M. He then stayed up all night laying it out to make the
>deadline. Had Victor simply called me when the review hit and spoke of
>the more serious moments towards the end of the game we would
>have gladly printed a retraction to any comments he could establish
>were unfounded, long ago. But instead he jumped on the internet and
>began trashing Nick. In the long run, I had to call him, and did so
>with the best intentions.
Now on this, you and I disagree vehemently. No magazine should ever
review a game unless they've played it backwards and forwards. If this
means you miss deadlines, then so be it. The reviews may appear well
after the game is released, but at least that review will be
well-informed and FAIR.
You say if 'Victor called you and told you about dramatic moments near
the end' you'd have printed a retraction. Do you base reviews on what
employees or presidents of a video game company say? If you played a game
halfway through, reviewed it and said 'it is terrible', then got a call
from the company president saying 'it gets better later', would you print
a retraction and raise the review points?
I consider the quoted text above, and the events leading to your recent
retractions of your Darkstalkers and SFA reviews, sloppy journalism at
best. Rushing reviews may grab a few readers, but you miss important
details. Take your time, and in the long run you'll gain credibility. And
with that will come far more readers than any amount of rushed reviews.
> We're amused that everyone here is treating this as some sort of
>GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
>that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor (In the field of movie or
>literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
>ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
>with games?), or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
>revenue that a good relationship with WD would provide. So basically,
>what Mr. Ireland's saying is that WE don't have integrity, because we
>decided to stand by our opinion, rather than get the advertising money.
> That's not something I recall learning in Journalism class. As for
>this "test" we declined... In lieu of the "retraction," Mr. Ireland
>said that Nick could take a test at the E3... A test made by
>Working Designs staff, supervised by Working Designs staff, and graded
>by Working Designs staff. Tempting! I'm sure we'd be given a very
>fair shot at that. Of course we declined!
What did you have to lose?
> And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
>situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
>received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
>jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
>joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes? (Mr. Ireland
>thinks this is fully justified, and claims that since the world of
>Lunar is our world many thousands of years later, all of its residents
>would of course be telling jokes about contemporary commercial slogans
>and such. Uh-huh.) We'll pass.
*Sigh* Listen, I'm probably the biggest anime otaku in my province. I
cannot stand dubbed anime. And yet I have no problem whatsoever with
Working Designs' translations. You are taking a far too serious and
heavy-handed approach to the translation and the jokes.
So we didn't have the 40-50 hours to
>actually beat the US version, we'll admit that.
Then you have no right to review a game and call that review fair or
accurate.
*SNIP*
>been our policy to cave in to advertisers. Even more unfounded, I
>feel, is that the letter which Victor was so quick to print has
>resulted in some of you attacking me personally. None of you know me,
>what kind of person I am, or what my convictions are. You have no right
>to judge me based on Lunar 2 comments.
That is true, and I would denounce any such attacks.
> I'm sure this reply will prompt Victor to jump back in with even
>more witty commentary. I wish I could say otherwise but he seems to be
>enjoying this. Be careful Vic, I wouldn't want you to waste any
>Rayearth jokes on our behalf.
In the same manner which I denounce that attack.
Myself, I am truly appreciative of Victor Ireland's attempts ( quite
successful ones I might add ) at making WD a truly gamer-oriented
company. I felt the letter he posted did lack a certain amount of tact,
but the basic premise behind it was valid.
I do feel some of your magazines' practices are unethical, but I do not
judge you by that. I can only hope you will read this letter and act on
those things. I would write more, but I am about to be autologged-out. So
in closing, thank you for your time and can we please get back to simply
enjoying games?
- MW
/////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\ /*MW*/*MW*/*MW*/ Michael White \*MW*\*MW*\*MW*\ //
\\/*MW*/*MW*/*MW*/aj...@ccn.cs.dal.ca\*MW*\*MW*\*MW*\//
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\////////////////////////////////////
// The bring Robotech to YTV campaign has begun! For more information \\
\\ go to http://www.ccn.cs.dal.ca/~aj331/ytvcamp.html //
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////
Rosemarie Blanchard
In <4m5um8$r...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> pnuk...@students.uiuc.edu (nukulkij
poom) writes:
>
>gam...@ix.netcom.com(David B Halverson ) writes:
>
>or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
>>revenue that a good relationship with WD would provide. So basically,
>>what Mr. Ireland's saying is that WE don't have integrity, because we
>>decided to stand by our opinion, rather than get the advertising
money.
>
>The "Jap bastard" and SFA issues would prove otherwise, but hey, I'm
>not an editor of a major game magazine, so what do I know?
Not to mention the fact that at the Diehard stores they were selling
the "Jap Bastard" issue sealed in a plastic bag labeled
"Collectors item", after the issue had supposedly been pulled.
