After originally defending their Black Knight comments, TSS extends an apology…
Sonic and the Black Knight is already turning into one of the most controversial games in the Sonic series, at least in the fan community. The Sonic Stadium has recently taken some heat for their coverage of the game, going as far as to defend their controversial comments. Earlier today webmaster and The Sonic Stadium founder Svend Joscelyne extended a apology to Sonic City Blognik writer, ArchangelUK and making final comments on their recent coverage of Sonic and the Black Knight:
This edition of The Spin series of columns doesn’t really want to go in depth about anything right at this moment. It simply wishes to represent The Sonic Stadium and extend an apology.
Our coverage of Sonic and the Black Knight has been somewhat controversial. We do not apologise for our “NO” outburst. This is an opinion. In the vast reaches of the Internet, one is allowed to express an opinion, even based on one scan. Can we say the game will suck in terms of gameplay? No, of course not. Can we say it’s a terrible idea? Yes, we can.
The SSMB Forums have been another forum of hot controversy regarding the new game announcement. A few months ago, you couldn’t say anything positive about a Sonic game unless you wanted to get flamed. This situation is very different, and we are thankful for it. However, now there is a situation whereby nobody can say anything negative about a Sonic game unless you want to get flamed. This is unacceptable, and a reason behind why I have been vocal and cracking down on certain people on the forums as of late. All I want is a balance and respect of opinion. If you don’t allow positive opinion, you look like a “Classic Fanboy” website. If you don’t allow negative opinion, you look like an official SEGA Europe forum.
I want to extend apologies to ArchAngelUK. We had a good and healthy debate about the Sonic and the Black Knight news, but it appears he seems to think it was an argument. I have never treated any discussion with AAUK with anger, and the debate the other night was no exception. I’m not exactly sure what drove him to believe TSS and myself were against him for simply voicing an opinion about an announcement, but perhaps it’s a sure sign of the dangers when a website can get too close to the official source.
When a website gets critical of an idea, the official source steps back, reacts against the website. Believes that, despite the years and years of continuous support to them, that we are ‘anti-Sonic’. Those who appear unable to even formulate an opinion of their own have taken to attack The Sonic Stadium for the same. Yes, how dare we go against the status quo and hump every new announcement there is? What kind of Sonic fans are we anyway?
Tired ones, really. And ones that can do without the drama we have had to endure the last week, let alone drama from an official source that we’re supposed to be on good terms with. Again, I wholeheartedly apologise if anything I said has offended AAUK, but we cannot apologise for fighting what we believe is a worthy cause – the choice of being negative about a game (even if just a concept) without being ransomed (not that we have been, before you jump to conclusions, it’s a figure of speech).
This was one of the first golden rules I said to SEGA Europe, when it became apparent we were to work closer together back in 2005. I told them that our ‘friendship’ (so to speak) is based on us providing them with publicity (i.e. getting fans pumped for new titles by simply letting them know about them), and a source with which they can directly connect and get feedback from their fans. In return, SEGA is agreed not to intervene – we are free to exert editorial opinion and not have anyone change or influence what we say – for better or for worse.
When your forum starts bashing people for having a negative opinion, a webmaster has to wonder whether those values and agreements made in 2005 are actually going to last much longer. Or in fact, whether SEGA can actually get a good idea of fan’s reactions when everything negative/positive is gagged.
Furthermore, AAUK is someone I consider a very personal friend of mine, regardless of the situation under which he works. I have never fallen out with him, but if the conversation we had the other day said to him otherwise, then I apologise profusely. I have never personally attacked him and have the utmost respect for him. With regards to the “Rt. Hon. Romily Broad” comment (which Roareye only just made clear to me, because I’m a sloth), this was not intended as a pithy comment against AAUK or the work he has done. In fact, the Rt. Hon. was a joke, and mentioning Romily was a simple case of namechecking who I spoke to first when TSS became close to SEGA. But I can understand how it can be construed and I also apologise.
In closing, three posts regarding Sonic and the Black Knight (the original announcement, the ‘Defend Sonic’ brigade and Slingerland’s defence this morning) may seem excessive but the latter two were only created once it became apparent that there are more problems with the Sonic online community (at least this side of the internet) than simply ‘Classic Fanboys’. There are also ‘Modern Fanboys’ and ‘Holier Than Thous’, which will essentially say yes to everything SEGA pump out and if someone decides to speak out against it, then they shall attack us with their wrath. To you people, we do not apologise, and we do not apologise for defending a portion of the Sonic fanbase that again feel isolated by the Sonic Team.
Perhaps the state of the Sonic Community itself is a topic for another debate. But for now, we will let this be the last time any drama becomes of Sonic and the Black Knight. We will continue to cover it in our own, unique way, and will not rise up to the ‘Holier Than Thous’ of this world. As has been shown with all the unnecessary drama happening in the last few days, when you try to defend yourself against something you believe in, people start to question whether you really believe in it at all. And then trouble ensues.
