destructoid.com — Last night Joystiq's Robert Summa ran a much hyped feature on IBM chips shipping for the Wii, which ultimately received some flak by readers. Joystiq featured their reputation was on the line and actually fired him, posting an apology from their Editor. Robert joined Destructoid today and reveals what really happened what he thinks of Joystiq.
Sep 8, 2006 View in Crawl 4
sheirSep 8, 2006
I can't believe he's writing for us. Fronz informed me of this, and my first comment was "...Bulls**t."Joystiq is just tearing it's credibility to shreds. It's sad that they had to resort to this.
c0dySep 8, 2006
@destructoid /I guess that makes sense. I never had a problem with Summa posting on Joystiq so far, I just got really disappointed and letdown from what he's done (I also find his excuses quite pathetic). And yes, thanks to him, Joystiq's reputation is fading, even though being fired over it is a quite a bit over the top.A bit of a shame to see him leaving Joystiq - after all, he was their biggest contributor.
djsyndromeSep 8, 2006
Weblogs, Inc. sersiously needs to get its priorities straight. Summa was fired for having a little fun with an embargo, but Chartier (over at TUAW) posted an app that seriously damaged people's iCal's, and he's still blogging?<a class="user" href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/06/21/procrastinatr-a-new-trick-for-time-management/">http://www.tuaw.com/2006/06/21/procrastinatr-a-new-trick-for-time-management/</a><a class="user" href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/06/21/a-fix-for-the-procrastinatr-damage/">http://www.tuaw.com/2006/06/21/a-fix-for-the-procrastinatr-damage/</a>
razoreliteSep 8, 2006
Maybe firing was a bit extreme, especially considering Rob was Joystiq's biggest contributor. But Rob has been posting some seriously unpopular articles in recent times and I can see how they (Joystiq) may feel their credibility has been damaged. However, I feel he was still an asset to them, and they should've realised this.
shitSep 9, 2006
Bloggers have names?
apoc06Sep 12, 2006
i agree. i think summa's response was still written in semi anger. i think he should have waited a few days to cool off before posting his rant. perhaps then his response would not have come off in a negative light and he would have done better in explaining his side of things.my personal take is that it was wrong to hype a non-news worthy piece when it was not exclusive to the site and obviously was biased. they bashed sony understandably so for the entire week prior, and then IBM/ Nintendo feed them that story. it was his [and joystiq's] idea to run a teaser. therein lies a majority of the problem. readers submit arguably better tips to joystiq all the time, i know i have sent them several. those tips rarely make the site, much less get an accompanying teaser. i have a problem with thinking that if the wii news was accepted without public backlash, joystiq would have set a precedent for becoming a direct marketting tool for the major companies. joystiq has a very thin rope to walk when it comes to their bias over there. their party line is that they undermine and post sarcastic commentary about each console equally, but this bit of hyped non-news was obviously devoid of any such sarcasm or second guessing until patrons and previous wii supporters spoke up. remember, none of this was an issue until it was apparent that people werent going to allow the sheet to be pulled over their eyes.i dont think this was an issue worthy of firing summa on his own, but he made it clear that he had a history with not fully agreeing with policy/ practice at joystiq. summa is a very good writer and i read destructoid from time to time anyways, so i will still get to see his work. however, in a sense its hard to take his bias as casual sarcasm to heart anymore in light of how he played this issue. his journalistic integrity took a serious hit, and i hope to see the day he can rebuild that level of public trust again.
anamanamanSep 14, 2006
Summa, you rock. That Joystiq apology was retarded. Its a friggin blog, they write stupid, fun, and overhyped stuff all the time. Thats why its a lot more entertaining than CNN.com.For god sakes, the secret news alert post got over 1000 comments of crazy fanboys speculating every possible thing and it was pretty interesting to read. I'll still read joystiq but have a lot less respect for them for being dicks over a blogger trying to playfully mess around with people. Definately will keep tabs on destructoid from now on.
cantrellvJul 25, 2008
IBM Survey: Businesses Face Risks, Revenue Losses and Fines From Inability to Keep Track of Information<a class="user" href="http://www.sourcerelease.com/corp/pwp?r=ommmmu">http://www.sourcerelease.com/corp/pwp?r=ommmmu</a>