I've not read a game review for years, it's been obvious for a while that there's no integrity. Click bait, blatant PR/hype pieces, suspect funding from publishers. I mean there's been documentaries and web redesigns funded by publishers and the sites somehow felt that was acceptable.
I've got to say thanks for pointing out this article, it's finally made me think about kicking out the gaming news sites from what i read and any evidence that a youtube channel hasn't given full disclosure and i'll be dropping them too.
Like I said before I even find user scores more accurate than critic's scores. And as a PC gamer the critics have been useless liars for many years now. They never review the PC version or don't even know our expectations. But they sure as hell pretend to. I'd have to turn to people like Total Biscuit or Angry Joe for PC reviews... Even 'PCgamers'(!!!) top 100 or whatever was so BAD... I have never before seen such a bad list of ANYTHING. It was so bad, so completely uninformed, so out of touch, that anyone who took it as a critic's honest in-depth list is going to miss out on a lot of what PC gaming has to offer by assuming it must all be bad too.
This is spot on nice find, I don't even bother with any "proffesional reviews" anymore and the whole social media having more and more influence means they cannot control the narrative anymore . It must really gall these guys that you tubers like pwedepie ,totalbiscuit, Yogacast have more influence and make more money than them.
I would like to preface with the fact that I still visit Gamespot daily, but I've become greatly disillusioned with the website. It sort of started with social justice heroes (.....) Tom and Carolyn. It seemed as though every article became about the lack of a strong woman, a gay, a transgender, a black guy, tropes against women, etc. As opposed to what I thought gaming journalism was about. A celebration of the games we all love to play. I came here for: first impressions, details about the gameplay, story, and reviews. Now it seems that all I get are articles tearing apart games and developers simply because there was no female character, or because how the games portrayed women. Or articles telling developers why they should make their games certain ways, because social justice...
Ala, Assassins Creed Unity. I will admit that the excuse Ubisoft gave for a lack of female characters was dumb. Ubisoft later retracted that statement and clarified that everyone is playing Arno in the multiplayer. But there was articles, upon articles attacking Ubisoft. In the middle of f*cking E3!!!! Really? Was there nothing else to write about? If I ever get to go to E3, I would be knee deep in games and I would just be so happy to be playing them. Instead we get these pretentious douche bags that don't seem to care and they obviously didn't have any games to write about.. Sadly, there are millions of other articles and examples, but I don't want to get into them (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege article.... >=-\)... So now I just stick to Youtube and IGN. IGN has actually done a pretty good job of sticking to gaming journalism, rather than bullshit.
Also, I would like to say that I'm all for diversity in games. But this isn't how you go about it. By attacking and tearing apart our own medium. By attempting to force developers to include characters of different backgrounds, just to be token women, or token anything. It has to be more natural. I think that as more women and minorities get involved in game development, it will happen. Side-note, I really wish there were more women involved in gaming development and computer science. It sucks going into a computer class and seeing all dudes...
Maybe gamers don’t trust their press as much as they trust the enthusiasts because the press doesn’t seem as engaged with the games themselves. Compared with the enthusiasts, the journalists’ hearts aren’t in it. This isn’t true for criticism of other art forms. Sure, there are always hack writers, but Pauline Kael didn’t have to put together five hype-building posts about Destiny for every thoughtful review she wrote. Gaming journalists are caught between capitalist reality and their own frustrated aspirations to be serious cultural critics. But they cannot solve their problems by preaching about the death of their audience. That audience is dying only in that it is leaving them, a process the journalists have evidently decided to accelerate. Game journalists are rage-quitting their meal ticket.
This article was pretty accurate on my feelings of this entire matter. Between all of the articles these people were writing, then those 600 signatures or however many more that were happening from devs stating, "stop with the hate" or whatever, I've found it all disgusting. This is as much of a problem of the developers and the journalists as it is the gamer and it's terrible to see what a garbage heap this has become.
I tried staying away from getting too deep into this mess of a rabbit hole because I don't like to feed the drama, but I'm amazed at how many other gamers just don't want to be bothered by it at all. There's a lot of crap here to get into, and arriving late to the party and playing catch-up is pretty difficult. But this is one of those moments where all of the high-and-mighty users here on System Wars or elsewhere on the internet can finally better the industry by voicing their opinions against gaming journalism. It has always been a laughable joke, swimming in advertising and PR (which I believe certainly has its place) and many have sat here saying "lol gaming journalism" so often, so why not support this to make it better?
