Game Journalists Uninteresting Vultures?

Next Generation has commentary on an article penned by David Jaffe, creator of God of War. In the article Jaffe charges folks in the game journalism business with being uninteresting hangers-on. He implores journalists to consider themselves journalists first and "part of the games industry" a distant second. The Next-Gen article has some interesting insights on the topic. From the article: "... intimacy with the game industry is a positive, rather than a negative, so long as the line that divides the journalist's function from the game-maker's is understood. The game-maker, in turn, relies heavily on journalism, en masse, on which to base creative decisions. Did every game maker play the last Tomb Raider game? Doubtful. But they all know they don't want to make a game like it. The press feeds the imagination of the creator through a system of warnings and prompts, which are then interpreted and transformed into progress."

Comments

Here here.

[hexghost]

Its about time someone said this. Let me state first my opinion: 99.9% of game journalists are complete fucking fanboys. When I want to see a product review for the latest game, what do i get? Unless the game is completely, obviously broken, I get glowing reviews that are basically rehashed press releases. All the major game sites do this, from gamespy to (of course) anything IGN. Game journalists are basically the equivilent of those stupid movie review catchlines you see from no one you've ever heard of, the kind that say "Funniest movie of the year!" for Gigli, etc.

Game journalists: stop regurgitating the marketing fluff, start writing honest articles, and people might actually care about what you say. Even if it means you don't get your paycheck from the game companies any more.

Graphics -- player's bane, reviewer's delight

[Prien715]

I think the largest problem with reviewers is that they all feel compelled to have a graphics catagory and then rate games partially based on it. Remember how much fun Doom 3 was? It got on 8.5 on Gamespot, slightly higher than We Love Katamari Damacy. I recently finished Commandos 3, which was extremely difficult but much more fun/satisfying than Doom 3. Gamespot gave it a 7.7, bemoaning the graphics were horror -- still 2D -- and the camera locked into 800x600.

Game reviewers love graphics because they can post pretty screenshots and seem objective. However, the most important part of games is the subjective fun-factor. It's like judging a theatrical play based on the quality of the costumes and stage design instead of the quality of the actors and the script.