The issue inside was complete with the slanderous text, not fixed.
I guess that means that Die Hard "stands by it's opinion" that all
asians are "Jap Bastards". Care to comment on why you kept selling such
a thing after you knew about it?
Henry LaPierre
fre...@ix.netcom.com
Dmitheon
Dear Gamefan and the rest of RGV.sega;
Well I've been following the whole WD v. GF ordeal for quite
some time, and while it is amusing it's also rather childish.
For benefit of all involved, I'm 22, graduating Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute (CS), and will be working for Andersen
Consulting (see Sega's home page) in Houston starting in July.
As for writing, I written the SFa1 Rose which you can find
at http://www.rpi.edu/~lennad/vg/ROSE/ I've also been an
avid player of video games since I was 11, and an ardent
Japanese Animation fan for 5 years.
Below is David Halverson's recent post of to rgv.sega
I've deleted anything I feel is pointless attacks.
In article <4m42ih$5...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, gam...@ix.netcom.com
(David B Halverson ) writes:
>>
|> ridiculous for us not to address. Basically, what's going on here is
|> that we complained about the excessive amount of childish jokes in the
|> American version of Lunar 2, in our review. Mr. Ireland pulled all
|> advertising and support from our magazine in protest.
|>
Which is well within his right to do so, as is yours to
complain about the jokes. However, I feel that the constant
bashing of WD >long< after the game was reviewed and done with
shows a general feeling of pettiness on your part.
|> We consider ourselves to be _the_ RPG magazine (a title I think we
While your coverage is extensive I think it's unnecessary to
do all out reviews for games that are so far from a US release
THEN ignore them when they are. It should recieve attention at
both points in time.
|> deserve, considering our extensive coverage of all RPGs... I mean,
|> compare our Final Fantasy VII coverage to every other mags... we gave
|> it _8_ pages opening the magazine) and it seems ridiculous that Working
|> Designs, the number one licenser of Saturn RPGs, should be on bad terms
|> with us. But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
Just because you give more attention to RPGs than most
other mags does not mean you can do no wrong. Why should Vic
care what you do about other games. It's like a person who's
beaten a child then showers another with gift and good care.
The point is a wrong was committed. It can not be made up for
by doing other things right. The initial wrong must be corrected.
|> OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
|> yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
|> the point size of the font. The retraction would say that we're not
|> _qualified_ to compare the American version to the Japanese one, as we,
|> as Americans, could never possibly understand the nuances of the
|> Japanese one. As many of our staff have been students of Japanese for
|> many, many years, this retraction would amount to us printing what we
|> know is a lie.
Jokes, especially in Japanese are very different from US
jokes. They often have cultural and linguistic nuances that
simply don't translate. It is also my opinion that many would
not find Japanese humor to be humorous unless it's accompanied by
some visual gag. Numerous examples can be found through out
anime, and it's been my experience that humor doesn't change
that much from anime to video games.
As side note, I do think Vic's request was a bit much. A simple
paragraph in the editorial such as was done with Street Fighter Alpha
would have been sufficient.
|>
|> Nick Rox has played through Policenauts, a game that's entirely
|> Japanese text, literally 1000's of pages worth, and understood it
|> fully. And Mr. Ireland (who admits to not knowing any Japanese, save
|> for "Buy" and "Sell" commands) is claiming that Nick's incapable
|> of understanding a game written at a MUCH younger level? Mr. Ireland,
|> I should point out, has never met Nick. He just _knows_ that Nick
|> doesn't know Japanese. If you say so.
Nick Rox seems the subject of much debate. But as I stated
above, his doing one job half-assed then doing another well does
not make him a good reviewer/journalist. Also as I stated above much
Japanese humor is culturally dependent. You could study japanese 'til
Dooms Day, but if you've never set foot in Japan you likely
won't catch everything.
My qualms with Nick Rox have nothing to do with his ability
to comprehend Japanese, but rather his ability to present a truthful
view. Reviewing Lunar2 after only 10 hours and then having claimed to
have completed it is simply untrue. After this and the Saturn Street
Fighter Alpha incident, I give Nick absolutely none of my attention
because he simply can't be trusted.
|>
|> We're amused that everyone here is treating this as some sort of
|> GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
|> that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor (In the field of movie or
|> literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
|> ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
|> with games?),
As I stated before, having an opinion is perfectly alright,
the continuous bashing of WD long after the fact is pointless
and shallow.
|> or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
This is admirable but I have wonder if it's more motivated
by resentment towards Wd's actions than your sense of
journalistic integrity.
|> And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
|> situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
|> received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
|> jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
|> joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes? (Mr. Ireland
|> thinks this is fully justified, and claims that since the world of
|> Lunar is our world many thousands of years later, all of its residents
|> would of course be telling jokes about contemporary commercial slogans
|> and such. Uh-huh.) We'll pass. So we didn't have the 40-50 hours to
|> actually beat the US version, we'll admit that.
