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A most disturbing french column

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RedRalphWiggum said:
Can I have a reply to this specific allegation?
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I know you're joking but I'll respond: I totally disagree that is the case, I think we as a company try to promote our own accomplishments and fix what we are not happy with rather than focus on what others do. But anyone who interacts with us here or twitter, or streams or wherever know that we have fairly little PR interferance between employees/developers and community and sometimes people can get a bit carried away...

Kind regards
Susana
 
I do a lot of the stone throwing - but also give praise to many of our fellow publishers. I guess it depends on when you listen - and what you like to hear.

/shams

ps. I play more EA games than PDX games -if that makes any difference
 
RedRalphWiggum said:
Maybe they are conflating Paradox with forumites...
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No, they are conflating paradox with the rest of the "little publishers", and are conflating their own beliefs with those of the indie game community as a whole (including customers/forumites who are actually throwing the stone at EA on a daily basis, and little publishers that usually try not to act like EA even if they won't ever say anything about EA specifically).

The sentence is indeed poorly worded, even in French, but i guess the translation doesn't help with the understanding of an already ambiguous sentence.

This is the closest literal translation i can provide, not so far from invock's translation in OP

Especially when some little publishers - rebels always eager to throw the stone at EA's face - start to behave now like the worst of the World Companies*
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*"World Company" is in French a kind of rare idiom used to designate big corporate monsters such as EA, in a cynical/satirical context, as in the original sentence 'la dernière des World Companies'

Also just noticed that by re-reding the original piece.
That column seems to be intended as a praise for 2K Games "good behavior", in contrast with the rest of the industry, with EA and Paradox as examples of "bad behaviour", rather than an outright attack directed at paradox.
 
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Shams said:
I do a lot of the stone throwing - but also give praise to many of our fellow publishers. I guess it depends on when you listen - and what you like to hear.

/shams

ps. I play more EA games than PDX games -if that makes any difference
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I've always felt, from your "stone-throwing" tweets, that you knew what you were talking about.... more than many of the anti-EA or anti-PDX bashing i've seen. That alone makes a huge difference.
 
gigau said:
I've always felt, from your "stone-throwing" tweets, that you knew what you were talking about.... more than many of the anti-EA or anti-PDX bashing i've seen. That alone makes a huge difference.
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Oh, if we're talking about individual Social Media accounts, then it shouldn't be conflated with the company's attitude

"Opinions here my own." say Shams on twitter. Paradox is not doing any "stone-throwing" even if Shams might have done so on his own :)

Sorry it's slightly unrelated to your point, but i felt i should point that out.
 
Darkath said:
*"World Company" is in French a kind of rare idiom used to designate big corporate monsters such as EA, in a cynical/satirical context, as in the original sentence 'la dernière des World Companies'
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The English Equivalent is "Multi-National Corporation". Usually with the adjective "Big" and often even "Evil" Sometimes reaching the realm of Super Evil Multinational MegaCorporation. ;)
 
The author of the column just answered on CanardPC's forums:

Pour l'agressif et le dramatique, le but c'était plutôt d'être -comme d'hab dans CanardPC- râleur et goguenard... On brocarde tout le monde, même les gens qu'on apprécie.
D'ailleurs, je t'invite à relire les éditos sur EA et Sim City pour te rappeler ce que c'est que la guerre totale... Là, c'est un tacle gentillet contre une boîte qu'on a soutenu depuis le début du mag'.

En fait, j'ai l'impression que t'as perçu ça de manière plus violente que je ne l'avais tourné -comme mon précédent message, hein- et ça ne me dérangerait pas du tout si la traduction que tu as posté de l’édito sur le forum de Paradox n'était pas, elle aussi, beaucoup plus violente que le papier original.

Après pour les "méthodes de connards", c'est ta vision à toi. Me colle pas ça sur le dos.