#notyourshield is a wonderful event to see pick up momentum. While I find the whole GamerGate situation disgusting, I'm hoping the industry is slightly better because of this. Sure, many gamers probably don't even know this is happening or what it all is; just look at some of the gamers here on System Wars who are more in touch with the industry than most. They don't want to make the effort to get into it, or just don't care enough, so how much of the general populace of gamers would understand what's happening? Like I said, I hope the industry turns out slightly better because of GamerGate; maybe how that will happen is through the campaigns like #notyourshield, getting others to take notice in the easiest way possible to make them think about where they get their information. Rather than looking at a review at some of these big sites, maybe check out a Youtube channel.
@clyde46 said:
No longer do I go to the gaming press for coverage of video games. I hit up places like Youtube and forums like this where I can get usually unbiased opinions of games. The gaming press has fallen off the wagon and are in a panic now, however by lashing out the way they have done has done nothing for the creditability. The more they scream and shout, the more damage they are doing to themselves. Money talks at the end of the day and if these sites want to keep people coming back I'm completely dumb struck as to why they are making an enemy out of their userbase.
This is what I've been doing for a long time, actually. I may glance at a score here at Gamespot for System Wars purposes, or because my taste in gaming aligns fairly well with some of IGN's reviewers I'll skim through their reviews, but all-in-all I don't view these websites for reviews. I much prefer the Youtube personalities of CGR, gamers who love games. Their passion for what they are playing, even if it isn't the best thing ever, shines through each of their reviews and it's a delight watching their content. And there are plenty of other great personalities that are much better alternatives to many of the corporate options available.
For my gaming news, I check out System Wars. Back in its prime you'd see gaming news posted in a new thread here faster than most other news sites. no problem. This was the way to stay ahead of the game, to be in the know, and it's still second nature to me. While System Wars has become a shell of what it once was, there are still enough users finding the content for the other users here so many wouldn't have to leave the board to know these games. And there are always other forums as well, like neogaf and other great alternatives. It's something that over the years I've just grown to prefer.
I want to end just by saying I'm very curious to see what happens here. Is all of this just going to die down in a week and be forgotten, washed away by these news sites covering the likes of Tokyo Game Show as they pretend that this never happened in an attempt to bring back the users? Will gamers keep voicing out over gaming journalism and will journalists keep voicing out over gamers? Will developers step up to the plate and take another swing?
Don't think it's over, but a lot of people have been saying how they're made obsolete by Youtube guys. I think they just accelerated their "death" by how poorly they handled this scandal.
That said I don't want to see Gamespot go away and they're already making adjustments by having different focuses. I hope it works out for them. I have no pity for pretentious indie sites that turn on their consumers.
Good read. I just learned about this GamerGate fiasco today, still not sure what it's all about.
no one knows what gamergate is about. Some say it's a conglomeration of misogynistic white males, meanwhile others say is a stand up in favor of higher journalistic standards in gaming.
Good read. I just learned about this GamerGate fiasco today, still not sure what it's all about.
no one knows what gamergate is about. Some say it's a conglomeration of misogynistic white males, meanwhile others say is a stand up in favor of higher journalistic standards in gaming.
Best thing is to make your own mind by reading about the subject until you feel you're confortable to take a position, or decide you won't take one at all. Well, for this last stance... it's not really necessary to read anything about it.
gaming journalists have taken an irreparable blow to their credibility. It's going to be interesting to see the fallout when this is over and how it shapes the environment.
The sad thing is, not everyone who writes about games for a living is part of the problem, unfortunately it's a very right/leftist sided conflict right now.
They have indeed taken a blow but I don't think its irreperable. Gamespot, they were one of the worst for this nonsense not long back. Attacking its own readers day after day, disingenuous games reviews which judged games based on irrelevances, the whole Jeff Gerstmann thing. But there has been a clear change of direction recently at least. Feedbackula went, and none of the videos have since been so smugly scathing of it's own audience. They got rid of two of the more objectionable social justice warriors. Their reviews have been focussed on the games.They didn't get involved in any of this, and as a result, people aren't coming at them. Their audience, whilst not as high as it used to be once, hasn't seen the drastic drop rockpapershotgun, polygon, kotaku and gamasutra have.
