Gaming Journalism Is Lame

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Video Game news can be cool! Or boring! Or lame! Usually it’s pretty lame though! Today I’m gonna speedrun through some of my issues with the gaming news industry, and how gaming journalism isn’t quite as “gaming journalism” as it might seem.
From Xbox to PlayStation, EA to….PlayStation, there’s so many big businesses that seem to have their hands in all the cookie jars.
But not this one.
Not mine.
Unless they wanted to, I mean I’m not against the idea.
Phil Spencer probably still loves me.
I’ll also make fun of Disney a bit, because I feel like it.

[@knowledgehusk]

Go to ground.news/husk to see all sides of every story. Subscribe through the link to try out their pro plan for less than $1/month or get 30% off their unlimited vantage plan before Nov 10, 2023.

[@sirllamaiii9708]

NGL the way ground news is sponsoring so many KZbinrs is making me mad suspicious. Raid Shadow Legends or Lootcrate type thing. Makes me real suspicious of how they're able to give away this much cash.

[@luisoncpp]

I just took a look at that and I found a very high bias, I search for local news and I only found 2 kind of notes: the ones about crimes comited by drug cartels and the ones written by canadian or US persons for topics that only concern to canadians or US persons. Pretty much it's an anglocentric view.

[@Draconzis]

@@sirllamaiii9708 This is exactly my thought. An upstanding, unbiased news site with integrity would NOT be going this hard sponsoring KZbinrs, ESPECIALLY gaming ones.

[@Karlach_]

I use Ground News everyday and it's helped me avoid bias in what I read quite a bit.

[@sirllamaiii9708]

@@Karlach_ you sound like a robot to be honest

[@GarkKahn]

I remember when sports journalism was the laughing stock for journalists Thanks gaming "journalism"

[@Sandman2007]

Only upped by sports analyst

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

​@@Sandman2007hehehehe

[@ccvcharger]

I mean, it still kinda is _one of_ the laughing stocks of journalism. All gaming journalists did was give sports journalists company at the bottom of the barrel.

[@sergiowinter5383]

"Real" jornalism speak about boring "facts" (that could be false) following a political agenda and no one won anything with that. Sports journalists speak about World Cup champions, Champions League champions, F1 champions, Super Bowl winners. The day politicians win anything other than jail by being corrupt, or ilegal corruption money, anything that requires real skill, only then the boring journalism will compare to the glorious sport journalism.

[@shfizzle]

What do you mean was

[@rabadeuce814]

The incentive structure is pretty simple and well laid out here: 1. Reviewers need to get their articles out as fast as possible. This usually means getting access to the product before the general public. 2. If a reviewer gets the access they need and churn out a negative review, the publisher/studio won't give them access in the future, hurting their ability to earn revenue. 3. Therefore, it is always in the best interest of the reviewer to give positive reviews. In other words, you write positive reviews, you make money. You write negative reviews, you lose money. That's the system. You can disregard advertising dollars spent on banner and video ads, exclusive content, etc. With this alone, the "review" industry is nothing more than an extension of every studio/publisher's marketing arm.

[@galvendorondo]

There’s quite literally a very easy solution to this. All gaming companies must mandatorily provide a review copy of their games to established journalists (freelance or corporate), regardless of their opinion. Make a list of reviewers, and if somebody from that list deliberately does not receive said review copy, then he/she/they may publicly denounce their exclusion and/or call upon union reps in general to demand answers/provide consequences to the parties involved. TLDR gamers need to rise up (and unionise)

[@thewildcardperson]

​@@galvendorondolol why would a studio do that remember they make games to make money they dont care about the art or quality

[@Ajv516]

You described what is sometimes referred to as “access journalism”. I first observed it in my conscience life before the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Too many journalists pushed out-near verbatim-White House talking points. Normally there would have been better questions asked at press conferences, more OpEds from both parties questioning the general wisdom of such an undertaking, and public outcry to “send someone else’s kid-not mine.” Not that time. Even the “left wing media” (who hated the Bush administration) were too chickenshit to come out and say “this is an objectively bad idea written on flimsy pretense that is unlikely to pan out in our favor.” Is gaming “journalism” to be held to the same standard of importance? No. That would be insane. Video game publications have *always* been nothing but ads for games. Trust me, dude. I remember reading Nintendo Power magazines in the late 1980s. “Yar! Thar be nothing but bullshit here, matey!”

[@galvendorondo]

@@thewildcardperson boy let me tell you about these beautiful things called unions

[@ManiacX1999]

I love how it implies that only good reviews get press even though it's a known fact that shit talking a game is always more popular than giving it praise

[@Bendilin]

I loved how EGM would, before their review section, give a little history on each reviewer that issue and then had three of them review each title for the month. That way, when the two guys who love 3D platformers says Tonic Trouble is amazing and the one guy who hates them says it sucks, it made sense why. It also instilled in me at a young age to actually know who's opinion I am reading, and "IGN GIVING IT A 10/10" means nothing.

[@Bendilin]

Electronic Gaming Monthly even had a drawing about the incestrial relationship with a lot of review publications and product publishers. "SITE SAYS GAME IS 10/10" slapped on the boxart. "GAME OUT NOW" ads slapped all over the website.

[@Marcusianery]

Thats a good way to do it indeed!

[@nieznajomy4398]

but would people still talk about this game after month pass? Wouldn't targeted audience of those reviews already decided if they will buy or not buy said game because what people on twitter/reddit and/or youtubers who played those games said?

