The Pointlessness of Current Videogame Journalism

Anonymous Coward writes "TG Daily has its weekly videogaming column up, and this week the author is attacking what he terms The Pointlessness of Current Videogame Journalism. From the article: '...the formulaic, child-minded writing-for-the-lowest-common-marketing-denominator style that encapsulates 99% of the mainstream videogame press is a load of crap ... Rather than being critics who add to the industry as film and music journalists arguably did back in the heady days of the 50's - 70's... videogame journalists are mere extensions of the marketing machine, pushing even the most mediocre of games into a good light with the public in previews and then trashing them for sport to see how many good puns can be dredged out of the 500 words which the author really doesn't want to have to write.'"

Comments

I like GameFaqs and P-A

[Twid]

Personally, I get most of my game info from GameFaqs, which has user reviews and nice overall scoreboards for magazine reviews. The user reviews are sometimes dumb, but you can get a general flavor for a game by looking at the magazine reviews and user reviews. I've still been burned once or twice but at least looking there first can help you avoid the real stinkers.

Also, I love the game info posted at Penny Arcade. Gabe and Tycho have similar tastes in games as I do, so when they love a game it's a pretty safe bet that I'll like it too.

Re:I like GameFaqs and P-A

[Twid]

Oops, I meant GameRankings not GameFAQs. GameFAQs is good too for walkthroughs, and there's a new site called Stuck Gamer that is posting video walkthroughs. Appears to be down at the moment, but there are some good gameplay videos there.

True of most journalism try blogs

[Crashmarik]

Heres a quick summary journalistic levels

Trade Publications : worst of the worst would be given away if the publishers were allowed to by their advertisers. Most of the articles are either written by employees of the advertisers, the rest is the lowest cost possible filler.

Review magazines: Especially true of car magazines but holds well for just about everything else. Toyota at one point asked what it would have to do be car of the year and was told buy out the issue. Its a little less blatant these days but no different. For game magazines ask yourself how every fisrt person shooter knockoff can have 4 to 5 stars or an 80% plus rating. Or how someone can select the most influential games of all time have them be 70% consolers and have half life as the rep for FPS games. Consumer reports is the exception but because they focus on so much their quality and conclusions arent as good as they could be

General readership magazines: Review space is pretty much advertising. The Stuff in stuff didn't just wind up there. The toys in t3 arent just picked at random.

Newspapers: Maybe, maybe not

If you wan't good reviews find a blog with coments, and look for it to have trashed stinkers you know about. This is good for anything. I really wish I had done that before I bought a DSM-320 network media player, it pays for hard drives and just look at all the people that own space heaters oops Intel processors.

Video Game Media Watch

[miller60]

If you're interested in video game journalism, check out the Video Game Media Watch blog written by Kyle Orland. Another good source of video game media criticism is GameDaily's weekly media column. Also worthwhile is the International Game Journalists' Association.

In addition to pointing out all the bad journalism out there, these sites help identify blogs and magazines that strive to offer better writing and reviews. Visit those sites and click on a few ads. Marketing-driven articles continue to appear because game publishers pay the bills. That only changes if game mags and sites can develop business models where they are accountable primarily to you - their readers - rather than game companies.

Metacritic

[Laconian]

For game reviews I tend to go to Metacritic. Metacritic aggregates critical scores and generates an average score number, which is a valuable indicator of critical consensus.

Drivel

[mustafap]

I write for a magazine, 2000 words per article each month. I wish I had this guys skill at writing absolutely nothing in 976 words. It would save me days each month

Nothing to see here, move on.

Re:Halo 2

[Paradise Pete]

When I sat down to play it I found it to be a boring rehash of the last game.

I think that's being kind. #1 didn't have silly boss battles with infinite henchmen, didn't have absurd inequities such as with the alien sniper rifle, where the mighty Master Chief with his fancy new armor dies instantly with *every* hit, and yet grunts can absorb two or even three body shots. And oh yeah, Halo had an actual ending.

Confessions of a former videogame hack

[payndz]

I used to be a game journo (editor, in fact) some seven or eight years ago, and I'm *so* glad I got out of it when I did. As the smaller developers were snapped up by the giants, dealing with the publishers became more and more unpleasant.