I think these publications need to change, fast, I think it's too late for some as the very culture there seems to be one of looking down on the very people who play games and assuming the very worst about them, but if they addressed what people were concerned about, integrity in journalism, personal politics being kept out of reviews (you wouldn't ask a green activist to review an F1 game only to give it 3/10 for being pro pollutant), no more hypocrisy, transparency as to who is connected to whom, and you'd see a lot of the voices critical of them disappear. There would still be people shouting at them, but there always are and there always will be unpleasant people in the world. You can't use these to shield yourself from just criticism.
Well, this whole thing certainly blew up... I guess it had to happen, let's players have been the best game reviewers for a long time and gaming journalism is sketchy at best.
In my 30+ years of following this hobby faithfully, I've never seen something more ridiculously unnecessary and tacky.
One side claiming the other is going away... nobody talking about games. Lame.
Nobody (not generalizing, but for emphasis) has been really talking about games for some time. I mean, like they're the focus of the industry.
Haven't you noticed that SW cares about resolution and FPS rather than gameplay? Its awful to see devs needing the PR of their games to meet certain specs that fanboys think are important rather than worrying whether or not their game is really a bit shit to play.
In that video MundaneMatt sounds like a nutty fantasist who needs to get out more. How delusional can you get if you think this is bringing people together?
In that video MundaneMatt sounds like a nutty fantasist who needs to get out more. How delusional can you get if you think this is bringing people together?
I generally don’t read gaming websites because I don’t like sifting through rewritten press releases and underage toothbrush incest anime coverage to find one or two genuine pieces of content.
In that video MundaneMatt sounds like a nutty fantasist who needs to get out more. How delusional can you get if you think this is bringing people together?
In my 30+ years of following this hobby faithfully, I've never seen something more ridiculously unnecessary and tacky.
One side claiming the other is going away... nobody talking about games. Lame.
thats one of the major issues behind this for us in gamergate and notyourshield we've come to the realization that kotaku, gamasutra, rock paper scissors have stopped being majority of the time about gaming, movies....etc but instead op ed's which are often leaking with feminist agenda's and shit that has nothing to do with video games.
In my 30+ years of following this hobby faithfully, I've never seen something more ridiculously unnecessary and tacky.
One side claiming the other is going away... nobody talking about games. Lame.
Nobody (not generalizing, but for emphasis) has been really talking about games for some time. I mean, like they're the focus of the industry.
Haven't you noticed that SW cares about resolution and FPS rather than gameplay? Its awful to see devs needing the PR of their games to meet certain specs that fanboys think are important rather than worrying whether or not their game is really a bit shit to play.
That is true Hazy. One of the reasons I'm coming less and less to the board. There was a time in which news came even faster (sometimes a lot faster) in SW than they came to many gaming news sites' frontpage. People talked more about gameplay, story, soundtracks, etc. And there was also space for the plenty of gfx and scores threads of the SW. This isn't the case anymore. Though I don't think this is only a SW phenomenom. Devs are not targeting just us forum users and the fanboys as their audience.
@Cloud_imperium: Agreed completly the game journalists nowdays started playing games in 2005 they care about interactive movies not gameplay.
Zoe quin..btw not her real name and Anita are not feminists, they are con artists thats the problem not gamers hating women.
Mutiple articles declared gamers are over on the same day and why techraptor decided to prove them wrong on their bs and show how quinspiracy is the problem not hating women. The host deleted his ip, they gone to reddit and they got banned. Something seriously wrong is goign on in the game industry.
In my 30+ years of following this hobby faithfully, I've never seen something more ridiculously unnecessary and tacky.
One side claiming the other is going away... nobody talking about games. Lame.
thats one of the major issues behind this for us in gamergate and notyourshield we've come to the realization that kotaku, gamasutra, rock paper scissors have stopped being majority of the time about gaming, movies....etc but instead op ed's which are often leaking with feminist agenda's and shit that has nothing to do with video games.
I felt Nintendo wanted to move away from gaming journalism for a very long time. As we have known that Nintendo does Nintendo Directs just about almost every month and this years E3 was their Tree House special where they no longer have to use gaming journalist to preview gaming and show off demos of new games coming soon. Nintendo cut off the gaming press and directly fed gamers news, and I feel soon almost all publishers may follow.
Im not sure exactly how gaming journalism is dead when information coming out is mostly irrelevant. The thing about video games is you have to play the game to be able to get the experience, this isnt the same as professional sports. Gamespot yesterday was showing of Shadows of Mordor on Twitch along with a game developer there talking about the game, video game websites are nothing more then a showcase for game publishers to sell their product to us. Information being presented is coming from the game publishers until its release, once the game is released Angry Joe, ManvsGame, and a hundred other channels on twitch will pick it up and show it off on their channel. The most relevant information coming out of people streaming from Twitch is the general gameplay and whether its worth paying $60.
