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Becoming A Casual Gamer
GamerDad writes "Part one of the Going Casual article series asks 'What happens when a hardcore gamer ignores E3 news?' A game journalist explores what it's like to get your videogame news ONLY from the Mainstream press. This is part one of a series." From the article: "I'm hoping that this little experiment will give both myself and the readers some insight into just how big or how small gaming is these days. I suspect there will be a lot of info available through mainstream media during E3, but I also think it's going to be very much built on PR. Because of that, I think I'm going to have an interesting view of the show that may exclude a ton of information that gamers will find fascinating or exciting."
Hype can vary from source to source. If you use something like IGN for your gaming news, you'll see endless hype about the upcoming licensed or big franchise games from companies like EA, Ubisoft, or Nintendo.
If, however, you use alternate sources, you may hear hype of a very different sort. I visit the forums of www.wayoftherodent.com quite often and so learn of very different games. Katamari Damacy is a good example. I heard about that game a loooooong before it was released on this side of the pond. Yet I haven't heard anything about the latest FPS by EA.
Its all a matter of finding sources that follow the types of games you're interested in. Following the big gaming news sites means you'll get hype about the big name games. Finding niche sites means you'll find out about more out-of-the-way games.
Aside from forums, another good place to get your gaming news is IRC. Find a channel that suits your interests (I hang out on #retrogamers and #gaming on EFNet, for example) and just let others paste links to important news.
Its like any type of news gathering, really: your choice of source decides what kind of information you will receive.