If there is any critical, impartial so called journalism in gaming, it's getting harder to find every year. Gamespot used to be that place, not sure anymore. IGN had merged to some huge AT&T like scary sized company, not that I ever really trusted them, but now I find it hard to even read anything there. The only hope for any fair reviews, and or opinions on gaming now comes from the smaller independant sites which fall by the wayside all too quickly in the vast wasteland of the internet. I guess now we have to depend on each and the word of mouth through connections we make on sites like this, or through past connections on sites like GS.
No.
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I think what I found funny was that a couple of years back this UK based team tried to make a website and found that it just wasn't worth competing with the already established giants like IGN and gamespot. So instead they threw two fingers up and did a site called UK Resistance which was a giant piss take on the world of gaming and games journalism. Shame they stopped recetenly.
They gave us such headlines as:
SINKING PLAYSTATION3 TORPEDOED AGAIN – BY SONY’S OWN TECHNICAL INCOMPETENCE. 77 MILLION LIVES RUINED BY IGNORANCE
NEW DREAMCAST GAME IN SHOPS
GOOD SONIC TOY SHOCKER
And other funny stuff over the years.
My biggest gripe with games journalism is the rush to 10/10 where before say 2003 it was a very hard score to establish. Sites do it now to be the first and get the hits. Also, whilst I am in that gaming demographics of 20-35 year old men, it would be nice to see some sort of balanced coverage of games that aren't action or shooter focused. A bit more appreciation for what's different and some fair coverage of systems instead of preferential coverage for the action consoles and testostorone games.
Lastly it is probably the tabloid headlining to get hits. You can read a story and take what you want out of it and twist it to sound sensational. There is a lot of that, especially with a site such as CVG. But everyone does it now and sometimes just because they don't like a platform or games series or what a developer has chosen to do with their property.
I think it is helpful to identify the different components of game media.
- Criticism/ Editorial - The guys that review the games. Almost all of the reviewing outlets accept free trips and other goodies from the people they are covering.* Therefore, they are not journalists. This is not something that is restricted to the game critics. Critics in every field get flown around, wined and dined, given the best seats at concerts etc... These people, the reviewers/ critics are not journalists.
Many, many game outlets are so small that they will let reviewers/ critics do news as well. This does not make them journalists. Places like Gamespot are pretty good about keeping the critics out of the news section, as it shoudl be.
*A very small number of critics refuse these kinds of junkets and treats, others accept them and disclose them. This does not make them journalists, it makes them feel better.
- News Reporting/ Journalism - the guys that report news. In organizations where they have staff dedicated to just news coverage (like Eurogamer, Gamespot, Gamasutra) there are individuals that operate as any journalist would. Most journalists (including business reporters for example) rely on news coming to them, either by their competitors or from news releases from companies. To this extent, the organizations that have people deidcated to report news are just as effective as any other sort of journalist (particularly TV or radio journalists, who still rely mostly on reading their local and national newspapers).
When most people think of journalism they think of investigative journalism, which is a special category of news collection that very few news outlets pursue. In the print world, in the US, you basically have 4-5 newspapers that are even capable of this anymore -- it's not normal. In the gaming world, I'd say we have Gamasutra as the closest thing (mostly Cristian Nutt). Ars Technica also does a bit of this.
So in short, yes there are some outlets in the games media that have journalistic endeavors, and even journalists, but as with the real world the quality ones are rarely encountered.
They're critics and news reporters. And bad ones at that.
Who are? In some organizations they are one and the same, in others there is a separation.
aspro said:Who are? In some organizations they are one and the same, in others there is a separation.
Everyone and no one in particular.
Games + Journalism = very bad idea.
I think that gaming has a lot of fandom and that will always lead to skewed reporting. In other journlism it would be hard to find fans of a bank reporting on its financial dealings or fans of an MP writing their stories.
Films have a fandom aspect but it's not as pronounced as it is in gaming. We all have our favourite developers and franchises and if we write about them, even unintentionally we will skew either negative or positive in some way. I think perhaps its unavoidable unless you get people new to gaming to review things totally fresh to gaming and without nostalgic memories.
Hard to say. In this day and age of social networking, instant access to information, and the internet turned into a ruthless competition for clicks and ad money, it's hard to single out the people that write about games for a living as the only ones failing at providing well backed-up content with minimum research standards. However, I consider gaming writers to be in a special position, compared to journos from other areas:
They almost invariably write for, or work at sites that take money from the very same people that offer the content they're about to review/critique. Advertising money.
If that's not an interest conflict, I don't know how else to call it.
Considering that most (if not all) gaming sites rely heavily on money income from big (and small) publishers, I have big concerns as to whether it is actually possible to have critical, impartial journalism in games. And this is not a matter of personal appreciation in regards of writing style or perceived biases in the writers. It's the fact that taking money from the very same product you're bound to review is a definite hindrance towards impartiality.