[@ThatItalianBastard]

I love how Husky the Snowman was made to prove a point in the marvel video and now he's officially become a recurring mascot of the channel

[@cursedseagullgames]

All hail husky, may he never melt!

[@poeticsilence047]

Still better than today's CGI lol. Has more character and heart.

[@Guy-cb1oh]

Husky for Smash!

[@nootanwait2358]

I've always been surprised that gaming journalism is even an industry.

[@L_Train]

Me too until I realized the sheer amount of people out there who want to be told what to think, whether or not they realize it.

[@ghostofthecommentsection]

​@@GabAssbreaker "no need for any game or music critic"... perhaps no need for them purely from a consumer convenience standpoint, but the value that critics offer goes beyond just "telling people if something is good or bad".

[@overlord6887]

It has it's place, but the incentive structures around it are f*cked, and also it's subject to the same problems as traditional journalism. These two combine to turn most of the industry, especially the more mainstream stuff into turbocancer. Despite that, there are folks doing actual journalism out there instead of polishing AAA knobs. Besides the relatively healthy ecosystem for game reviewing on here and other social media, there's also folks like People Make Games, for example, that actually do proper investigative journo stuff. You just gotta dig for it, same as with regular journalism.

[@braxtonwise9897]

Gaming journalism has its flaws, but game dev is incredibly interesting, and without the journalism we wouldn’t know about why mass layoffs happen, or why a certain game music composer quit, or where he came from. How the programmers are feeling, why they are quitting en-masse, or why game designers are all wishing they work at a certain company. Reviews are only one of the cogs in what I think is a valuable machine

[@MatthewCobalt]

It's just a branch of standard journalism, meaning it was suspectable to the same money insensitives and sensationalism. Reviews are insentivised to go full speed to maximize attention, as well as being positive to get early release copies to many games. Opinion pieces that are only meant to grab eyes and attention. Reducing the coverage of important topics, such as labor issues in game companies, as to not push people away from them.

[@mrshmuga9]

It's baffling how some people deny that "access journalism" is an oxymoron, and the influence companies have.

[@mrshmuga9]

@@VikingTeddy History is an interesting subject. How do you know what you're being taught is accurate/inaccurate? You read someone else with contradictory info based on X. But X could also be info that's lacking it's own proper context or was a lie/propaganda that got accepted as fact over time. Basically, you can't got far past your own time period (say your up to your grandparents) and really "know" what's right or not. Essentially, it's a game of broken telephone and at some point you're accepting someone's statements based on faith.

[@goosewithagibus]

You know... I'm starting to think that having everything revolve around profit is a bit... not swell.

[@Karlach_]

The cost of living is rising everywhere but wages/salaries are not rising. So guess what? This is only going to get worse and worse as time goes on as companies and individuals do everything they can no matter how scummy to be able to pay their rent and afford food so they don't starve to death.

[@stevemartin9396]

Capitalism at it's best...

[@samgomez2064]

The next Lenin will be a gamer

[@redgreen2453]

I mean, I imagine it’s pretty sweet if you’re the one getting all the profits while remaining blissfully ignorant about the specifics of how that profit is generated

[@corynasf9749]

​@@Karlach_individuals can't do anything... but a mobilized class can!

[@Ace-cc1em]

I think that's what most people forget about the news industry in general, not just games and movies: They are in advertising business, and journalism is just a side product.

[@notsyzagts7967]

Byproduct, not side product.

[@MaxKirschling]

"The Industry"... exactly. I don't know when it happened, but the same people that made Saturday morning cartoons are now Kotaku and MSNBC, FOX and Gamestop. There is still actual good journalism out there, but I'm too busy watching X-Men cartoons in my jammies

[@NealBauer]

I was offered the Editor in Chief position at Next Generation in 2000. Upon meeting with the higher ups at Imagine/Future publishing, I got pulled into an executive's office who proceeded to tell me, "Anyone can write a good review about a good game. We need people who can write a good review about a bad game." I didn't take the job and Next Generation Magazine didn't make it a year after that interview. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@lamlelamatsiliza8550]

Good choice, maybe with time. The same can happen to these ones.

[@ectior]

I like how much use he’s getting out of his silly little snowman he modeled

[@gamesthatiplay9083]

The plot twist about Nintendo Power being owned by Nintendo, is the fact that they gave their own games harsher scores than other games compared to other outlets.

[@geoffreywilson7008]

Meanwhile, Sterling gives an 8/10 and gets burned at the stake for it.

[@randomprotag9329]

@@geoffreywilson7008 It was funny seeing a tweet that assumed sterling 4/10 is a broken game. and compared his 4/10 to igns 4/10 with out thinking if the scale meant the same thing to both.

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

Can't imagine Ty's face about that.

[@Lastbornschwab7]

FYI. Postal service revenue is at an all time high, and physical media can compete in one important metric. Nostalgia. Theres still something to be said for having physical media, something tangible. Some may call this niche at this point, but it still holds some point of relevance.

[@benmcreynolds8581]

I miss the days when we would get demo discs with our gaming magazines. Growing up throughout the 90's & into the Y2k early 2000's was such a unique experience. I'm glad i got to grow up thru that era because nowadays it is so different & i never thought we were going to lose so many aspects that we used to have.. i just assumed things would evolve, improve but weirdly enough things have actively changed for the worse... So ya i miss the days of demo discs with our gaming magazines and so many other things from that era.