O yeah video game reviews are also important, that will never die. Consumers want to know if a game is worth paying money for, so game reviews are very helpful information for people to determine if the game is right for them.
Im not sure exactly how gaming journalism is dead when information coming out is mostly irrelevant. The thing about video games is you have to play the game to be able to get the experience, this isnt the same as professional sports. Gamespot yesterday was showing of Shadows of Mordor on Twitch along with a game developer there talking about the game, video game websites are nothing more then a showcase for game publishers to sell their product to us. Information being presented is coming from the game publishers until its release, once the game is released Angry Joe, ManvsGame, and a hundred other channels on twitch will pick it up and show it off on their channel. The most relevant information coming out of people streaming from Twitch is the general gameplay and whether its worth paying $60.
O yeah video game reviews are also important, that will never die. Consumers want to know if a game is worth paying money for, so game reviews are very helpful information for people to determine if the game is right for them.
How dense are you?
The whole point of this is that consumers cannot find out if the games are worth paying for because people are being paid off in various forms.
Im not sure exactly how gaming journalism is dead when information coming out is mostly irrelevant. The thing about video games is you have to play the game to be able to get the experience, this isnt the same as professional sports. Gamespot yesterday was showing of Shadows of Mordor on Twitch along with a game developer there talking about the game, video game websites are nothing more then a showcase for game publishers to sell their product to us. Information being presented is coming from the game publishers until its release, once the game is released Angry Joe, ManvsGame, and a hundred other channels on twitch will pick it up and show it off on their channel. The most relevant information coming out of people streaming from Twitch is the general gameplay and whether its worth paying $60.
O yeah video game reviews are also important, that will never die. Consumers want to know if a game is worth paying money for, so game reviews are very helpful information for people to determine if the game is right for them.
How dense are you?
The whole point of this is that consumers cannot find out if the games are worth paying for because people are being paid off in various forms.
I havent bought into the notion video game websites are getting paid off to give out misleading and favorable reviews from game publishers. Like I said, game journalism is coming down to what is relevant to what people want. I dont give a shit about what a game publisher say about a game they are selling because I know its not trustworthy information, but Twitch is a great place for people to see a window of a game to decide to buy. Metacritic is also a good website for people to see review scores from dozens of websites to help determine if they game they want is right for them.
Honestly I think any one who called gaming coverage as "journalism" are dopes to even begin with.. You can put two and two together and realize that these publishers and devs have been close to these "game journalists" because they are used to promote their products.. These game reviews are buyers guides, previews are there to build hype for the people to purchase it.. I mean we go after fucking mainstream media as being bias and flat out wrong to drive up ratings.. And they are there to report all news not to promote products.. "Gaming journalism" is there to promote products for the people to buy, and they have no independent journalistic ethics groups to watchdog them, what the **** did you expect?.. If you didn't take "gaming journalism" with a heavy grain of salt, YOU were the problem to begin with.. You bought into the hype, you bought into the bullshit they spoon fed you to preorder, instead of acting like a intelligent consumer.. And I am sorry but the generalizations the gaming journalism no where compares to the amount of vitriol they have received by many of the people within the community..
So when I see jackasses claiming "LOOK WHAT THEY SAID about us!" I roll my eyes because they have no where compared to the amount of hatred and abuse people like Anita get in their comments.. I could care less about what Anita has said but I am not going out of my way to harass her or besmudge her name.. The fact of the matter is every negative comment and attack I have seen by the community as a whole pisses me off far more than any tweet because it is only proving what the gaming media has said as correct.. You want things to change? Stop visiting these sites, stop buying into the bullshit these pr campaigns push out and go after these sad fucks in the gaming community that give every one else a bad name..
Honestly I think any one who called gaming coverage as "journalism" are dopes to even begin with.. You can put two and two together and realize that these publishers and devs have been close to these "game journalists" because they are used to promote their products.. These game reviews are buyers guides, previews are there to build hype for the people to purchase it.. I mean we go after fucking mainstream media as being bias and flat out wrong to drive up ratings.. And they are there to report all news not to promote products.. "Gaming journalism" is there to promote products for the people to buy, and they have no independent journalistic ethics groups to watchdog them, what the **** did you expect?.. If you didn't take "gaming journalism" with a heavy grain of salt, YOU were the problem to begin with.. You bought into the hype, you bought into the bullshit they spoon fed you to preorder, instead of acting like a intelligent consumer.. And I am sorry but the generalizations the gaming journalism no where compares to the amount of vitriol they have received by many of the people within the community..
