How Bizarre!

I am a firm believer that names should be spelled correctly. Some quick research can save you from a lot of embarassment later on.

How unfortunate, then, that the name of Bizarre Creations should be misspelled not once, but twice in a recent Joystiq article. It's even more frustrating that the article begins with a screenshot including the correct spelling, as though author Jessica Conditt wasn't even aware of what she was posting.

The Internet is reporting that the lead designer on Bizzare Creations' Blur has created an independent game studio called Totem Games, but this is a lie.
and

Matt Cavanagh, a former Bizzare Creations employee, has created Totem Games Ltd., an independent game studio with a mission to help "make the world a happier place."

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/09/matt-cavanagh-forms-a-new-studio-didnt-have-anything-to-do-wit/

I'm guessing it's Paul and Ringo

This one's just a simple matter of laziness on the part of the writer.

A recent Joystiq post boasts the headline "Full Driver: San Francisco car list has two Spiders, two Beatles and a Hornet."

Did you see it? Here it is again, with my usual markings on the errors:
Full Driver: San Francisco car list has two Spiders, two Beatles and a Hornet

It seems Mr. Schramm was trying to be clever and list the cars named for insects in his headline, but instead named the influential British band. It would have been a simple matter to look at the full list, posted in the article itself, to see the correct spelling.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/08/full-driver-san-francisco-car-list-has-two-spiders-two-beatles/

The E3 Edition, part 1

During E3, there are loads of announcements coming from all parts of the industry. This can be a lot to keep up with for any news outlet, and mistakes will happen. Case in point: the following was found in a follow-up article on the newly-announced title Fable: The Journey.

What about the Fable series' two other offensize components, shooting and melee?

Source:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/08/fable-the-journey-preview-speak-and-spell/

Strike that, reverse it

As a bit of a genealogy buff (I've done my share of family history research), I had to cringe a bit when reading an otherwise excellent report about the new Assassin's Creed game. Joystiq's own Editor-in-Chief, Chris Grant wrote:

"In Revelations, you'll play as both 12th century stabber Altair and his 16th century ancestor Ezio..."

Ignoring the missing comma for the appellative, there is a major confusion of terminology here.

For those unfamiliar with the genealogy terms, 'ancestor' refers to a relative from a previous generation, while 'descendant' is one of a future generation. Analogues to these would be 'forefathers' and 'progeny,' respectively.

So the correct statement would be that you play as Altair and his descendant, Ezio.

Source:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/06/assassins-creed-revelations-details-from-gi-hookblades-bom/

Somewhat more mysterious is a piece of content labeled only as "Something Special.." which as the description "..wait for it!"

Source: http://xbox.joystiq.com/2009/07/23/halo-odst-dlc-shows-up-on-marketplace/

Hello, Peter Molyneux.

Another one for the affect/effect homophones category. This one comes from a Joystiq article about Wii Sports Resort.

The original Wii Sports currently resides in like, four out of every five households on the planet -- why wouldn't the Japanese gaming populous spring to consumer action when the MotionPlus-bundled follow-up landed on store shelves?

The problem here, though, is that 'populous' is an adjective, whereas 'populace' is a noun. So, more correctly, it would be 'the Japanese gaming populace' which springs to action. This mistake makes sense especially in the realm of video games, as there is a game called "Populous." Thus, the term could come to be associated with the game and be perceived as a noun.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/30/wii-sports-resort-sells-over-350k-copies-in-four-days/

Prototype

From a Joystiq early hands-on of Prototype, a great game that I'm playing through right now, comes this post:

The meter yellow when everything's normal, but it will fill up and turn red if you do anything suspicious, like running up the side of a building or consuming someone entirely.

Looks like they forgot a verb again, eh?

Also, a slight factual error:

In Prototype, you're the extremely powerful (and scary) Alex Mercer who can take out tanks and helicopters with a couple of punches before you flash back to the start of the game where you wake up with minimal powers, 18 hours earlier.

In fact, the flashback portion is 18 days earlier, though this could have changed since the review was done.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/22/joystiq-hands-on-two-hours-with-prototype/

I'm going to be catching up on some old posts I've been meaning to write, and hopefully that will help me get back into a regular schedule. So here goes...

Dipping back a full month to the E3 press conferences, Joystiq wrote the following about Tony Hawk and the introduction of Natal:

But Microsoft's John Schappert he likely wasn't caught by surprise.

There is definitely something missing here. At a minimum a verb - "John Schappert says/claims/announces/etc." Perhaps a more formal "according to John Schappert..." Either way, something is wrong with this sentence.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/03/activision-got-the-heads-up-about-project-natal/

But, it's a word, too!

From Joystiq:

There's not a lot of news to report, but, as you know, that's never stopped up from talking a bunch before.