[@ZMCFERON]

Free/shareware Era was balling

[@funnyitworkedlasttime6611]

I'm still waiting for coconut monkeys coconut island 2 😢

[@seanlanglois8620]

Sega rally championship. Timecop

[@aaaaaaa-so8op]

Yup I also remember getting the GameStop magazines used to collect them

[@negirno]

Rose tinted glasses. Newer generations already not missing it. They'll be nostalgic about current social media.

[@NamelessGamer29]

Aside from the last part this can basically apply to all forms of journalism

[@SpoopySquid]

Chomsky and Herman have entered the chat

[@PoopDog7771-ei8kv]

no dont be a conspiracy theorizt . this only applies to gaming journaliam. most journalisms is accurate unless it is pushing a narrative like right wing and often centrist journalists

[@nuke___8876]

I was thinking the same thing. However, I think a pretty stark difference is gaming/movies don't really have a way to clearly define market segments like The News does. I think the video is wrong that the market segment of gaming consumption is as tiny as he made it out to be. There's definitely an absolutely massive market out there, it's just that gamers don't really care enough about "those people" (the people who don't like the same games as they do) to wall themselves off and thus make themselves a targetable segment. This is probably for two reasons: First, the games themselves are targeting an audience so targeting a target means you're already talking to a very small (unprofitably low) crowd and the second is that people have no choice but to interact with society yet people don't have to play a game. Not interacting with society isn't just unnatural, it could be deadly. On the other hand, the opportunity cost of not playing a game is practically zero. Because the stakes are so low, there's absolutely no sense of urgency to form a tribe. Without forming a tribe, there's no sense of identity. Without forming a sense of identity, there is no brand to represent that identity. Like the video said, the closest we have are the various console wars, but that's basically a whole coke vs. pepsi thing. People do take a side, but they do so knowing that it's inconsequential.

[@bingozonk3143]

@@PoopDog7771-ei8kv🫃🏿🫃🏿🫃🏿

[@accountrandomnumber182]

I think the last part applies to. Think about it

[@HexenDarkside]

TL;DW: The entire industry is literally worthless from top to bottom.

[@TheLastBrandon]

Sad but true. No worries. It’s just a summary of everything you already know.

[@HexenDarkside]

@@TheLastBrandon Oh, that was meant to be a summary. I did watch the video, not gonna comment without doing so - but in so many words that is what he said hence my joke, haha.

[@TheLastBrandon]

@@HexenDarkside Oh haha! Oops 😅 Well you did a great job accurately summarizing the video as well 👍

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

And if all of this is worthless, what happens, then?

[@overlord6887]

I think a large part of the problem, which is also present in regular journalism, is that the current generation of journalists mostly come from homogeneous backgrounds. They all went to the same schools, came from the same demographics, and if they transitioned from another industry prior to doing journo stuff they often come from the same places there too. This basically results in people whose job is dependent on being in-touch with the subject matter just being more in touch with each other than with the field they're reporting on more often than not instead. Back in the day journalism was more informal (less dependence on accrediting, and degrees to get the job) and folks often came from the areas/fields they reported on. Eg. prior military often became war correspondents, folks with labor union connections reported on labor adjacent stuff, local activists got on the local paper to report on local issues they worked on, etc.

[@SlapstickGenius23]

The problem is too many people from homogeneous backgrounds.

[@Haverlock]

In the case of Hunter S. Thompson weird druggie schizos wrote about politics

[@relo999]

That not really the big issue, rather it's simply where their money comes from. And that has always been at least somewhat of an issue, except with news up till around the 50's (where news was very dry and generally not self funded). In the past news was written to at least be interesting and within the worldview of their subscriber base. Modern news is meant to generate clicks so more eyeballs see ads. It's a system that's build to appease the payer, and the actual payer has become less and less the consumer.

[@michaelkitchin9665]

@@relo999 And modern news expanded to be entire, 24 hour networks. Not enough news (at least that would interest their chosen audience) happens to fill that time so there's lot of people on standby, expert opinion and eyewitness accounts to try and plug the gap.

[@DeadheadYates]

Nice try Husk, I know for a fact that we've never had to live without Funbooks or Tic-Tacs. I love a good work of fantasy imagining what life was like without them tho

[@abrenmam]

So it turns out society and problems are way more complicated and systematic.

[@PostingCringeOnMain]

Ahh man, I miss magazines. Fr tho, they maybe only came out once a month but as a kid you bet your behind I'd be pouring over every screen shot, reading every word, pawing at every page in bed at night, or the back of my parents car or with friends during school lunch breaks. I swear the quality of journalism and reviews was so much higher because it cost so much more to produce and distribute and reputation actually mattered, accountability mattered and journalists were hired on the basis of their skills as writers and storytellers, not how many clickbait rageclicks they could generate on TXXTer or FaceMuck.

[@Lefaid]

I have never gotten over that gaming and tech press conferences look and sound like political rallies.

[@Tavi78]

i feel like there’s a reason for it but i’m not sure

[@michaelkitchin9665]

Ah, c'mon. Nuremberg didn't have pie charts.

[@TheLastBrandon]

Also gaming journalist used to be passionate about gaming and would give honest opinions. Now they avoid reviewing bad games almost entirely and praise even the most broken AAA game simply because a popular studio is attached to it. Modern gaming journalists have zero integrity and zero passion.

[@DiscoMouse]

The mags were in the publishers pocket too.

[@TheLastBrandon]

@@DiscoMouse You may be right but but gaming journalism still feels way worse today.