So when I see jackasses claiming "LOOK WHAT THEY SAID about us!" I roll my eyes because they have no where compared to the amount of hatred and abuse people like Anita get in their comments.. I could care less about what Anita has said but I am not going out of my way to harass her or besmudge her name.. The fact of the matter is every negative comment and attack I have seen by the community as a whole pisses me off far more than any tweet because it is only proving what the gaming media has said as correct.. You want things to change? Stop visiting these sites, stop buying into the bullshit these pr campaigns push out and go after these sad fucks in the gaming community that give every one else a bad name..
That's backwards. Anita is on video flat out admitting she does not want to play videogames and likens all of gaming to a violent dudebro fest as opposed to what it really is. She incites people with her hardcore agenda, not for the sake of gaming, but for the sake of her own bottom line. If any of these SJWs gave a crap about gaming, they would actually make games. They might even want to make good games that meaningfully communicate their viewpoint. They are every single bit as hateful and loathsome as the people that dogpile them on Twitter.
You just don't get it do you? It's an act. It's always been an act. They are the calibur of performer that gets on stage to have tomatoes thrown at them, though. After all, it's okay to be a stooge if you are a well paid stooge. The joke is that the money that goes to them and the amount of time spent on their harassment they put into videogaming could probably be better spent on the games being made. A single second of someones time spent trying to flameshield themselves from this fucked up social agenda is money being wasted.
Honestly I think any one who called gaming coverage as "journalism" are dopes to even begin with.. You can put two and two together and realize that these publishers and devs have been close to these "game journalists" because they are used to promote their products.. These game reviews are buyers guides, previews are there to build hype for the people to purchase it.. I mean we go after fucking mainstream media as being bias and flat out wrong to drive up ratings.. And they are there to report all news not to promote products.. "Gaming journalism" is there to promote products for the people to buy, and they have no independent journalistic ethics groups to watchdog them, what the **** did you expect?.. If you didn't take "gaming journalism" with a heavy grain of salt, YOU were the problem to begin with.. You bought into the hype, you bought into the bullshit they spoon fed you to preorder, instead of acting like a intelligent consumer.. And I am sorry but the generalizations the gaming journalism no where compares to the amount of vitriol they have received by many of the people within the community..
So when I see jackasses claiming "LOOK WHAT THEY SAID about us!" I roll my eyes because they have no where compared to the amount of hatred and abuse people like Anita get in their comments.. I could care less about what Anita has said but I am not going out of my way to harass her or besmudge her name.. The fact of the matter is every negative comment and attack I have seen by the community as a whole pisses me off far more than any tweet because it is only proving what the gaming media has said as correct.. You want things to change? Stop visiting these sites, stop buying into the bullshit these pr campaigns push out and go after these sad fucks in the gaming community that give every one else a bad name..
That's backwards. Anita is on video flat out admitting she does not want to play videogames and likens all of gaming to a violent dudebro fest as opposed to what it really is. She incites people with her hardcore agenda, not for the sake of gaming, but for the sake of her own bottom line. If any of these SJWs gave a crap about gaming, they would actually make games. They might even want to make good games that meaningfully communicate their viewpoint. They are every single bit as hateful and loathsome as the people that dogpile them on Twitter.
You just don't get it do you? It's an act. It's always been an act. They are the calibur of performer that gets on stage to have tomatoes thrown at them, though. After all, it's okay to be a stooge if you are a well paid stooge. The joke is that the money that goes to them and the amount of time spent on their harassment they put into videogaming could probably be better spent on the games being made. A single second of someones time spent trying to flameshield themselves from this fucked up social agenda is money being wasted.
............... It is only focused upon because you idiots are paying attention.. You don't get it do you? These sites and people like her get their income through viewing hits and responses.. There wouldn't be "money wasted" as you so put it if you ignored her.. You seem not to understand that "gaming journalism" exists solely because you view it... You are the ones enabling her.. You are the ones enabling the media.. You want things to change? Stop buying into the hype wagons, stop viewing those sites, and stop mentioning Anita.
And yet again to the outside viewer what Anita's message is one of civility.. She does not use profanity or threaten people with violence.. So when people go to twitter or numerous other media to threaten her you are only proving her point further to everybody else out there..
Log in to comment