Random: Former IGN China Editor Refutes Game Science Crying Claim

Yeah well of course he would deny it. He has every reason to lie she doesn't because she doesn't have to worry about appearing "weak" to her country.

@DennisReynolds Innocence until proven guilty.

@Nepp67 That’s not how real life works, this isn’t a court of law, no one is being charged with a crime

That's like the police investigating themselves and finding no wrong doing.

Alanah Pearce just talks too much...

I wonder when she will left Sony, since she said that she will never play/make any game that is using AI during development

@Nepp67 don't be a silly goose.

@EchoRange Being a silly goose is fun

Who actually gives a s***?

So I'm going to say it - the video from Alanah Pearce was just outright weird. She allegedly thought it so extraordinary that someone might express emotion (by crying) that the first thing she thought was that needed to be posted... and then made an online video about.

So most (if not all of us) were not there - but the point is, not whether she saw it, or not... but why did she feel it important to post about! As someone who has a little understanding of the region, I can well believe that for some members of the Game Science team, they may have been overwhelmed, and yes, maybe expressed that. This was the first time a Chinese developer had represented (their country) at TGA.

So Alanah then goes on to say - well, isn't that weird... I mean, everyone knows TGA is not that important... then why the FLYING <insert appropriate word> were you accepting to sit in the front row... because... ? And also... advice to Geoff.. don't invite someone to the front row that is going to say (to the entire world) your show is a load of tosh.

This is the sort of gaming community of influence we have now... not only do they pass judgement when they don't know the people, the language or the culture... but they double down because... political expediency? Who else has ever posted ... well... it's weird that they got emotional....

@Godot25 She just had a vid recently that said she quit and is now a freelancer

@breakneck she's reaching out to what she thinks might be an allied audience... she "left" SMS... and now somewhat coincidentally is haing a go at Game Science studios that have been a easy punching-bag for the IGN-likes.

I get why Game Science were emotional. TGA do matter no matter how much people joke about them, they're still prestigious and I'm glad the devs are competitive and believe in their product enough to get affected by losing.

@Nepp67 Yeah that's not it works at all. I base my own judgement on logic and facts, as i said he has every reason to deny it while she has zero reason to lie.

I mean. Does it matter really. What a load of nonsense

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Didn't she post the video because Game Science were get arsey that they didn't win GOTY?

@Dodoo ^this

The Game Science blogpost itself was barely worth paying attention to - just a bit of a funny cringey post.

Who cares whether or not someone cried at an awards show. We don't need to be swabbing their cheeks for a salt analysis

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare You seem to have a habit of over-analyzing everything. There was nothing weird about Alanah Pearce's video, she just gave her take on what she felt was an unusual occurrence, i.e. the public reaction by Game Science's CEO and seeing a member of the team cry.

Also it's pretty funny you're accusing her of passing judgement without knowing the people involved, when your next post is implying she made that video because of her past employer. Pot, kettle, etc.

@Dodoo exactly. Right now it is just hearsay.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I wouldn't go that far. It seems like she left because she wanted to have more freedom.

@get2sammyb
Pretty sure devs were hired to make PSSR not to replace rasterization techniques, but replace human labour. Hence, layoffs.

Oh no-es. 😱
Let's make a banger article~ 😝

😅😂😭

The fact that the slander campaign committed by establishment journos coincided with Game Science not bending the knee to grifter weirdos says everything. Disgraceful. But the more they try, the more they expose themselves to the masses. Their days are numbered.

I still don't get why some people feel like Game Science has somehow been poorly treated by Western media. The game got an 81 metascore, which is pretty damn strong, and got five nominations at TGA, of which it managed to take home two.

The game was clearly celebrated in the West, just not as much as in China, but surely there's nothing wrong with that?

"Plucked from their hands" Black Myth was a slightly above average souls-like with good graphics. Nothing it did was original or really stuck with me after the end credits.

>"And Charles Young, editor-in-chief of video game website IGN China, was equally effusive in his praise for the title.

>"We often boast about the thousands of years of splendour in Chinese culture, but this can sometimes come across as a bit of self-promotion," he told the ABC.

>He said he thought Black Myth: Wukong had "already achieved" great success in promoting Chinese culture overseas."

