Video Game Journalism

Just making a centralized thread for this so we don't need to create a thousand little threads every time something relevant in the field of gaming journalism crops up in the news.

So, as a starter, what do you think of the state of gaming journalism? What do you like about it and what do you think can be improved?

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MIND BULLETS

I like Giant Bomb's Quick Looks. They really give you an insight to what the game's about, and how they play, better than most reviews out there.

You got some dirt on you. Here's some more!

Although some of IGN's actual reviews are mediocre(or biased as hell), I do like a lot of their Previews. Good information, and actually some decent beta screenshots.

Unseen64 has nice beta information too, although I don't think they'd count as Journalism.

...It's weird having so many websites and no way to properly display now, lol.

Now apparently, Microsoft is using gaming journalism as a scapegoat for the ONE's bad showcase.

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The entire thing is built on a massive conflict of interest. The idea that these sites thrive on on hits and ad money, which is supplied by games publishers rather than a neutral source of advertisements, means that commentary is utterly biased even if these writers tell you otherwise.

A writer will never write anything negative or critical if it puts their job on the line, and boy will it, because any negative review of a game that publishers are hyping up will cause said publishers to withdraw ad support or exclusive access to previews which is something that review sites absolutely need to survive. And as long as reviewers get money from ad revenue and hits then all their other articles will be typically inflammatory and deliberately designed to bait as many people as possible which is why you get all those awful articles on sites like Kotaku that are just insulting and condescending.

As long as that dependency between games journalists and game publishers exists we'll never get anything remotely close to actual journalism outside of amateurs or fansites who blog about it in their spare time.

The best places I go to find out if a game is good are online communities like this place and others.

As for how it can be improved, I'm not sure how to improve it on a level that is practical to implement. They need ad support from outside the system (e.g. ads for films, comics, shows etc) but I don't see this happening. All I can say is that on our end we need to stop linking to articles we hate and to ignore review sites that we disagree with entirely because going onto IGN's review of [Game] and bitching about how wrong they are just gives them money.

Maybe the reform could come from the online community reaching a massive consensus to stop demanding early access and preview content because publishers can attempt to buy any commentator over by controlling who gets to see their stuff before Day One.

It's the same as any other news media; it's all about sensationalism so that people are so riled up that they come in droves to read it, which gives the site more hits and ad revenue.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.

You hit the nail right on the head with my issues with it, regarding the ads and conflict of interest.

edited 26th May '13 9:34:52 PM by 0dd1

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I have not been too particularly impressed with the few gaming journalists I have come into contact with, that is for sure. Though I do not know many journalists at all, so it's possible my issues are a symptom of journalists as a whole rather than a reflection on this branch specifically.

There's only one I've ever actually had the displeasure of speaking with, but I suppose that talking about that would be constituted as gravedancing. And I'm sure he's not a representative sample. I hope.

edited 26th May '13 9:45:23 PM by 0dd1

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I still get Game Informer mostly because I don't pay that much attention to game industry news and it will often have interesting articles. I do not completely trust their previews/reviews, but at least I get some exposure to the titles and learn about various games.

Yu hav nat sein bod speeling unntil know. (cacke four undersandig tis)the cake is a lie!

As said before, there is a massive conflict of self-interest. I'd actually blame a bit of it on the consumer too; too many people get up in arms over "low" review scores and bad reviews, and you won't get any more hits for a big game with a bad review than a good review since everybody's going to be checking on that game review anyway. Therefore, reviewers have no real reason to give bad reviews UNLESS the game is something that is clearly going to be hammered by anyone anyway (See Aliens Colonial Marines).

I think the only games journalism I legitimately enjoy is Erik Kain's forbes column. He tends to be very in-depth in his reviews, he promotes a lot of less-known games in addition to well-known ones, and he has a great grasp of what makes games entertaining to my sort of demographic. Even then, you still have to slog through what is essentially a blog with a bunch of chaff about the newest shiny talking points.

edited 26th May '13 11:34:13 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

I think that in the end most big publication game reviews should be treated as a form of entertainment separate from the games themselves, since even writers with monumental biases often still have distinctive and entertaining styles.

Want to know if a game is worth your 60 bucks? Watch gameplay footage.

The sorry state of games journalism is a symptom of the overall condition of gaming. The mainstream still sees it as the domain of basement dwelling man children, so the big companies that aren't directly involved in the industry want to keep their hands off it. Once you fix that, then you can fix the journalistic side. Until then, boycotts aren't going to do a damn thing except completely kill the professional journalism side, what there is of it.

Want to fix it? Start by getting real female characters on an equal footing with male ones. And gang up and destroy the gaming lives of those idiots who chase women away from games. "Try living what you give, jackass! Not so fun now, is it?"