Good,.. I look forward to seeing it in a future issue.
|> I'm sure this reply will prompt Victor to jump back in with even
|> more witty commentary. I wish I could say otherwise but he seems to be
Then read over this letter and respond to me, the gamer.
There are millions of us, and I think answering to us is just
a bit more important.
|> Thank you all for your consideration,
|> Dave Halverson and the editorial staff of GameFan
Sincerely,
Dmitri Lenna
==Dmitri "Dmitheon" Lenna: a closed mind is its own worst punishment==
| len...@rpi.edu ; http://www.rpi.edu/~lennad ; RSFA = Anime at RPI |
| CRUSADER:No Remorse-PhantasyStar-PrimalRAGE-GabrielKnight-SFa |
| Author: "Rose: the Guide" - http://www.rpi.edu/~lennad/vg/ROSE/ |
======================================================================
Jerome Jahnke
> By the way, Do you read and understand Japanese? Because, if you don't, you
> personally cannot say that Working Designs messed up Lunar 2, just because
> Nick says so. Uhh, I liked the Scarlet Letter, but, ummm, my buddy
Fred, sayz
> the book was better, so I guess, umm, the movie actually sucked.
Well in the case of the movie Scarlet Letter, it did suck as opposed to
the book, unless you get into gazing at the fleshy bits of Demi Moore, in
which case I would say the movie was much better than the book.
Jer,
--
Jerome Jahnke
BSD Academic Computing
University of Chicago
j-ja...@uchicago.edu
David Aldridge
I know that this has already been answered by Vic himself, but I have a
few things I would like to add on here.
David B Halverson (gam...@ix.netcom.com) writes:
> Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
> characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun.
At one point of one game, the most immature character of your party hints
at that as an insult. This insult (to my knowledge after playing the
game to the end) was never repeated, proven or even hinted at. Dave
Halverson, can you or anyone on the DHGF staff point to one other
occurance, in any Sega CD game that Working Designs has done, a single
other reference to sexual orientation to back up your above statement?
> We usually don't reply to such postings, but this one seemed just too
> ridiculous for us not to address. Basically, what's going on here is
> that we complained about the excessive amount of childish jokes in the
> American version of Lunar 2, in our review. Mr. Ireland pulled all
> advertising and support from our magazine in protest.
You (or should I say the magazine which you represent as editor) blew
the addition of humor way out of proportion. And worse yet, the review
in question was based on less than 20% of the game itself. Instead of
admitting right off that the review was only based on the first part of
the game, and delaying the full review until the full game was played, the
reader was lead to believe that those changes were worse than they were,
and consistant to the end. This should have been corrected in the next
issue *regardless* of whatever Vic did, but instead Nick stuck to his guns
with further snide remarks about Vic and Working Designs in following
issues.
> <snippage>
> with us. But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
> OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
> yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
> the point size of the font. The retraction would say that we're not
Maybe he saw how you admitted to your previous errors, such as the Saturn
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA fiasco. (Capcom of America removed the blue shadows,
sent you that version, and them re-added them? Whatever. Too bad those
were included in the pictures of your own review, after claiming that
their absense ruined that game too.)
> Nick Rox has played through Policenauts, a game that's entirely
> Japanese text, literally 1000's of pages worth, and understood it
> fully.
I think that Vic's biggest gripe is that Nick didn't play through LUNAR2
the same way, before reviewing/trashing the game in the way that he did.
More damning comments and reviews by some other mags went uncontested here
by Vic, because they took the time to actually learn enough to form an
opinion before forming an opinion.
> And Mr. Ireland (who admits to not knowing any Japanese, save
> for "Buy" and "Sell" commands) is claiming that Nick's incapable
> of understanding a game written at a MUCH younger level? Mr. Ireland,
> I should point out, has never met Nick. He just _knows_ that Nick
> doesn't know Japanese. If you say so.
Nick said he knew enough Japanese to play the import version. Nick also
said that he had already beaten the import version. Then Nick asks for
help defeating a mid-game character, even though (according to Vic) that
character was unchanged from the import version? And you wonder why Vic
is questioning Nick's claims about being competant at Japanese?
I don't know what Vic's level of Japanese is, but considering what you're
batting in your statements so far...
