Every game blog wants to make a name for itself, but that desire can sometimes be fulfilled in a most undesirable way. I mean, look what happened to Brash Games!
It doesn’t pay its writers, it revokes author credits when people leave, and its owner has over a decade of duplicitous, shady shit to answer for.
A number of us pooled our resources and drew on many anonymous sources to blow this publication wide open and oh dear is there some grimy shit pooling in its guts.
Bonus Content: Fuck Konami News
(Special Thanks:
Kirioth, whose communication and help has been invaluable.
Open Critic, showcasing integrity and a sense of standards: http://c.opencritic.com/releases/BrashGames.pdf
The many, MANY former associates and employees of Paul Ryan (not that one) who provided me more dirt than I could handle!)
Ohhh you know this is gonna be good when there’s a warning before the intro song.
I’m replaying Saints Row 2. Damn, such a fantastic game!
“Exposure” is always bullshit. Always demand payment.
Jim Fucking Sterling!
Ooooh shit, warning before the intro song?
Dis gon b gud.
Yooka-Laylee is really good.
And I played on PS4.
And had fun.
Lol.
Farage is a cunt, agreed. Its a very small minority who were going after you about him, he’s really not popular, even among people who supported Brexit
Genuinely one of the best reviews AND resignation letters ever written.
go on jim, stick it to the UKIPpers!
Holy shit, Jim… you did a journalism. Good on ya.
Nigel Farage is a cunt
So strange to see a website I used to contribute to being featured on The Jimquisition.
I can confirm that all the reviews I contributed to the site – games I paid for myself – have all had my name removed and contributed to Brash Games. The only proof I have I wrote them is partial transcripts on my personal blog.
The Ace Gamez debacle was a joke. Constant disparaging and inflammatory emails between Paul and Geoff lead to good writers leaving the site and should absolutely have been kept private and not shared with every writer of the site. I only found out that Ace Gamez had been deleted when, after sending samples of my work on the site to my favourite games magazine for a Staff Writer position, discovered that they all redirected to PornHub instead. Of course I never heard back from that job.
The entire situation sucks.
.
“If you’re good at something, never do it for free.”
I hate that so fucking much. “I’m not paying you, you’re doing it for the exposure.” It’s basically just a “friendly” way of saying “You’re not well known so I can get away with not paying you.” If I worked for you I want money for my labour because I need to make ends meet and I can’t use exposure to pay my fucking rent, tosspot. Pay up.
12:27 Screenshots are not evidence though.
Pages archived via reliable 3d-party archiver is.
That’s why I decided to just try by myself. Hasn’t quite worked out so far, but it’s more rewarding to do it this way. I don’t feel like a tool to be used.
Any creative graduate should also take note. At every degree show, parasites swarm offering you “free exposure”. I remember this cunt who managed to talk a bunch of web devs students into working on a project (they were encouraged by the university) and the greasy fuck sold it for thousands and gave credit to another group of people. Appalling. There were complaints made and all that but he got away with it. The same slimebag came up to me during my degree show and was trying to get me to make games for free (i was making a lot of flash games). I said I don’t work without pay and he got offended, like he was the one doing me a favour. Talentless leeches who aren’t even halfway decent at being con men because they can barely even trick gullible youngsters and graduates.
I’m so glad to see this. I currently work as a critic for CeX Marketing and was picked up by Brash Games. I was so pleased because I thought it meant that my work was being discovered and enjoyed; it was so vindicating. After a few back and forth emails with Paul Ryan it quickly became evident that he, for one, doesn’t actually read through any emails (or look through previous work) unless you’re agreeing to work with him, but also, sends mass emails to whoever he can get his hands on.
Additionally, he would dismiss emails regarding payments, but the one time he decided to respond, became condescending and borderline hostile; no one gets paid, did you not read the email?
… no such email was sent, of course.
I used to work for a website that paid in “exposure” and “free games” – Hardcore Gamer. The bullshit over there wasn’t quite so awful, but I was the *features editor* and I never saw a fucking dime. That is an actual position, by the way. I know that might be a bit confusing because the site gives all writers an “editor” credit, but I was one of the few people who actually edited writing there. I worked basically full time. (yeah, I was a sucker).
Steve Hannley, the dickhead who runs the website, would at least tell us when he was forcibly changing a review score – and most of the time he kept the AAA games for himself and two writers who would reliably give out 8/10s – but he fucked around in other ways. a big review I wrote for styx, a double-A stealth game covered by like 5 other outlets, was removed from the features box because my score was too much higher than that of IGN. he also artificially restricted which games we could give top scores – I was effectively blocked from doing so because I wanted to put out “too many” – that is, 7 out of the 60+ games I reviewed in the second year I worked there.
meanwhile the famously broken halo collection on Xbox one gets a perfect score. still salty about that.
when I eventually quit, there was no farewell, and while my byline remained on articles, Steve refused to give me a reference and – I am fairly certain – actually shittalked me to anyone who called him to ask. to my knowledge, he hasn’t supported *any* ex-writer’s career, but he sure as shit takes credit for former writers going on to work for IGN and Destructoid without his help.
ironically, I’m now big enough that this comment is giving the website exposure, and I make more than he does (that’s after I pay the editors who work for me, by the way), so him freezing me out is the best thing he ever did for me. I’m gonna echo Jim’s advice – work on your own brand. build your own YouTube channel before you EVER stoop to writing for an outlet like this. if they can’t pay you, they can’t get you hired, either.
fuck you Steve..
and Jim, this probably isn’t shady or out of the ordinary enough for you to bother with it, but if you want to tear Hardcore Gamer a new one, I’m easy to get in touch with.