Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Hap Shaughnessy]

But you won't be able to open pickle jars anymore, so it's fair.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

The lord giveth and the lord taketh away. Folx can't ride scooters over LGBTQIA+ flag streets and trans folx can't swim in women competitions. 

[Straight Edge]

Resetera has the reputation of being filled with creepy, obsessive stalkers and weird loners. Is that fair though?

I had a break up a year ago and it was long relationship. It felt like I couldn't love someone again but yesterday I felt it. I've seen her while she was presenting her project. Everything felt perfect about her. I've even dreamed about our future haha. We are both graduate students but in different cities and I don't know how to meet with her.

I want to go out to dinner with her at a fine restaurant. I want to go on a nice summer vacation together. I know it's too early for these dreams, but. I think I fell in love. Life feels x10 better.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/after-a-year-from-my-break-up-i-think-i-fell-in-love-with-someone.899919/

Sorry to be harsh but your threads are somewhat memorable for the signs of obsessive traits

You should get back to therapy man.

[benji]

Not sure if we can blame the Pallies for voting Hamas.

Maybe Sinwar(?) makes very funny speeches and fire tweets

Sometimes you really go out of your way to be ignorant.

[benji]

I can't express how angry this makes me.

There is zero evidence that 'having been through a male puberty' gives you residual advantages beyond things like height and more relevant in swimming, wingspan.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/transgender-swimmer-lia-thomas-fails-in-challenge-to-rules-that-bar-her-from-elite-women%E2%80%99s-races.899970/?post=124397772#post-124397772

It's not "residual" because puberty is super important, which is why we shouldn't be suppressing it in children just to please a cult of adults.

[benji]

"Puberty has no lasting effects, a minor change in hormones can override it completely as if it never happened."
"Puberty is a genocidal crime that no one should be 'forced' into which is why putting children on puberty blockers should be the default until they decide they aren't trans."

Heads I win, tails you lose.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

I can't believe the bire moderation is so anti trans.. DURING PRIDE MONTH!

[Hap Shaughnessy]

"Anything more complex than an MCU movie frightens and scares me."

https://www.resetera.com/threads/a24s-civil-wars-avoidance-of-modern-politics-is-infuriating.899952/

[Boredfrom]

Is not even that complex, they just hate the idea that the world doesn’t operate like a MCU film of good guys vs bad guys and armed conflicts are not exactly clean or simple affairs. 

I suppose that the whole point of that film is make you uncomfortable and scared about a real modern American civil war.

[Boredfrom]

So Midori is a dude and a former fake leaker of Persona games:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/video-game-leaker-midori-admits-to-being-a-fake-persona-of-mysticdistance-will-stop-leaking-this-time-frfr.899991/

MysticDistance is from the old site tbh. I remember them...

A white dude larping as a Japanese girl.

[benji]

"Anything more complex than an MCU movie frightens and scares me."

https://www.resetera.com/threads/a24s-civil-wars-avoidance-of-modern-politics-is-infuriating.899952/

This thread is so fucking stupid I had to stop reading it rather than pull out the laughs.

These people are in such desperate need of everything affirming their own ignorance.

[Boredfrom]

Ah, I remember when they screencapped some of our chats and threatened to out me unless I fed them insider information. Good times.

You? The bastion of integrity?  




So Midori ended being more pathetic that I thought. 

[Boredfrom]

So like, the impression I got from all the cliffnotes on this is that the info they were leaking is mostly believed to be legitimate, but a bunch of shadow council people who actually held this info to begin with didn't like the person and the fact that they were spilling the beans, which coupled with that borderline psychotic Pastebin is kinda....

[benji]

I understand people are playing team sports with California and Texas and their incredulity that they would ever "team up" in a hypothetical civil war, but it's not as far fetched as you think. They are the largest states by population, have the economy and military to support such an endeavor, and are far enough from the capitol (but close enough to each other) to make their alliance mutually beneficial. If you can visualize a civil war at all occurring, it's not a grand leap to see the two states which are geographically and demographically similar - and aren't the most dissimilar states in our union politically - secede together.

all that to say, garland entire point is that none of that matters in a modern civil war, where man's basest instincts are laid bare when neighbors have murder beef. whether you buy that is another matter, but the theme is very straightforward

This entire paragraph is...wrong? Well outside the realm of "ehhhh" and well into hand waving fairy tale.

