Hello everyone. I am in the process of doing many a thing, one of them working on putting together some blog posts that will expand on and explain further our rules as they relate to submissions and comments. Sadly, I do not have all my time to devote to just this, so they are not ready yet.
But, I wanted to step in here and make some clarifications on a few items we've recently had a lot of discussions about in tickets or PMs with our contributors.
Before I get to that, let me say that this post is not about shaming or blaming anyone for their past or current submissions. This isn't a place to point blame at one specific site or another. This is merely for the sharing of some rules clarifications that are not made apparent in our current guidelines. Any comment that diverges from that will be moderated.
So, without further ado:
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What type of rumors are allowed for submissions?
As our guidelines dictate, we want rumors from credible sources. And that's exactly what we want. The problem is that many people don't realize that a credible source means that it has to have substance and it has to be from a source that is named and known. Furthermore, many people have been using speculation in place of rumor. There is a difference.
So, to clarify: Rumors must name their "inside" source for the rumor. Citing an unnamed source is not credible and will result in a failure of a submission. Furthermore, named sources must be posted in the article itself. We do not accept proof of the credibility of rumors via e-mail or PM. Rumors must also not be based on someone's opinion of what may or may not happen, that's what we call speculation. Even if it's the opinion of an insider, that's still just their opinion.
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Rumors/news based on job listings, are they allowed?
No longer will they be allowed. For too long we've allowed this to turn into a method for people to create speculative submissions based on job listings that may or may not get filled, may or may not be asking for things that may or may not ever get utilized, and truly aren't useful indicators on how any skill or the like will be utilized or what games it will impact.
Originally we allowed it because it was a "once in a while" thing for very notable inclusions in the job skills area. Things that truly popped out and made you wonder what the company who was filling the position would be doing. But, over time, it became something that was abused to make links to things that were truly out there. It became just another form of speculation-based pandering.
While it can be seen as a heavy handed approach, it is apparent that defining what is speculation and what is not is something that content creators and N4G will never agree upon, so we have decided to make this easier to handle by outright not allowing them. Does this affect a very few number of submissions that are credible? Yes, but it also prevents a much greater flow of speculative submissions that have little to no foundation or credibility as rumors.
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Submissions from Kickstarter or similar crowdfunding sites, are they allowed?
As of today, the strict answer is no. We've always had the rule that links to any page that is live (meaning it gets updated over time) is not allowed. We've also had the rule that links to self-promotion pages are not allowed because you're really just linking to advertisement and not news. But, we allowed linking to certain Kickstarter updates if they were free of self-promotion, such as development updates once a Kickstarter was funded and the developers were merely giving an update on the development of the game.
The problem we had was another one in communication, though. People have begun to instead link to every update that includes just a little bit of news (such as meeting a new stretch goal), but was then otherwise comprised entirely of self-promotion elements. We've tried to explain the difference in posts to contributors in the past, and we obviously have failed on that. Much like above, we are making the decision that it's easier to not allow any such posts going forward than to deal with the miscommunication of what is acceptable and what isn't.
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So, for today, those are the items I wanted to touch upon and make sure everyone was aware of the changes and specifications to those specific items. If you ever have a question about a submission, please do not hesitate to submit a ticket to the moderation team: http://n4g.com/tickets/
Thank you,
Christopher Goodno
N4G Admin & Community Manager
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
'What type of rumors are allowed for submissions? '
Wasn't it two / three weeks ago no name blog citing some more than obscure South American website that 'PES wasn't coming out this year.'
Despite multiple articles confirmed by Konmai in which they discussed their plans for the future game. And low and behold a teaser trailer was uploaded yesterday.
Just one example but this sort of 'coverage' is quite endemic and its nice to see something is being done about it.
Nice. This should cut down on some of the BS we're forced to wade through on a the regular. It won't get rid of all the crap, but it's a good start.
Oh thank the good gaming lords that the rumour articles are going to be more thoroughly weeded out.
But, as usual, the biggest problem here are the people that just approve stuff all willy nilly. Too bad you can't make a rule for clickbait/keyword titles and list articles. Tired of seeing "*insert console*'s exclusive title *insert game here* gets gloriously hilarious new screenshots" or "Top 300 games with the best grass texture" with each game listed on its own page with a sentence long description.
But I guess you can't moderate thoroughness. Maybe you should make an approval contest where your approval rating for the month is measured and if it's shown you approve actual news as opposed to garbage like list articles, you have a chance to win a $25 Steam gift card or something.
Normally I would take issue with the named source clause, but for gaming news, I actually have to agree. Unnamed sources are nothing new in journalism, but sources have to be confirmed, and they rarely are.
Anyhow, the reason I mention this is I believe NeoGaf does some sort of confirmation if people want to be considered an inside source. Would confirmed, unnamed sources still be allowed to be posted? Ideally we'd want the actual information the source provided to be confirmed, but that's practically impossible in the gaming industry, and gaming journalist don't exactly go the extra mile(or even go beyond the first step) before throwing their articles on the web.
I know it's rare that these sources provide anything of value, but sometimes they do, kind of like pre-X1 reveal...but then again, that could have been just speculation based on several different sources and a flub by one individual.
The other two I agree with. Job listings are generally pretty vague with most things being more PR/technical terms which don't directly relate to the actual articles that get written about them, and Kickstarters should make more effort in their advertising, because I believe it shows commitment to the project.