Recently, a fellow writer reached out to me and expressed concern towards the emergence of this blog. As the writer explained, there are several factors with my writing that brought about suspicion: I cite too much, I have factual errors, I cite obscure works of academia, I cite social media posts, and above all, this blog has come from seemingly “nowhere.” For this writer—who also writes about obscure JRPGs—Ogre Run comes across as capitalizing on a rather niche interest to make money. They ultimately claimed that I must have been using Chat GPT to create incorrect sources to give my writing an air of legitimacy when in truth, I am spreading misinformation.
While I was struck by the claim, I also empathized with the writer. For worse, companies have forcibly injected A.I. into every facet of life so that the technology seems nigh inescapable. Furthermore, where did Ogre Run come from? Why have I not been published elsewhere? Why do I seemingly not have a digital footprint? News publications are currently grappling with this issue of unknown writers using A.I. to pitch false stories. Earlier this May, the Chicago Sun-Times published a Summer reading list that contained made-up books written by real authors, including a supposed “The Rainmakers” by Percival Everett.[1] In November, Nicholas Hune-Brown—the executive editor of The Local—reported that they had received a promising pitch from a Victoria Goldiee. Hune-Brown was particularly struck by Goldiee’s resume of publications, writing, “What set the pitch apart from other emails suggesting similar stories was the amount of reporting the author had already done, as well as her collection of bylines.”[2] Yet when Hune-Brown investigated Goldiee’s earlier publications, what they instead found were fabrications. The sources that Goldiee had claimed to have spoken to had never heard of this person and Goldiee had also not been published in all the outlets they said they were.
Am I a Victoria Goldiee? Am I using A.I. to create false citations? No.
As I also expressed to the writer, I am baffled by the idea that someone would spend time and effort to write about a genre whose games take so long to complete and then spend more time writing lengthy articles on relatively unknown games in an effort to make money on Patreon. If Ogre Run were a company, considering the costs of buying a WordPress domain and subscription, and the research materials that I have already bought, then it would be firmly in the red.
Here are two such examples. In my review of Oreshika, I cite an interview with the developers of Metal Max. I initially learned about this interview because Shmuplations had translated it, and while I completely trust the accuracy of Shmuplations’ work, it was also important to double-check it for myself (https://shmuplations.com/metalmax/). Thankfully, Shmuplations provides a source for the interview so it was only a matter of purchasing a copy of Roleplaying Gameside #1 which is available digitally on BookWalker (https://bookwalker.jp/deb84f664c-43ad-4b2e-8cdb-034dcd06b77c/) for 1,047 yen or roughly $6.69. That is $6.69 for a single citation that pertains to a minor point but one that I felt was important enough to properly include.
In my review of Gunparade March, I discuss the role that Dengeki PlayStation had in popularizing the game and I include images from the relevant issue that I purchased and scanned myself. As far as I’m aware, issue 154 of Dengeki Playstation is not available on the Internet Archive or anywhere else online. Once again, this is money I paid out of my own pocket. As of this writing, I have no subscribers to Patreon and my audience is extremely small. My article on Gunparade March has been viewed 148 times while my article on OreShika has been viewed 14 times. While it would be nice to recoup the costs of some of these magazines through reader support, I ultimately keep this blog as a hobby.
There was also suspicion as to how I’m able to cite specific pages. There is no mysticism about this answer. I’m a voracious reader but above all, I take extensive notes that I can quickly refer back to for reference. For example, here are my notes for portions of Björn-Ole Kamm’s Role-Playing Games of Japan: Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-50953-8).
Here are notes I’ve kept for Technopolis magazine which is available to read on Internet Archive (https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22%E3%83%86%E3%82%AF%E3%83%8E%E3%83%9D%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%22).
I will not bother listing the dozens and dozens worth of pages of notes that I keep. The point here is that such extensive note keeping makes citing all the much easier.
I don’t believe this will be the final time such accusations will be made against me. For the sake of transparency, I am including the lengthy exchange I’ve had with the writer below. Information pertaining to their identity has been redacted in order to protect their privacy.