> We offered Mr. Ireland the opportunity to say whatever he pleased in
> our Postmeister column. We also offered a valid retraction (in the Ed
> Zone) to Working Designs stating that we did not complete the US
> version, the reason being that we received it on the last day of the
> issue. Nick grabbed 10 hours into the game when it crashed at around
> 2:00 A.M. He then stayed up all night laying it out to make the
> deadline. Had Victor simply called me when the review hit and spoke of
> the more serious moments towards the end of the game we would
> have gladly printed a retraction to any comments he could establish
> were unfounded, long ago. But instead he jumped on the internet and
The Postmeister section is worthless, since his letter could be editted
to however you want, and your answer to it being final and uncontested.
(Kinda makes one wonder why Dave Halverson didn't want this debate to
reach the Internet instead, doesn't it?)
And as stated before, the retraction should have been automatic by a
professional magazine. Excuses aside, Nick should have played the game to
the end before reviewing it, or at the very least play it to the end after
the review to confirm its fairness. He didn't.
> GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
> that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor (In the field of movie or
> literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
> ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
> with games?), or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
I admit I've never played the import LUNAR2, but Japanese RPGs can have
humorous references that would be completely lost to most gamers in North
America. And since most US RPGers don't follow the Japanese RPG games as
closely as anime fans do, for example, keeping them in would be rather
pointless. If a Japanese RPG makes a reference to a member of a Japanese
wrestling team or to Pachinko machines, would Nick have blown a gasket the
same way that he did with Lunar2? Would you?
> <more snippage>
> throughout? And finally, about Die Hard Gamers Club. Look, they're
> friends of ours, we'll admit that, and they're good advertisers. I did
> start Die Hard Gamers Club, but left it to make GameFan magazine.
> GameFan magazine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolis
> Publishing, and I have no official connection with Die Hard Gamers
> Club. I am definitely NOT their CEO. We don't favor them over any
> other importer, and our import coverage helps the many other import
> stores that advertise in our magazine just as much as they help Die
> Hard.
Vic says that you are, you say that you're not. One of you is lying! But
Vic also told us exactly where to look for confirmation from the state of
California which proves him right, and $5 is not that much to most of us.
If you are not the CEO, were you as of December 1995? And if so, why deny
that connection so vehenently if you're being 100% honest with us?
> So, basically, what this comes down to is Working Designs' vice
> president whining about a negative comment in our reviews. If he wants
What we have here is a reviewer who was too ignorant to review, a magazine
that's too unprofessional to admit it in their own mag, an editor who
would rather make excuses, and a company president who's publically
peeved with it all. It's unfortunate that it has to be public, but if
DHGF had only admitted that they had barely played the game to begin with
it wouldn't have come to this.
> been our policy to cave in to advertisers. Even more unfounded, I
> feel, is that the letter which Victor was so quick to print has
> resulted in some of you attacking me personally. None of you know me,
> what kind of person I am, or what my convictions are. You have no right
> to judge me based on Lunar 2 comments.
The review was public, the errors and failures on your part weren't. If
you have valid reasons to explain passing off an unprofessional review
with 80% of the game unplayed, let's hear them. If you don't, admit you
and Nick screwed up. Your failure to do so on a number of other occasions
is how we know what kind of convictions you run a magazine under.
Reed Ballesteros
gam...@ix.netcom.com(David B Halverson ) writes:
> We consider ourselves to be _the_ RPG magazine (a title I think we
>deserve, considering our extensive coverage of all RPGs... I mean,
>compare our Final Fantasy VII coverage to every other mags... we gave
>it _8_ pages opening the magazine)
I'm not buying that comment...I've seen the exact same pics 4-5 weeks BEFORE
your new issue came out, in Japanese magazines like the 3/22 issue of
The Playstation Magazine and the 4/22 issue of Gamest EX...both mags had
their own 8 page opening layouts on the game, and the pics in their mags
were totally different from each other...
I'd give you guys more credibility about that Final Fantasy VII article if
if you had your own original pics (but dang, you guys know how to copy pics
out of mags in good high-res color...that's one hell of a scanner you guys
have...sarcasm mode off ^_^)
I did not read your article about the game, since I am already very familiar
about your magazine's writing quality...and I did not buy that issue at all.
--
_Reed_Salazar_Ballesteros_ |Quote:
Information and Computer Science |"Never keep up with the Joneses.
University of California, Irvine |Drag them down to your level.
e-mail: reed...@uci.edu |It's cheaper." -Quentin Crisp
Daryn Brown
In article 5...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com, gam...@ix.netcom.com(David B Halverson ) writes:
> And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
> situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
> received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
> jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
> joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes? (Mr. Ireland
> thinks this is fully justified, and claims that since the world of
> Lunar is our world many thousands of years later, all of its residents
> would of course be telling jokes about contemporary commercial slogans
> and such. Uh-huh.) We'll pass. So we didn't have the 40-50 hours to
> actually beat the US version, we'll admit that. As if something really
> great happened at the very end that would somehow erase the immaturity
> throughout? And finally, about Die Hard Gamers Club. Look, they're
> friends of ours, we'll admit that, and they're good advertisers. I did
> start Die Hard Gamers Club, but left it to make GameFan magazine.