I think it's pretty obvious that he means "us" here.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/01/joystiq-podcast-e309-do-it-live-edition/

Ubisoft narrowed the release date for Splinter Cell: Conviction to Q3 of this fiscal year (between November 2009 between December 2009) in a conference call this morning.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/27/ubisoft-gives-clearer-picture-of-splinter-cell-red-steel-releas/

Transcription errors

I'm sure errors happen all the time when transcribing conversations and interviews. There are just so many nuances to the spoken word that it may be difficult capturing them in writing. That said, there are still mistakes that should be avoided like the plague. From Joystiq's interview with Epic Games President Michael Capps, speaking about company policy for programmers working long hours:

Please don't give me everything you've got right now cause your gonna burn out.

It's a classic your/you're mistake. I can only assume the error is on the side of Joystiq, since they are the ones reporting on the interview, and that Epic didn't provide the transcript.

Then, later in the interview, Joystiq records Capps making this statement:

In 2006, our voluntary turnover rate was 1.3%. In 2007, it 1.1%. In 2008 it was 1.03%.

Again, certain assumptions must be made here, but I feel justified in doing so. I think it is clear that Capps is an intelligent man and would not simply forget basic English sentence structure in the middle of an interview. Joystiq simply forgot to include the verb there.

Even further in the interview, Joystiq asks the question:

So what are your thoughts on, or I guess, more elaborate thoughts on the holiday release schedule – besides that it's terrible – and whether or not that has an affect on Epic as the provider of middleware for a lot of the games that are coming out during the holiday season.

In a single (albeit lengthy) article, Joystiq has succeeded in both a your/you're mistake and an affect/effect error.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/22/joystiq-interview-epics-michael-capps-responds-to-accusations/

When good sentences go bad...

As I have mentioned previously, errors in grammar can unintentionally change the meaning of a word or sentence. Here's an example from Joystiq's preview of Bioshock 2:

As we were taking down a series of hallways, we'd catch a glimpse of her zipping around a corner, or maybe just her shadow.

From the context of the article, it is evident that the reviewer was led, or taken, down a series of hallways, though from the sentence, one could conclude that he was doing some kind of demolition work!

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/23/joystiq-impressions-bioshock-2/

Possessive vs. Plural

In an article on a recent Street Fighter IV tournament, Joystiq had the following to say:

What we didn't know when this tournament was announced, however, was that a brief "international title championship" would take place immediately following the battles end.

D'oh!

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/19/justin-wong-wins-national-sfiv-tourney-daigo-remains-world-cham/

Accept it: There are no exceptions

This one's right up there next to the horrible there/their/they're mistakes:

Another advantage is that Amazon excepts trade-ins for many more platforms, going so far as to even accept NES titles.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/16/amazon-trade-in-values-lag-behind-gamestop/

Depressing, isn't it?

Only a day has passed since the game was announced, but Six Days in Fallujah is already stirring up controversy among veterans, families and peace groups, according to GamePolitics.

Today's post is far from exciting. A simple misplaced comma, nothing more. The truth is, the headlines recently just aren't interesting enough for me to want to read the articles, so this is the best I could find from what I've read. A depressing state of affairs, indeed.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/07/gleaning-potential-controversy-from-konamis-six-days-in-falluj/

Lost in translation

While reading a story on Joystiq, I found the following quote regarding how weather affects gameplay in Alan Wake:

"Everything in the game can be influenced by the weather. If you are running the car will run conditions will be worse by heavy rain, than if the weather was good ... the weather is dynamic, since it will influence how you play the game."

Now since Joystiq's post is actually referring to a post on IGN and this quote, horrible as it is, is presented as a direct quote from that IGN article, I went to the source and double-checked that the error was there in the original. Nothing to be found. Turns out, it's actually a quote from a Google translation of a Norwegian article. And of course, the automatic Google translation does a horrible job of it. This was referenced in the IGN article, but not Joystiq. In any event, I would have expected at least a [sic] tag or some reference that this was a translation from the Norwegian original. I'm not sure what the actual citation rules are for a situation like this, but I feel this to be a huge omission.

Joystiq post: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/28/new-alan-wake-details-emerge-into-the-cold-hard-light-of-day/

IGN post: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/966/966715p1.html

Google Translation: http://translate.google.com.au/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamer.no%2Farticle.php%3FarticleId%3D764&sl=no&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

How did this happen?

Sometimes, it's more than a random misspelling or not knowing the definition of a word. Sometimes I think the writers aren't even paying attention to what they're writing. Take this sentence, for example:
It's touting "no second sales" and no piracy, which probably means no "Hey, I'll see trade you BioShock for Prince of Persia!" amongst friends.
'I'll see trade you...' What does that even mean? My best guess is that the 'see' somehow sneaked its way in, oblivious to the rest of the sentence. But how? And how did it make it all the way to print?

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/24/gdc09-rearden-studios-introduces-onlive-game-service-and-micro/

Update: Ludwig Kietzmann of Joystiq wrote me to say that he corrected this error.