Why is Neogaf treated as a major, "professional" source by the industry?

[The DanMan]

Not the best title, but something I've thought about, witnessed, and done some research on.

When I first encountered gamer culture via the internet, I always saw Neogaf thrown around as a major source; it was where all the leaks happened, where all the intelligent gaming discussion was. It was a place that all the industry seemingly looked at and listened to.

So, as I do with forums I hear about, I started lurking (about the time I joined this site- May of this year).

And I have one big question: how was any of the above paragraph ever true?

The bias is ridiculous. There's so much Sony shilling it's ridiculous; conversely, Nintendo conversation is generally neutral to lukewarm (Xenoblade X is apparently a bad game because one guy from Kotaku who hated the first game hated it and some user impressions of the Japanese version were mixed; there are actually people on there, questioning hype for it: "But I thought it did terrible critically?").

An then pretty much any and all Xbox discussion is gamefaqs-tier shitposting and trolling. As a Halo fan, the virtually daily Halo 5 hate threads got ridiculous. "Angry Joe beats Halo 5 campaign in 4 hours on normal, co-op, despite stating otherwise in his video" was a topic not long ago that had well over 10 pages.

Conversely, Bloodborne is treated as some sacred article that is above all criticism. I browsed through older threads and saw IGN-tier fanboyism on Rise of the Tomb Raider, cursing Microsoft for "holding it captive" before the timed exclusivity was confirmed, with a similiar tier "suck it Xbone owners" attitude with the Street Fighter V platform exclusivity.

I eventually did some research on the matter; wasn't this forum supposed to be so highly esteemed? I found this article: http://rectifygaming.com/community-article-neogaf-its-bias-by-tim-dog/

Not the most well written grammatically, but it gets the point across: Neogaf is biased, and in some form "bribed" by Sony. The head moderator has connections with one of the higher-ups at Sony, and the stuff described in the article and the comments section below line up with what I've seen.

Here's a damning example: moderators were not issued E3 passes because it was no longer considered a media outlet. Major Nelson of Microsoft offered them passes. Here's how the owner, Tyler Malka, described things:

"The most egregious recent example of attempted bribery was Major Nelson offering to get me and the NeoGAF staff into E3 last year after the ESA decided to no longer treat us as Media. The offer was to come “under the banner of Microsoft” as, like, official Microsoft delegates. I had a good laugh at that one!”

Yet you wouldn't have been able to get to E3 otherwise, and there was no way for Microsoft to regulate anything you saw/said. I have a feeling that Mr. Malka's response would have been much different if Adam Boyes of Sony had offered them? He keeps in contact with your head moderator; said head moderator who warns posters about "bullsh*t comments" such as "Some gamers need to get off their high horse and enjoy the game. Who cares if it's 900p?" The mods also certainly aren't above changing thread titles.

To use an example from the comments, somebody posted a thread titled "Anyone notice Far Cry 4 is missing from the pins?"

One of the mods changed it to "Games, apps, Blu-Ray playback randomly disappearing on Xbone thanks to Live problems".

Yes, they completely changed a thread title and negatively skewed it towards Xbox; they actually used "Xbone" in the title. And you guys complain that you weren't invited to E3 but you where.

OT's for Xbox games are trolled freely, yet any posting behavior like that towards a Playstation game (real or perceived) is cracked down upon quickly.

What this rambly topic of mine is about, basically, is why do people seem to still give a crap about Neogaf? It's a Playstation-biased forum full of toxicity.

Yes, it still has news threads. Yes, there are a few leaks that pop up first on Neogaf. But, really, it seems like one of the last places any dev should go for constructive criticism towards their game. Leaks and news can come from other sources; there are other places to find user input.

So, is it just me? Am I on the wrong page, and has gaf generally just been written off and ignored by most people in the industry? Am I, as a relatively younger gamer, just finding out these facts that have been known for sometime and I just never bothered to do my own research? And really, what happened to make things like this? Was it fairly recent?

The behavior on neogaf seems endemic when looking at the standard "internet gamer behavior" for this console gen.

[Dark Sage]

Because there are some game developers and industry insiders who post on there.

Granted, not many post on there these days, so the value Neogaf has a professional source is rather questionable.

[Elieson]

Just go there for the facts, which they get a lot of.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

stay away from the forums, thats all i can say