> GameFan magazine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolis
> Publishing, and I have no official connection with Die Hard Gamers
> Club. I am definitely NOT their CEO. We don't favor them over any
> other importer, and our import coverage helps the many other import
> stores that advertise in our magazine just as much as they help Die
> Hard.
I guess this guy thinks we fell off the tuna truck. Long before this "scandal"
I was reading DIE HARD GAMEFAN when it was a little store catalog. And though
it got bigger, it never changed. This is not the first time you knocked an
american release over a japanese one. The reason behind the old sonic cd music
deal was just to get folks to buy an 85 dollar import to hear japanese music
over the american stuff. Lets face it, you still have business connections
to Die Hard and you still try to kick over business to them with that, "the
japanese version is better" crap. Die Hard is the most EXPENSIVE import
company out there. And when net folks buy import they go somewhere else.
I'm glad vic is willing to tell you fools where to go. Your magazine is
worthless and is little better than a picture book. The reviews are either
too high or too low. And if I spend my money, I would rather buy a WD Game
that would give me hours of joy, than a burnt out sears catalog of a mag
that can't even get a subscriber his mag in tact before the store has it.
You don't need advertisers, just start skimming profit off die hard after
you recommend the japanese version.
(and that racist "sabotage" wasn't nothing but an office joke that got printed
by mistake.)
In conclusion...get off the net
DBIII
Rick Florey
To the staff of GameFan:
Guys, I really respect your mag, despite other commentary in this
group, but I also like Victor Ireland, who has been nothing but civil
to me in the past. I also REALLY like WD's releases here (and I fully
understand that they don't make the games, they merely bring them
here), and I buy a fair share of 'em. If your spat with Vic means a
drought of WD info in your mag, then I may have to seek the info in
the other mags. I realize you're likely saying "Oh Gee! Rick Florey
isn't gonna buy GameFan! I'm shakin' in my boots! Ha!", but I imagine
there are many others not writing you that feel the same way. Please
let us know if you plan to limit your coverage of WD games. A change
in your ads means little to me. WD games are reliable enough purchases
for me that ads aren't really too necessary.
David Aldridge
Rosemarie Blanchard (fre...@ix.netcom.com) writes:
>>The "Jap bastard" and SFA issues would prove otherwise, but hey, I'm
>>not an editor of a major game magazine, so what do I know?
>
> Not to mention the fact that at the Diehard stores they were selling
> the "Jap Bastard" issue sealed in a plastic bag labeled
> "Collectors item", after the issue had supposedly been pulled.
> The issue inside was complete with the slanderous text, not fixed.
> I guess that means that Die Hard "stands by it's opinion" that all
> asians are "Jap Bastards". Care to comment on why you kept selling such
> a thing after you knew about it?
To be fair, wasn't that issue originally sold in that plastic bag to begin
with? All that the Die Hard stores would be guilty of is not pulling that
issue.
Dragonmaster Lou
as...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (David Aldridge) wrote:
>David B Halverson (gam...@ix.netcom.com) writes:
>> Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
>> characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun.
>
>At one point of one game, the most immature character of your party hints
>at that as an insult. This insult (to my knowledge after playing the
>game to the end) was never repeated, proven or even hinted at. Dave
>Halverson, can you or anyone on the DHGF staff point to one other
>occurance, in any Sega CD game that Working Designs has done, a single
>other reference to sexual orientation to back up your above statement?
No kidding. Makes me wonder what these guys were smoking while
playing Lunar 2.
---
+------------ http://techhouse.brown.edu/~tech/lou/index.html ---------+
|Dragon...@brown.edu|"Searching for a distant star, heading off to |
|"Dragonmaster Lou" |Iscandar, leaving all we love behind, who knows|
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Save Our Sailors: Please help keep "Sailor Moon" on the air in the US by
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BJ Atchley
Dragon...@brown.edu (Dragonmaster Lou) writes:
>as...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (David Aldridge) wrote:
>>David B Halverson (gam...@ix.netcom.com) writes:
>>> Wow, a lesson on translating ethics from a man who chooses
>>> characters from his games at random and makes the gay, just for fun.
>>
>>At one point of one game, the most immature character of your party hints
>>at that as an insult. This insult (to my knowledge after playing the
>>game to the end) was never repeated, proven or even hinted at. Dave
>>Halverson, can you or anyone on the DHGF staff point to one other
>>occurance, in any Sega CD game that Working Designs has done, a single
>>other reference to sexual orientation to back up your above statement?
