An apology, and a note on hype

Derbeste,

I hear what you're saying. I think I just wasn't a fit for Joystiq. I wanted my blogging to be fun and light. To add some life to the bland. Like I said, I think we were going in two different directions. It happens.

I'm glad you enjoyed some of my writing and I hope some others did here as well. I wrote for you guys. I tried to write to make your time here more enjoyable. Sadly, more times than not, that went at odds with others.

Thank you all for reading and responding to all this.

I can't say I was surprised. Hell, I didn't even stay up for it, because I was expecting a letdown last night... and it turns out I was right.

I've given Kotaku a look lately, and while I love Joystiq, I'm probably going to be frequenting both for now. Not necessarily as a result of this entry alone, but just for the sake of comparison, really. You guys were my top gaming site (and for all intents and purposes, still are for now), but as I'm sure you're already well aware, this latest fiasco has done your credibility no favors.

I've been coming here since probably E3 of 2005 or around that long, and I must say, this is probably the worst I've seen from you all. I'm not angry. I have no reason to be. I don't pay for your news or services. I have lost nothing tangible in this process. I am, however, a bit disappointed, because despite my skepticism, I expected more of this site.

More specifically about Robert, I hold no grudges. He's had an officially "stupid" week. First, he plays off of the late Steve Irwin's death in a post that came down just about as fast as it went up. Then, he sets up this hype bombshell. I'd hate to see him let go for it, but I'm afraid, due to him not being the author of this apology, that that's already the case. Robert, if this is true, I'd like to wish you well in whatever future endeavors you seek. If it's not true, and you're still here, you need to straighten your shit up. Seriously.

I like Joystiq a lot. There's a lot of personality here that you don't find at other sites. I like reading most things Chris and Vlad post. I absolutely LOVE Ludwig's style. I like seeing things from Jennie when she's actually around. Hell, I even sorta like Ross's posts every now and then... when he's not being terribly cynical. But all it takes is one bad egg to ruin the lot of them, and I'd hate say this is the role Robert has played, but he's lent himself to it.

If I could make any suggestions for reconciliation, they'd be simple:

1.) Don't be nazis about it, but don't let any one blogger get that out of hand; supervise better.

2.) Don't make any attempts to make it up to us, just don't let it happen anymore; that's good enough.

3.) Don't forget that it happened; if you'd like to revisit this scenario, let it slip your mind... it's a sure road right back into this mess.

Again, I'm not terribly fickle, and it'd be hard to let go of you guys, so I beg you, please don't make it easy for me. And Robert, where ever you are, whatever you're doing, please don't be bitter about this. Take it as a lesson learned, and use it for the future.

Thanks. ^_^

Well, if you are indeed Robert, and again, only time will tell, good luck to you and I'm sorry it didn't work out at Joystiq.

You dont understand what you should have to apologize for, Robert?

Im not saying you should have been fired, but you're still missing the point of why so many of your readers were upset. We paid enough attention and put enough stock in your word that we werent expecting a post on chips being shipped and your speculation that 'this means it could appear in a few weeks!'. I dont care about 'reading between the lines'. I know its a gaming blog and that was a perfectly acceptable tidbit of information you put on there.

It was NOT perfectly acceptable to hype the information THAT way (if at all), however, as should have been obvious after the first hundred comments of the hype post.

Based on how people were speculating, and the fact there was a good deal many of hours in between the mini hype post (which got 1k comments), you could have easily seen that people were nowehere near even close to expecting what you were going to release.

You could have updated the article to be like 'Now hold your horses before you go gettin all crazy like, Ive got a little minor news that might mean something, but I apologize if I poorly worded it so that everyone thought I was going to have the ball breaking story of the night.' long before the 12:01am marker hit. I think that would have saved a lot of people from going overboard on this.

I would like to apologize to joystiq on behalf of some of the commenters the same way joystiq apologized for robert. Some of us are behaving very poorly right now, but that doesnt mean the majority of us dont love you and wont keep the relationship going.

And if you think its silly Im apologizing for commenters, I think its silly Joystiq was forced to apologize for Robert.

This place isnt a newspaper, and its why I like reading it. Its not IGN/Gamespot/Gamespy/Eurogamer/etc, if I wanted the most indepth information possible (filled with a liberal helping of hype), I would go there. But I dont have time due to work and college to read everything possible about every single game, so I come here to get a general overview of whats going on with things, and hopefully get a bit of insight as to what the other 'gamers' are getting a bit of insight into.

