The sad state of video game journalism

Being a game journalist is basically the Holy Grail of video game jobs. Once a person becomes hired, they tend to do whatever they're told to keep that job intact.

It's a job with basically a lifetime job guarantee, as long as you do not stray from the norm too much.

Look hard at a game review next time, especially the ones in EGM. The three scores they post on the same game are usually very similar, which is fine in and of itself, but now try that here.

You can't get three people to agree on the overall quality of any game, much less all of them. With few exceptions the main thing that is hurting game journalism on the whole, is the overwheming lack of courage and pride in the work.

When we get more journalists with either of those two qualities, you'll see the rise in quality in the final product.

I have to agree with a previous post, EDGE may be one of the best english publication.
What's funny about EDGE, is that it is well written, quality articles about the medium, but when you say you are reading this magazine, you are catalogued as an "intellectual" of videogaming... and this guys, is exactly what most of the people dislike. Like one of the first post when it is said that extensive vocabulary sucks (BTW, vocabulary is helpfull for being precise and concise... lack of vocabulary is not more efficient, it's the opposite).

I also think that PLAY in the US is a pretty good magazine, especialy editos from Dave Hallerson (not sure how it is spelled). Maybe that's why they usualy don't get the big mega exclusive cover... Or because there "cultural" approach of the videogame (including manga/anime/gadgets) has allowed them to diversify their revenues.

Regarding Blogs, be it Joystiq or any others... Blogs are not journalism even if some egos from Gawker (or Weblogs) would like to be (I guess to have access to PR parties... I am being sarcastic here). Blogs are a specialized form of "my homepage" everyone had in the 95's. I don't expect to read quality journalism, but a person, a real person, witha personality, that has a maximum of 50 lines to pass an information.

Somehow, Blogs are the strange son of common journalism and press agency (ever read an AFP or REUTER release... 5 lines).

So is there room for good game journalism ? I would believe so, but it already exist somehow... but people are not interested in good journalism and that's the bad part.
Otherwise, Play or EDGE would be flooded by subscriptions... they are not only the leaders of good gaming journalism (in my book at least), but are the only one in their specific market! If there was a need for good journalism, believe me, those two would be millionaires and many websites would appear just like mushrooms after an heavy rain on the intraweb.

And BTW, english is not my language, so excuse for the weird sentences or mistakes (that would be inappropriate when talking about "bad" written expression).

Cheers !

EDGE is a shining light in a sea of bad gaming journalism.

The real question here is why isn't gaming journalism accepted as a valid form of journalism? According to dictionary.com, journalism is defined as "Written material of current interest or wide popular appeal."

Just because EGM isn't formatted quite like a Wall Street Journal doesn't invalidate the information in EGM. Also one must look at the purpose of video game print publications-- reviews and previews. While articles about a boy making his own game at the age of ten are strewn about here and there, the majority of the magazine is centered around reviews and previews.

The great idea behind Joystiq and other video game blogs lies in the fact that they are not printed publications. Running small stories on minor issues doesn't impact them or their advertising space. This allows for a great multitude of stories to be included on the mainpage. Also, blogs tend to not concern themselves with reviews as much as magazines.

Perhaps there is so much opposition to anything video game related because the conservative 50-somethings are still in the seats of power. Within a couple of decades the generation that grew up on video games will begin permeating the writing industry and government, and maybe then video games and video game reporting will become widely accepted.

Its called "the Rolling Stone method of writing". Its where you add in a political topic, a current event, what you ate that morning and and a joke or two mixed in with your article. I cant stand when people write stuff like that. Its not just in gaming magazines its in a lot of magazines.

i really dont see a problem with any sites. there all great. and i feel there funny because us the gamers like that kind of stuff (because that what why we play games to have fun!) i dont want no robot telling me: "this games is superb" that why i score gamespot the most (in fact this site and gs are the only ones i visit because im a total acces subscriber in gs and because joystick tells the news fast and easy.

Maybe it's just me - but video game journalism has gone the way of it's mainstream predecessor. It is becoming totally and completely commercialized. It used to be about the games we played. Now it's all about getting the latest scoop, which then increases the all important market share whether that means writing with integrity or not.

"Even when they do write a feature, it's typically 1000 words or less and adds very little to the overall dialogue on gaming."

Nonsense. The latest Game informer has a very good piece on the ESRB, and their recent "Roast" of big-name games like Halo and FFVII was hilarious.

Just throwing in another thumbs up for Edge. Only mag I still buy, even if it is $8.00

If Chris Buffa thinks he is going to make himself famous or seem more credible with this article, then he should have thought twice about titling it:

"Why Videogame Journalism Sucks"

Videogame journalism is in the state it's in because most gamers are barely illiterate anyway. To the extent that they want to read about games at all, they mostly just want to know if the latest releases are worth buying (or torrenting).

There's nothing to be said from a "mature adult" perspective about Chromehounds or Hitman: Blood Money or raiding Molten Core for the fifty-third time. If someone wants intellectually stimulating grown-up subject matter they can go read American Pastoral or something. Games are for *playing*.

I'm gonna make a big name for myself by writing an article that criticizes the industry in a mature, adult manner.

I shall call it "The Cock-knocking Butt-Headed Bastards of the Super-Retarded Industry and Why They Are Noobs". Then people will respect me!

#59: This does not mean games do not communicate important themes or ideas. Beyond Good and Evil, for example, conveys the the corruption inherent in governments and the importance of combating it. The title of the game itself comes from the work of noted philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Of course you do have a selection of games for pure entertainment (Dead Rising just to name one), but remember that games maintain the ability to be a vehicle for information and ideas.