If you're using the phrase "thousands of years of Chinese splendour" then you know your brain has already been fried by BS. Imagine a British dev or journalist talking about thousands of years of British "splendour" and "promoting British culture overseas".

It's very simple. Alanah Pearce spread fake news on her channel and in the footage from the game awards you can clearly see the Game Science devs in the background smiling, not crying.

People have already done breakdowns of this on YouTube.

I cried* when I saw Ciri and Amaterasu.

*didn't really, I was just really gleeful.

Man cries after not winning an award shock!

So what? Nice to see some people care in this industry, nothing wrong with shedding a tear or two when your hopes don't come to fruition.

The real test though is how you bounce back.

It’s weird that there’s still people talking about the awards part of the show.

@get2sammyb It's when it takes over the work that humans do that we have a problem and that's the only direction it's heading. You'd have to be dumb not to see that.

@get2sammyb probably one of the most un- educated replies about AI I've ever seen...wow...just wow
AI isn't here to "help" it's here to replace and make workplace costs cheaper, which is clearly already massively in effect

Someone cried/someone didn’t cry.

Does it really matter ?

To be fair I would see being disappointed you hadnt won an award as being perfectly normal for people who care, that said I also think GS were lucky to be in the top nominations.

@Uromastryx Since game development is so bloated and time consuming now god forbid these companies trying to get things done quicker and cheaper... BTW where was all this outrage when automation was taking over trade worker jobs...

Oh who’s arsed?

@themightyant Yup, I suspect most people don't bother to watch the video (which was really just a small fragment from a longer stream) but just jump on the news bit. She said things like it clearly meant a lot to them, they did an amazing thing and that it was fair that they looked upset. Somehow that got misconstrued as her bashing or shaming the studio or whatever. Edit: ah I see you've posted the full thing now

Can only agree with your conclusion, as usual. People suck.

@DennisReynolds So - according to who... the point is, once again a certain segment of the media is misrepresenting what happened and what he said... (which was incorrect) and that corresponds to Alanah finding it "weird" that somehow one of their group got emotional.... this doesn't make sense.

@themightyant ... "because generally everyone is like, Game Awards doesn't matter that much"... how is that not saying TGA is tosh (that's a paraphrase).

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare You're getting very defensive over a mediocre dev.

Are we seriously pointing a finger at someone for crying?

Even this article claims "a defence" like crying in public is something that requires it.

And we wonder why videogames lag embarrassingly behind the high profile nature of the film and music industries.

Shameful all round. The original video. The "defence" and even this very article, frankly.

Just imagine for a moment how unbelievably amazing the videogames industry could be if people associated with it weren't, generally, such immature morons.

@Uromastryx brainwashed into thinking everything AI is bad I see

@Ainu20 "There was nothing weird about Alanah Pearce's video, she just gave her take on what she felt was an unusual occurrence, i.e. the public reaction by Game Science's CEO and seeing a member of the team cry."...

(1) it wasn't the CEO that she was referring to - she didn't know who it was (and didn't say)... just that it was 'someone'
(2) why is it so weird that they got emotional... if I was the first company to be in this situation, and felt the nation's pressure, rightly or wrongly, I think I'd feel emotional too.
(3) once again, it's been widely acknowledged that the original 'suggestion' that he was somehow annoyed to go because he didn't win was a misrepresentation of what he ACTUALLY said.

And for the record, I've no interest in Game Science, I've not played BMW, and I don't have a particular interest in driving a Chinese narrative (I think they've a lot of issues on how they do things, but crying at an awards show isn't one of them).

I DO have an issue however at western journalists and influencers patronising asian developers.... because they're inscrutable or otherwise inexplicable? Because they're not 'good' asian developers?... That's why I'm annoyed at her video (which I did watch, and still can't understand). Likewise I don't understand why Eurogamer would report on something based on GoogleTranslate? and Alanah Pearce's strange reaction?... This isn't good anything.

@DennisReynolds 'mediocre dev'... now that's just intentional trolling.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare This is what I meant by you over-analyzing everything. How was she patronising in her video, and what is so difficult to understand in what she said? She literally said she just found it surprising, because she didn't think studios cared that much. That's all. Seriously.

On top of that, she praised them for their amazing achievement.

Yes, clearly an awful Western journalist out to diminish Asian devs with her strange takes!

