Chris Kohler leaving media industry! - http://www.mmcafe.com/ Forums


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"Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 02:36post reply

Wow!

It sounds like he's got something he's eager to get to work on, and I wonder what it will be!
I'm sure brandon knows, but I won't pry :D
Whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it!






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"Re(1):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 04:34post reply

Interesting. I mostly knew his stuff from his work with Jeremy Parish on the earlier 1UP version of the Retronauts podcast, which was always a lot of fun. He's also one of the small number of recognizeable journalists in the mainstream games review business who spoke at least decent Japanese, so that's a loss for them, as well.





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"Re(2):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 08:23post reply

Several other high profile names - such as Jason Schreier and Tim Rogers - have recently left Kotaku as well. I hope Kohler does well with his next project but Kotaku itself might not have such a rosy future.

I wonder, was the resignation letter from Tim Rogers a 70,000 word tome that wandered off on several tangents?







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"Re(3):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 09:39:post reply

quote:
I wonder, was the resignation letter from Tim Rogers a 70,000 word tome that wandered off on several tangents?

Ha! He actually had a great turn of phrase in his last video there, “Tim Rogers will return, elsewhere and someday.” This time around, he was doing elaborate and entertaining long form videos there, which I think people enjoyed more since they felt like they didn’t have to read so much, even though I liked both.

I used to rag on Kotaku and Schreier, especially after his prudish and incorrect take on Dragon’s Crown, but I changed my view a bit with his good reporting on exploitative work conditions in the games industry. Speaking of exploitative, I believe people are ditching Kotaku because its parent company was bought by a vulture-like equity firm, exposing them to the uniquely heinous American corporate goonery that’s all too common for the poor newspapers these days.





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[this message was edited by Maou on Sat 18 Jul 09:47]



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"Re(4):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 09:53post reply

quote:
ugh reading


I think that after he started doing more videos, he probably realized that needing to say it all aloud makes his intentionally "HAH EDITING IS FOR LOSERS!" writing style not actually as much fun to read as he thinks it is, and his writing has sharpened up quite a bit since, even though it is still longwinded and wordy. He basically writes like the guy who writes the newsposts on the now-venerable webcomic Penny Arcade, except with greater reluctance to stop writing. I think one of the benefits which that guy has had over the decades of Penny Arcade is working with a comic strip, because exposure to writing for a different medium gave him a greater sense of how NOT putting in every word possible can improve the quality of your writing. As one of my high school English teachers once said, "way too many people go through college thinking that the way to write an essay is to slit your wrists and let everything flow onto the paper".

I also think that some of the things he wrote back in the day when he was "young and stupid" (see: when he was actually like 30+) like that incredibly long and incredibly dumb article about how he isn't enjoying Japan will probably look like embarrassing opinions of a mistaken youth to him today.







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"Re(5):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 10:14post reply

We are rapdily barrelling towards a thrilling singularlity with the Messy Writing thread, but no one can stop me now!

I think Tim was at the peak of that purely American ironic/trolling writing style for those earlier Kotaku articles from a decade ago (not far off the time of his brief and spectactularly unfortunate membership at the Cafe), but the unbridled and personal aspects of his earlier stuff and his more recent contained video writing are all just the kind of artistically unique voice that games writing needs. Those early Insert Credit and Action Button reviews of FFVI, Katamari, Mario 3, Wander and the Colossus, and so many other things are fascinating and often profound and surely worth archive.org-ing Insert Credit for, and his private writing is outstanding...The New Adult's Guide is about 1000 pages of mesmerizing, hilarious, and poignant semi-autobiographical delirium, and I love it. Besides, I have too many Maoublogging instances on the Cafe to possibly hassle someone for rambling.

He has been likened to Penny Arcade's Tycho, but while Tycho has definitely benefited from limited space and multiple mediums, he's not as good a writer as Rogers on a technical level so much as someone who likes using deliberately obtuse sentence constructions in his news posts, yet makes the usual modern American mistake of using "I" instead of "me" as a direct object ("come visit Bill and I") that a truly skilled writer would never make.