[@DiscoMouse]

@@TheLastBrandon Agreed

[@KingUnKaged]

On my Home Screen, this video appeared directly below an IGN post showing screen caps of random people on Twitter reacting in utter awe of the new episode of Loki... because "journalism"

[@foxxarie]

Awesome Whimsu cameo, you guys should do more collabs

[@steverempel8584]

Professional gaming journalism sucks, because the professional reviews will not end up liking good games. They will like games that are flashy, and easy to get through, because they have to go through so many so quickly.

[@deletedTestimony]

Best frame in this video is where you said "best possible setting" for The New Star Wars and its just Lego Yoda on the screen. Absolutely flawless

[@timstone2813]

A profession we no longer need.

[@jamestown8398]

Nor one we want.

[@GPantazis]

What a perfect ending. We could explain all the different nuances of how both sides cheat their way into comfort and profit in ways that most peoples' solutions won't do anything for, but underneath it all we are trying to "regain" the integrity of people whose job has always been just telling us what to consume next.

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

"just ignore the sponsored segment..."

[@PrismPoint]

I feel like we should Goncharov the AI journalists into making articles saying that Nintendo is Buying Disney

[@ryospeedwagon1456]

This actually happened recently. Some skeezy site was using AI to scrape forums and auto generate shitty articles. People found out about it and completely tricked the AI into making absolute bullshit. Just look into "Blorbo".

[@agnet42]

hello mother

[@highcouncil1302]

Hello father

[@bobtom1495]

Hello brother....

[@Alec_Reaper]

Hello grandmother and grandfather

[@Cybersynthetica]

I am at Camp Granada

[@FireAngelZero]

I always appreciate a person that can properly use Jonathan Frakes poses to get points across..

[@arepasexo]

I find it amazing that PC Gamer got to do an interview to Valve and actually was a good interview

[@olivercuenca4109]

I don't see why you'd be amazed. PC Gamer's one of the best magazines in the sector. If they couldn't get a decent interview nobody can.

[@TheLastBrandon]

All gaming magazines were much more interesting back in the day than the IGNs and other gaming websites of 2023. Not even a contest.

[@paillettecnc]

All that you said might be right on the US market but it's not elsewhere. In France we have Canard PC (Duck PC, a joke made from the Canard WC brand of gel for WC) that does in depth articles about the industry, the games, everything related to the media and more (they even have an off-shoot called Canard PC Hardware for, well hardware) and they're completly independant. And guess what, they SURVIVED one of the hardest crysis to hit newspapers in France (Prestalis scandal) and they still operate to this day.

[@neocrow-xn5vq]

You're correct about the survival tactics part. Just see the internet's reaction whenever an article with a retarded title gain popularity. For me personally, I stopped looking at those sites when I realized I can enjoy games without caring about other stuff that's happening in the industry. It's much more fun like that.

[@Pyovali]

I stopped reading video game articles when the authors of those articles started focusing on political correctness and calling gamers bigots.

[@KidKingdomHearts]

That’s how it used to be when I was a kid lol. I used Nintendo power for cheat codes or ways to find Shiny type Pokémon. I never thought the day would come when people really hang their gaming enjoyment of what gaming journalists says

[@GarkKahn]

Yeah that's basically someone saying "X said this" and "Y responded saying that" You know, like the annoying old lady every neighbourhood have

[@Yixdy]

​@@Pyovalius gamers ought to stop being bigoted, then. Also this is an imagined take, at any given time there has always been people ripping on gamers, and those doing the exact opposite and responding in kind by spewing vitriol

[@thedigitaldummy3098]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@Yixdywe never were bigoted though. There’s ripping on gamers but that not on par with trying to make them out as bad people. That’s why those journalists inspired so much hatred. Who could’ve guessed that people don’t like it when you falsely call them bigoted.

[@redherringoffshoot2341]

there's a specific term for the type of journalism you're describing, it's called "yellow-page journalism"

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

a.k.a: Sensationalist Journalism, Tabloid Jounalism.

[@FlameLFH]

>Spider-Slop 3 with a Cuban flag in the background, referencing how Insomniac got Cuba and Puerto Rico mixed up Lmao this guy gets it.

[@Avalon_1991]

That's exactly what happened with that Galactic Starcruisers and those influencers that were invited to be there first. You could see how bad it was but they were desperately trying to find anything positive to say.

[@otakubullfrog1665]

It used to be that people writing about games seemed to actually like them. I'm sure that plenty of them were faking that, but they at least understood that it was something they needed to fake. Now it feels like we get stuck with a lot of people that couldn't get jobs at The Wall Street Journal and, not only are they not the sort of people who consider the next Nintendo console to be more important than the sociopolitical issues and current events of the day, they don't even seem to believe us when we tell them that we do (or that at the very least we do when we're in the mood to read a gaming website).

[@TheLastBrandon]

I miss the excitement of receiving a brand new gaming magazine each month. Each time it was cram-packed full of news, reviews and info on all upcoming games. I miss level layouts and, of course, demo discs! Oh yeah, and I really, really miss when the industry was creative and driven to push the boundary of what was possible in a game. Nowadays the industry only pushes the boundaries of how broken and incomplete a game can be and see if people will still buy it 😔

[@PostingCringeOnMain]

No one wants to pay for their journalism anymore, but everyone wants to complain it's gotten crappy... I think one major component of why gaming magazines were better than free gaming journalism websites was that it was a product being sold and that meant it paid a good salary to high quality journalists. They also had to compete with each other so that drove innovation and creativity and better value propositions to consumers. When everything is funded purely off click based advertising then there's obviously *ONLY* the incentive to write what will drive more clicks, not to produce a better quality product than the competition.