>No kidding. Makes me wonder what these guys were smoking while
>playing Lunar 2.
Probably the same thing as those who complained about ALL the Clinton
references. {|-)
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Mark & Michelle Wood
In <4m7api$h...@rap.SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.COM> d...@ElSegundoCA.ATTGIS.COM
(Daryn Brown) writes:
>
>
>I guess this guy thinks we fell off the tuna truck. Long before this
>
Uhhh...'tuna truck'? :)
Mark & Michelle Wood
Uh...'tuna truck'? :)
Wes Pringle
I understand your dilemna. In conflicts like this it is rare
that one party is completely right, or the other is completely
wrong. I do however want to make a few points.
I recently wrote a post describing how I feel that the state
of the gaming media in North America is terrible. I believe
that. The industry has grown up on the dated belief that all
gamers are 12-14 year old males. The quality of coverage
is consistent with that belief.
Now this issue has occured. No matter which side you take,
it does illustrate how unprofessional the gaming business
can be at times. I am a gamer. I spend a lot of money
on videogames. Some of the games I buy are worth the money,
and some are crap. I don't like wasting money on crap - so
I am forced to find whatever information I can about a
potential purchase before I lay out my cash. A logical
source of information is videogame magazines.
But I don't turn to them for reviews (only for advance
information and screen shots) Why? Because invariably, they
offer coverage that is built on bias and preference. You
have pointed out in your letter that you don't like the
humour in Mr. Ireland's game. Rather than make the
objective observation that the humour follows a certain style,
you have formed your opinion - and allowed that opinion to
bias all elements of the review. What did they teach you about
THAT in journalism school?
Further, in your letter you try and take the high road by
suggesting that this entire issue is about you (professional
journalists) standing up for the objective truth in the face
of the all-powerful and manipulative advertiser. On the
surface this seems like a worthwhile stance - but of course
in your case it is bogus. It appears clear in the letter that
was posted earlier that you were looking to save face. An
understandable objective - but not a noble one.
I am saddened by the falling out which seems to have occured
between Working Designs and Gamefan. In spite of my harsh
critism of the North American Gaming Media - I do consider
Gamefan to be one of the better publications. Also, I
feel very strongly that Working Designs is a powerful advocate
of the RPG loving gamer in North America. I wish this didn't
happen. But it has.
My advice to both parties is this: Side by side editorials
offering up each point of view in a professional manner.
Each side should be able to make whatever case they want
providing that they are professional. Point and counter-point.
That is what objective journalism is about. After that I think
it would be appropriate for Working Designs to bury the hatchet.
I am glad this debate was made public - but carrying it on
serves nobody's interests.
- Wes
Magus
over...@overkill.sdi.agate.net (Rick Florey) wrote:
I agree with you there. I like both DHGF and Vic, but I have greater
respect for Vic. Why? Well for one thing, he knows how to be honest
and cares enough about WD's game players to let us know what is going
on. I only wish more people could be like him. In fact, he's the only
person from within the video game industry that takes his precious
time to answer our queries, give us hints, tell us why this game or
that isn't released yet, when a game will be released, and what his
future plans are. If only the other companies would follow in his
footsteps...oh well.
The supreme and almighty,
MAGUS
***************************************************************
Current Favorite Games:
.......................
Guardian Heroes (Saturn)
Night Warriors (Saturn)
Panzer Dragoon 2 (Saturn)
"I would rather die standing than to live on my knees!"
***************************************************************
Daryn Brown
All that means is that they are either guilty or incompetent, but hey, I'm willing
to give them the benifit of the doubt and call them incompetent.
DBIII
Daryn Brown
In article j...@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com, fre...@ix.netcom.com(Rosemarie Blanchard) writes:
> In <4m5um8$r...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> pnuk...@students.uiuc.edu (nukulkij
> Not to mention the fact that at the Diehard stores they were selling
> the "Jap Bastard" issue sealed in a plastic bag labeled
> "Collectors item", after the issue had supposedly been pulled.
> The issue inside was complete with the slanderous text, not fixed.
> I guess that means that Die Hard "stands by it's opinion" that all
> asians are "Jap Bastards". Care to comment on why you kept selling such
> a thing after you knew about it?
You gotta be kidding. They sold that mag as a collectors item? If that is
true the they must be more money hungry than egm.
DBIII
christopher j rednour,sa120a cd,244-5012,8
In a previous article, gam...@ix.netcom.com (David B Halverson) says:
[Opening snipped]
> We consider ourselves to be _the_ RPG magazine (a title I think we
>deserve, considering our extensive coverage of all RPGs... I mean,
>compare our Final Fantasy VII coverage to every other mags... we gave
>it _8_ pages opening the magazine)
Well, this was nice looking, but I don't have a Playstation...