And seriously, for those of you claiming you're leaving and never coming back here, its either BS, or you need to screw your head back on. One or two crappy mistakes by a single author who didnt plan ahead is a silly reason to stop reading here, especially when it was apologized for. How often do you see one of the big gaming media sites, or even a newspaper, apologize? Its only because of the format that joystiq is done in, and the people who run it, that we got any sort of sorry at all.

Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have NEVER apologized for hype, even when they're well aware, Im sure, they've let us down on numerous things. The punch thrown at the guy on IGN(?) for saying the PS3 wasnt going to be 500 bucks looked so bogus, and I couldnt buy into it at all. Chris getting on here and apologizing on behalf of joystiq, while it was unnecessary for myself, personally, shows that the bloggers here actually do give half a damn about you, the readers.

Go, go to your other sites, and see how much they care after throwing accidental bs in your face. 99 percent of the time, I usually just see said sites take the article down if it turns out to be bogus, even after people get mad, and it never gets spoken of again in any format.

Best of luck, Robert, above all I hope this was a learning experience that whats exciting for you maaaaay not be as exciting for everyone else, and you should be careful when you have as many readers willing to listen to you as you do.


...I keep thinking of the Sony PR guy hyping 'Real Historical Battles' with 'Giant Enemy Crabs' for some reason. I know its a joke that needs to die, but it keeps popping into my head for some reason.

Is this processor story and so called apology just a last minute cover-up for the real news that was just to hot to post? I don't want to start conspiracy theories or run up the hype machine again but this just all seems a bit suspicious.

Perhaps there is a new Sega console (with XMAS delivery) after all. Dreamcast 2 anyone?

how much money did you make in advertising yesterday? I'm just curious... do you get pay Per page views or pay-per-click?

Whoever submitted this link to Fark... I know you're disappointed that the announcement wasn't as big as it was made out to be. But don't you think it's a little petty to give Joystiq that kind of negative press about it?

#34 - "Kotaku posted the same thing, but no apology was issued. And I consider Joystiq a much better site than Kotaku (thus, the apology, because you are better)."

Except Kotaku didn't need to apologize - they said up front that people wouldn't be that thrilled about it and would still have more questions than answers.

White Rose:

I thought there was no such thing as negative press? ;-)

I'm going to step up because few already have.

What you have done here is F***ing BullS**t. Oh, you're sorry that you "let it snowball"? Give me a break. Throughout the post you kept egging on the comments with additional posts.
If you wanted to prevent such an occurance, do not post a flamebait article that a MAJOR CONSOLE HAS A HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT. YOU COULD HAVE DOWNPLAYED IT FROM THE START.
Yes, any shred of credibility you had is now SH*T. This article has proven that you are no more than a medium for publicity; A MERE COMMERCIAL. You are an ad in a magazine. You are a worthless web page banner advertising "find a mate in your area". Nothing more.
You apology is paltry, and insincere any asshole that beleives that dribble deserves to be a fan of this site.

Good day, sir.

YOU SUCK

Oh Joystiq, how can I remain mad at you when you help me slack off so good at work.

Joystiq, I changed my mind about you firing him.

GOOD. FUCKING. RIDDANCE. Go read the bullshit he posted over there, at destructiod.com. I would never 'hire' someone who crapped on his ex 'employer' like that, especially after he makes comments about there being no hard feelings and going his seperate way.

Robert, you're just another whiney, angsty teenager. I dont care how old you are, the internets tells all. I know for a fact now, just because they hired you and let you dump on this site in your first post, that I would never bother reading anything there.

I have a rocky relationship with this blog. I used to love it. It was a little different, fun, and posted some neat stuff you couldn't find on the main gaming sites. That was at the start...things quickly turned. It soon became nothing more than another gaming blog recycling the same stories from Digg, posting the same thing that Kotaku and other sites were churning out. It became caught in the quagmire of fanboyism, and tried to act like it was some credible source of news all in the same chaotic amatuerish fugue. It was a fucking mess.

This place has become plagued with ling baiting articles that are nothing more than old hat but are dragged out in order to send the comments into a tizzy, thereby building up traffic. It is painfully obvious how you guys have tried to milk this puppy for al it is worth and that just makes me sad. I hope you let this ass biting be a sign that a change must happen at Joystiq. Video Game sites can be fun AND informative again. You can do it....take a tip Whacko Jacko. Take a look at that man in the mirror and ask him to make that change.

some of you commentors need to calm down...take a deep breath...think about the last time you ever did something even remotely wrong...and get over it. It's really no big deal. All this talk about Mr. Summa needs to be fired is crazy talk. It would be like saying, "the next time any of you steal some paper clips from the office, you should be fired!"