Compare the metacrtic scores lol

Ill never understand how that alanah person got „famous“ in the industry. Never. And how she got a job at SSM is beyond me. She appears to just be a youtube twitch person so why would anyone believe her without evidence.

And why was i not shocked to read racist remarks in this comment section?

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Any Dev that abusers frame gen the way they did is mediocre. If they can't make console games then they should stick with PC.

@Cry_Zero There's no racism what so ever in the comments.

@get2sammyb This comment section is an excellent example of why this site needs nested comments. Just imagine how much tidier it would all look.

@get2sammyb I understand what you're trying to say, but the way the games industry wants to use it is an evolutionary dead end. AI is (at best) generating work derivative of what human beings have already made- AI generated content will never innovate, that is simply not how this technology works. However, these AI models improve by being fed more and better data- AI image generation improves as it looks at more images. Therefore in order for AI image generation (for example) to get better it needs human artists to be imaginative and to create new and interesting art.
Now executives in the games industry want to use AI to replace human created work. If they succeed in doing that, where the does the new and imaginative artwork that the next generation of AI models need to improve come from? Now it's already been noticed by fans of AI that some models feel like regressions on previous models- this is because these models are learning from other AI generated content and thus rather than improving, they're just reinforcing the standard errors AI generated works already have. The amount of AI content out there is already making some models get worse over time, not better.
The other use of AI I hear people talk about is minor writing. Ambient dialogue, side quests etc- not main story writing though. But those are the entry level jobs of writing in video games. You look at most writers in video games and you'll see there earlier credits are doing the stuff companies like Ubisoft want AI to be doing. So if AI is going to take the entry level writing jobs, where does the next generation of main writers come from?
And that's before we get onto discussing quality. Have you ever played Sleeping Dogs? Do you think an AI doing ambient dialogue could come up with a character as memorable as the Pork Bun vendor?
Short term using AI could save a lot of rich people a lot of money, but long term it's going to lead to even less innovation and even less new ideas- which is not the direction the games industry should be moving in if we want PS7 to have great games. I do agree that the technology has potential use, but I think the plans the games industry currently has are not good.

@DennisReynolds Anyone who pays attention to the world can see the truth in this, anyone else who's screaming racism are Cardassian sympathizers.

@Godot25 she has already left sony

@themightyant i dont gige a ***** if shes a woman or not. Why would i care? The sexist one seems to be you my guy. But youre right i shouldve googled her

Push Square needs a feature to allow users to mute certain topics so I don't see this tabloid gossip level of "news" on my feed this early in the morning.

And going through the comments on these where people are calling each other names already breaking the comment section rule, you got your toxic engagement. Congratulations.

How do I block Push Square writer?

@DennisReynolds @themightyant @Ainu20 to clarify - I don't actually care about Alanah (or Game Science if I'm honest). However, having lived in asian communities for nearly 30 years, I'll share my reflection on her comments...

There continues to be a pervasive congitive dissonance regarding commenting on asian people where it often focuses on 'weird' differences (like showing emotion, or not showing emotion - or not following the same cultural norms, or using phrases that sound strange when directly translated - as a lot of asian languages do). It used to be Japanese, now it's more so Chinese, that suffer it. It's constant and yet always comfortably 'inoffensive' in nature. It has however a certain 'smell' that you start to recognize.

Can you imagine her making that comment about anyone else at the TGA? Over crying? It is the sense otherness that hurts people - whether she intended or not. Especially when it was amplified by Eurogamer.

It's not whether she caveated her conversation with the 'good words' - it's that she felt she needed to comment on it at all. That slightly uncomfortable otherness that hurts people; whether you're Chinese, Japanese, black, gay, trans, old, female or disabled.

I can imagine you typing now "you're over-reacting...", but my wife and friends have suffered this sort inoffensive (implied) put-down for decades in Australia. That same smell... always accompanied with an insincere smile; or a half joke. I don't expect you to understand - but I share my (and my family's) experience anyway; in order to explain why I'm commenting on this in particular.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I'm not going to discredit any of your experiences or claim that what you're saying doesn't exist. I'm sure it does and I do think people casually emphasising the perceived weirdness of Asian countries is harmful.

