Game Journalism - Unfit for purpose?

[Blothulfur]

@Blothulfur

You seem to be upset about people who "wrongly" like something.
If all those things are so objective then answer a simple question: How many points should be taken from the final score for "generic plot" and how many for "cartoony characters"? Mathematical equation illustrating process of reviewing also would be nice.

Me upset? Naw i'm off for weekend, got a full gut and just knocked froth off a few, i'm as happy as a pig in shit. I'm just telling truth about game while trying not to step on anybodys toes. But DB says to shut it so i'm doing so pal, their gaff, their rules. Ta ta.

 

[soldiergeralt]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/08/29/s-exe-fk-everything-rnsfw/

“Fuck who you want, and fuck who you like.”

...and also whoever will help your career.

 

[sidspyker]

What a carefully orchestrated plan.... journalists now tell everyone they hate "gamers" apparently, AT THE SAME TIME! I'll just copy-paste the post from /v/ since I don't want to rewrite it and it's just collated data. Game journalism has never been good, I cannot recall ever thinking IGN is good or any other site is "good" but this is just taking it to the next level. Anyone else feel like distancing themselves away completely? I sure as hell do.

>'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over. Exclusive - Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra (Aug 28, 10:00am)https://archive.today/l1kTW


We Might Be Witnessing The 'Death of An Identity' - Luke Plunkett, Kotaku (Aug 28, 8:00pm)
https://archive.today/YlBhH


A Guide to Ending "Gamers" - Devin Wilson, Gamasutra (Aug 28, 7:57 pm)
https://archive.today/2t93l


The End of Gamers - Dan Golding (Tumblr)
https://archive.today/L4vJG


The death of the “gamers” and the women who “killed” them - Casey Johnson, arstechnica (Aug 28, 5:00pm)
https://archive.today/i928J


It's Dangerous to Go Alone: Why Are Gamers So Angry? - Arthur Chu, The Daily Beast (Aug 28)
https://archive.today/9NxHy


Gaming Is Leaving “Gamers” Behind - Joseph Bernstein, Buzzfeed (Aug 28, 8:29 pm)
https://archive.today/jVqJ8


An awful week to care about video games - Chris Plante, Polygon (Aug 28, 1:21pm)
https://archive.today/rkvO8


Sexism, Misogyny, and online attacks: It's a horrible time to consider yourself a gamer - Patrick O'Rourke, Financial Post (Aug 28, 9:33pm)
https://archive.today/HkPHc


Misogynistic trolls drive feminist video game critic from her home - Callie Beusman, Jezebel (Aug 28, 4:05pm)
https://archive.today/kXX7y


A disheartening account of the harassment going on in gaming right now (and how Adam Baldwin is involved) - Victoria McNally, The Mary Sue (Aug 28, 1:30pm)
https://archive.today/11OEl


Feminist video bloggers driven from home by death threats - Jack Smith IV, BetaBeat (Aug 28, 10:50am)
https://archive.today/zHH4T


Anita Sarkeesian threatened with rape and murder for daring to keep critiquing video games - Anna Minard, The Stranger (Aug 28, 6:00am)
https://archive.today/StChn


Fanboys, white knights, and the hairball of online misogyny - Tauriq Moosa, The Daily Beast (Aug 28)
https://archive.today/wptL5


This guy's embarassing relationship drama is killing the 'gamer' identity - Mike Pearl, Vice (Aug 29)
https://archive.today/L4n6p

PC Gamer
http://www.donotlink.com/be87

 

[Mataresa]

I don't think, we really have a thing such as game journalism.
I don't trust any of the classical "journalists", cause they are all biased and don't want to report on problems or controversies for the most part, but rather lend a voice to the publishers and developers, so that they can get benifits from them. That can be seen by the awards they give themselves sponsored by the publishers, all the hype pieces that they write and the common goal to stay on their good side, to get goodies and extras. Most of them are rather fans than people that feel they have a duty to inform the crowd (or they just sell themselves out, cause they don't care).
Then we have all the regular people that are mostly enthusiasts as well, writing about the things they love. Nothing wrong with that. Most don't claim to be objective. And some of them are even more discriminate than the so called journalists.
And then we have a third cathegory of independant reviewers (or first impressions like TotalBiscuit), that come the clostst to journalists.
I think, the best thing to do, if you want to read through all the written pieces about a game is, take all the negative points they make and evaluate them and decide on that basis. Ignore the positive points. You will find more truth in that. But of course still take them with a grain of salt.
The sad thing is, that there are two few outlets that will do good researched and informed pieces about topics and controversies.

