Game journalists ;rage; against EA and BF3

[Morkar Left]

I also think that US magazines are very handicapped compared to those of smaller European countries since it costs so much more to distribute the same product across all of the US and Canada.

Dunno. Therefore they have a far bigger audience to sell it to.

 

[thesoup]

Morkar, it wasn't anyone's sole income. Like I said, we were kids, it started as a hobby and then the guy started seeing bling bling potential. I never got really anything apart some shitty indie games and 15$. I also got jewed out of money a lot, but that's a longs story. I wasn't writing for money, but because I liked it. I could have written for a local mag, for money, but didn't because I was stupid and "loyal".

 

[Morkar Left]

Morkar, it wasn't anyone's sole income. Like I said, we were kids, it started as a hobby and then the guy started seeing bling bling potential. I never got really anything apart some shitty indie games and 15$. I also got jewed out of money a lot, but that's a longs story. I wasn't writing for money, but because I liked it. I could have written for a local mag, for money, but didn't because I was stupid and "loyal".

Just for clarification, I didn't meant you but your "Editor". Some people start to get annoying when they think there is a chance to make money out of nothing. It's pretty humorous how they can turn from "I'm doing this for fun" to "serious business", especially when it's about the scale of 100 $ or something :D

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

That's some seriously disgusting stuff.

For a fanzine indeed. Especially if you keep in mind for how much (or better how less) he wants to prostitute himself.

If it's your sole income I can see why they start to change from journalism to marketing. If you have the decision between struggling to not become bankrupt or have your nice monthly income, a nice car, being able to pay rent for your house and travel in holidays with your family (and all this by constantly getting affirmatons from your surroundings about how well you made it with all that), the decision is easy. Especially when you just write about some entertainment product. It's not that you are responsible for accidents or something serious.

The biggest problem was probably the uprising of the internet with affordable connection and the transition towards it. Before gaming journalists and their magazines were your door to the world of gaming and gaming lifestyle (besides maybe a computer club) and often the only source you could form your opinions from.

In older magazin issues review games were often sponsored (sent) from (small) software shops which got mentioned therefore in the review and advertisements from shops. Plus reviewers had more time to write their articles. Nowadays you have to rely on exclusive content. Testing a game when it's released is too late. Publishers did their homework.

To be able to run a mag nowadays you have to either sell out to the publishers (aka you are a marketing agency for them) or you have to rely on content that's not fecused (typo but I liked it) on reviews. I would like to see a mag that focuses on quality and things about gaming and maybee geek(counter)culture. But on the other hand there are rarely games nowadays I'm interested in...

Then they should sell them as marketing magazines with clearly marked sponsored articles, not as magazines with reviews.
Here, advertisement pretending to be articles written by neutral side is forbidden by law.

Hey, it's not like it's impossible. After all, White Dwarf and similar promotional magazines still sell.

 

[Morkar Left]

Then they should sell them as marketing magazines with clearly marked sponsored articles, not as magazines with reviews.

Yeah indeed. More honesty and transparancy would be great. "This Review was brought to you by EA!"

But they already missed the train by still claiming they are "journalists" and by now everybody already knows what they have become.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

That's why I don't have any sympathy towards them. They are simply conmen and should be treated as such.