Have a good week everyone. Sorry.
Will this put the recent Black Knight controversy to rest, at least on the front page of the newly designed, blog-heavy Sonic Stadium? Time will only tell, but for now, stick around TSSZ News and find out.
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As far as things go, The Sonic Stadium will weather the firestorm as they have on other occasions: awkwardly, but fairly easily. But make no mistake, this still can be potentially troubling for the community as a whole.
Just so you guys know, we only apologised to ArchAngelUK
We never apologised to anyone else, and we certainly didn’t apologise for our coverage of Sonic and the Black Knight. We hold by our views that everyone overreacted to our posts.
If the news post can be edited to reflect this, that would be great, as I’m sure TSSZ doesn’t want incorrect info on their pages.
Well, we published the story in full, and you’ve posted your response as a part of the story.
I think the combination of both will serve their purposes well.
-T
True, but even though you have quoted the original article, the writer has still misunderstood a key element in the story. For anyone who won’t read the quoted material (as it is a lot of text), they will believe something that is not exactly true, and the responsibility lies with the editors to correct such a mistake.
* To add to the last comment;
It should not lie on the Comments area of the article to outline instances that were misreported in the original article.
I changed some wording on the title and the actual article of this report, I hope that is satisfactory to you, Svend. In hopes these back and forth comments don’t continue all day.
I’m going to stand by our coverage as is, and here’s why.
The comments made as a whole on the Stadium represent a sort of blurred line in coverage that the site is now known for, which is acceptable. Interjecting news reporting with commentary one of many methods to cover a story. That’s the method you have chosen to divulge relevant information to your audience, and I have no qualm with that.
It is the extreme method in which, with this story, that was executed and, in turn, made a *part* of your coverage that makes it newsworthy. By apologizing in any part–in this case, the perception of borderline personal attacks–the way the Sonic Stadium writes stories now, it’s hard for the apology to NOT reflect on the coverage as a whole. One of our earlier reports that has the quote of the Stadium not being a news site and discussing the new method on which Sonic news will be handled on the site only accentuates this point. The Sonic Stadium wants to have this sort of juxtaposition on their end, yet when staff does or says something newsworthy under that method, there’s a desire to have the story edited on the basis of drawing a specific line of what constitutes “coverage?” Can The Sonic Stadium really have it both ways?
Even if the reporter made an error in his words, which I do not see for the reason stated above, the full text is quoted, and that allows our readers to form their own opinion. I have the utmost faith in our readers’ intelligence and capability to do this. Given the Sonic Stadium’s decision on how to cover events in their new format, I do not believe we have misled our readers.
-T
Andrew, those amendments are fine, thank you.
Tristan, I don’t see why you’re taking such a stern tone with this. Assessing your readership’s intelligence and commenting on The Sonic Stadium’s past articles do not have relevance to the simple fact that this article originally had incorrect information.
If you want to coldly dissect a fellow fansite and feign some professional ground on which to base it, that’s well within your right. But even your explanation has missing links – we didn’t apologise for “the way the Sonic Stadium writes stories now”. We apologised to one person based on one line of a post that could have been misconstrued as an attack. If you want to see that as a broad apology be my guest, but any journalism teacher would tell you to get the facts correct.
With regards to Sonic News, we are referring to a service rather than a relinquishing of editorial values. To report on this, in fact, is rather morally questionable and I wonder whether you’re writing articles simply to suit your website’s own ends.
In a community that is so fragmented right now, illusions of grandeur aren’t really the best things to have right now. Yes, The Sonic Stadium is a fan blog that can screw up and get things mixed up. But by any stretch of the imagination, so is TSSZ.
I personally am looking forward to this game. This is my first and probably my last post on this page because I just happaned to be searching for info on Sonic and the Black Knight when I found this page, but to be honest, I don’t find much pt in debating a game that we still know relatively nothing about. The only things that i’m worried about this game are the combat with bosses and with the skill pt system. The idea was bizzare but so was sonic and the secret rings, and it turned out alright, it was indeed a step in the right direction. I’m not gonna say this game is gonna be a good or bad game yet, and I’m not gonna let others force others opinion’s on me, or force my opinions on someone else, Give it a chance cause it DOES have potential to be a great game as well as a total flop. I think of it as the werehog gameplay combined with sonic’s speed. Or something like ledgend of zelda mixed with sonic style gameplay. I hope that this is a good game though and I do prefer the positive over negative (or realistic as some call it) because a negative outlook changes nothing. I think that the negative comes from a lot of dissapointed sonic fans who have started to lose hope in the series but giving up as soon as the game is announced without any real basis reason other than “it sounds stupid”, that logic doesn’t make sense to me. Let’s wait and see and then debate.