From [REDACTED]
Hi, just reaching out since I saw you follow me on your blog. I was reading through your posts and it seemed like you’re heavily using AI; the amount of over-sourcing is weird, and many times when I follow the sources you seem to have made up quotes or references entirely. There are also really basic factual errors that indicate no research / checking was done despite how hyper-specific your knowledge of other subjects to me.
Given the fact you are also pushing a patreon, it seems kind of like to me that you are trying to use chat GPT to enter this space and make a buck. Which is a bit strange since these subjects are so unpopular. But I wanted to double-check and see what you had to say on this matter.
Particularly, you cite my blog and link my [REDACTED GAME X] post as an example text. Could you tell me what you liked about the post, where you found it, etc?
Thanks for reading and hope to have a fun chat.
To [REDACTED]
Thank you for reaching out. I stumbled on your blog some time ago and have enjoyed your writing.
I am not using A.I. to write. I am sourcing because it’s common practice in academia, especially if I am referring to another person’s specific argument or referencing a historical detail. This allows curious readers to fact check while also providing further reading. If you are claiming that I have incorrect sources, especially on interview subjects, then I would ask that you tell me what is incorrect so that I may also double-check it myself. If there are factual errors, then please also let me know what you believe those are to be.
Regarding your claim, I have never cited your [REDACTED GAME X] post in my writing. However, on my blog roll where I provide a link to similar blogs, I link to your review of [REDACTED GAME Z], a series which I also enjoy. Considering that [REDACTED GAME Z] has no translation, I think your post is great for fans of the series looking to learn more about the game. Now, I don’t have any recollection as to how I found your blog, but I imagine it was through learning about a game, searching for it on Google, and then finding your site. According to a search of “[BLOG NAME]” in my browser history, I first visited your review of [REDACTED GAME Y], and your blog is the first result on Google when searching “[REDACTED GAME Y].”
As you mention, this is a very small space. I began this blog to especially write about JRPGs that I enjoy that, for one reason or another, have not generated much discussion in English. Yes, I do have a Patreon, but I have no expectation of actually generating any significant amount of cash. If I were trying to make a “quick buck,” it would be quite odd to spend time playing these games that consume so much effort, spend more time writing articles that frankly very few people are actually reading, and then spend even more time posting on social media.
I hope you find these answers to your satisfaction.
Best,
Ogre Run
From [REDACTED]
I see; it’s true, I was trying to bait an incorrect response to [REDACTED GAME X]. Well, apologies if the AI accusations are totally unfounded and rude. In this era of AI technology being new it can easily induce paranoia, which I may myself fall prey to.
Anyway, I was reading these:
And I will list what stuck out to me.
1) “With Microsoft entering the console market, such feelings would only worsen as they introduced PC Western RPGs such as The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Bethesda Game Studios, 2002), Jade Empire (BioWare, 2005), and Mass Effect (Bioware, 2007)”
You list Jade Empire, a game that was initially an xbox exclusive, as a “PC RPG.”
2) “During the 1998 holiday season, Squaresoft alone released Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Brave Fencer Musashi, Final Fantasy Tactics, and SaGa Frontier.”
These games came out like a year apart and definitely not all in a holiday season.
3) “However, since then, JRPGs have exponentially grown in popularity with titles of formerly niche franchises like Persona 5 (Atlus, 2016), Nier: Automata (Platinum Games, 2017), and Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, 2020) firmly entering the gaming mainstream as a result of strong sales.”
It is fairly weird to suggest that Persona was niche before Persona 5, or that Yakuza was niche before Like a Dragon.
4) “Japanese developers would begin to take note of Western tastes, culminating in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy looking towards the likes of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios, 2006), Mass Effect, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward, 2007)”.
You cite an interview with Square Enix developers, but none reference Call of Duty; it seems they mention western FPS, then you extrapolated Call of Duty and framed it as if it was part of the source rather than an inference.
5) “It did not help then that on a recent trip to Japan, members of Sandfall met with Square Enix, sparking rumors online that Sandfall would be developing a Final Fantasy game.”
You again make a claim that links an article that does not back up the claim. The linked article doesn’t mention any rumors about Sandfall making a FF. And as far as I remember of those rumors, it was more mockery about Sandfall teaching SE how to make games again, not anything about Sandfall making the next FF.