What he did was very good publicity for joystiq number one. It also has had the most hits in a long time as well. In the same way, there hasn't really been any news about the Wii, and throwing us a little bone before the big news is ok with me.

You know what I find highly amusing?

The fact that after all this hype, all this traffic, all this supposed letdown, it turned out to be a big story afterall, didn't it? I mean, it has made mention on at least three other sites that I've seen now.

The story just didn't pertain to the Wii, as originally planned.

@Robert Summa

It's nice o know that Destructoid is there to shovel up the crap that Joystiq doesn't want (aka you). I read your 'official response' and your reasons for not apologizing make no sense. If you just did that, a lot of us would have let you off the hook. Now you let us down. Way to go.

Why are people so angry about this little thing? It's their own fault for being obsessive fanboys that they are dissapointed. The people who are whining about crap like "Joystiq isn't being proffesional!!" are the same ones who constantly post "slow news day?" whenever Joystiq posts something funny..

I like this blog, but alot of you are too obsessed with it.

Apology accepted. I'm assuming you're writing that apology from the bed of $$$ you made on Adsense yesterday? :P

IF YOU GUYS KNEW IT WOULD SUCK THEN WHY DID YOU DO IT ANYWAYS?

THE APPOLOGY DOES NOT CLARIFY THAT.

its like saying I know its its wrong to stab you with a knife but I'm gonna do it anyways.

The writting skills gramamr and over all quality of content on Joystiq has been below high school gossip quality for 8 months now. You can only get away with it for so long.

Who ever is running the message or giving the OK for this amaateur journalism needs to switch jobs or wake up.

These days any 20 year with an Xbox 360 and a phone and PC can have a Video Game Blog as good as Joystiq. You guys aren't doing anything special that anyone off the street can't do.

you lost it .. you worked really hard .. you lost it .
bye

fuck you very much

Please tell my this jag off Robert Summa was fired.
hes been screwing up alot and posting barely legit stories as it is.

GOOD Ridance.


Can someone please clarrify was Robert(Hype boy) Summa fired, or punished in anyway.

Go work for Nintendo Robert.

What a horrible situation. The entire process - from the initial teaser post - has been full of overreaction, on the part of both the Joystiq staff and the readers. I know this is the Internet, but that shouldn't keep people from being rational human beings. A lot of people have been behaving shamefully, and it doesn't reflect well on the Joystiq community - moreso than anything related to the announcement itself.

I find it unlikely that there will be a long-term hit to Joystiq's credibility based on Mr. Summa's post or the comments thereto. A piece of news was exaggerated, nothing more. It's something that happens every day in every news publication on the planet. Nothing Mr. Summa said was untrue, and his hyperbole caused no real harm to anyone. Some of us were willing to do the reasonable thing and forgive and forget, but enough people have behaved contemptuously

If Mr. Summa was fired based solely on this, I feel it was a mistake. Yes, there was outcry, to the point that someone linked this apology on Fark (and someone else posted it on their main page). But, like all things, it would pass. People will get a good night's sleep and regret - or forget - all about this, and Joystiq will go on.

(I will admit that I don't know much about what goes on inside of Joystiq, and perhaps other factors which I will never be aware of combine to merit Mr. Summa's dismissal.)

Mr. Summa made a mistake. Everyone knows that, most of all he himself. If cooler heads had prevailed, perhaps there could have been an amicable solution to this. As it is, I fear that bridges are burned after the response on Destructiod - which, while immature to some extent, was nowhere near as vicious as it could have been. I hope with time, all parties can find it in themselves to forgive, and that we can all join together to

I have been a regualr reader of Joystiq for a long time, and I intend to continue in the future. I wish the best for Mr. Summa in his future endeavors However, I have never been so ashamed of being part of this community, and I am sorry for the part I played in the events leading up to this. I truly hope that we can join together in the future and be a group built around the fun of video games rather than dedicated to attacking each other.

Chris "White Rose Duelist" LoBue
Netjak writer, Joystiq contributor, friend to all gamers

Robert Summa didn't even appologize that says it all.

Someone had to do it for him. Hopefully because hes no longer there.

If Mr. Summa would have offered up a brife appology that would have better that the half baked and poorly worded excuse slash appology with an eye roll that rambled on.