[@TheLastBrandon]

@@PostingCringeOnMain Well said! I completely agree with you assessment of the situation 👍

[@Paddy656]

Videogame these days are all bad and only motivated by profit, unlike the past where there were no bad games and nobody cared about money.

[@ILikedGooglePlus]

​@@Paddy656 Facts! Videogame peaked with ET

[@Radar_of_the_Stars]

I give this video a 7.8/10 too much water

[@gjergjaurelius9798]

Yeah I quit clicking on bait articles back in 2017. I finally realized what I was doing for those websites. Only time i comment on a kotaku, cbr etc is if it’s on my Facebook timeline and I’m usually just trolling while I’m on the shitter!😂

[@cantin8697]

The problem is simply that it's obvious gaming journalism isn't done by people who have actually played even a single game in their lives, never mind gamers who have played thousands of games as a hobby. It's like a load of people tried to get into journalism but couldn't get anywhere in the topics they are passionate in, so they had to resort to gaming. If you want to get into journalism of any kind, it doesn't matter how interested you are in the subject, it matters if you have some English degree.

[@SamButler22]

Reprinting press releases doesn't really count as journalism for me

[@josedorsaith5261]

That's most journalism today, sadly. Worked for a couple of PR firms that had press releases in most major publications on a monthly basis

[@alexroselle]

"In the words of Huey Long, 'Every Man a Mega-Man' and 'a DLC in Every Pot'"

[@kabj06]

RyanF9 talked about the exact same incentive ring with motorcycles, and I've seen the same thing in gun magazines. It's in every industry that has products worth being reviewed. Easy way to tell if a website or magazine is writing trash reviews is by seeing if they've ever written a bad review. Was it a contrarian opinion, or was it an obviously bad product that wouldn't burn bridges with a negative review?

[@lenargilmanov7893]

Man, am I glad that now we have youtubers who review games independently and will never be paid or invited to a press event to promote a product! Right? Right?!

[@piotrekzielinski920]

It reminds me of "Manufacturing consent" from Noah Chomskey

[@rattled6732]

In other words don’t trust reviewers ever. Just wait until it has been out for a while and listen to what the actual people say about it

[@ItsNket]

Game journalism websites rely on ad revenue from game companies to stay alive - for the most part they basically just **aren't allowed** to give bad scores to games published by their benefactors. Look up the story of Jeff Gerstmann, who was fired for giving a bad review to Kane and Lynch - one of the worst games ever made.

[@ItsNket]

I made this comment at 15 minutes in, so if you go into this in the next 3 minutes, my bad :O

[@notsyzagts7967]

@@ItsNketOr you could delete your comments since they're completely redundant. That would be simpler.

[@ItsNket]

@@notsyzagts7967 While that’s true about most things I say in life, he didn’t bring up Gerstmann’s story or the minimum review rating scandals, so I left them up.

[@mr.pavone9719]

My irony meter cracked when it was crushed between the sponsor and the topic.

[@epimorphism]

Nice Whimsu crossover, you should have him on more often.

[@olivercuenca4109]

That thing about the time factor is why we tend to distinguish between 'news' content and 'feature' content tbh (I am not a games journalist, but I know how it works). Short bulletins for the small stuff, long-form analysis and opinion for the stuff that's longer term. The trouble comes, as always, when opinion columns come along and blur the line.

[@the_names_rob]

When I read the news I always read multiple websites takes on it because I feel (and know) I am getting incomplete information without it but it is unfortunate people dont do the same

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

...and, as good as that might be, Ground News won't cover video games. Just politics.

[@kavky]

In the 9th year AGG (After GamerGate) I thought this was self-evident but thank you for the explanation, but an upload from you is always a welcome treat.

[@zephodb]

The 'editorializing' Gaming Journalism is what is dying... It is easy and simple, they are adding things in that don't need to be there and not actually covering the games and news on the game, they're falling in to the 24/7 issue of having to create news in order to keep 'relevant', see CNN/MSNBC/Fox. Contrariwise sites like GameFAQs are picking back up in popularity, because they're telling you about the games and moving on.

[@michaelkitchin9665]

It's always been weird. The old magazines would be written by people barely into adulthood working for a pittance. Imagine having to stretch a two-page spread out of a busted Breakout clone. The current sites use a rolodex of faceless freelancers. Below that, you've got influencers who are entirely self-employed and rely upon views and watch time. There's honest in there but there is no editor or a second opinion to at least offer the illusion of checks and balances. And then you've got anyone booted from gaming publications/websites. The patreon mob that just can't quit. It's an industry that can support a few hundred people globally. The rest are just crabs in a bucket. The only thing that's changed is the sheer, terrifying volume of it.

[@somethingelse4878]

Amiga Format was responsible for most of the Amiga piracy

[@JH-pe3ro]

There's an undercurrent that doesn't get mentioned here, which is that what all the gaming journalists started doing was posting on Twitter, because all the game devs were there. They did not know any better than anyone else at the time that Twitter would go for algorithmic engagement and what that actually meant, but once it did, which was in 2012, one year later there was Politics in Video Games and Ethics in Game Journalism. The period before that was quite hopeful about what all the new voices found online could do for gaming's conversation, which had been in a stagnant good-old-boys mindset roughly since the time that the market consolidated into a few publicly-traded publishers(basically, the mid 90's). But what jumped ahead of the line in this new era were extremists with career ambitions. And part of that is also that we're talking about a bunch of Millennials who were not getting anything like what they were promised in the post-08 economy, so they didn't want to go along to get along. The grievances were going to come out somehow and gaming was an easy space to do it. Gaming isn't unique in this, just maybe more visible. In general, industries do harm because they're there to support the goals of nation-state elites, not the things they say they're about. It's not solved within the politics of the state: the access to financing and legal structures to have a big organization with a large reach derives from partnering up with the state, so everyone on the ground ends up being dependent on doing things that advance someone else's power play. And whether it looks left-flavored or right-flavored, someone is pulling a string. Avoid being part of an industry if you can help it 😂

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

Yours truly: the Anti-Industry-ist.