The judicial makeup of the 5th and 9th circuit alone makes this an absurd premise. The governorship of both states? The state AG of both states? The Senators from both states? The tax laws and civil rights laws of both states? On what basis would modern Texas and California team up based on mutual ideology?

This is a perfect example because this idiot thinks everyone in those states is in some ideological lockstep currently. California is the state with the largest number of Trump voters. The 2nd and 3rd states with the most Biden voters are Florida and Texas.

A modern civil war would not break down along Republican/Democratic lines between states like the first one did because all the states are purple states in comparison to then. Because there are blue bastions within red states, and red seas within blue states. Look at a fucking county election map, nobody's going to be fighting across states when places like California would be splitting up. It would be house-to-house fighting, not the states organizing armies to go fuck around in a field somewhere away from their population centers.

Also the 5th and 9th Circuits aren't appointed by the states, they're appointed by the President.

[Boredfrom]

The shadow council of video game insiders:

[HaughtyFrank]

So Midori is a dude and a former fake leaker of Persona games:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/video-game-leaker-midori-admits-to-being-a-fake-persona-of-mysticdistance-will-stop-leaking-this-time-frfr.899991/

MysticDistance is from the old site tbh. I remember them...

A white dude larping as a Japanese girl.

Waiting for the "actually I'm transgender" twist

[benji]

California is the state with the largest number of Trump voters. The 2nd and 3rd states with the most Biden voters are Florida and Texas.

A modern civil war would not break down along Republican/Democratic lines between states like the first one did because all the states are purple states in comparison to then.

Lincoln got 0% of the vote in the Confederacy-to-be except 1% in Virginia:

[Boredfrom]

Midori was an entire group of people, not only MysticDistance (explained in a follow up tweet). Explains why they eventually started posting information on other publishers. MysticDistance was probably only the SEGA/Atlus info.

Writer of the Pastebin comes off as worse than Mystic here frankly; incredibly creepy behaviour including posting their full name (how does this forum feel about doxxing again?), all seemingly born out of a petty grudge over Midori being the one to post information they had also heard.

I fucking bet you some of this guys were the same assholes defending her or claiming she was a real insider.

I want to say we started talking on GAF or here but it was definitely one of these two boards. I'd have to get to the Discord archives of a channel that no longer exists, but we used to talk through Twitter DM about gaming leaks because they seemed to know their stuff. I shared...something or another, maybe it was about Three Houses? I shared it with them but deliberately not everything because why would you? A few weeks later, they threatened to expose me, expose that Discord, etc. unless I told them more information. So I said some false shit, they posted it, and I blocked them.

I don't care if Nintendo knows when I leak things. I'm pretty sure they have a file on me.

I imagine that doesn’t help in your job hunts.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Nice site B-dubs. Promoting Doxxed discussions.   POOR MIDORI!

[Boredfrom]

I remember when I worked at Atlus and they posted about trying to access the company wi-fi from just outside our building.

[benji]

[Boredfrom]

Nobody is better at manipulating gamers into believing rumors than failed games journalists.

 


PlanetSmasher with a good point for once.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

 Oh no are they going to quit again?

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

And come back not even 24 hours later?

Edit: top of page gadot

[BIONIC]

Exactly. It's not like they're doing the industry a service like Schreier, actually contributing to gaming. It's just a cadre of losers who get off on being the center of attention.

[benji]

What the fuck is "psychotic" or "creepy" about any of this? Exposing a liar?
https://0bin.net/paste/duqx6e6R#owLSgKnxlfq90-tk0d1mxL91OM3sTlxmq0E33K97e6s

