Adventures in Video Game Journalism

Agent Aiko Danuja happened upon a new article about EVE Online.

I mean, how bad could it be...?

Pretty bad.

Distinguished video game journalists continue to push the anti-wardec narrative with remarkable synchronicity. In the Truth About Wardecs series, we saw a PC Gamer article that was published immediately after CCP announced its intention to nerf wardecs. You remember the line that article took?

"Conflict is the lifeblood of EVE Online, but..."
"EVE is a sandbox meant to have as few restrictions as possible, but..."

Let's see if Kotaku did any better.

"EVE Online is a game that thrives on war. Players love to clash with each other, attempt to wrest control of territory from one another, and expand their influence in the game’s universe. These wars fuel the spectacle that surrounds EVE, drawing all eyes towards the game when an insane battle occurs."

But?

"But some wars might be doing lasting harm to EVE by driving new players away."

As you might have guessed, the Kotaku article comes from precisely the same perspective as the PC Gamer article.

"...a new player might find themselves getting attacked constantly by powerful veteran players, with no recourse other than to leave the corporation or quit the game entirely—which, according to CCP Larrikin’s data, a great many of them do."

Fake news. As we saw, CCP was conspicuously silent about players unsubscribing due to wardecs. Unlike the study from years ago about ganking and player retention, they didn't release any information about that all-important statistic with respect to wardecs. Another missing piece is that CCP didn't say whether players continued to be tracked if they dropped corp. No matter, though. In the absence of statements from CCP on these two key issues, Kotaku can simply fill in the blanks with whatever suits their message.

"Wars need to exist for EVE Online. Even in the relative safety of Hisec, player conflict is the lifeblood of the game."

But?

"Predatory wars that serve only to punish players for being new to the game, or focusing on the game’s PVE aspects, need to be curbed."

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but back in my day, journalists were supposed to deliver the truth--to give people the facts. And the fact is that an EVE player who wants to engage in PvE in highsec must obey the Code.

Then there are the comments.

Unsurprisingly, many of the Kotaku commenters are bot-aspirant carebears. And although it's not primarily a wardeccing alliance, you can guess the focus of their rage:

...the mighty CODE. alliance, of course.

Not doing anything to risk things? Miner, disobedience to the Code is the riskiest thing of all. No permit, no ship.

The good thing about the comments section for articles on EVE Online is that they offer carebears a platform where they can demonstrate why the Code is so necessary. Can you imagine if there wasn't anyone to keep these miners under control? "HomerNarr" continues:

Four and a half years later, Erotica 1 continues to extract tears from the carebears. Extraordinary.