[@SalamiMilk]

The problem isn't money, ambitious greed, or wanting more money. It's much more. It's what the money represents. Money is power. Power is control. Control needs money. And it's harder to keep money than make money. The root of the problem is people don't know how to use power responsibly. Use power with discipline. Power is used to serve life, not take life. And with great power comes greater responsibility.

[@Yuhyuhmuhmuh]

It's crazy to think that only half of earth has never played a video game

[@ogjk]

Great analysis KH, I just fast forward through spanwave in the morning and listen to the segments that interest me. He seems to be fairly objective.

[@zetsubou-sensei1078]

He's technically independent, I think. Less of a games journalist and more of a youtuber. Which ironically makes him something much closer to what a pre-internet actual journalist would've been.

[@ogjk]

@@zetsubou-sensei1078 I agree with you he's more of a reporter type when he presents the information though he seems to do it in an unbiased manner like he doesn't have a certain system/company preference. Sometimes he does have a gaming preference but I can easily look past that, can't like everything

[@KarmaHauntsYou]

So happy Escapist is dying. I got banned during gamergate for "whining" when in reality all i did was make a post asking "hey, its been a week, can we stop? My entire feed is arguing, and its making me want to leave the site. Mod comes in, "Okay then, bye" perma ban. I had an OG account, posted every day, and had been donating money since i joined. Only for one guy to tell me he didnt want me there, no priors, no warning. Just gtfo.

[@estrathdee565]

We really need some way for publications to get guarantees that, if a publisher hands out early access codes, they will be able to get them regardless of their previous reviewers. If it was standard to at least always give early access codes to some list of the most popular sites that would probably give reviewers significantly more freedom. Advertising would still be an issue though, so maybe the best way to get reviews is to follow independent critics of platforms like KZbin who don't get early access codes.

[@kukukachu]

11:55 this right here is the problem. People support these bad behaviors by either talking about it and making it this week's relevency or they go out and buy the thing they just complained about. It doesn't matter if they buy it to make fun of it or not because that company just got the profits. It doesn't matter if you go to the article to laugh at it, you just gave them your views. These youtubers even reporting this stuff are part of the problem because they are broadcasting it, thus making it "relevent"...everyone just needs to stop.

[@timularvangular514]

So it’s all just a game of marketing?

[@MustraOrdo]

NintendoDisney: Always has been

[@slavsquatsuperstar]

Man, I remember reading through LEGO catalogs with my brother back in the day. Good, simpler times. 😭

[@poweradereal]

gaming journalists are the scariest Halloween horror of all.

[@RERM001]

Gaming probably doesn't really need too much journalism behind it. As you said, it used to be a niche thing with magazines catered exclusively to the niche of the already niche hobby. Gamer mags weren't akin to gossip news and tabloids, it was more related to transportation (cars, buses, trains, boats, planes), fashion, design, manga/anime or any other hobby that never caters to everyone, but instead something that a certain type of intellectual elite wants. Train geeks, industrial design geeks, car people, all of them have (or had) a magazine or book or any sort of e-publication centered in the specific type of car company design house, etc. that the reader wants to see. Manga mags used to cover the recent premieres and manga publications with reviews, pictures and other articles for a broad anime audience while at the same time understanding who that audience is. Meanwhile, most modern gaming sites (IGN, Kotaku, etc.) try to cater to a lot of kinds of gamers, PC gamers, Play Station gamers, Nintendo Gamers, heck even phone gamers. Needless to say, a lot of these audiences are very different from each other and different regions/markets do not make any favours to the journalists trying to write articles about games and such, since a lot of games aren't distributed equally throughout the world (PS, Steam, PC). I do believe that this might be the real reason for why modern games journalism is so out of touch as the old school spetialised journalists that wrote only for the niche sector now were put in charge of broader appeal publications, which in turn makes it harder to actually connect to anybody in said niche. Think of it this way, there are a few cars magazines centered around companies like VW or Nissan, car companies that aren't just huge, but they also have a huge following of owners, fans, and maybe even future buyers. It would be unreasonable to ask those kinds of publications to start creating articles that talk more broadly or even about other car companies without making the old fans and followers feel betrayed or dissatisfied. Either way, as long as we still have open discussion forums and sites to communicate freely with other gamers in our field, platform, game genre, games and the like, there will not be too much of a need for these sensationalist tabloids passing as gaming sites, as all the information that we can want and get will be available to the community and still be created and maintained by most communities around it.

[@blerst7066]

I can't believe there's so many people trusting game journalists that it's become an industry.

[@MrDj232]

"It's not about greed. It's survival tactics." 5 seconds later: "That political nonsense you all really hate, it makes more money than anything else they publish."

[@storminmormin14]

One major advantage to a “public” school system is that it in theory is that it can’t be bought by big business. Yet, there is practically no responsible consumerism taught in schools. From allowing Amazon to slaughter brick and mortar to supporting awful journalism, we have never been taught to shop responsibly. Though we will learn through the consequences of our actions soon enough.

