Every once
in a while, it becomes fashionable for some punkdit (that'd be a youthful pundit) to step forward and flail his arms
against the keyboard for a while with great angst resulting in a rambling, conflicted tirade not unlike this piece by Aaron
McKenna.
In a bit of unintential situational irony, McKenna accidentally proves his own headline--"The pointlessness of current videogame journalism"--by demonstration.
McKenna rightly trashes publications that "sugar coat" poor reviews so that they won't interrupt the supply of preview and review products. Many readers here on Joystiq are refugees from some of the larger games media sites that turned off their readership with such compromises in integrity. That's certainly a valid point to make. If McKenna had stopped there, he'd have come out ahead.
But he doesn't stop there, unfortunately. McKenna fails to name any names. In other words, he sugar-coats his own criticism right after he just finished lambasting other writers for doing the same. Why does he refrain from giving examples? He explains: "... you'll note that I haven't named the names of magazines, websites or otherwise for obvious reasons. Apart from libel there is the issue of burning my bridges, and I do want the option of being able to work in the videogame town again at some stage myself, and I daresay this piece being dragged out in a few years will not do me many favours with all but a few."
Or, to paraphrase, "I am being vague because I'm hoping to score a job with some of these organizations that are producing the dreck that inspired me to write this in the first place. Tee hee."
He's pulling punches out of self-interest! Because McKenna wants to curry favor with future employers, he's refraining from writing honestly and is therefore guilty of the very same conflict of interest he accuses others of. Oops. If games "journalists" want to be considered serious journalists, they'll have to break themselves of that nasty habit.
There are three more reasons why games journalism makes like Kirby:
- The writing is bad.
- Corollary: most people don't care to read it.
- Cause: there are no strong critics of games journalism itself, as evidenced by McKenna's wasted opportunity to say something meaningful. (Though Video Game Media Watch tries and comes closest.)