But I simply don't see that in her reaction. Could I see her say the same about Western devs? Yes. We're used to seeing devs and performers get emotional when they win, so I could see the opposite striking her as unusual, regardless of who it was.

Whatever your personal feelings, it still boils down to you throwing accusations her way based on, at best, very shaky grounds. Which is just as harmful.

I’m just here to point out that the X Community Note misuses the word “refuted.” Refuting something is disproving it. The correct word in this context would be “contradicted.”

That’s it. Carry on.

@get2sammyb Maybe but we need to heavily regulate it.

What a day. Sammy being an AI shill and tabloid level articles. Fun times.

@Godot25 She has left Sony already, and published videos about it.

@Cry_Zero You'll never understand anything at all if you don't do basic research, in this case reading a few simple Google search answers would give you the information you need.
...and then you have the gall to to call out others for being racist when you have just demonstrated how you judge on superficial info and no knowledge? If you can't see the irony of your own post....

Breaking: Shill site covers the latest in two shills heated shill-off on whether or not the monkey man was indeed coping, seething, or malding. Stay tuned for more info!

@JustCameHereToSay if you dont see racism here then youre blind my guy. Sone clowns say the ign CHINA guy HAS TO lie because hes chinese. If that isnt racism then i dont know what is

This shouldn’t even be a thing. Since when has it been acceptable to call out someone for being upset or emotional? Whether it’s true or not people need to learn how to mind their own business.

@Dodoo
A lot of people, unfortunately.

I don’t know if I’m old, it’s late, or because I’ve never once had a Twitter account, but I literally don’t have a clue what any of this is going on about or what the issue is. I don’t see why journalistic integrity is mentioned on something so seemingly trivial.

Then again, I am commenting I suppose.

What in the world are we talking about here?

@KidRisky The only misuse here is your comment. You do know that words can have several definitions? One of the definitions of "refute" is "deny or contradict (a statement or accusation)".

Meaning the word is used correctly in this article's title and the X community note.

So what if he did. And why does it matter to you if he did or not.

Attention seeker disputes other attention seekers attention seeking statement in order to seek more attention. More at 11.

I'm sure the CCP had choice words for the head of Game Science for posting his rant and making them look emotionally fragile to the world.

@Apollo2212 You would have to ignore the history of large tech companies since the 90s to not be worried about the trajectory of AI. Anytime they are given an inch they take a mile. A site like pushsquare should be worried as well. Clever AI use can dismantle SEO and is already bogging down the internet. I don’t think AI is the end of times, but its potential to widen the wealth divide and spread misinformation should have most people worried.

Wow, why did I just spend 8 minutes on this weird and unnecessary subject!? 😅
A whole lotta nothing-burger, but that's what you get when so called professions are purely based on attention.

@Pushsquarian pssr was rather made to give us marginally better image quality on expensive, yet lower powered hardware and not really about stealing creative jobs. Generative ai is there for that however and companies using it to save on wo/manpower should be scrutinized for that.

@get2sammyb Yeah this is on another level and lets be real AI has never created anything. Its use by stealing content and mixing it up. And yes the is far behind in protecting the artists and is mostly favorable to big Corp with their massive army of expensive lawyers.

@DennisReynolds

She has plenty of reasons to report on it. Again, the question is why even report on it, because we've seen a lot of people condemn them for "crying" calling them something along of the lines of pretentious or making fun of them for "being too emotional".

Nevertheless, none of this really matters, the question is whether or not Alana was lying or just mistaken or if IGN China is lying to save face. The reason doesn't matter. I have yet to see Alana respond/refute those challenging her claims.

@tameshiyaku
I always treated losing job and losing job opportunities are the same thing, whether it's from direct result of AI intervention.
Creative jobs are a murky territory, where you could see them using AI to automate certain procedural works, but then again the layoffs we seen so far, in my opinion, are just poor human resources management as the industry is entering workload automation whether it's from AI using machine-learning.

If the end justifies the means when everything was perfectly managed to the public eye, then there's nothing to be scrutinized or so we thought? 🧐

PSSR of course is created with efficiency in mind, even the workload it replaces doesn't fall into- replacing creative jobs category, I was just jesting about potential job opportunity lost by embracing AI by vocal non-supporters supporting PS5 Pro and ridicule the need of making another controversialized hearsay headline 😏