Je regrette qu'ils aient supprimé le système des comptes Gamersgate presse qui permettaient d'avoir systématiquement les reviews des jeux. Mais je comprend pourquoi maintenant que Susana a expliqué ce choix : ils lâchaient 5000 clefs dans la nature et, au final, n'avaient que très peu de tests écrits.

Par contre, je suis toujours embêté par un truc : il faut attendre après la sortie du jeu pour pouvoir avoir une clef, alors que le titre est déjà en vente depuis quelques jours. Et je suis certains que pleins de gens auraient aimé avoir eu le temps de lire un test de Game of Dwarves avant de lâcher de l'argent dedans...
Paradox a une politique irréprochable vis à vis des moddeurs et des fans, ils font preuve de beaucoup d'audace en matière de publications. C'est juste dommage qu'ils poussent pas le tour de force jusqu'à nous filer des versions le jour de la sortie ou quelques jours avant. Après, est ce que c'est un problème d'organisation, un choix délibéré, une contrainte dépendante des durées de développement... Je ne sais pas. Je sais juste que ça fait un peu tache dans leur CV.

D'ailleurs, je voulais poster là bas pour mettre les choses au clair mais leur système anti spam m'empêche de répondre, même en ayant enregistré une clef de Showdown Effect.
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Since no-one has reported this here, I'll try an approximate translation (my english is not very good, and the text uses some elaborate french words and expressions that I have troubles translating):
[note: he is answering to a previous post]

When you talk about being aggressive and dramatic, the purpose was to be -as usual in CanardPC- grumpy and mocking... We tease everyone, even people that we appreciate.
By the way, I invite you to re-read the papers about EA and SimCity to remind you what a total war is... Here it is just a gentle tackle on a company that we have been supporting since the beginning of our magazine.

In fact, I have the impression that you perceived this in a more violent way that I had written it [...] and it wouldn't bother me if the translation that you posted on Paradox's forum was not much more violent that the original, too.

When you talk about "dumbass methods", it's your vision. Don't blame this on me. [meaning: "I didn't say that"]

I regret that they removed the Gamersgate press accounts system that allowed to systematically have reviews of the games. But I understand it now that Susana explained this choice: they were throwing away 5000 keys in the wild, and at the end had very few written tests.

But there is still something that bothers me: we have to wait for after the release of the game in order to get a key, while the game has already been in sales for a few days. And I'm sure that many people would have liked to read a test of Game of Dwarves before putting some money in it...
Paradox has an impeccable policy about modders and fans, and is very daring [audacious] when we talk about their publications. Too bad they don't push further their amazing feat by giving us games on day-one or some days before. Is it a problem of organization, a deliberate choice, a pressure related to development schedules... I don't know. But I know that it tarnishes their image a bit.

By the way, I wanted to post [on their forums] to make things clear, but their anti-spam system prevents me from answering, even after registering a Showdown Effect key.
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Darkrenown said:
Any idea what that "dumbass methods" quotes he uses is from? No one here said that. Just curious.
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The reply that I copy-pasted and translated was an answer to someone on the CanardPC forums, in fact he didn't say anything about this topic here except that the opening post's translation was a bit too aggressive.


To summarize, the article was misinterpreted by invock (and by me I must say) as a warning towards Paradox.
The author just clarified that this was nothing too serious and that the idea was just to be a bit grumpy.
 
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The word I used was much more violent than "dumbass" by the way, but nevermind that, I was passably irritated when writing this post, and it has little to do with the subject itself.

My point was that I perceived this column, in the way it was written and its arguments exposed, as an accusation against Paradox policies.
This was all the more disturbing to me because I give a lot of credit to Canard PC's saying, and seeing my favourite developper, which I always perceived as extremely reliable in terms of communication and game quality, be associated with the despicable methods of some major companies litteraly set me on fire.
Not against Canard PC, but against you. Because my confidence was seriously shaken after that reading.

It so happens that at the end of the day, I would be the one "misinterpreting" and translating badly. Well I guess someone has to be faulty, no matter if it's the one who was asking for explanations...
 
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