[@4Usuality]

I've been a journalist for about 4 years. There's very little real journalism out there. Almost everyone in my industry that I know anyways sees content journalism (journalism that is specifically about products) as advertising, in fact I have a friend who worked for gameinformer that says they were most interested in his advertising background when he got the job, if that says anything. Some game journalists see themselves as journalists, and I understand that is simply what they are told by their superiors to say, it's not their fault. Most of what you said in this video is true, I don't think of it as an opinion, in my industry, it's as obvious a fact as that Walter Cronkite was a great news host.

[@Entropic_Alloy]

I expected a mention of Kane and Lynch at the end when talking about relationships between publisher and outlets, because that was a big deal in 2007.

[@merlenclownshuffles]

2:40 This made my day. I needed it.

[@trantusak]

Truly a husk of knowledge

[@Lobosatirico]

I just straight up stopped reading reviews for games a while back. I did so again with starfield, and then when I played it... It was clear the reviews were straight up lying about everything. I wonder how much bethesda paid them. It's fair to say I won't be reading any reviews for any games again.

[@mathieuleader8601]

a snowman with a tropical shirt is neat

[@mattis1981]

I used to work as a volunteer at a small gaming print that focused on reviews and news about video games. We would get sent preview codes and stuff for pretty big games (Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc). And we were told to just write whatever we wanted. And I did. I gave lots of big games pretty bad scores and we kept getting preview codes because we were so small that it didn't matter for them. So it seems to me that this is obviously true at IGN and Kotaku level, but at a smaller level it is irrelevant. The big game companies just want to spread the game, and unless you are IGN and Kotaku nobody gives a shit what score you give. Consumers and companies alike.

[@HarleyHerbert]

I think the biggest reason people hate games journalism is the games journalists. They hate their audience, are patronising and condescending to everyone, often have a poor understanding of the things they talk about leading to consistent factual errors, tend to have really shitty attitudes, treat people badly, are really bad at writing and they have this assumption that their own opinions are superior and the only opinions that matter, and that anyone who disagrees with them must be a terrible person who must be shunned and attacked. Obviously such people are going to be disliked by a lot of people and would attract a lot of ridicule. Games journalism can work out when the journalist in question is actually somewhat of a decent person or actually does a decent job. Take Totalbiscuit for example, he managed to build up such a huge following and still to this day years after his death is regularly talked about as being games journalism done right, and he did this by talking to his audience like actual human beings, caring a lot about his work and the topics he talked about, putting in the effort to make sure he does good work, and not demonising people for daring to have different opinions. Because of this he was successful despite people's general disdain for games journalism, proving it can be done well with the right journalists. These companies like Kotaku and IGN really screw themselves over by hiring the worst people to do the job.

[@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898]

Waiting a month for the new installment of Club Nintendo was not a flaw. I Purchased every issue between 1993 and 1998, when I had totally abandoned Nintendo gaming for PC and Playstation. But for the duration, those 5+ years, it was perfect. We didn't need instant news about games, because there were no hundreds of news a day. Waiting some weeks was normal, was fine. Could have been better, therefore weekly bulletins at game stores, but we didn't need the newest news every day. And we still don't, but we got used to immediate information. But it doesn't matter if I learn today about a new game that was announced a month ago, the game still is not available, and you, who learned about it 28 days ago, a day after the last magazine issue released, and me, who only now knows of it, will be able to buy the game the same day, I am not any less human, you are not in the least more hardcore. And that was perfectly fine, for a reason. You even say it. Game journalism is not real journalism. Game journalism is advertising.

[@mistermamamia]

I think reviews are such a weird thing to count as journalism in the first place. To consider a personal opinion on the quality of a piece of art "news" in any way shape or form is... kind of stupid? This is why I only ever watch youtube videos for reviews, trying to find channels operated by a single person rather than an entire organization like ign. Reviews shouldn't be news, they should be opinionated pieces of discussion. It's just the kind of thing you can't tack any kind of reliability or credibility behind at the risk of making an opinion something grander than it is. Best you can do is find a platformer fan to review a platformer game, and that's what you should do, because anything else feels disingenuous. And it sucks too, because the people who really care about talking about games, the kind of people to make hour long dissections of their favorite games, are the people who are doing the best games coverage on the internet. I don't hate websites like ign and kotaku but I wish their writers were allowed to make something more passionate for this artistic medium rather than simple observation every once in a while, and god forbid the outrageous opinion pieces on things no one really believes.

[@SpoopySquid]

There's a reason Jason Schreier is doing some truly great investigative journalism into the videogame industry at Bloomberg instead of one of the videogame 'journalism' sites

[@MarkMann1]

You mean the guy that withheld information about the sexual harassment going on at Activision Blizzard while shitting on Chris Avollone because he didn't like the guy?

[@archibaldmoore4514]

​@MarkMann1 Chris avellone was years ago. Also you can't just make an accusation like that with no proof. It's not hard to see why someone might be cautious when approaching a subject like that

[@sdfxcvblank5756]

@@MarkMann1 shouldn't you be pissed at the victims for not speaking up rather than some random guy

[@MarkMann1]

​@@sdfxcvblank5756they did, Jason was protecting Activision. He did the same with the NeoGAF admin.