They are both fun, though, and without voices like these, people are just left reading miserable, colorless Tazaki Tsukuru Famitsu- and IGN-like non-reviews by people who cannot write above the 12-year-old level and have no intention of doing so anyway. It's not even necessary to like their style, just for there to be lots of styles available, and there still aren't! He is also a lot of fun in real life!





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"Re(6):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 18 Jul 10:54post reply

quote:

He has been likened to Penny Arcade's Tycho, but while Tycho has definitely benefited from limited space and multiple mediums, he's not as good a writer as Rogers on a technical level so much as someone who likes using deliberately obtuse sentence constructions in his news posts,



Yeah, I tend to agree with that.

(my actual memory of Chris Kohler is from insert credit....)







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"Re(7):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Fri 24 Jul 11:46post reply

The answer: he moved to Digital Eclipse! Isn’t that the American counterpart to our Lords and Savio(u)rs at M2? That seems like the right place for that venerable Retronaut, if so!

...though I don’t know what they’ve done? Maybe Brandon or his pals were involved? Or did they do the non-crappy half of the Rockman X collection? Uhhhhh?





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"Re(8):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Wed 5 Aug 07:31post reply

quote:
The answer: he moved to Digital Eclipse!

Maybe Brandon or his pals were involved? Or did they do the non-crappy half of the Rockman X collection? Uhhhhh?



Yes, I knew about this for a couple months :o

Digital Eclipse is a company I contract for sometimes! They do collections like the first mega man legacy collection, disney afternoon collection, and then the three I worked on: Street Fighter 30th anniversary, SNK 40th anniversary, and Samurai Shodown Neo Geo collection.

It'll be interesting seeing how we split up the work - I've got some ideas for that!

I also "work" with tim on the insert credit show, so all kotakus are coming to meeeeeeeeeeee







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"Re(9):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Thu 6 Aug 00:35post reply

quote:
I also "work" with tim on the insert credit show, so all kotakus are coming to meeeeeeeeeeee

We all knew that kotaku was merely an 受け皿 government-in-absentia while the faithful new games journalists awaited the opportunity reunite under Brandon upon his return to the kingdom!





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"Re(9):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Thu 13 Aug 03:08post reply

quote:
The answer: he moved to Digital Eclipse!

Maybe Brandon or his pals were involved? Or did they do the non-crappy half of the Rockman X collection? Uhhhhh?


Yes, I knew about this for a couple months :o

Digital Eclipse is a company I contract for sometimes! They do collections like the first mega man legacy collection, disney afternoon collection, and then the three I worked on: Street Fighter 30th anniversary, SNK 40th anniversary, and Samurai Shodown Neo Geo collection.

It'll be interesting seeing how we split up the work - I've got some ideas for that!

I also "work" with tim on the insert credit show, so all kotakus are coming to meeeeeeeeeeee



Indeed!!! Always followed Chris and also Digital Eclipse's work. They do great work actually!!! I always buy their collections as they usually include a lot of additional content not easily found anywhere else. Keep it up!!!





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"Re(10):Chris Kohler leaving media industry!" , posted Sat 15 Aug 07:21post reply

quote:

We all knew that kotaku was merely an 受け皿 government-in-absentia while the faithful new games journalists awaited the opportunity reunite under Brandon upon his return to the kingdom!



I WILL REBUILD







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"you can [not] press" , posted Sat 15 Aug 08:59post reply

quote:

We all knew that kotaku was merely an 受け皿 government-in-absentia while the faithful new games journalists awaited the opportunity reunite under Brandon upon his return to the kingdom!


I WILL REBUILD



Rebuild of Credit 2.0







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"Re(1):you can [not] press" , posted Sat 15 Aug 23:41post reply

quote:
Rebuild of Credit 2.0

Oh noooo does this mean Brandon will leave IC midway while various hangers-on attempt to unsuccessfully remake its two-decade-old glory?





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"Re(2):you can [not] press" , posted Thu 27 Aug 03:09post reply

quote:
Rebuild of Credit 2.0
Oh noooo does this mean Brandon will leave IC midway while various hangers-on attempt to unsuccessfully remake its two-decade-old glory?



not this time!!!!!!!!! it's also something else this time, not really a remake of the past. though there is a (rather popular!) forum, and there may be a writing component, it's mostly a vehicle for the podcast these days.