Greetings loyal readers of GSW. You too, Simon.

I'm quite popular in my own corner of the ever expanding Internet but I didn't know my fan club was reaching out. Since I have a new fan in Simon Carless, I thought I'd send a few pictures your way.

This first one is rather old from back when David Gorn..., I mean my wife entered the military. I got this really cool card that let me go on military bases and play soldier.

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y122/viperempire/?action=view¤t=MilitaryID.jpg

Oh and this is my 2005 E3 media badge. No big deal really but I like the name and title together.

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y122/viperempire/?action=view¤t=E3MediaBadge2.jpg

Finally, since I know the old pic won't do any justice for my new favorite fan, here is a more recent pic of me taken by my non-existent wife.

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y122/viperempire/?action=view¤t=landingself.jpg

Well Simon, it's been great but I've already found a new fan in this David Gornoski fellow. I guess this is good bye, Simon. Remember, we'll always have Tokyo.

PS: Sitting in the back rows of the IE Hall at Makuhari can be tough to hear and when relaying info, who wants to translate at the same time? If it really means that much to you though, I can get you an ear piece for next year too.

Oh kay!

No, no, Simon. It's over between us and your candy, flowers and sweet posts just aren't enough. It's been a great 7 hours that I'll always take with me. Sayonara, Simon.

Man!

KG

Actually, it's not slander.

Slander is spoken.

Regardless of Simon's accusations, in the rest of the journalism world, the person who gives the person who gives the reporter information is the source, not some unseen hand to be revealed later. Either way, third-hand reporting is generally discouraged.

I did think the IGN Taint report was informative, though I didn't agree with the way they went about it. Posting an "expose" about someone without making every effort to contact him is a cardinal sin of journalism. We shouldn't be waiting until after the initial story to post a response from that person. Simon, you're sort of guilty of this too.

Regarding the Billy Kirk story, do a little research before you skewer someone, simple as that. I'm not going to speculate on the commenter issue.

(Disclosure: I contacted David about writing for VGMWatch a short while back. He asked for ideas. I wanted to cover mainstream media. He never wrote back.)

Graham said: "Slander is spoken."

Quit proselytizing.

Hm, what a tangled web we weave!

I don't know which is worse, not knowing who to believe or having to go an look up what 'proselytizing' means.

Joe

I'm confused. What is E-mpire exactly? Where is it located? If it's a
videogame network, why does it also host the Jacksonville forums where
Jim Webb posts (http://www.metjax.com/forums/)?

Ew, so tacky! The more complicated the lie, the more likely it's untrue, and those who have kept honest needn't so vigorously and with such verbosity defend themselves.

He still doesn't explain how the timestamps for e-mpire's liveblog match Eurogamer's down to the second for every single entry. The first time I looked at the two pages, I thought "well, they're similar, but I'm not sure if you can call it blatant plagarism". Then I noticed that the timestamps for every single entry on e-mpire matches Eurogamer's.

For example:
9:33:34 - Kaz walks on stage.
01:33:34 - Kazuo Hirai takes to the stage. He comes out to the middle and bows and everyone claps. He's doing his speech in Japanese, as you may have realised, so our quotes are from the official translation.

10:04:50 - DualShock 3.
02:04:50 - DualShock 3.

10:39:08 - And that will wrap things up from Tokyo.
02:39:08 - And it's all over by the look of it. Round of applause, bows etc. And everyone's breaking up, and I'm going off to get a drink. Good night, Eurogamers. Thanks for all the fish.

This happens for EVERY SINGLE ENTRY.

Let's accept that the "insinuation that [Webb] plagiarized the work of another media outlet based on similar wording is preposterous".

Can we get him to explain why every single timestamp matching Eurogamer's down to the second doesn't indicate plagarism?

I bet it'll be something like this: "Well, you see... It turns out that Kaz Hirai is actuall a Vulcan, and he initiated a mind meld with all of the press in attendance (as well as anyone they were on the phone with, because KAZ'S VULCAN MIND MELD POWER IS OVER 9000!!!) so that we all became a single ur-videogame journalist performing our actions as one (and syncronizing our watches too)."

I don't know why Simon didn't mention/notice this.

what i find really fishy, not like it really matters anymore, is the idea of a japanese person using a cell phone during the conference, given that they made a huge hullabaloo before it started that this was expressly forbidden.

in my pretty extensive japanese travel experience, japanese people do listen to cell phone rules -- i'll very often see them switch off phones before movies, for example. and though one rides the train constantly in japan, i could count on my hands the times i've heard a phone RING on a train (they're supposed to be switched to vibrate), let alone see someone (not a foreigner) talk on one.

and it seems hard to believe that in that tightly-packed hall, that if someone was having a protracted cell conversation one of the event staff wouldn't approach them.

but, hey, you know, whatever.