[@sdfxcvblank5756]

@@MarkMann1 its one part apathy and one part obligation, and one last part of caution in most states only a victim can bring about charges, secondly lets say he blew the whistle and Activision was able to sweep all the dirt under the rug, they could then sue him for slander and libel... the world is not perfect man

[@danhillenburg4487]

"Not like Scientific American" The exact same thing, though not as extreme (yet), is happening to Scientific American. They're starting to publish a lot of politically fashionable pseudoscientific nonsense.

[@mrshmuga9]

This is why gaming channels are on the rise. Websites gave up "timeless" content like retrospectives, opinion pieces, etc. in place of news. Something that is only ever useful in the moment and incredibly short (less time viewing ads). It's also not very personable, even in a way those sites used to be 10 years ago. They basically rendered themselves useless, as I can find out the same info on twitter, faster, without so many intrusive ads, with a more direct description (no fluff), and/or hear it from the company itself. None of these sites have really have any reasons to exclusively visit them. They all regurgitate the same info. I don't even follow them directly and still get all this info. Plus, there's almost no reason to even click the article once you read the headline. Because the info is do brief, it doesn't warrant an article. That's why they have to resort to shady tactics to hide the details. Because you wouldn't click it if they were frank.

[@riddell26]

Gaming channels are cringe trash

[@sirlimen333]

Except gaming channels are the same thing. If you step out of line, you're out. Why do you think people like YongYea are "successful" because of that.

[@mrshmuga9]

@@sirlimen333 There's much more variety in gaming channels than websites. My point is you'll have channels that'll make video essays or speedruns or something else that doesn't hinge upon "Game X is releasing today and I need content about it yesterday". It's why years old videos can be picked up in the algorithm and given a second chance. Because a new audience found/is interested in it. That doesn't really happen for something like news or reviews which won't really grow past a week or two. Because there's little reason for people to revisit it or visit it after years. Reviews have a bit more room to work with, but not news.

[@thelakeman2538]

I wonder how would a subscription based model for gaming or entertainment news in general work. It works for serious journalism like say those focused on politics or the economy because yeah there are people who'd pay to see well researched articles on them, but are enough willing to do so for game industry stuff ?

[@lightsideendings5815]

Lately, I have only been "interested" in reading about the industry when it does something stupid. I've been keeping up with the industry a lot this year.

[@MasterKajro]

You still are one of my favorite content creators ❤️

[@Anonymouthful]

If those giant walls of 10/10s dedicated to horrible games put out by major companies inst enough to steer you away from listening to anything these game "journalists" have to say I dont know what else. They have become marketers in everything but name and consistantly praise the products for select few companies with sky high marketing budgets. Its very obvious to see who these people are loyalty and it sure as hell is not the players.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

Still remember getting Game Informer in the mail every month or whatever, remember learning that StarCraft 2 was in development through the magazine.

[@neasper]

But how els will the drama KZbinrs get their money.

[@theATSthetic]

im glad gen 2 KH art is back and sexier than ever. i missed it.

[@KarthikAyyalasomayajula]

Is there a niche for a high quality long form type journalism in gaming? Because I know in sports, sports journalism was pretty much in the same state of shittiniess but The Athletic has managed to pop on to the scene and give actually good content behind a paywall

[@olivercuenca4109]

There's always a niche for good quality journalism if people want to pay for it. The people who complain the most about games journalism, as with a lot of forms of journalism, tend to be the people who would never dream of paying for news. Or people who, God forbid, only ever read things that they found on social media. Seriously though - have you tried Edge magazine? They lean a bit more towards the technical side of things than some of the other magazines, but their journalism is top quality. It's actually the sister mag to PC Gamer, but a lot more in-depth. Recommend investing in the print version as well if you can, they really know how to make pages beautiful.

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

"behind a paywall" If it's not one, it's the other.

[@FennekinFox326]

I can't believe you got Wimsu to make a cameo. So cool

[@isvvc_]

Great vid Please reconsider the droning ambient music in the future

[@gur262]

Same as with cars. Where reviews are mostly enthusiastic presentations. There's informative value in that but info like: same engine as the last one , was known to kinda crap out after 20k miles, might get left out. If you dont do it like that you don't drive it for free.

[@sirmardalon]

Where can I find the outro music?

[@knowledgehusk]

oops I keep forgetting to upload it haha I'll have it on my Soundcloud by tonight though

[@knowledgehusk]

on.soundcloud.com/r4a7z

[@sirmardalon]

Thank you I really appreciate it@@knowledgehusk

[@Tracequaza]

on your discussion of why gaming news outlets make ragebait articles at 11:00 I would agree with you that it's mostly for a survival tactic/doing it because it's what gets clicks, especially comparing the situations when regular news gets shared it's typically not sharing the actual article, and I would add that since it's easier than ever to self-publish, I generally prefer to get that sort of news directly from nintendo directs, or E3 clips I can watch on youtube; why would I view this content second-hand when I can view it first hand? I don't know if all of the people writing for these outlets are actually doing it cynically without actually believing the political opinion pieces they write; i think the incentive to do it is there, but there are enough people who do it on public social media forums like twitter and reddit completely for free that makes me question this. Perhaps the way we talk has been partly influenced by the media writing so many emotionally charged politicised articles, or maybe the successful journalists are among the minority who do actually believe what they write? I always feel that discussing the thought process of large demographics is almost always going to come down to anecdotes though, but I appreciate some of the ways you tried to break down this topic from the perspective of incentives and profit

[@Colyde25]

I’ll never forget that the first place I got news of Minecraft & Fortnite was through reading GameInformer as a kid.

[@NoahStew]

I feel like evwry review should be a collab between a super fan and newbie/casual. It could provide some interesting dynamics