Newell, Author Comment on Fake Half-Life 2 Interview

"Internet gaming journalism is based on one principle: If it's on a website, it must be true!"

-Directrix, NerdsAhoy



Directrix is in a good position to make this statement. On the afternoon of Sept. 1, he put a now-infamous fake interview with Gabe Newell up on his site. He posted a link to the article on the SomethingAwful forums, and set off an absolute firestorm of linking from sites large and small, some of which handled it skeptically, and some of which did not.



Directrix said he never intended for anyone to believe the interview. "I'm not sure if you're familiar with those forums [at SomethingAwful]," he said, "but it is a humor site. In my opinion the people who post there are much more intelligent than what you would find in your average forum, so I didn't expect anyone to buy it. It was basically me sarcastically poking fun at the fact that any rumor, no matter how insane, can pop up on the Internet and people will believe it.... Or not believe it, and argue about it for pages on end."



Planet Half-Life, a member of the GameSpy network, was one of the sites that didn't totally believe it. Their post about the interview indicated that, "it could very well be a fake," but justified its own existence by explaining that "there's already a ton of inaccurate information out there."



Kevin Bowen (a.k.a "Fragmaster"), Planet Half-Life's manager, said he doesn't regret running the story. "It was a better than average fake and the answers were somewhat amusing," he said. "We were pretty sure it was fraudulent from the start and we indicated so in the post. A lot of other sites were fooled and there's a whole bunch of other false information out there, so we wanted to give it some sort of mention to acknowledge its existence and point out that it was bogus."



But Directrix notes that, while PlanetHalfLife handled the matter skeptically, they "wouldn't take an official stance on whether the interview was real or fake until [Valve Founder/Managing Director] Gabe [Newell] himself confirmed it. They should never have even posted it."



Newell confirmed that he was contacted by numerous web sites about the article, and said he felt such direct confirmation was a good way to prevent such things from happening in the future. Newell added that he didn't feel any malice towards Directrix or those that linked to his story. "It's the kind of thing that happens all the time on the Internet," Newell said.



Directrix, however, said he wasn't contacted by any web sites seeking to confirm the veracity of his article. "I was never contacted by anyone who could string a complete sentence together," Directrix said. He acknowledged that some of the people who linked to the article may have been in on the joke, but said the problem then was "that their audience apparently cannot distinguish between fact and sarcastic humor."



Directrix said that other web journalists could learn a lesson from the saga of his article. "Don't trust one source for your information," he said, "especially a website that no one has ever heard of before." He wasn't very optimistic about the chances his advice would be followed, though. "The same thing could happen tomorrow and nothing would turn out differently... The only thing I've learned from this is that it's amusing to sit back and watch it take place. Kind of like watching Sea Monkeys eat each other, except you don't have to change the water."