>But Mr. Ireland was still angry. He demanded a retraction,
>OPENING the "Sega Sector" section of our magazine, "on a white or
>yellow background, with black or brown text," specific right down to
>the point size of the font.
Well, I can understand this. To be honest, when I first bought a Gamefan
Magazine, I couldn't read the text, due to the background/fonts. While
the most recent issue doesn't have this problem to the same extent, it is
still there.
[Some more stuff, about knowledge of Japanese snipped]
>
> We're amused that everyone here is treating this as some sort of
>GameFan scandal. So, here was our choice: We can stand by our opinion
>that Mr. Ireland's translations are poor (In the field of movie or
>literature translations, altering the content in even the smallest of
>ways is inexcusable... why do people feel free to take such liberties
>with games?),
Well, for example, some things don't translate well. I know that from
watching subtitled movies where I don't get a refernce, because it is
something societal.
>or we can back down to get the considerable advertising
>revenue that a good relationship with WD would provide. So basically,
>what Mr. Ireland's saying is that WE don't have integrity, because we
>decided to stand by our opinion, rather than get the advertising money.
> That's not something I recall learning in Journalism class. As for
>this "test" we declined... In lieu of the "retraction," Mr. Ireland
>said that Nick could take a test at the E3... A test made by
>Working Designs staff, supervised by Working Designs staff, and graded
>by Working Designs staff. Tempting! I'm sure we'd be given a very
>fair shot at that. Of course we declined!
Would Nick be willing to submit to a test by a third party? Would that
be good enough for Vic? Perhaps a University could be contacted about
arranging a profficency test?
>
> And as for the circumstances behind the review, here's the
>situation. Our staff played, beat, and loved the Japanese version. We
>received the Working Designs version, and everyone agreed that the
>jokes sucked a great deal of the drama right out of it. An occasional
>joke is one thing, but a ton of sophomoric breast jokes? (Mr. Ireland
>thinks this is fully justified, and claims that since the world of
>Lunar is our world many thousands of years later, all of its residents
>would of course be telling jokes about contemporary commercial slogans
>and such. Uh-huh.) We'll pass. So we didn't have the 40-50 hours to
>actually beat the US version, we'll admit that. As if something really
>great happened at the very end that would somehow erase the immaturity
>throughout?
Okay, I have a question here, how can you say that the end couldn't make
up for the "immaturity throughout", when you can't say what was actually
in 3/4 or 4/5 of the game? The "immaturity" could have been mostly
confined to the begining.
> So, basically, what this comes down to is Working Designs' vice
>president whining about a negative comment in our reviews. If he wants
>to threaten us with advertising and withholding product, fine. As if
>we can't just buy his games in Japan a full year before their American
>release. As for advertising, well, we'd love to have it, but its never
>been our policy to cave in to advertisers. Even more unfounded, I
>feel, is that the letter which Victor was so quick to print has
>resulted in some of you attacking me personally. None of you know me,
>what kind of person I am, or what my convictions are. You have no right
>to judge me based on Lunar 2 comments.
It is good to not cave into advertisers.
However, we may not know you, but we do have a right to respond to things
attributed to you, like this post or Vic's letter.
And, since the American version is so different, it seems unfair to judge
it by the Japanese conterpart. I can't read Japanese, and don't forsee
me buying the import games. Therefore, it is important for me to know
how the American version is, since they *all* tend to be different than
their conterparts. I tend to ignore the Japanese reviews for just this
reason.
>
>Thank you all for your consideration,
Your welcome. I am glad that you came on to give this other perspctive
on this issue. While I have to say my opinion still is that Vic has some
valid points, its nice to have both sides of this.
-Chris
--
==================Ibis the Invincible=================================
Watch Doctor Who when it comes to FOX on May 14!
----------...@dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu--------------------------
DanAmrich
<<You gotta be kidding. They sold that mag as a collectors item? If that
is
true the they must be more money hungry than egm.>>
The mag was polybagged everywhere from the start; the "Special Collector's
Issue" banner that graced it was just an ironic twist.
DanA...@aol.com (the guy with the bunny ears)
http://members.aol.com/danamrich/private/danamrich.html
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
Dragonmaster Lou
b...@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu (BJ Atchley) wrote:
>>No kidding. Makes me wonder what these guys were smoking while
>>playing Lunar 2.
>
> Probably the same thing as those who complained about ALL the Clinton
>references. {|-)
Yeah, now how many were there? One, two?? Hmm, that's quite a lot,
isn't it!