6) Why exactly do you include an image of the Portrait of Émile Zola where you do? It feels a bit random.
7) What exactly inspired you to write a scholarly analysis of some casual bluesky posts made by essentially some random guy? It feels quite out of place.
8) “But as Jim Malazita argues, Unreal’s capability for photorealism, “…traffics in multiple kinds of white vision and authority.””
This seems like a pretty massive thing to just drop and cite a reference to before mostly brushing past the racial implications of in the middle of this essay.
9) The citation to Foucault at the end caught me off guard. I’ve mostly never in decades in this space seen so many citations, because people are writing for fun and exhaustive citations are not usually fun, and much less seen anyone feel the need to cite whichever philosopher they were obliquely referencing down to a specific page. Meanwhile, ChatGPT lately is known for over-citing things since it can recollect exactly where it picked up any given text.
10) You cite Angeline Era as a JRPG when I can’t imagine anyone I know considering that game a JRPG. It’s an action-adventure game that doesn’t describe itself as a JRPG or have any JRPG trappings.
11) The article as a whole doesn’t seem to have a final conclusory thrust; it just kind of builds up for a while then tapers off. To be fair, that might just be randomly mean criticism, but I mean to say that an apparent lack of interest in deeply understanding something then conveying that understanding. It just kind of gestures at a popular topic then stops.
All in all, there were many issues of a nature I have almost never seen before. From my perspective, it seems like there are two options here: someone with an academic background with extremely niche knowledge (like a seemingly photographic memory of obscure articles from defunct magazines like 360) suddenly appears to write articles while misusing citations and getting facts wrong, OR someone is using AI to assist their writing while pushing a patreon.
In general I don’t mean to witch hunt and I apologize if any of this is rude or completely misguided, but as AI develops I feel particular importance for identifying and understanding how it will shape society around it, so a like half-fake GPT-powered obscure JRPG blog would be of particular interest to me, and your blog was a crazy read to me for that reason.
Thanks for reading.
To [REDACTED]
Yes, while I understand your feelings, this accusation is still incredibly rude. While I think there are fair points that you bring up and that I will work on to improve my blog, these are ultimately quibbles that should not be associated with A.I. You may find my responses attached below.
1) The larger point is that Microsoft were popularizing a style of RPG on consoles that had been exclusive to PC games with Bioware being part of that lineage.
2) This point is in regards towards localization dates. While Final Fantasy Tactics and SaGa Frontier were localized during the first quarter of 1998, the other titles were released between October through November. Even then Square sought to market the games together, hence the magazine spread that accompanies this claim in which all referenced titles are featured. On this point, I can reword this sentence to be clearer.
3) Persona and Yakuza have always had strong fanbases, but Persona 5, alongside Yakuza 0 and Like a Dragon popularized both franchises to a previously unseen extent. Yes, Persona 4 and its associated media in particular sold extremely well, which certainly helped push the franchise’s popularity. The larger point is that there was a specific time frame where all these franchises released new games that could be seen as a turning point for the genre.
4) You are correct here. This was part of a series of interviews the PlayStation Blog held with the Final Fantasy XIII team. The correct citation should have been to the interview published 4 days prior (https://blog.playstation.com/archive/2010/02/08/an-interview-with-final-fantasy-xiiis-kitase-and-toriyama/). Here’s the question and answer for the citation:
- What are your feelings about the current state of the game industry in Japan, compared with the West and what Western games have you been most influenced by?
Some people have been saying that the Japanese game industry is dead, and all that… I dunno. I will say that Final Fantasy XIII is one really epic title for high definition consoles. With this game, we are going to resurrect the whole thing. As for Western games that have influenced us — FPSs mostly. The Call of Duty series, for example.
5) The article is meant to cite that Sandfall visited Square. As for the subsequent rumors, these appeared on YouTube, Reddit, and other social media.