Oi! we have a "bitching about females and games thread". Take your righteous indignation there.

Boycotts don't do diddily dick; Massive flame wars get shit done. That's how Mass Effect 3 got a new ending.

MIND BULLETS

I'd say the state of game journalism is the same reason we get bullshit like founders packs and "betas" for games that amount to the company taking your money before the final release is even out.

Because gaming consumers are so obsessed with having knowledge and or an advantage of any nature over other players that we throw money at anyone who promises to give us that edge.

AND THEN EVERYTHING WOULD BE FIXED AND EVERYONE WOULD BE HAPPY, PEOPLE FROM EVERY WALK OF LIFE WOULD VISIT GAMING SITES AND NEVER EVER WOULD THERE BE GAME JOURNALISTIC CONFLICTS EVER AGAIN. Also world peace [citation needed]

I agree periphery demographics would help at least broaden the advertisement possibilities but it still requires that those demographics actually visit the sites in the first place, in numbers large enough that it actually makes marketing sense outside of what i assume is the main pull to those sites (males 18-25 or something?). It's a vast oversimplification of the issue to think "FEMALE MC'S, DESTROY THOSE YOU FIND UNWORTHY, GARME JURNALIZM FIXED"

I guess this is probably beyond most people here, but does anyone even know the business reasons why the major gaming sites usually get so many ads from publishers (beyond just rampant speculation of course)? Is it because they do get so few hits/those hits are too narrow that only game publishers are willing to advertise on the sites, or is it because those publishers usually just outbid most of the competition and provide the most possible money. I know advertising for quite a bit of new media regardless of demographic makeup has been a bit spotty all over the place, but I don't personally know what it's like for places like an IGN or Gamespot

A monopoly of sensationalism.

I'd settle for fewer AAA games being given the spotlight, regardless of how biased the reviews are.

A flame war doesn't mean diddily dick without a real threat of "people not buying" behind it. Otherwise, we'd see another isometric perspective Fallout, a competitively designed Smash Bros, and Dead Space 3 would have been redesigned into a game more akin to the first two.

Mass Effect 3's ending was changed because there was an overwhelming dislike of it among the people who were usually guaranteed to buy Mass Effect. The changed ending was effectively damage control to protect the brand so that Mass Effect 4: The Quest for Moh Money will still have a guaranteed consumer-base.

Compare to the Xbox One. The internet has had a massive backlash against the system, yet I doubt Microsoft will really respond to the complaints because they believe they already have a guaranteed buyer base from people who don't care as much about games.

As for demographics, I'd blame games journalism's narrow focus rather than gaming's narrow focus (Since we're in the games journalism thread). The gaming demographic that reads about games is much, much smaller than the overall games demographic. The average age of a gamer may be 30, but I heavily doubt the 50 year olds playing Bejeweled on their tablets are going to care much about IGN. Therefore, games journalism tends to be written for the younger late teens to early twenties, and it does not really communicate to gamers outside that narrow demographic.

That's another thing: AAA games grab more hits and give much more advertising money. It's a win-win situation for websites, even if it doesn't benefit us plebians. I've noticed that gaming magazines (Yeah, they still exist) tend to focus less on AAA games because they just need a minimum of one on the cover picture to get sales.

edited 27th May '13 8:15:15 AM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

The thing you need to understand about most videogame journalists is that in most cases they're not actually journalists, in the professional sense - they're far closer to critics. Critics tend to have opinions, and just like everyone has an opinion, so do they have an ass.

Most of the folks who focus entirely upon reporting nothing but gaming news tend to be on the lower end of the gaming totem pole, and are sometimes very poor at it. They miss significant details, misinterpret their source material, clearly take a side/ show bias, or their articles are just too vague to give a good idea of what the actual story is.

The few that could be considered professional journalists (or at the very least, veteran writers) mostly do live up to the name, though. Seanbaby and some of the writers for Game Informer and such come to mind. They may pander to certain companies and titles, but that's either because of the company they're writing for or the fact that they're being sponsored to do so. And honestly, that's no different from what the majority of other magazines and websites do, ranging from beauty to gun magazines. You probably just don't realize it because your prime focus on gaming articles.

That being said, I'm surprised Jonah has yet to chirp in here, his view of the situation would be very good for the discussion.

That's because he's been suspended.

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

I stay as far away from the stuff as possible nowadays. Though I've been following Game Skinny for a while now.

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

It's like a Shallow Parody, except it's serious.

I mean, why the hell do we have psychiatrists and scientists trying to work out patterns between modern society and video gaming? Why can't we just have people going crazy with saying stuff like "Globalization is BAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDD!!!!!" and tell parents to do things themselves?

...Burn...