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Famitsu Boss Talks Future Of Game Magazines
Thanks to Video-Fenky for translating a Japanese editorial from Famitsu Magazine discussing the future of videogame magazines, as Enterbrain president Hirokazu Hamamura muses: "With the Internet as widespread as it is, many people don't think we need game magazines at all -- after all, you can get the latest information right on the Net." But he argues for the "...real charm of your basic [paper-based] magazine news feature: it takes plain old news and turns it into something you don't mind sitting down and reading for a long time." He also suggests that game reviewers have to contend with much more targeted genres, suggesting: "The marketing tactics behind narrowing down target audiences [for specific games] will become the first step in game creation, not the last... Once that happens, game reviews based on the likes and dislikes of the reviewer will become meaningless."
I predict you will get +5 Informative for having a medium-sized, properly formatted post at the top of the comments, despite only saying what Famitsu is and summarizing the article.
You're right, though, it is a beautifully written article.
As for reviewing games... what really matters is being able to express what the game is like, not just giving it a number. Personally, I despise load times, I place a lot of emphasis on sound, I enjoy exploring and collecting things, I like a challenge, and I love surreal themes - these are preferences which I probably won't have in common with any given reviewer, but which will greatly affect my experience with a game. I think the best kind of reviewer is one who is good at seeing what a game is trying to do, and how well it accomplishes it.
The biggest problem with paper gaming magazines is their amount of time between an article being written and actually being published. If they want to keep their audience, then reviews need to appear before the game is actually released to the public. Being online is the only way that this can be viable. But who really wants to read through an entire magazine online? Not many, but I doubt that most people read gaming mags cover to cover anyways. Especially when the reviews have been online long before the magazine hit the newstand.
The latency issue is really a non-issue for anyone with a decent connect. I just tried Gamespot, and my estimation is that flipping from page 1 of an article, to page 2 took less than 1 second. There are occasionally times where going from one page to another might take 1.5 seconds, but it seems pretty rare. I've got a decent DSL connection (1.2mb) but nothing spectacular. In fact, some of the stories in magazines have have huge latency issues- like 30 days or so.
As far as organization is concerned, if I am reading through the magazine, if I see an article for another game, I may have to dig through a few issues to find the review. On the web, I can just go to the 'reviews' section, and they are all right there.
I still like the magazines though, because I get to lie on my bed, and relax while I read it. And, I end up reading stuff I wouldn't read on the web- like reviews for games that don't even run on the console I have.
Magazines are still good- but I don't like them because of the lack of latency, and better organization...
No reason to lie.
And that's plagiarism how? I see no phrase that appears in both. Yes, they both hate the fighting, for the same reason. That is not sufficient grounds for plagiarism. None of the distinctive phrases ("camera flailing") get copied.