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- cross-posted to:
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“For quality games media, I continue to believe that the best form of stability is dedicated reader bases to remove reliance on funds, and a hybrid of direct reader funding and advertisements. If people want to keep reading quality content from full time professionals, they need to support it or lose it. That’s never been more critical than now.”
The games media outlets that have survived, except for Gamespot and IGN, have just about all switched to this model. It seems to be the only way it survives.
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Journalism at large is dangerously close to dying. People favour free click- and rage-bait headlines on Facebook over quality journalism. The latter can’t compete because quality costs money, while cheap quality articles oversaturate the market. AI only exacerbated the issue.
Which is why the free democratic world has to keep subsiding quality journalism that sticks to the facts. Sadly that‘s dying along with private newspapers because governments believe people just don‘t want it and it‘s not worth keeping. They treat it as entertainment and that‘s a huge problem because it‘s a pillar of democracy. Defunding it is dangerous.
As for games… well, there‘s plenty of ways and different mediums to consume games nowadays so it makes sense magazines are vanishing along with game events despite the medium being bigger than ever. Most of the older game news outlets have overstayed their welcome.
I think they’re almost kinda right.
I think these platforms need to adapt. They need to make short form, entertaining videos like The Washington Post or the break off with Dave Jorgenson called Local News International.
There is too much news for anyone to actually bother reading the long form articles that theyre used to having awfully agitating formats designed to get the reader to read the whole thing and scroll past ads.
Short form, entertaining, and factual is the best route. Do a little skit, explain the concept simply, bingo bango.
Getting my news from reddit or Lemmy led to the same problems, and neither actually gave me the news, so in the past couple of years, I have definitely budgeted for a news subscription as well.
If I had the money I’d definitely do the same, but for now I do RSS instead of link aggregator communities if I’m being serious about it. Takes some curation, but at the very least it’s not being run through a vote algorithm first.
Getting news off Lemmy is a shit-for-brains idea. It’s 70% bias saturated US politics links. I have no.idea how people keep lapping it up, but I hear that’s the culture of Americans being told what to believe and do based on their feeds.
You can block keywords, though, so if anyone posts any interesting news, you may even get to see it.
The problem was more that people are more likely to submit stories that continue to get you angry about the latest thing. It won’t be a deep investigative piece about the corporate interests that led to some strange move and hid some shady dealings; it will be a third or fourth article about the latest thing we all already know Trump did, but it adds like one detail and focuses on it. It’s easy to fall back on by default and think you need nothing else because it’s free and major events will get shared instantly.
click- and rage-bait headlines on Facebook over quality journalism
Gaming journalism has been overrun with that.
What I, and I think many people, want are trustworthy, knowledgable reviews.
I can’t trust any of the major publications. I trust a small handful of YouTubers who are giving me more of what I want than the entire professional industry.
Good riddance to any gar journalists who rate games on a 6/10 to 10/10 scale. I insinuated because sponsors, but fuck that.
The idea of ranking games on a numerical scale is inherently flawed. I suspect many publications still use it as a way to make nice with game publishers. Text that’s lukewarm can slap a 9/10 score on and a lot of people just jump over the review to the “objective” score.
There are still Youtubers out there motivated by the same engagement goals as gaming journalists. Both need you to click the link. With Youtubers, you can at least identify what games they like, and would know more about those specific type of games.
Not all YouTubers are quality. This is obvious. What I am saying is that I’ve found a mere handful who are quality and for my tastes they have replaced the entire legacy professional gaming journalistic media. Other people I’m sure can find similar YouTubers who cater to their tastes and opinions.
You even see it here. People will post “quality journalism” and then it gets attacked because its nuanced and doesnt extrapolate into extreme claims.
People are so used to the rage-bait and bad journalism that its hard for actual reporting to break through. As well as it takes 1000x more effort to gather the evidence and story for quality reporting. Its bad, we need to start supporting journalists through gov subsidies and donations.
Journalism at large died a while ago, gaming journalism has been an absolute joke for over a decade.
I have no respect for 99% of modern journalists, they just push 1%er propaganda and post mugshots while jerking themselves off as being self appointed “guardians of democracy.”
There are some who are trying to do some good and they have my utmost respect but they’re needles in haystacks.