PLZZZZZZZZZ chill out a bit. Twas teh suck, but it twas yesterday - the news world moves fast, things like this don’t deserve Crucible-worthy-rallies. Guess what, somewhere in the world right now, in probably 100 different countries all at once, a group of people are dying for reasons you probably are adamantly against, yet do not know. Those situations deserve our collective uproar, but they rarely get them. You owe it to yourself to use the news (whether it be crappy TV news, youtube and digg, or even your own random net surfing) to find stuff you believe in, and to fight for or against it if it’s worth fighting for.

If one lousy blog post deserves your crusade of condemning, then so be it, but can’t you find something better to bitch about? i can - the fact that there’s no fucking ice cream in my freezer right now, what an atrocity!

I guess the full Netjak Quartet needs to represent on this thread.

I believe that the decision to terminate Summa was a prudent one. This was no simple mistake. He knew what was going on and any reasonable person could assume that news wasn't Earth shattering.

There are mistakes, and there are true debacles. Summa pulled a Jayson Blair or that one lady who sat there and invented false 360 facts (see, I already forgot who that lady was, talk about a lasting impression) which, ironically, Summa bashed for being unscrupulous just to get a hit.

Robert made a huge mistake - trading all credibility for a short-term boost to net traffic that would do little more than create a lower average over the long run. Not exactly a brilliant maneuver.

Crying wolf is a "mistake" that should always be harshly punished. You get everyone's hopes up and not only dash them, but destroy any credibility you may have when a wolf DOES show up.

Summa did not just make a simple mistake, he made a journalistic equivelant of "pulling out all the coolant rods from the nuclear reactor" level of mistake. Doing that gets a lot of attention, but the aftermath isn't pretty. There is a reason that the guy who ran the Chernobyl reactor would never get a job in the nuclear power field again. Yes, it was a mistake, and he wouldn't ever do it again. But, really, who'd take a chance and trust that guy?

My gut feeling is that this was the most recent of a series of events that lead up to termination. The Irwin/NBC Downloadable content article from a few days ago comes to mind, which was pulled shortly after appearing, because it should have never appeared at all.

While I would have rather seen a apology from Summa, I do appreciate Joystiq's efforts to admit the mistake and make amends.

What do you mean by, "we are taking measures immediately to ensure that we don't make this mistake again"?

Did someone get fired?

It's not Joystiq's fault you were disappointed, my friends, and you know it.

Not for nothing, but if people's lives hang in the balance because of "so called industry news" those people need to step back and take a long look at there lives.

Who really cares about system launches anyway?? Unless Nintendo or Sony is paying me (GOOD MONEY MIGHT I ADD) I don't care if they sink or swim.
There all the same people, over priced and under stocked. Big F-ing whoop!!

As far as credibility is concerned, there aren't many sites out there that give credibility to anything that is going to affect my life....maybe I'm wrong, but that is just my opinion.

I personally appreciate your apology. The first thing I thought when I saw the article was "Wow, Any site saying that must have some pretty good news. No one would risk their reputation unless they did".

My only complaint in the handling of the situation, was that you didn't edit the first article to link to the second when it was posted. I think quite a few people waited around assuming there was some other piece of news, or refreshing that page twenty times a minute thinking it would be changed to reflect the news.

I've read Joystiq articles many times, and until now I never realized that it was all one person writing. I assumed you had a team working on it, and an Editor with a final say on content.

In the future, if one of you notices an article getting out of hand, could you maybe work out some kind of signal to let us know to think smaller? Maybe have an icon that goes in the article letting us know if it's Minor News, Interesting News, Big News, Or an Earth Shattering Development?

Again thank you for the apology, It shows a personal touch in contrast to most other sites who would have never made any mention to misleading it's fans.

Apology very much accepted. Thank you for being professional, Joystiq.

Joystiq had credibility and my respect right up to the point where I found out they fired the guy. That's was unneeded and completely stupid. The initial post shouldn't have built up the amount of hype it did.

Who the hell honestly expected big news a week before the Wii conference?

It was amusing at the time -

huh? something so trivial required an apology??
who cares?

To those of you saying Robert shouldn't have been fired, you should read his post over at destructoid or whatever it's called. He's not contrite or classy at all and instead uses his new employment gig as an opportunity to tastelessly rip his former employer (who at least had the class not to comment on whether he'd been fired.)

