Everyone has their own standards of integrity.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun is hardly a bastion of it, because they have their own biases, and they lambast based upon that. One example is Alec Meer and how he treats and talks about console users, it's... insidious and poisonous at best. He pulls no punches in regards to how much he -hates- consoles and console gamers. But if you ask me, that sort of baggage is best left at the door.
And that's what I find most of the RPS crew has: Baggage. And it just harms professionalism in another way. I guess it's because they're in a comfortable position where everyone is going to support them regardless of this, and that their particular issues aren't as obvious and clear cut. They might not give a game a good score because of pressure, but there might be other factors involved.
Like a PC getting an exceptionally good port of a bad game. Because of what Alec and Jim have built themselves up to be, I'll see them write apologetic 'reviews' (if they can be considered that). Reviews in which they'll glaze over all of the flaws and concentrate on how PC-like a game is. Or if a game is designed 'PC first' or 'PC only,' they'll glaze over the fact that it might actually be a bad game.
And that's just not a very good way to function. It means that if something is PC exclusive or a good port, it's a good game because of that. It's not a good game because of game mechanics, or because of design, or because of setting, or story, or characters. You know, the things that matter. TotalBiscuit used to fall into this trap, too. But of late he's been getting better about this. I still poke him every time I see him slipping in that regard, though.
But what you have to look at is this: We're all only human.
Everyone fails in different ways.
And to be honest? I find the writing here ta VG24/7 to be more enjoyable and to have more overall integrity than that of RPS (ALL HAIL THE PC MASTER-RACE, RA RA RA... et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum... because that never gets old).
And donating the console, Dave? Good move. I can get behind that. I don't think you're a bad guy in any respect. I think you made a mistake. People make mistakes. What pisses me off is that RPS is in this position where they seem to be able to claim that they are perfect examples of life on earth and that they never make mistakes. This really fucking annoys me, because they do, and frequently. (As explained above.)
So this looks like brown-nosing and throwing stones. Throwing stones in a glass house, no less.
---Edit---
Not to mention that Alec's articles over there are patronising, condescending, belittling of the reader's intelligence, and they generally tend to exude hatred. Perhaps self-loathing people enjoy that sort of thing, but I can't read that without feeling large amounts of utter disgust. Really, just read any article by Alec. It quickly got to the point where I could tell it was an article by him without even looking at who wrote it.
Is the condescension through the roof? Let's look at who wrote this. Ah, it was Alec. Of course it was Alec. I've never seen a website writer so hateful outside of perhaps the Kotaku/Destructoid sites.
I'm just glad that there aren't people like that on VG24/7. I value you guys for that. You make mistakes, and you own up to them. You're responsible. You treat us with respect. You're decent people. Why anyone would prefer having to put up with the likes of Alec Meer over a better site like this one is beyond me.
---Edit---
One other thing I will add is that if any of you have iOS devices, go check out TouchArcade. They're great guys, over there. They do some brilliant impressions videos, and they just have a fantastic sense of humour, and fun. I just prefer site writers like that rather than the ones who have 'tude, yo.' Because I can't imagine why anyone would want that.
More like VG24/7 and TouchArcade, please.