Whoa whoa whoa, reading all that confused me a lot @_@
Could someone shed light for me?

crap i thought this thread was dead.

vgc is accused of bad journalism

heres ioi's comments about the op

Let us straighten this out:

To give some background on the situation - Joe was fired from the gamrFeed team after his work output dropped to extremely poor levels and it was clear that he had his own intentions outside of our company. We parted on "good" terms and we wished him well in his future endeavours (Chris even wrote a recommendation for him on his LinkedIn page) but clearly Jackmovich is a bitter individual and feels that by sharing private details during his time at gamrFeed he can further his own career. A bit like a young child screaming for some attention.

It looks like he plans to go further and reveal more "unethical" practices in the future - I'm sure they will consist of posting articles on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and N4G and getting other staff members to vote to increase traffic (something, ironically, that he suggested and championed whilst working for gamrFeed and something that every gaming site on the net does) or maybe some kind of personal issue that we don't pay enough for writers or recognise "talent" like his or withheld his last payment because he wasn't fulfiling his duties - guess that is how we define "legally iffy to morally bankrupt"  There will also be discussions about employment law and how Joe was treated unfairly - missing the fact that Joe was a freelance contractor and had failed to fulfil his duties as set out upon his initial appointment - namely 10 articles per week (of which he managed an average of 3) and  full weekend editing cover (which amounted to 2-3 hours per day and not often signing into the site until 3pm). I'm sure at some point, Mr Paddon will also bring his new friend Nick Simberg (another ex gamrFeed writer) into the game and explain how he too was unfairly reprimanded for spending the entire (fully expenses paid) Blizzcon 2010 weekend with his girlfriend enjoying the sites of the city and not covering the event.

Great to see two ex gamrFeed employees thinking it's ok to share private emails into the public domain.

This is the kind of arrogance / idiocity we are dealing here with by the way:

Me too, I always liked his intelligence, humour, honesty and outstanding good taste for old classic games, but whatever the degree of reason and wrong between ioi and some former staff members, the worst accusations against VGC ethics look quite unfounded (postponing bad editorials, not censoring them, and not censoring at all reviews, that must be more objective and trustworthy than editorials, and are actually good on this site, doesn't look "morally bankrupt" to me) and more the fruit of bitterness from some disgruntled ex-members and that blogger himself. In the end, the worst scenario could be not about bad ethics in journalism, but bad behaviour of ioi or Arnone towards staff members.

By his own admission, he pretended to take a holiday and shoved off. I have no sympathy for him, and perhaps a little bit for Nick Simberg.

He liked to consider himself very important, but I don't recall his even holding any special position until he was appointed head of news (yes, head of news) after Chris and Nick became joint chief editors.

We wouldn't have had any of this mess if that bastard kranzl had just stayed on.

Unlocked! yay more darma :D

kranzl?

Also, I understand that these ex-writers are going to have their own bias, but when there's this much smoke, coming from people I at least somewhat know and respect in the case of Rubang, I find it hard to believe there's no fire.

For instance: I am entirely willing to believe no one was ever pressured to inflate a review, but that doesn't mean the accusations of cronyism are untrue.

Yes, thats the point of advertorials, you don't immediately recognize what you're reading.

Still, its only videogames, and its not like VGChartz championed the Invasion of Iraq.

He was a character and a half, but he was never dishonest. I am really heart broken to see this, although not entirely shocked it is sad to say. I suppose any weight my words might have are lost due to my long absence, and the fact that I will probably disappear again for a long time if not permanaently after this. I don't expect any kind of ban, but the forums stopped being a place to have an intelligent debate long ago. That is neither here nor there though.

The accusations are outrageously bad, and backed very well. You can say what you want about the character, and honesty of most of those people and I can't really comment on it. Rubang though is not someone who would attack this site for no reason. He truly loved it here and did his best to make the place fun and entertaining. He covered his first E3 simply because he happened to be there as well, and liked this site. The fact that he got driven off should send a sharp message to ioi. Sadly it looks like it won't, nor will it bring an obviosuly serious problem to the rest of the staff's attention.

There has been a pattern of PR nightmares for this site for a long time now. There are certain notable members who seem to dig holes deeper and deeper by the second. The attacks on the numbers have never been handled properly, and the best place for them has never been explained overly well. Despite the fact that senior staff has repeatedly acknowledged just how best to view them as well. It saddens me everytime I see it simply because it is a PR mix-up, and the best sound bites and talking points never get put out solidly. This situation seems to be along that same line.

Despite everything out there, and an admission that the emails are real, the company line is denial here. It sadly only makes this place look worse, which truly breaks my heart. I watched this place grow, and helped on some level with the community. I did my best to defend the numbers, and ioi from a lot of baseless attacks. Through it all I noticed that the site seemed to feed the attacks. There was no willingness to own the mistakes, explain what was going on from a neutral perspective, and attempts to obfuscate the truth of the claims that are right on. This hurts the site!

The truth is there for the world to see. Yes a lot of this is bitter ex-employees being bitter. Some of it is backed by ioi though! Why try to spin this so hard? Accepting that you have made a mistake is not the end of the world, and often viewed positively. I truly hope that the staff here get this one day. Being able to drive off people as dedicated as Rubang is a sign of serious problems. Sweeping it under the rug, and even implying that somehow he is fabricating his portion of the story is a very bad sign. Attempting to brush off his work just doesn't make sense.

I truly hope you take a step back and look at this situation ioi. The backlash you are getting on your comments are getting is coming from how you handle it, and is the same reason you get backlash on your numbers. I can understand why you are approaching it this way because you and I share a fatal flaw. I don't want this to sound like an attack on you so I won't share my opinion on it publicly. Still the best course of action is to put things out there in their proper perspective. Lose a couple battles to win a war. Or not, I suppose. Your site is plenty successful, but I say these things because you seem to take the slights personally and there is an easy way to minimuze them.

Truthfully I am not even certain why I am writing this. I have butted heads with some of the staff here more than once so I don't suspect my words will carry weight. I do not say anything here because of a grudge though, or out of any malice. I have the best of intentions at least. Perhaps I am looking for a flimsy excuse to make a dramatic farewell post. Perhaps my fathers severely failing health has made me want to reach out and save something once dear to me.  Perhaps I am just very tired and rambling incoherently.

So farewell to my friends here. I truly miss some of you. Feel free to drop me a line on Steam or wherever,

Oh and two of those articles linked as examples of terrible editorials really are terrible. Claiming two objects touching can cause a scratch is ludicrous and wrong. You need motion across the surfaces to cause friction. Simply laying atop each other can never cause a scratch. Physics. And Wii U games being designed for one controller and causing fights? What? I don't even know where to begin with that one. Pointless conjecture based on little and less. Lots of Wii games are single player, and the Wii came with one wiimote originally with no problems. Not even a hint of a point there.

While his method of departure may not have been the best it could've, he was still a nice, fun, intelligent guy who genuinely wanted to help make the site a better place.  He put a lot of time and effort into this site, both on the forums and through his editorials, and it's disappointing that he's gone.

Also, I hope nothing happens to you for unlocking this.  :P

@gnizmo:  I know we haven't chatted much lately, but it's disappointing that you're leaving as well (though arguably you left some time ago).   We'll have to talk sometime soon.