PS i work for gamasutra! and i was actually at the hirai keynote. "i know, because i was there." - wadsworth the butler, clue

Jimmy did in fact get his information from the Japanese individual he referenced. But it was makeshift in that it was from a middleman source. He verified these facts to our staff team in various ways...other staff even have testified to discussing Jimmy's setup for the Sony press conference coverage with him during the event. It matches his account. The two individuals who helped him gather the info have been in contact as well for verification of attendance and so forth.

It looks like Jim updated the facts being announced as they happened in the entry and consulted with other site sources to timestamp the facts to bring order to the entire event article. If I'm not mistaken, this was his first attempt at liveblogging and it was definitely impromptu. The final product was rather lackluster in quality. Nevertheless, he should have sourced the site he referenced to timeline/order the live entry as it happened. I do know that he legitimately gathered the updates from his friends in Japan and that the text of his updates, crudely fashioned as they may be, were his own. We have the individual who attended the vent to testify to this fact.

Simon's attempt to do a petty drive-by hackjob has utterly failed. When you accuse someone of an misdeed, the burden of proof falls on you to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Hasn't happened. What has happened is that he's attempted to sling mud at a publication that has provided a lot of solid investigations of real corruption in the industry as well analysis of the game media.That's a productive industry necessity.
Libeling an individual like Simon has done is not.

Btw, you should've seen the emails and messages I've received from VGMW readers and those involved in the industry even laughing at how pathetic Simon's hackjob attempt was. I think the tipping point of idiocy for many was the childish conspiracy that our staffers were the same person and could not comment our articles. Soo immature.

The elitism/arrogance in his posts is a favorite note as well. Example: Simon's stated, "It's not really surprising that, following my early post about VGMWatch, the site's David Gornoski would get back to me with a response - which I've agreed to print."
Fact is he emailed me requesting that I respond...which was noted in his first story before it was edited. But what a pompous way for him to spin things, eh?

So I think that's enough wasting of time with Simon his botched smear job attempt.

I'm not sure about Jim Webb. With his friends' attendance/testimony alone, he's definitely got a slam dunk case for a personal libel suit in this situation.

"It looks like Jim updated the facts being announced as they happened in the entry and consulted with other site sources to timestamp the facts to bring order to the entire event article."

You don't do this though; you are using other people's timestamps (which may or may not be correct) and in any case must be noted by the author, as should the source of the information. If there was a scout on-site, and the scout was not the author, this should be made clear to the reader.

"When you accuse someone of an misdeed, the burden of proof falls on you to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt."

Reasonable doubt is a standard only in criminal trials, which this is not. Simon's only legal duty is to not be malicious or to disregard known truths. His plagiarism accusation - even if false - is a reasonable conclusion to draw based on the cribbed timestamps and material associated with them.

And I don't think it's libel to accuse someone of being a sock-puppet, even though, personally, I didn't think that made much sense.

All jokes and games aside, I'll grant the similarities. But similarities are not replication. An example of replication would be the following.

---Palgn.com.au---
11:34.34 -
GRAPH. PlayStation Platform Growth. 1994 - 2006 - over 250 million hardware units (PSone/2/3/P) worldwide

---Eurogamer---
01:34:34 -
GRAPH. PlayStation Platform Growth. 1994 - 2006 - over 250 million hardware units (PSone/2/3/P) worldwide.

Just as two different play by play announcers can call the same play at the same time during a football game, so too is it possible for two entities to call similar accounts at a live press event.

You guys can debate your circumstantial evidence all day long but that's all you'll have; circumstances.

I refuted your claims with the events that took place and how they came about. I never saw Eurogamers keynote address until this was brought to my attention.

This will be my final public reply to this issue. Simon, trust that we literally appreciate having check and balances in the media. Especially video game media. But this is the wrong tree to bark up. You claimed you didn't want to get into the "he said, she said" of it all but look where we are. You can continue to waste energy on a matter that will not lead to any ideal conclusion or work with us in holding our corrupt and inexperienced industry accountable.

Good day.

I just wanted to come here and say I posted on my own accord on the Variety follow-up

I'm not defending either side, but I am saying that I was indeed an actual poster.

Thank you.

I've discovered another startling possibility: Maybe Jimmy D. Webb and David Gornoski are Siamese twins? You know, the kind that shares the same brain.

Even if they're not the same person, they sure blow the same brand of hot air.

Man!

(Sorry I'm late to the party... was away on my honeymoon)

I know I'm waaay late for this one... however, one thing I noticed about this... claiming that jim posted at the exact second as eurogamer as proof that he ripped them off... how in the hell does one go about reading information that is posted to a live blog, retyping, and then reposting it within the same second of time as the original posting? Just a thought...