So are video game blogs like Joystiq part of the problem?

I think bloggers considering themselves journalists in general are part of the problem.

#62: Consider the fact that Joystiq and other blogs are essentially instantly-updatable information outlets. These news sources do not concern themselves with what they ate for breakfast or how their dog is doing, no. Instead they relay information relevant to video gamers.

What part about them makes you believe that they are not journalists?

I think one of the main problems with both print and internet reviews on most entertainment sites is the way the structure of the review.

EVERY review always has a rating (Except for maybe the newspapers, but generally game reviews are few and far between with newspapers). Whether this be in stars, percentage, grades or points. This totally distracts from the actual review. My eyes always wander first to the rating to see what they gave it and, depending on whether I'm interested or not, I'll read it. For example, I just read a review of NCAA Football '07 (X360) in EGM and they gave it 7.0-7.5. I was interested because this is a big time game and wondered why there was a low score. But the problem with their reviews is that they're so short and by three different people, that I didn't really understand why the low score besides "It didn't have enough in it to separate itself from the PS2 version" And the reviews that get 6.0 and below I don't even bother with. I paid for the magazine, so I should read all of it, right? Who does read all the reviews, any way? We should, if we want to be well-informed, so that next time we can compare reviews of similar games and what we really like. And also, so we can actually TRUST someone's opinion.

And I don't like metacritic. It's a problem with our generation of quick-fix news and entertainment. They're just scores and nothing else, there is no substance. Sure you can go and read individual reviews, but that's not the point of the site, really.

Where's the critics who review games that fill up more than 1000 words without a score? We need a Pauline Kael in the game industry, more so than a Lester Bangs. Someone who takes the time to thoroughly delve into the game and make us actually look forward to a review! They don't need to write arrogantly , but they need to be professional.

I don't like EGM because they are very biased toward PS2 and SONY. The objective writers (especially "Che") all left for other magazines (within the same parent company).

How could you even consider what Buffa was saying, when he cannot even practice what he preaches? He points out that game journalists write poorly when he made many grammatical errors. He whines that there is no credibility in the beat, but his words are juvenile and very amateurish.

Do the grammatical weaknesses he mentioned impress you enough to believe him? Oh please.

Buffa must be a journalism student (or at least sounds like one), which is probably why he huffs about many writers in the industry not having a journalism degree. Sadly, he doesn't realize that one of the reasons he mentioned hurts him just as much as every wannabe--maturity.

I do agree with many of the points he has presented, but it's his holier-than-thou attitude that I don't like. He tries to mask this with his self-deprecating humor, but it's not good enough to hide the stench.

Here's the real main reason games journalism languishes: there are just too many who wants to play games, write their $0.02 about it, and get paid in the process.

Everyone who plays think they can be a game journalist, thus the abundance of aspirants. Someone always has something to say about another journalist's writing because they think they can do better. They want that Joystiq writing job, or that associate editor opening in GameSpot.

There are just too many "game journalists" out there. Have you checked out Google lately? Type in "video games," and you'll see pages and pages of sites that cater to the subject. Because of the sheer number of writers, the writing quality naturally suffers.

FYI: there's more to games journalism than playing games. You have to cover events you don’t want to visit, transcribe interviews and find quotable quotes, stay late in the office to edit a contributor's grammatical atrocities, deal with mountains of paperwork and deadline, sift through a lot of press releases to get to the real news, do a balancing act with your budget, the list goes on.

Games journalism takes commitment. Just like any job, the tasks are the easy part. Dealing with other people is actually a different story.

The beat's writers will never be as popular as film critics because more people watch movies. I used to write in a well-known electronic engineering publication, and while it’s been around for years and has some of the best writers I've ever worked with, they can never be mentioned in the same sentence as Ebert simply because of the nature of the publication. It's the same thing with video games, at least for now.

This is why I'm giving Buffa a break. He's probably young, and I guess he will mature eventually.

EGM is a total joke, back in the day it used to be great.
PLAY Magazine is simply fantastic.

I have found the UK magazine Edge a good read for reviews if you want a mature and unbiased opinion. the only problem being there are lots of long words I don't know.

"My GRAMMER is impeccable."

That's funny. I'm sure it was intended to be ironic.

By my memory, videogame "journalism" has always been non-existant. There was that point in the mid-'90s when Next Generation walked the earth, but that's pretty much it.

The prozines (as those of us in the old fanzine scene called 'em) have always read like the back of cereal boxes, indended for easy consumption by 8-14 year olds. It hasn't really changed much, has it?

We've also seen the game industry pander and dumb down over the years. Cheap T&A, or cheap S&M, or cheap violence. Choose your poison.

I've always preferred the zines in their heyday, which is why I became a part of it. It's too bad, really, that there isn't a modern equivelent. With the internet, this should be a snap, and there should be literally hundreds of gaming sites where everyone spews their opinions and builds a community.

Is is that everyone wants to make money? Is that the only motivation? Sure, many people who work for the prozines (Ara Shirinian & Ty Rodriguez for Tips & Tricks, Chris Johnston for EGM, yours truly for GamePro) started out with their own zines, but that's something that happened all by itself. We never planned that from the beginning. The zines and the comminuty were fun in and of themselves; and frankly, we loved our punkish, underground roles.

So, if you want games journalism, or whatever its called, to improve, you're going to have to get involved yourselves. Just don't try to emulate EGM or IGN or Gamespot. Do your own thing. The rest will take care of itself.