I always at least tried to be honest with game reviews - if I thought something stank, I said so (I think the lowest review score - as the final percentage rating - I ever gave was 3%), and while previews had to be more informative than opinionated, I generally took the piss a bit if the game deserved it. There's only so many cutsey platform game previews a man can write without going mad.

Problem was, not only did certain publishers throw shit-fits and threaten to withhold future games if they got bad reviews (or sometimes actually go through with the threat: there was a period of about six months where my mag had to buy games by one publisher - fuck it, it was Ocean - because they wouldn't send us code), but as time went by they also started getting nasty about previews as well. Basically, they wanted their press releases to be reprinted, including the captions they'd written for the screenshots. Er, no. Not going to happen. So the PRs would go over my head and threaten to pull advertising - not just from my mag, but from other titles as well. Fun fun fun.

Since things were only going to get worse as the publishers ate each other and got more powerful, I decided to get out as soon as I got the chance.

There are some mags whose editorial policies I still respect - Edge, PC Zone, GamesTM - but many of the rest have fallen into the 'exclusive cover/fawning preview/minimum review score of 85%' routine/trap because it's the path of least resistance to ensure they can get product to cover.

(And I was never offered a free holiday in return for a good score. Bastards!)

The Onion A.V. Club

[Col. Forbin]

The Onion's A.V. Club has very good game reviews. They don't take themselves too seriously, and they answer the only question I care about with a game - should I buy it?

They also have the extremely entertaining Games of Our Lives, which consists of very funny reviews of old games (20+ years in most cases) written by Wil Wheaton.

Not all of us are guilty

[Bruha]

I used to write for Warcry/Crossroads gaming network. If a game I reviewed sucked I would say it sucked. I'd even tell the publisher what was wrong with it. The problem nowdays, is that companies like IGN, Stratics, and any number of magazines; make thier money off these good reviews. Game publishers have retaliated against bad press buy not letting them test anything again. I even see this in Warcry nowdays when I stop by and cruise articles. They claim to still supposedly be one of the "Volunteer" websites.

I think bloggers will be the next big thing in game journalism. I have plans on writing reviews of the games I have bought and played on my blog. While it may not be pre-release reviews of games it will be anything from first run to bargin bin games from Gamestop. Either way look to bloggers to give perspective that you will be hard pressed to find on any normal gaming website.

I discovered this for myself...

[AtariDatacenter]

When Master of Orion III came out in 2003, it was widely acknowledged as a horrible, horrible game. At least, among anyone who played it. But reading _some_ of the review sites, you wouldn't have known it. I mean, this awful game was given outright glowing ratings so much that you had to wonder if it was sarcasm. Take this sample of the review of just the sound from the game, where they cover one of the more annoying, short, and repetitive aspects: the dialog with aliens...

The sound is good to excellent, making full use of your speakers' dynamic range. I always turn up the speakers when I've gotten a diplomatic message to hear the wonderful alien voices. The music is stellar, haunting, stirring and intriguing by turns. I never had the urge to turn it off and still find it compelling.

Summary: 4.3/5 *Note: 2.5 is average ...I wish I could say it WAS sarcasm, but it struck me as something different. I am by no means a big game player. I might go out and purchase one or two games a year. But the best I could figure was that these guys were being sported free copies (and probably advance copies), and didn't want the gravy train to stop, so they keep on giving glowing reviews.

IN SHORT: I rate the integrity of any game review site on the inverse of the rating that they gave Master of Orion III.

As an avid gamer

[queenb**ch]

I quit paying attention to what the media outlets had to say about a given game a long time ago. If they want me to shell out my hard earned dollars for a new game, here's my drill:

1) There had better be a demo
2) It had better work on my hardware
3) I had better like the demo

Short of that, the game makers can get stuffed. They bought the reviewers off ages ago and every gamer knows it. We don't listen to the hype when we're picking a new game. We either go with a series we know and trust, or we hear via word of mouth from people we know personally that "X" is good or not. The inverse is equally true, if we hear that "X" is bad, we avoid it like the plague.

The resale value of games on Ebay is a better indicator of their relative "goodness".
Prime example is a game called "Sacred". It sells for $4 on ebay used. To give you a relative perspecive, a used copy of Diablo brings in $10.

2 cents,

Queen B