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Rest In Print, Gaming Journalism
Phaethon360 writes "The film industry, the music industry and the gaming industry — three factions of entertainment in the grasp of a vicious and unbridled tyrant. The internet is a toddler with a handgun, and its whims shall be met — and with great abandon. It can be a source of great wealth or utter failure. But what's striking is the fact that no one seems to be taking the necessary precautions to ensure a smooth and prosperous transition. I'm talking, of course, about doing away with the middle man; the gaming magazine."
Dan Amrich, former editor of OXM, recently argued the other side of this issue, saying that game-related print media doesn't get the respect it deserves for breaking stories earlier than online media, and for not just waiting "until the information came to them, in the form of a PR release and a video." A related piece at GameSetWatch suggests that the print media is doing a decent job of undercutting itself through unsustainably-low subscription fees.
I'm unfamiliar with OXM, but if they were of average quality, then that's not saying much at all, and usually online sources were superior at that time.
(Of course, they kept sending these which were unsolicited for a year, then sent a bill. After being told they'd sent it to us unsolicited mail sent to us through the US Postal Service and to shove off, they did, suggesting that they employed that tactic on others. So they were probably higher on the slimey scale than most.)
Gaming journalism has long been dead by any traditional standard of "journalism". I worked in games nearly ten years ago, and even then, reviews were easily influenced by ad revenue, "exclusive" deals and such. Some magazines put on a show claiming they weren't like the others, but everyone knew that was a scam.
The game I worked on became "game of the month" in Germany's largest gaming magazine solely because we threw in a pile of merchandise they could use for a raffle. We didn't come up with the idea, the magazine did.
With this kind of conduct increasingly apparent even ten years ago, the only thing that surprises me about this is how this sham has been shambling on. But there are enough other branches of worthless journalism (i.e. men's and women's magazines which recycle the bulk of their material every two years), so go figure.
blow your mind already
I used to read PC Gamer until I got sick of it getting thinner and thinner, while the price went up and up and the amount of crap on the coverdisc multiplied. Now I read GamesTM (UK mag) and it's pretty good- it feels like it's written for adults, which is bloody refreshing in a games mag.
(No, I don't work for them, just pointing out that it's not all as bad as PC Gamer!)
I've been part of the 'gaming media' for nearly 20 years now, writing game reviews occasionally for print magazines, but mostly for websites.
My take is that gaming magazines miss their target completely.
Firstly, gaming magazines are nothing more than previews, reviews, and columns. When's the last time you opened a gaming magazine and actually saw a STORY about UI developments, the moral stance in violent videogames, or something that wasn't a poorly-camouflaged (if they bother) extended preview of something in development? Frankly, it would not be a bad move for a gaming magazine to publish the sort of thing that is on Gamasutra, as some of those articles are in-depth, technical, and worthy of mental digestion, instead of just extended adverts?
Second, their credibility is universally shot. In the real world of journalism, there's at least some degree of credibility to the print media (although that's fading too), with formal fact-checking offices and editors that review the stories for meaning in value. Gaming mags ape the worst habits of the cheapest websites. Their review scales (1-10, stars, whatever) are meaningless, as games fall clearly into three categories: the uber-mega hit, the merely interesting, or the scapegoat category. Their scores will be (on a 1-100 scale) 97+, 89-96, or 50 or lower, respectively. Generally the whole thing is a quiet circle-jerk, where the gaming companies provide free games and buy copious advertising space, while the magazines quietly agree to make sure that the review is generally good but in any case always contains a few hyperbolic quotes that are good for box text. There are a *few* games that even the publishers regard as stinkers, and are so obviously bad, they serve as useful 'credibility' anchors, because pretty much everyone agrees to pile on and downrate it, so there's no danger of a publisher/developer getting their feelings particularly hurt. You might think that mags could buy their titles, but this would put them MONTHS behind their peers, who all get pre-release gold copies for their reviews. They are already hostage to their print schedules, distribution, etc which handicaps them in breaking any new information vs. websites.
Third, even if the reviews are genuine, the nature of reviewing is personal and very subjective. I'd suggest that most gamers browse reviewers widely, until they land on a handful that seem to mirror their own opinions closely enough. There is a quite natural advantage to websites that can be hotlinked, browsed widely, and cost nothing to sample widely (they're not really free, you as a gamer are paying a microtransaction in every game purchase to subsidize the free review games and advertising fees, but it's nearly invisible).
Fourth, in regards to pretty much any modern game aside from Dwarf Fortress, a huge selling point of any game is the graphics. Websites can simply link a screenshot, and you can see what the game will look like at full resolution (boo to the retarded game sites that display their graphics in some sort of non-capturable popup so this is impossible). That's tremendously important to most players who either want to see the pretty flashes and chrome, or have a more tangible question about whether the UI is readable, etc. Magazines are stuck with (good resolution but) usually smaller than 4x6 images, which simply can't carry the details. Websites can also carry video clips which SHOW gameplay (boo again to the websites that accept the bullshit cutscene videos which show neither actual gameplay nor game resolution).
Finally, there's the matter of space: while editorial review is a good thing (don't ever let my editors hear me say that), magazine editors are more about the chopping than the refining. A good editor helps a writer be more succinct and convey their points more clearly. Magazines like all print media have a zero-sum hard cap on the amount of space stories can take up - if a game is alloted 18 column-inches, or 750 words, or whatever, that can't be changed with
-Styopa