As I wrote on a post over there, this guy comes off as an egomaniac who loves to hear the sound of his own voice. His childish response to all of this shows immaturity and a lack of perspective. Robert did contribute a lot of quality posts to this site, but part of being a good writer is the ability to question and edit yourself. Judging by the volume of Robert's goofy posts, as well as the typos in his posts over at destructoid, he lacks this ability. When you add immaturity and unprofessionalism to that, it becomes apparent that maybe he wasn't worth keeping around.

Wow, Joystiq - you guys just fired that guy? I'm never coming here again, you guys don't even run half of the game news out there, so I believe I'm better off at different sites than this one. You get angry at a blogger who has no bad intentions or motives, and send an apology , basically blaming the blogger for something HE DID NOT DO. This hype wasn't that big, and it was not that much of a disappointment - we all knew it wasn't a release date.

JOYSTIQ SUX

This whole thing is eff'ing stupid, its a blog, get over yourselves, no one should have lost their job over something so stupid, its not life or death, national security isnt at stake, Im with the poster above, I'll take my page hits some place else if thats whos in charge of this site.

Like Robert said, they seem to take themselves too serisouly and reading some of the previous posts, some of the readers do too.

Robert was fired for so much more than this single judgment error. The dude was a trainwreck.

credibility you guys suck for fire someone who didnt do hype for shit it was the stupid cocktail fans -_- you all suck

you people put way too much weight on Joystiq's "credibility". they never had any to begin with. it's just a pile of people smacking keys. you all act like what Joystiq says MATTERS IN YOUR LIFE. if it does, you've got much bigger problems than an over-hyped article about video games.

read the posts, enjoy them, but for heaven's sake don't set your bloody watches to them.

I was pretty surprised to hear that Mr. Summa had been terminated-- seems a bit too harsh a response to what wasn't that big of an issue. Then I read his post as Destructoid. Totally classless and immature. I've written for plenty of game news sites in the past and have worked with enough guys like that to know that getting rid of him was a good call.

Remember, Joystiq has a pretty small staff. If one member of the staff is an egomaniacal jackass who thinks he's too good for his job, it's going to be a real problem for the other members of the staff. Imagine if someone like that were on your team at your own job, except that there are only six people total at your workplace. Working with this guy everyday? Hell, you'd be looking for a reason to replace him. Mr. Summa just happened to give one away.

Joystiq, the apology is appreciated.

To the commenters who keep going on and on about this, here is how it works. Someone screws up(Joystiq), the other party(us readers) tell them they are being shit heads, they apologize, we move on. You dont keep going on and on about how they screwed up after they already apologized. Thats just rude.

Oh internet, what wont you do?

You fired the dude after you approved the story? You suck. Using this poor guy as a scape goat because of a bunch of little children crying to their mommys? I'm never reading from here again. Not because of the story but because the way you and your readers handled the situation after you decided it wasnt interesting enough for you.

Alt: Joystiq bloggers are individually responsible for the stuff they post. Writers post stories and those stories are published at the time that the invidual writer wants it to go live.

Granted, we screwed up in not KILLING this story before it went live, and that's why you see us apologizing.

"Joystiq had credibility and my respect right up to the point where I found out they fired the guy."

It's the other way round for me. Joystiq manage to be reasonably objective with their posts, which is the main reason I visit - objective posts that spark debate in the comments section. That's all it needs to be.

However, Summa always stuck out in my mind as someone who managed to squeeze in his own editorial opinion, his own slant, his own subjective wording into the most innocuous of posts. It's a skill, for sure, but not one that really fits on Joystiq nor is appreciated. The latter of his posts have just led to flaming and arguing in the comments section, which says it all, really. As for major announcements, surely it would have made more sense to see what the announcement was before posting it? Summa has always been garbage. I can't imagine someone else on the Joystiq crew making a similar mistake.

"News just in - more news coming later on!"

Kudos for the apology anyway, Joystiq. Normal service is resumed, I hope...

Wow..I'm just amazed at the whole thing...I guess I'm most amazed that you would fire somebody over something like that. Did Joystiq not know what he had planned? They had to...so me thinks all was right with the world till the fanatics revolted. Sad that you didn't have your employee's back in the situation. From what I gathered...quite a few ppl thought it was big news. If anything this blog looks worse than before the "incident".
Eh...much ado about nothing. From the article to the reaction.

You might need more than a tiny picture of crying mice in this case, pal.

YOU FUCKING DUMBASS PEICES OF SHIT, YOU MADE ME WAIT!!!! YOU FUCK HEADS, GO EAT SHIT, I HOPE JOYSTIQ GETS SHUT DOWN FOREVER YOU FUCKING DUMBSHITS!!!!