Game Journalism - Unfit for purpose?

[Blothulfur]

Now there's the difference between how we'd imagine the minimum standard should be and the chances it indeed would become so. That's why I believe it's wishful thinking; not disagreeing with the should-be standards, but not really believing that it will happen.

On a side note: I don't indeed put much value on game reviews. At worst they would be insincere, corporate-controlled line, at best - statement of someone's preferences. Both are rather useless to me.

But is it really that different with the 'proper' journalism? I'm not talking gaming media, but about media in general. You watch your evening news or read a respectable newspaper: can you honestly tell me that I can simply turn off my critical thinking just because I'm consuming a well established medium? That I don't have to analyze what I'm being told and just take it on face value? As far as I'm concerned, that's not the right way, and I'm not even talking about ulterior motives or journalistic incompetence, but about mundane things like scope or context, or even human error. The only thing protecting you from becoming an info-thrall is your own, painstakingly earned knowledge and honest, critical thinking. You can't escape that, games media or not.

I am sceptical that it will happen, all the more reason to fight for it, and it is hardly a difficult thing to implement.

Journalism as a whole I agree with you, the mainstream medias response to Gamergate has just highlighted this, but it was a view I held before. Most reporting is biased, driven by non pertinent agendas, factually wrong and also driven by fashionable trends. Some of it is just racist, xenophobic arsewipe fodder. As I said before I agree that caveat emptor and healthy scepticism is a good thing, but we sometimes do not have the time, connections or information to discern truth or lies, and this where consumer advocacy driven journalism should come in an ideal world.

There has been good journalism, Watergate and such, investigative pieces that informed for the public good. Personally I hold that journalism is dying simply because it has abandoned its principles and is irrelevant and unfit for purpose.

Edit: I also believe that it's the plague of subjectivity and opinion over objective, fact based criticism that is at fault.

 

[Damariel]

Wonder how many people called....

Let me fix my stance then..... "nobody with brain is naive enough to live without critical thinking"

And yes I'm rude enough to require from others to have at least as much of intelligence as I have. (Which isn't very tall order)

 

[Garrison72]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/31/law-and-order-svu-gamergate-episode_n_6586576.html

Shows been on the air a long time, you'd expect them to eventually run out of ideas.

 

[Damariel]

@slimgrin Well, you can say that they clearly did run out of them.

 

[soldiergeralt]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/31/law-and-order-svu-gamergate-episode_n_6586576.html

Shows been on the air a long time, you'd expect them to eventually run out of ideas.

they'll probably find that the victim is also the perpetrator. twist ending.

 

[Damariel]

[video=youtube;cWqxp-0HW1E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWqxp-0HW1E[/video]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=257887508

 

[KingHochmeister]

Damnit, Extra Credits ....

 

[Damariel]

And suddenly I got an ambition to take Grayson place because I know fot sure that I would be doing better job than him.

 

[CostinRaz]

I find it sad that GiantBomb closed a thread on the subject of Pinsof, calling TechRaptor full of shit. So much for the positive reputation Totalhlaibut gave them.

 

[Phinnway]

Damnit, Extra Credits ....

If anyone wants to hear everything James said about gamergate he talks about it in this clip from 9:40-14:15.

To be honest, what James actually said is not much better than what King_Hochmeister's video makes it look like. James calls out multiple leaders in the GamerGate community, including TotalBiscuit. He also calls GamerGate, "The last dying screams of people who are losing their power," basically referring to independent journalists like TB. He then compares these people to the decline of the Ku Klux Klan (an American white-supremacist group) during the 1950s.

While some of his criticisms of GamerGate may have validity (such as the fact that society at large now has a worse impression of gaming sub-culture because of the controversy surrounding GamerGate), overall this clip made me lose a lot of respect for James. It's clear his real life political views color his impression of GamerGate pretty severely.


Apparently there was a back-and-forth between him and TB over this. You can read about that here: http://pastebin.com/HixqCXWX
What makes this situation truly pathetic is that Extra Credits themselves accepted money from Creative Assembly to make a series of videos teaching people about Roman history coinciding with the launch of Rome Total War II. Hypocritical indeed...

 

[Damariel]

Apparently there was a back-and-forth between him and TB over this.

Well you can read this.

 

[CostinRaz]

What makes this situation truly pathetic is that Extra Credits themselves accepted money from Creative Assembly to make a series of videos teaching people about Roman history coinciding with the launch of Rome Total War II. Hypocritical indeed...

They were quite upfront and honest about they were paid for there and made all their terms clear. I would argue, despite my intense dislike of them for James's stance on GG and TB, that it is not hypocritical.

They also didn't try and defend Rome 2 once or get people to buy it. They did mention it but that's it and the first video came out days after Rome 2 came out.

 

[Phinnway]

@Costin TotalBiscuit also disclosed his video was a payed promotion. And his review of Guns of Icarus Online was posted one year before the promotion, so his opinion couldn't have been affected in any way.

The only difference between these two cases is that TotalBiscuit directly promoted Guns of Icarus Online by literally playing it on his channel and ExtraCredits indirectly promoted Rome II by running a mini-series about the game's theme (Roman history) around the time of release.

So yes, I do consider James' comment towards TotalBiscuit at least a little bit hypocritical.

 

[Garrison72]

Hate to see TB trashed by these gloriously informed and noble gentlemen. I hope these guys I disagree with don't think they speak for the majority.

:hai:

 

[ReptilePZ]

Do tone down the language, guys. Calling people you don't agree with "fuckwits" etc. is not okay. You know, forum rules and all that kind of stuff. Keep it civil, if you enjoy having this thread remain open.

 

[Damariel]

Gamergate Wiki

Also this

 

[Alan989]

Finally one site has the balls to drop review scores.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-10-eurogamer-has-dropped-review-scores

 

[dragonbird]

Finally one site has the balls to drop review scores.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-10-eurogamer-has-dropped-review-scores

Interesting to see their reasons. I wonder if others will start to do the same, and what that'll do to Metacritic? And to bonuses based on Metacritic scores?

 

[Damariel]

Interesting to see their reasons. I wonder if others will start to do the same, and what that'll do to Metacritic? And to bonuses based on Metacritic scores?

For me, Metacritic can disappear tomorrow and I will be happy about that.

 

[Garrison72]

That's an admirable move by Eurogamer. Scores fuel Metacritic and Metacritic needs to die in a fire.

The comments are golden.