I mean I’d like to be upset but honestly video game journalism has always been the lowest form of Journalism. Mostly it’s just pure propaganda and press releases from major game companies. 90 to 95% of Articles written by these game journalists were just useless fluff.
They were useful in the past as a magazine by the toilet really helped.
Maybe it’s because my experience with it goes well back into the print era, but very little of it is actual fact-finding capital “J” journalism, and even that part has only come on in the industry more recently. I’ve always put the games press in its proper buckets of “previews for access” and then game criticism. Quality for both varies, but I’m rarely disappointed when I stick to a publication I like (until the inevitable EIC churn, anyway).
Remember how Cyberpunk got hyped across the board? Not a single critical voice before launch (as far as I’ve heard). If that’s the “journalism” you’re providing, then I’m sure as hell not paying for it.
It’s hard to be critical of something that hasn’t been released yet. All anybody had to go off of were statements from the developers, until the product was actually released and people could get their hands on it.
That might be exactly part of why gaming journalism is irrelevant.
If the “news” about an upcoming game is just repeating developer hype, then it’s just useless noise. At that point the only thing that matters are reviews, and independent YouTubers are beating the professionals in quality and trustworthiness.
So what’s left? Actual dry industry news? I suppose some small amount of people care, but not enough to support the amount of gaming journalists out there.
PC Gamers’ review was titled “Cyberjank” and the reviewer got slated for it by overhyped fanboys.
Yup, I remember even back in the print era there was significant criticism about the relationships between games publishers and various magazines resulting in what was essentially advertising disguised as articles. Payment was either indirect (exclusive access to preview builds etc) or direct via in-magazine advertising. Can’t badmouth the big flagship game releases too much when EA just paid big bucks to advertise the very same title for the next view editions.
Very tiny outlets that try to do better should be supported.
Anecdotal, but I have never read a game review in my life that was from a journalist. It’s always been in forums, and lately some small youtubers. I want to hear from normal gamers, not people getting a paycheck for it.
YouTubers really are the way to go. For me, there’s no better way to see if I want to play a game than watching someone play it.
And for story games best played blind, I go by word of mouth.
Back in the late 90s-early 2000s the PCGamer magazine was actually worthwhile. It had reviewers who specialized in different genres and if read enough you could get a feel for their writing style and critical voice. The fact it was a monthly publication meant they weren’t racing to get a review out in the first 24 hours.
Nowadays it all seems like publications race to put reviews out online for relevance, and the reviewers often seem to have a disdain for video games and even if they don’t they aren’t genre experts.
I don’t like fighting games. My review of a fighting game would be trash. Yet major publications just pump out reviews by whoever.
Individual youtubers at least can develop a recognizable critical voice and stick more to genres they know and enjoy.
I’ve actually just renewed my subscription to PC Gamer, I read it on my tablet. A large part of that decision was to just help keep it alive because I feel it’s important. Future Publishing can get fucked though.
I feel it’s important
Genuinely, why?
Embargoes exist to prevent that race. Your fighting game problem has been solved by assigning fighting game reviews to the “fighting game guy” on hand, which is why you’ll see the same byline on games in the same genre from major outlets.
I‘d rather read a well articulated opinion that is embedded into a rich cultural context than some rambling from strangers. I know the former is hard to find (Eurogamer and RPS are good, but suffer from layoffs, too). The latter I only skim through to find things I might find distracting that were omitted by others.
The entire industry was flooded with mouthpieces for developer statements, and opinion piece hottakes. How many of those people does an industry really need? (Or more importantly: How many of those people can it financially support?)
As for reviews, they are for the most part similarly worthless and hard to trust. There’s about five YouTubers who I actually trust the opinions of, and I haven’t felt left out at all with that as the extent of my gaming journalism intake.
I can’t be certain, but I suspect a lot of gamers are completely burnt out on the professional gaming journalism industry.
Go to Steam page. Scroll to bottom. Filter out negative reviews. Read 5-10. Update filers to only show negative reviews. Read 5-10.
That’s never let me down when it comes to determining whether or not a game is one I’ll enjoy.
It would be difficult to measure if that was the case, but what does seem to be the case is that the old revenue model these outlets relied on just paid less and less over the years.
Most “reviewers” get a version of the game with infinite money and health to get through the game quickly and only talk about story and size.
I bet there’s bosses and quests that have a special place in our rage that these people just breezed through and they don’t remember them a single bit.