6) If you look in the background of the painting, you’ll see a portrait of Utagawa Kuniaki. The point here is to demonstrate that Clair Obscur is part of a longer lineage of French art inspired by Japan: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/emile-zola-713
7) The post was inspired by the discourse surrounding Clair Obscur and not Bogost—Bogost simply gave me a catchy title to use. Ian Bogost is not a “random guy.” Bogost was part of a wave of academic writing on games emerging in the early 2000s, having written Unit Operations in 2006 (https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/4393/Unit-OperationsAn-Approach-to-Videogame-Criticism) and Persuasive Games in 2007 (https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/4392/Persuasive-GamesThe-Expressive-Power-of-Videogames).
8) Yes, you’re right. In fact, that same point you bring up is part of Malizita’s thesis in that specific chapter. If this particular section was writing for a serious academic journal, I would pause here to discuss the context of Malazita’s argument especially since there are ways that I think it can be relevant to the discussion at hand. But the editorial decision I made was that no one would care to read a 2 page literature review discussing Unreal Engine at this point in the article. However, I will have future articles that will entirely center on reviewing and discussing academic texts. This was just not the space for it.
9) I don’t understand how citing a specific page is proof that this reference comes from A.I. This is the standard for the Chicago Manual Style which I am using here. This specific citation to Foucault is actually used by the academic Douglas Schules in their chapter “Creating Community in Persona 3: Japanese Role-Playing Games as Networked Practice,” which appears in Japanese Role-Playing Games edited by Rachael Hutchinson and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon, published by Bloomsbury in 2022 (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/japanese-roleplaying-games-9781978758216/) . However, I am not citing Schules’ argument for Persona 3, but rather Foucault’s concept of discourse as it relates to discussions surrounding Expedition 33. So while Schules made me aware of the argument, I still had to follow his bibliographic citation to find the book and read the chapter myself.
10) Considering Angeline Era takes influence from Ys, I think it can be placed in discussion with JRPGs. The larger point here is that it represents a modern direction for the genre to take. Recently, the developers themselves have commented on classifying the game: https://bsky.app/profile/angelineera.bsky.social/post/3mahqidzsas2m. I think the following quote from Dara Neko Games who developed The Use of Life is relevant here: “A “Good-New” Type of JRPG
While this title is technically a JRPG, we are not aiming for a “good old JRPG” style, but rather a “good ‘new’ JRPG” style, in hopes of showing that this kind of evolution is absolutely possible.” (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1483370/The_Use_of_Life/)
11) The thrust here is that if people believe Clair Obscur is the “future” of JRPGs, it comes at the cost of ignoring titles that have been experimenting within the genre for decades, hence the reference to Unlimited SaGa and Dragon Quarter.
I don’t have photographic memory. I know that citation to the 360 magazine, because I am working on what I would like to be a longer series on Final Fantasy 13 and so I have begun to collect material. If you have access to ProQuest, you can search for the article yourself: “Final Fantasy XIII: Could Final Fantasy XIII Finally Transform the JRPG?” 2010.360, Jan 01, 56-57. I have also attached a screenshot of the magazine spread. Most of my citations are coming from articles, books, and other materials that I have read and taken notes on so it’s just a matter of being organized when I write.
Once again, as you’re clearly aware, these are very niche topics and considering the length of my writing and approach, there is no way for this blog, especially with the current internet climate, to ever become popular. I cannot think of a worse way to make money on Patreon than by writing a 5,000 word essay on Gunparade March. I was inspired to take up this blog both by my interests and the very blogs you see linked in the blog roll, including yours.
Best,
Ogre Run
From [REDACTED]
Out of curiosity, why did the font in your reply change between the start and end?
Well, I hope you can forgive my rudeness, because your blog is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Your responses here also are a bit strange.
1 – You may have a larger point, but there was a factual inaccuracy which I was highlighting… or rather something really weird.
2 – Even if you were talking about localization dates, 2 of those 4 games were not released in the holiday window. So your claim was 50% wrong.
3 – You say a specific time frame, but we’re talking a period of 4 years,and two of those series were pretty popular already. I’m not even sure Yakuza Like a Dragon was actually that much of a breakout hit; this is something I may be incorrect about, but I don’t think it sold amazingly higher than Yakuza 0 for example.