But well we know that most of the time even journalism in mainstream media does not hold up to its standards and is often not objective or critical enough. But there, especially in politics, I feel going for smaller news sites or journalists is often even more dangerous, cause they will be even more opinionated. Well if most media and news outlets are owned by the same people/companies, who can be surprised...

 

[Garrison72]

They have an easy target to thrash, and that's what they're doing. So now ALL gamers are bad and we should all be ashamed.

These are very small, petty people. No other way to describe them.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

Wow, holy fuckarooni they got some mighty big balls or ovaries.

I didn't realise I was dead though, everything seems to be working right.

 

[227]

Game journalism - noun - the art of bringing about social equality by making you hate everything and everyone equally.

My favorite argument out of those articles is that no one has any right to criticize game journalism because it's just like people telling you all about that cool new Star Fox commercial when you were growing up. Only, you know, they weren't paid. And they had like 5 games. And they didn't pretend to be journalists. And they were ten.

 

[Blothulfur]

Rape and death threats, hate and death threats, sorry which side is which again, and who's representing fair, impartial, objective cirticism in the midst of this?

 

[Veleda.980]

Ha, those ticks feed off gamer outrage. As soon as any of the so-called feminist sites has something to say about actual real-world problems going on right now instead of nattering about a junior high clique war and the toils and tribulations of a YouTube celebrity, I'll give a fuck what they think about gamers.

 

[C0bR]

Gamers are over?

Shit, time to commit sudoku.

 

[sidspyker]

Is agenda pushing the new cool?

Announcement: Readers who feel threatened by equality no longer welcome
http://www.donotlink.com/framed?531370

 

[Veleda.980]

I don't know what they think they're defending. I hang out in gamer forums and talk to gamers on Twitter, and it's the usual mix of internetz- mostly civil to the point that it would be boring to any outside observer. I have no trouble ignoring 4chan and the more sensationalized aspects of gaming. I think they're exaggerating these things to garner attention to their own pathetic little blogs.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

Is agenda pushing the new cool?

Lolollolol, equality because that's totally the same as ethics and cronyism.

 

[sidspyker]

So the pot is stirring afterall, good news I suppose. I don't imagine a movie reviewer talking shit about his audience or any other industry would fly and yet it does here apparently.

 

[Mataresa]

Very good Co-Optional Podcast again this week, also touching on this subject (1:17:29):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cf7i0z2Zi7U#t=4649

(Hm, how do you get the starting time to work in the embedded video?)

 

[Cs__sz__r]

So the pot is stirring afterall, good news I suppose. I don't imagine a movie reviewer talking shit about his audience or any other industry would fly and yet it does here apparently.

Now let's wait for Kotaku or Gawker top guy to come and stand up against their contributors.


...

 

[dragonbird]

Rape and death threats, hate and death threats, sorry which side is which again, and who's representing fair, impartial, objective cirticism in the midst of this?

Yeah, that's my view on it. And fair, impartial, objective criticism in the midst? Actually, some of the professional commentators. Erik Kain over at Forbes, TotalBiscuit's first video (although it didn't seem to stop him from being condemned).

It's the worst kind of internet outrage - everyone just hating, and it doesn't matter if it ruins lives of real people.

And I think that a few organisations are going to be tightening up their review processes for outside contributors this week. The Escapist in gaming, Kaspersky on privacy. A bad week for lazy editorial standards.

 

[GuyNwah]

Moderator: A post has been deleted. The forum welcomes decent and orderly criticism of gaming journalism. It does not countenance making or repeating threats against journalists and other public figures, including and not limited to Anita Sarkeesian. Such posts will be deleted without further notice, and members who make them repeatedly may be warned or banned.

 

[dragonbird]

Same goes for Zoe Quinn, and all other specific individuals involved in that particular controversy.

 

[227]

What's the deal with Sarkeesian, anyway? I don't get all of the hate toward her. Sure, she seems pretty biased, but her name takes people from zero to facestab in a matter of seconds. If she's wrong about things, shouldn't it be possible to prove her wrong without the rage? Doesn't the vitriol undercut the point? Even if she was a con artist and whatever other charges people have levied at her (and I sincerely doubt any of it is true, even if the videos have their flaws and borrow footage without attribution), would it really matter? You can't un-Kickstarter something. At best you can try to steal some of it back, and that would officially make you the worst Robin Hood in existence.

It's just frustrating; I keep seeing her name mentioned in comment sections and it completely derails things away from the corruption-in-game-journalism elements that everyone should be focusing on. I was hoping that game journalism burns down over this recent bit of drama, but the ADHD-addled internet squirrels can't resist the shinykeesian long enough to actually start the fire. It just gives the writers more time to distract us back to the status quo before anything is able to change.