I’ve gotten release copies of games for review. Unless they have another secret tier of pressers, this is nonsense. If anything, review copies are more likely to have bugs that making completing the game harder.
Indie or AA and AAA?
Indie and AA.
The most I’ve heard about reviewers getting extra help is that they have a small tip sheet for the trickiest parts, and only sometimes. If they need extra help beyond that, they’re messaging their colleagues on Discord who are also under embargo.
Personally haven’t really read gaming journalism even before. If I want to see what score a game has, I’m much more likely to check How Long To Beat or Backloggd, where users rate games.
Or, as has been mentioned in this thread, Youtubers, if I want a singular subjective opinion as opposed to a “out of 5” or “out of 10” score which, admittedly can be tricky when different people have a different view on what each number should mean. For instance, a 5 (on a 10 scale), is average for me when I rate anime. But most of the anime community uses 7 as the average, so a 6.2 show on MyAnimeList, which you would think is above average, is actually below.
I’ve never remembered seeing quality video games journalism.
The tyypes that they’re describing as that always seemed hacky and liable to push very subjective opinions as facts.
Their scores almost always seemed wonky and part of that is probably because individual scores for something as complex as a game don’t really make sense. They rarely make sense for anything.
Instead what you want are scores in multiple areas with no single amalgamated score.
Anyhow, for the longest while video games journalism has been rife with controversy about pulling negative reviews for ad deals etc.
I think unfortunately written media is pretty much dying due to finances, and for video games, due to never being all that good in the first place.
The details I care about, like monetization, grind, and performance, are the details that most games journalists just completely skim over or they’ll glaze game companies while they perform awfully here.
My way of buying games is basically watching video reviews of someone playing and mostly ignoring their commentary to figure out those details for myself.
That and benchmarks of course… and figuring out whether they’re owned by the saudi government…
Anyways, yea, video content for games both makes more sense, and more money.
I can totally get this feeling for PC/consumer electronics hardware related articles and reviews, but for video games? Meh. I won’t cry.
Instead what you want are scores in multiple areas with no single amalgamated score.
Well, it’s definitely not what I want.
Understandable. I just feel like amalgamated scores tend not to truly reflect the subjective opinions of the reviewer as sometimes games are more or less than the sum of their parts, and then it doesn’t represent anything close to objectivity because it ignores that different people value different things more or less than others, therefore making this score not all that useful for them.
I can completely understand just wanting a quick score at a glance from a favourite review or outlet though.
I listen to podcasts featuring people who used to score games in that separated way for Gamespot, and it frequently led to scores that were out of sync with what the content of the review actually said. Plus, who’s to say if the visuals of Clair Obscur are better or worse than Hades II when they’ve got very different goals and art styles? And does it matter how high the visuals score for Bye, Sweet Carole is if they’re leaving a subpar review for the puzzles? That’s what the content of the review is for.
How grindy a game is or how it’s monetized often makes its way into a review. Publishers can get slimy around it though and turn the knobs to be more nefarious after the review period, which people can call them out for, but much like how lies spread faster than the truth, updates spread slower than initial reviews. What I’d personally like to see make its way into reviews are how much ownership the game actually grants. So many multiplayer modes are not designed to last, and no one, often times not even the people updating the features list on the Steam store page, care to mention if a game supports offline multiplayer like LAN. Some games blur the line, like Hitman, on just how offline their game and its content can be. That’s what I’m missing from review outlets.
But all of this has only been about reviews, and games media also breaks news. Real change has been happening by way of reporting on unionization and crunch. Harassers are being taken to court or otherwise removed from their position of power in their companies. Sometimes we can actually get real confirmation that absolutely nothing is happening with Bloodborne and no one should get their hopes up for anything anytime soon. All of that is valuable, too.
I listen to podcasts featuring people who used to score games in that separated way for Gamespot, and it frequently led to scores that were out of sync with what the content of the review actually said.
This is my point about why a single number doesnt make sense.
Things are not a simple sum of their parts.
Plus, who’s to say if the visuals of Clair Obscur are better or worse than Hades II when they’ve got very different goals and art styles?
Also in support of what I’m saying.
How grindy a game is or how it’s monetized often makes its way into a review.
