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Baron Dupek
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2013
- Messages
- 1,870,826
Last edited:
I'm Big Into Anal
Arcane
to sort the wheat from the chaff
not only is the term 'gaming journalist' somewhat redundant - you are either a journalist or not - but due to it now serving the industry in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship AND pandering to the lowest common denominator we now have a distinct delineation between shit for plebs and more robust reporting from the likes of, you guessed it, the codex.
where i get all my gaming news, reviews and entertainment.
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2011
- Messages
- 701
Codex does gaming journalism. It may not be professional gaming journalism, but it is good enough and in fact better because the lines between professional gaming journalists and professional gaming marketeers has been blurred by a corrupt industry. Even if the hobbyist puts just the bare minimum of effort and has little resources he can do better than the professional, if only because of his independence.
This is not exclusive to gaming journalism. Where I live there is a maoist-anarchist rag run by some fringe political group that thinks the state is semi-feudal, semi-colonial
, their entire worldview is wrong and their resources are scarce. Even so, they are better reporters of police corruption and abuse of authority than the professional press, if only because their party is not in power and they have no conflict of interest.
This is not exclusive to gaming journalism. Where I live there is a maoist-anarchist rag run by some fringe political group that thinks the state is semi-feudal, semi-colonial
, their entire worldview is wrong and their resources are scarce. Even so, they are better reporters of police corruption and abuse of authority than the professional press, if only because their party is not in power and they have no conflict of interest.
The issue here is that you CAN have gaming journalism. And by this, I mean real journalism. Behind the scenes shit, investigation about what went on at Konami those last few months, for exemple. Real news about the development of games, all in addition to good, objective reviews that make an indepth analysis of a game, not a collection of "the graphics are nice but the gameplay is not too original 7/10". This shit requires effort, and I am absolutely certain that if you took some quality journalists from other fields and told them they were going to do "game journalism", you would get a much, much better result.
ultimanecat
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2015
- Messages
- 578
The Dallas Observer did a story on Ion Storm Dallas in 1999, offering an in-depth look at a dot-com era company as it slowly imploded. Note that it was written by a non-games journalist and published in a non-games outlet.
That article from 17 years ago was probably the last thing written that could genuinely be called "journalism" about games, and it clearly had nothing to do with "games journalism" as we knew it then or now. What happened in between was the promulgation of an ideological shift in what writing about games meant. Sensing simultaneously that print games journalism was dying, everything was dependent on publisher payola, and that genuine journalism and educated critique are both difficult and not necessarily profitable, in 2005 Kieron Gillen (who now writes comic books, because that is the career progression of all serious journalists) gave voice to what he and his acquaintances wanted moving forward: remove the game from the writing entirely, and make it all about how the player feels when they're playing. In that way, you can turn every review into a political grandstand, every preview into a sad therapy session about your social or sexual hang ups, and you can fill everything in between with whatever you want, because it's not about games anymore anyway.
We never had great games journalism, but we did occasionally have pretty good writing about games. Now we only have bad writing about the assholes paid to play them.
That article from 17 years ago was probably the last thing written that could genuinely be called "journalism" about games, and it clearly had nothing to do with "games journalism" as we knew it then or now. What happened in between was the promulgation of an ideological shift in what writing about games meant. Sensing simultaneously that print games journalism was dying, everything was dependent on publisher payola, and that genuine journalism and educated critique are both difficult and not necessarily profitable, in 2005 Kieron Gillen (who now writes comic books, because that is the career progression of all serious journalists) gave voice to what he and his acquaintances wanted moving forward: remove the game from the writing entirely, and make it all about how the player feels when they're playing. In that way, you can turn every review into a political grandstand, every preview into a sad therapy session about your social or sexual hang ups, and you can fill everything in between with whatever you want, because it's not about games anymore anyway.
We never had great games journalism, but we did occasionally have pretty good writing about games. Now we only have bad writing about the assholes paid to play them.
Casual players, who play ARK Evolved when they get home from work, because their kid in their lap finds chasing dinosours to be fun, have no need for journalism. All the information they need, they have when they scroll around the Steam Store page.
The audience that's interested enough in the backstage parts of games and game making is too small to justify the existence of specialized media. Hence the serious discussion and criticism of games happens within communities like this one.
As for the useless hacks living off the PR budget of EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. their job is to suck cocks for bucks, and that's what they'll do. Because that's how you oppose the Patriarchy and the corporations, by sucking!
The audience that's interested enough in the backstage parts of games and game making is too small to justify the existence of specialized media. Hence the serious discussion and criticism of games happens within communities like this one.
As for the useless hacks living off the PR budget of EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. their job is to suck cocks for bucks, and that's what they'll do. Because that's how you oppose the Patriarchy and the corporations, by sucking!
The Brazilian Slaughter
Arcane
The real question is why do we still have journalism
Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Major Malfunction
Arcane
Mr. Pink
Travelling Gourmand, Crab Specialist
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2015
- Messages
- 3,044
Why do we have fashion blogs, celebrity gossip magazines, the Oscars?
One reason only:
I find it hilarious that I get all my gaming news from a Jew and all my other news (90% dailymail articles) from a Mudslime.
You laugh at your own demise, goy.
Machocruz
Arcane
Hey, did you know Far Cry Primal is out? Here's 53 articles about it. And join us next month for our 28th article where we complain about Ubisoft's stale game design.
Ebonsword
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2008
- Messages
- 2,339
I don't know if you would consider it "entertainment" journalism, but the world of automotive journalism is pretty dire, too.
zwanzig_zwoelf
Graverobber Foundation
Gaming journalism allows us to make a list of retards who will be shot once the Golden Baby starts flying.
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