---
+------------ http://techhouse.brown.edu/~tech/lou/index.html ---------+
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|"Dragonmaster Lou" |Iscandar, leaving all we love behind, who knows|
|Technology House |what dangers we'll find..." |
+-------------------ftp://yamato.techhouse.brown.edu-------------------+
Save Our Sailors: Please help keep "Sailor Moon" on the air in the US by
Sexton Furnival
Re: GameFan editorial staff response
>I guess this guy thinks we fell off the tuna truck. Long before this "scandal"
>I was reading DIE HARD GAMEFAN when it was a little store catalog. And though
>it got bigger, it never changed. This is not the first time you knocked an
>american release over a japanese one. The reason behind the old sonic cd music
>deal was just to get folks to buy an 85 dollar import to hear japanese music
>over the american stuff. Lets face it, you still have business connections
>to Die Hard and you still try to kick over business to them with that, "the
>japanese version is better" crap. Die Hard is the most EXPENSIVE import
>company out there. And when net folks buy import they go somewhere else.
honest. and i don't work for an importer.
9-----
9s...@singe.com it's perfect. you can't refuse; it's my gift to you.
Dragonmaster Lou
so...@singe.com (Sexton Furnival) wrote:
>umm... no... the music in the japanese sonic cd is so vastly superior...
>honest. and i don't work for an importer.
Well, I haven't heard either, but remember when it comes to music,
like anything, it's a matter of opinion.
Danielle Rios
Sexton Furnival (so...@singe.com) wrote:
: Re: GameFan editorial staff response
:
: >I guess this guy thinks we fell off the tuna truck. Long before this "scandal"
: >I was reading DIE HARD GAMEFAN when it was a little store catalog. And though
: >it got bigger, it never changed. This is not the first time you knocked an
: >american release over a japanese one. The reason behind the old sonic cd music
: >deal was just to get folks to buy an 85 dollar import to hear japanese music
: >over the american stuff. Lets face it, you still have business connections
: >to Die Hard and you still try to kick over business to them with that, "the
: >japanese version is better" crap. Die Hard is the most EXPENSIVE import
: >company out there. And when net folks buy import they go somewhere else.
: umm... no... the music in the japanese sonic cd is so vastly superior...
: honest. and i don't work for an importer.
and it was in english!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no idea why they changed it!!!
-Chris
Michael Arguello
music is like. Sega would have saved more moolah if they used the original
music.
Spartan
Dragonmaster Lou wrote:
>
> so...@singe.com (Sexton Furnival) wrote:
>
> >umm... no... the music in the japanese sonic cd is so vastly superior...
> >honest. and i don't work for an importer.
>
> like anything, it's a matter of opinion.
>
Yes, the Japanese Sonic CD runs circles around the shitty American
Spencer Neison Mix.
--
spartan
http://www.calweb.com/~spartan
"Oh Rick, I'm so dumb." - Minmei
Spartan
Michael Arguello wrote:
>
> ri...@nevada.edu (Danielle Rios) wrote:
> >Sexton Furnival (so...@singe.com) wrote:
> >: Re: GameFan editorial staff response
> >:
> >: >I guess this guy thinks we fell off the tuna truck. Long before this "scandal"
> >: >I was reading DIE HARD GAMEFAN when it was a little store catalog. And though
> >: >it got bigger, it never changed. This is not the first time you knocked an
> >: >american release over a japanese one. The reason behind the old sonic cd music
> >: >deal was just to get folks to buy an 85 dollar import to hear japanese music
> >: >over the american stuff. Lets face it, you still have business connections
> >: >to Die Hard and you still try to kick over business to them with that, "the
> >: >japanese version is better" crap. Die Hard is the most EXPENSIVE import
> >: >company out there. And when net folks buy import they go somewhere else.
> >:
> >: honest. and i don't work for an importer.
> >: 9s...@singe.com it's perfect. you can't refuse; it's my gift to you.
> >I have to agree gamefan is pathetic but Sonic cd's japanese music ruled
> >and it was in english!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no idea why they changed it!!!
> >-Chris
> Where could I get a music CD of the Japanese Sonic CD? Describe what the
> music is like. Sega would have saved more moolah if they used the original
> music.
I have it. The music is like techno/rap/rave. It is incredible. I still
think, next to FF3 and Y's 1&2, that this is one of the best soundtracks ever
produced.
Paul Pavlin
> > >honest. and i don't work for an importer.
> >
> > like anything, it's a matter of opinion.
> >
>
> Yes, the Japanese Sonic CD runs circles around the shitty American
> Spencer Neison Mix.
> --
> spartan
I still can't forgive Sega for raping Sonic CD. The Japanese soundtrack
is one of my all time favs. I even kept my import Sonic CD disk after
selling my SegaCD. -Ken Oshigawa