5 – I think the citation should have been placed everywhere if it was meant to talk about the rumors, and again I don’t really think there were rumors of Sandfall making the next FF. Maybe a couple of people mentioned it but nobody took it seriously so it’s weird to see it framed as if it’s a serious thing in this article. It should say that it sparked mockery of SE being inferior to those visiting them.
6 – Why did you not explain the point behind the portrait whatsoever? Usually someone wouldn’t include something that specific without some kind of explanation or note.
7 – For all intents and purposes, Ian Bogost is a random guy… I’ve never seen any other video game blogger particularly reference him or his bluesky. What I am familiar with is that chatgpt likes to cite twitter and bluesky threads academically even though almost every human ignores them or doesn’t take them seriously outside of when they specifically make articles on viral tweets.
8 – What do you mean “the same point I brought up was in Malizita’s thesis?” I just said it was weird to bring that up then not explore it. I don’t think Malizita’s thesis was anything to do with bringing up his own work then not exploring it.
9 – Yeah, like, I’ve never met another human being who has ever heard of or cited this book before. Randomly citing Foucault is very unusual; not only citing Foucault but drawing it into a parallel with some book is almost insane, and I specifically know people who studied game design in college and those who fancy themselves academics to the point of trying to mimic them in their posts. I’ve never seen anything like this, ever. You would be the most well-read person with the best memory for specifics I’ve ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE. Which may be true, just trying to emphasize the weirdness here.
10 – The tweet you link here justifying calling Angeline Era a JRPG includes the developer saying they do not consider it a JRPG. In fact they say multiple times it is not an RPG.
All in all I continue to find your response strange here. It continues to seem somewhat like AI-fueled argumentation. However, last night I think I got ahead of myself and should have been more cautious in terms of rudeness. I sincerely apologize for not more carefully exploring my issues and points before issuing such an accusation. I am interested in your replies to my points above.
To [REDACTED]
This will be my last response to this matter. These points come across as bad-faith readings in an effort to discredit me and your caution is slipping into paranoia. I have given you what I find to be ample responses and time but I cannot sit here trying to convince you. You are welcome to think I have poor citation or writing. I will not bother responding to every point.
The font is different as I am writing these responses in a Word document and then pasting them into the body of the text which I then double-check and edit. This has been written in Word, specifically Times New Roman 12 which becomes 16 when pasted in.
This has been written in Proton Mail which defaults to Arial 14.
1 – 5) Most of this hinges on your opinion. I have given explanations for my reasoning.
6) There is in fact a note on this point: “As Mia Consalvo argues, such maneuvers predate the video game industry and can be traced back to the late 19th century Japonisme movement in which Western art drew influence from Japan.” I have also provided the title of the painting for readers to search for themselves if they wanted to read further on the matter.
7) For all intents and purposes, Ian Bogost is not a random guy. You were given an explanation as to who he is, I cite his actual work in that same paragraph you’re so suspicious of, and I think it’s clear why I bring it up. On my own timeline, I saw many responses to Bogost. You can see the list of quotes here: https://bsky.app/profile/ibogost.com/post/3m7ap5o5was2w/quotes. Here’s Autumn Wright quoting Bogost with a citation from Edward Said’s Orientalism: https://bsky.app/profile/theautumnwright.bsky.social/post/3m7avrmvvfs2y
8) I think I explained this clearly enough.
9) I don’t know what your experience with people who studied game design in college have to do with who I am or my writing style. You were given a clear reason why I brought up Foucault, including the specific source of inspiration that you could go look for yourself.
10) I think I explained this clearly enough.
If you are worried about being associated with me, then out of respect towards you, I have removed your blog from my list of recommended reading. I hope you enjoy your holidays and have a happy new year.
Best,
Ogre Run
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blair, Elizabeth. “How an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapers.” NPR. May 20, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai
Hune-Brown, Nicholas. “Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era.” The Local. November 19, 2025. https://thelocal.to/investigating-scam-journalism-ai/.
ENDNOTES
[1]Elizabeth Blair, “How an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapers,” NPR, May 20, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai
[2] Nicholas Hune-Brown, “Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era,” The Local, November 19, 2025, https://thelocal.to/investigating-scam-journalism-ai/.