Before I completely gave up on written reviews, I feel like it was increasingly obvious that reviewers were purposefully just glossing over painfully obvious mtxs and marketting dark patterns to the point I felt like they were clearly being influenced by the fear of losing special access to ignore what they knew games companies felt strongly about.
Some ex media org folks have talked about the politics internally that went into pressuring people not to acknowledge problems like this, though I don’t recall the name of any specific source. I feel like there was a large group that split up and some of them talked about it. I want to say Jim “Stephanie” Sterling (I believe thats how they title themselves) has talked about it, but I can’t quite recall.
Anyhow, I don’t think the knobs being cranked can be fully to blame as I don’t think that happens all that often because they dont even need to. It has happened a few times infamously though and devs regularly try to boil the frog in modern games
So many multiplayer modes are not designed to last, and no one, often times not even the people updating the features list on the Steam store page, care to mention if a game supports offline multiplayer like LAN. Some games blur the line, like Hitman, on just how offline their game and its content can be. That’s what I’m missing from review outlets.
Definitely true.
Feels like the sort of thing movements like StopKillingGames would hope regulation would solve. Id love to see like, a mandatory nutrition facts label on games dictating a minimum amount of time from launch the servers will be active, whether you can play without servers, etc etc.
Real change has been happening by way of reporting on unionization and crunch. Harassers are being taken to court or otherwise removed from their position of power in their companies.
True and good, but with current admin, I think we’re going to see a lot of these positive changes reverting as we come to realize that crime is legal for those affiliated and who bend the knee.
That’s because a lot of the reviews weren’t been read because they weren’t trustworthy, if you reviewed a game poorly (even if it deserved the poor review) the journalist wouldn’t be invited back to review the next game that studio put out or were still the publisher could blacklist you blocking you from potentially dozens of games every year. Nintendo do this all the time.
Those same outlets still review Nintendo games. They just review them late.
Nobody is stopping them from buying their own copy, and reviewing at release with an honest review.
Yeah but by then there would already be hundreds of reviews out.
I blame AI
deleted by creator
Special interest journalism is usually overrun by corporate interests and inflated reviews. Find someone who knows the history of the industry and was fired or left an organization for something like reporting a low review to search out integrity for individuals.
Back in like 2012, a gaming journalist would write an honest review of a game they tried or they would give an update on the industry or they would share interesting tips and info about certain games and franchises. The sites would be clean, maybe a couple of ads here and there, but the overall atmosphere is driven by genuine passion.
Today, you don’t get any of that. Instead you get an advertisement masquerading as an article. The reviews aren’t authentic, the updates are basically a part of marketing campaigns, and the info they give is there to push readers to buy something. The sites are all completely cluttered with ads, a lot of the articles are just AI slop, and the industry is driven by greed. Why would anybody go there anymore? Might as well just go see a youtube review or get the game and try it out yourself.
You have a much more optimistic memory of gaming review platforms than I do.
I remember getting several different magazines in the 90’s and they were always the same thing. Any “professional” journalist knows that their livelihood is based on selling games. Journalists have to strike a balance between their audience and publishers, which makes negative reviews incredibly rare.
It’s not just videogames. Music, movies, TV shows, books, comics, consumer products. Unkess you’re paying out the nose, reviews almost always have some sort of bias towards trying to sell things. I find the best opinions come from other sources: people I know personally, organic community discussions on the internet (though those are not immune to corporate influence), or when products are only mentioned in contexts where the author clearly will not benefit. For example, a journalist making a list of the top-10 games of all time putting Ocarina of Time on it is probably not incentives to do so… Unless Nintendo is trying to promote a re-release.
There was a brief period of time on the internet between the late 2000s and early 2010s where gaming journalism was genuinely decent because it was driven by passionate people who were trying to appeal to the gaming communities they were apart of. They were there to provide the community with good info and honest opinions first, and any money made was just a bonus. At some point, these priorities flipped, and internet journalism became job and then it became an industry that’s soulless, faceless, and driven by endless greed.
Yeah, it turns out people don’t like advertising pretending to be reviews.
Honestly surprised anyone who could claim to be a journalist was left in that advertising front of an industry
Their game reviews are worth shit all, so their only worth is reporting on the game industry itself. And that’s a niche area that not many people are interested in.
Shout-out to Nextlander and Giantbomb for keeping gaming journalism alive.
They don’t need humans to write the engagement slop articles anymore.
