Deepthroat wasn't anonymous to Woodward and Bernstein -- they knew he was Mark Felt from the very first meeting. The anonymous sources that no respectable news agency will use are ones that are anonymous even to the reporters.

I just love how all of these accusations are coming from disgruntled ex-employees. Add to that the fact that a lot of people don't like Take-two, including Game Politics, because they feel they somehow hurt the gaming industry with Hot Coffee and you get a bunch of BS that doesn't deserve a second thought.

@Crash

I never said it doesn't matter nor that it was untruthful. It is just that because it is an anonymous story, as a reader - we have to be skeptical since the people who said these things are not named.

I am not saying that this doesn't matter, but simply stories like this should be taken with a grain of salt. The EA-Spouse thing was taken with a grain of salt by me simply because of the anonymity factor, however, when more and more information came out about the case, it allowed us to take it much more seriously. I am not saying anonymous sources should be completely disregarded or such, but usually, anonymous sources should be cause for further research into the subject.

For instance, the AP will generally not allow the use of anonymous sources. By not naming names, it is impossible for the reader to know if these allegations are truthful or not. Simply, it is a guy giving you a story with little ramifications of his part - he isn't named, so it will be hard to trace the leak back to him. Also, I have no way of knowing how the journalist gather the data - was it through email, was it a phone conversation, or face to face? And if it wasn't face to face, then why should we trust any of this? Without a name attached to it, we have an allegation, which may or may not be true. We have nothing.

Perhaps there are romantic ideas attached to anonymous sources because of cases like Deepthroat, however, those cases are few and far between, and there is always some evidence to back them up. Remember, Deepthroat may have given them the tip, but when they presented evidence, it doesn't matter that the tip was given by a man hiding behind a pseudonym, the evidence speaks for itself.

In this case, and in the EA_Spouse case - all we had was some nameless specter who could be real. It is only when there is further evidence or corroboration of the story that we can take them seriously. For instance - I could be a Rockstar employee. I am not - but then again - how would you know? I could go and say I work there and they are good and great, and you can't tell. I'm just TBone - just an author attached to a bunch of text that you'll never know. And in the case of this story - these people are just anonymous former employees who didn't give a name. That's just too fishy for me.

@TBone:

Yeah, I thought the same thing about EA, when I read the EA_Spouse thing. Funny thing is, after three or four people started saying the same thing (even though they no longer worked there), it still made me think less of the company. I'll be the first to admit that all I care about is the game, but to address the view that it doesn't matter: it DOES matter - to the people that WORK there.

The mentality that working conditions don't matter to the end consumer is the same mentality that allows the acceptance of child labourers, in Indonesia, to make your Nike's.

Once again, a story with a pixelated image attached. Can someone please correct this? This forum is a great place for people to discuss (and yes, sometimes rant) about current issues affecting video games, and I appreciate how professional the site seems to have been made and is currently run. However, it only took a few minutes for me to find a better copy of the logo.

Oops that was supposed to be in another story.

My first reaction was the same as DoggySpew's above - who cares what the internal politics are like so long as they make good games?

On the other hand, it's going to get more and more difficult for them to keep employees if the higher-ups are as volatile and selfish as this report suggests - especially talented developers who know they'd be better appreciated elsewhere.

I thought this was a good read. I don't have any trouble believing the stories about the Housers being a bit nuts. They mesh with the rumors I've heard from other places. It's a poor idea to claim that ex-employees aren't trustworthy just because you don't want to believe what they tell you, but it doesn't really matter... the article was more focused on Take 2's financial problems than on internal R* politics anyway.

For bonus points, this article was the most accurate account of Hot Coffee i've read in a while. While I have much more specific opinions about that incedent, Wired at least got the facts right... unlike every single politician that's opened their mouth about this since it happened, and most "game journalism". I'm really sick of hearing about Hot Coffee, because every time someone brings it up they say something stupid... I was convinced that was going to happen here too, but the author kept things factual so it worked out.