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Comment by muratsu | Hacker News Reader

This game also has been notable for observing how power is shifting from traditional media companies like IGN to individual streamers. For those who haven’t been following closely, IGN has accused the game developer for being sexist (based on some poorly translated social media posts) and gave it a low score before properly playing/testing it. The kneejerk reaction from the fed up gamers propelled the game to greater heights. Things have been brewing between big media and streamers for a while and this is probably the wake up call for the big media if it’s not already too late.

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> IGN has accused the game developer for being sexist (based on some poorly translated social media posts) and gave it a low score before properly playing/testing it.

What score did they give it? Because I just checked and they seem to have awarded it an 8 out of 10. I don't follow game reviews, but surely review inflation hasn't gotten so bad that people are on some sort of anti-"woke" bent over an 8 out of 10?

I figured "well maybe they changed it after publication, those sneaky skags", so looked at the ol' Wayback Machine capture for Aug 16th, four days before launch, when the review embargo lifted: https://web.archive.org/web/20240816141422/https://www.ign.c...

8/10 there too- "Despite some frustrating technical issues, Black Myth: Wukong is a great action game with fantastic combat, exciting bosses, tantalizing secrets, and a beautiful world.". Really a horrible thing these journalists have done, ripping into the game like that.

Now, I did also find a report from IGN about 6 months ago that some people claim used "mistranslated quotes". But I don't speak Chinese, and the people online who I've found yelling at IGN about this appear to have used ChatGPT or Google Translate to translate things themselves! So- do you speak Chinese? If not, how do you know the claims of "mistranslation" are correct (again, for a thing that is not a review)?

Yep. The game review websites all got taken over by “journalists” who really are there to use their position for personal political agendas. And while everyone has known this for a while, I think the vicious attacks by social justice activists against this game have finally triggered gamers into mass rejection of the institutions that have been captured and corrupted.

The translation thing was especially egregious. It was clearly a machine translation, but they denied that it was, despite there being huge flaws in it. My take is that they purposely used an inaccurate translation to manufacture a narrative that matched what they wanted.

To me, it's an incredible case of projection that people are so accusing of creating a fictional universe. These takes are so bitter, so distorted, so slanted, so derisive.

> The game review websites all got taken over by “journalists” who really are there to use their position for personal political agendas.

I feel like I'm not living on the same planet as anyone who would straight facedly make such bold, completely unnuanced, in my opinion absurd statements. I cannot stress enough how badly folks should avoid following these dark paths, reducing the whole world around you to a single dark angry point of bitterness, conspiratorial thinking that the whole universe has been bent against good.

Look, I love gnosticism as an idea, that the archons create prisons around us and only gnosis can help us break the spheres of control around us, but this, to me, is putting your mind in a cage of thought and thinking where you are desperate to believe in vast alignment of the universe against you.

Don't do this shit to yourself, don't do it to others.

Wait people took IGN seriously? They've been tabloid grade trash for at least 15 years.

I don't read their articles but they are likely still relevant. Gaming platforms (steam, ps, etc) usually doesn't offer much to publishers for marketing beyond the basics. My guess is that you end up working with influencers and larger review sites with varying success.

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