We didn't think we could find definitive proof...until someone who has enough hate for him that they'd inspire kendrick to drop another disstrack went on wayback machine. The link keeps dying for me for some odd reason, but if you wayback machine https://www.craft.do/s/4jibk4gbZAbEAV ( directly leading to : https://web.archive.org/web/20230204002440/https://www.craft.do/s/4jibk4gbZAbEAV/b/E6EA2692-E948-495B-9C67-4ABF46F349DF/A_Message_from_Naoto_Hiraoka ) for the February 2023 version, you'll notice the comments on the original midori translation have his name tied to them, but if you wayback machine it a month later, it has the name midori - they rebranded their persona central account. He fucked up and used his name on the account at first - I have no idea why that's on wayback machine, but it is. It's also just plain sloppy work, since he should've made a new account. To not dox them on reddit (even though they used to write under their full name since they wanted to be part of the press), I'll refrain from directly posting screenshots, but googling the name directly goes back to Mystic. Anyone who knows him can confirm to you that's who he is, and I'm sure many people who followed his work in the past can confirm as much themselves. Mysticdistance was also a writer for persona central, which explains why they retweeted the fansite endlessly. In the case wayback doesn't work, we've taken screenshots if needed and have also saved the entire webpage as offline files. That alone singlehandedly proves he's mysticdistance.

WOW DOXXXXXXXXING

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

And now bire moderation is supporting doxxing? 

[BIONIC]

To be blunt, people in the media quite often know absolutely loads, because it's very difficult to work around the industry like that and see so many people in social situations and not find stuff out. To the point where, y'know, a great example for one recent game I was personally excited for is I had to warn people off -- "Don't tell me anything about it!!! I want to experience it pure!!" But even when you do find out, it's a common courtesy to not fucking spray people's info up the wall.

And also, my personal opinion is that if you want to be an investigative reporter, there are plenty of things that are worth investigating and reporting on. There's serious issues - labour abuses, discrimination, etc etc. And even if you just want to write about games, there's really interesting stuff - internal developer politics, cancelled games, games that have had an interesting development story etc. Revealing something is in production, or outing an announcement a few weeks or a month before it's due to be on the PR schedule... is that journalism? Or is it just being a party pooper? I genuinely don't know, honestly. My feeling is if you're just revealing something that was already going to be revealed, just early, it's not really very useful.

I do think game devs are annoyingly secretive in silly ways sometimes, and wish games would just get announced the way movie production does (props to BioWare and CD Projekt for adopting this, for instance), but for one that's not our choice to make, and for two we will only get there if there is a trust and rapport built up and people/stuff like this just erodes that trust further anyway. Midori/Mystic's actions might seem like fun and games on era, but for people at publishers who have to answer for whatever leak and lead lengthy internal investigations into how info got out, they make their lives miserable.

Mostly quoting this for the next page. I think this is a really important post that folks need to read. This is pretty much exactly how I feel as a former journalist.

[BIONIC]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/midori-the-currently-planned-release-window-for-kingdom-hearts-4-is-in-2026-more-info-revealed-at-a-later-date.894537/page-4?post=124294740#post-124294740

They unbanned the person who “doxxed” him but not anyone else in that thread. B-Dubs you eternal fuckup

[benji]

Crap guys, we missed this, it was in 2019:

[Boredfrom]

the thing is, MidoriDistance clearly knew some stuff about Sega/Atlus and must have had some kind of ear to it. But the actual person behind that was so cringey and awful that they were just tapdancing to keep up.

Here's the stupid little secret about insider information: everyone treats it as this sacred thing, but most people not tied to marketing don't give a shit. You don't hear that much at industry events because your boss is right around the corner, but you want to know literally anything about Capcom, Platinum, or SNK? Go hang out in an Osaka bar for a week and someone will happily tell you they are working on Devil May King of Bayonetta 4.

The industry just holds all of this so close on a macro level that weird dweebs can feel very high on leaking stuff for no real good reasons because enthusiasts care about the information and elevate the people giving it. Some people do it for their careers (Grubb) and I actually think that's totally fine, that serves a monetary personal end. But people who just do it for clout they can't actually benefit from because they have to stay anonymous? Weird as hell, man.

Imran, you know how much money this companies pay in marketing. If a drunk developer spills the beans it doesn’t mean you are not wasting company money and resources. I’m also fine with leakers, but let’s not pretend is a victimless act or that monetary reason is much better (talking about video game leaks, not stuff like what Jason does for better or worse).

I also remember past instances of you revealing or hinting information for the clout at NeoGaf.