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n00bsauce87 · Sep 4, 2014

The gaming press declares that gamers are dead. But they are the ones who are becoming obsolete.

...but the gaming journalists unwisely decided to respond to the growing, nebulous anger by declaring that gamers were dead. Such articles appeared concurrently in Gamasutra ( Gamers are over and A guide to ending gamers ), Destructoid (There are gamers at the gate, but they may already be dead), Kotaku (We might be witnessing the death of an identity ) and Rock, Paper, Shotgun (Gamers are over), as well as Ars Technica (The death of the gamers ), Vice (Killing the gamer identity) and BuzzFeed (Gaming is leaving gamers behind).

These articles share some traits in common besides their theses: They are unconvincing, lacking in hard evidence, and big on wishful thinking. A good number of them link to an obscure blog post by academic Dan Golding, The End of Gamers, which argues, again without evidence, that the gamer identity has been broken and that the current unrest is an attempt to retain hegemony. Kotaku writer Nathan Grayson linked to a similarly obtuse piece of academic argot ( Gamer is selfish ... conservative ... tribalistic), which in Graysons words breaks down the difference between gamer as a manufactured identity versus loving games on multiple levels.

These articles were additionally unseemly because gamers were being preached to by the very same people who have been commodifying them. As Florence said, so much of the game journalists job has indeed been glorified PR, and the rest is not reportage but cultural think pieces, like the ones that have earned so much opprobrium over the last week.

What do you think GAF, does he have a point?

Zombie James · Sep 4, 2014

Read this article earlier and it's definitely valid. Biting the hand that feeds you is never a smart idea, but hey, game "journalism".

lt519 · Sep 4, 2014

n00bsauce87 said:
These articles were additionally unseemly because gamers were being preached to by the very same people who have been commodifying them. As Florence said, so much of the game journalist’s job has indeed been glorified PR, and the rest is not reportage but cultural think pieces, like the ones that have earned so much opprobrium over the last week.

What do you think GAF, does he have a point?

I certainly agree with that point. I swear 90% of their traffic is from drip feeding PR news to us all day. The other 10% consists of reviews, pieces commenting on recent PR, and podcasts.

Edit: Also to elaborate it's why I think Nintendo gets a lot of hate from gaming journalism. They threaten their livelihood with things like Direct and Treehouse streams and their private nature.

SwiftDeath · Sep 4, 2014

I see a gamer as someone who plays games so until we stop doing that it can never be "over"

Hell I was a gamer when I played uno with friends at a bar this past weekend. Why the hell has the term become so loaded?

Oh and I do think that the traditional role of videogame journalist is becoming less and less important as youtube and streaming personalities grow in importance

Averon · Sep 4, 2014

Those "Gamers Are Dead" articles was the worst way to respond. It just put everyone on the defensive and strengthened the Us-vs-Them mentality that has now run amok.

antitrop · Sep 4, 2014

I think there is an increasingly large group of games journalists that are remarkably unhappy with their chosen profession, and are using GamerGate as a good excuse to distance themselves as far as possible, without admitting that they probably never should have been a games journalist in the first place.

ebullientprism · Sep 4, 2014

They are becoming obsolete. I dont think I even have any gaming websites aside from EG on my bookmarks anymore. I used to visit 5-6 quite regularly.

WARP10CK · Sep 4, 2014

This has been discussed here on GAF many times but the way this has exploded now is really incredible, the gaming press have tried to fight back against this backlash with outrage, only to experience a nuclear bomb of outrage from the community itself.

This article is probably the most accurate description of what is going on and kudos to the writer for actually being fair and balanced on this issue.

Not sure what this will mean in the future but this argument is not over yet that's for sure.

MiniBossBattle · Sep 4, 2014

When some of the top grossing games (mobile) and their audience stopped looking at the gaming webpages and instead talked to their friends on whatever social media or youtube people for recommendations rather than a person half their age (or twice in some cases) telling them what is good, game press became irreverent. Just ask the largest gaming market.

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew · Sep 4, 2014

Averon said:
Those "Gamers Are Dead" articles was the worst way to respond. It just put everyone on the defensive and strengthened the Us-vs-Them mentally that has now run amok.

They're indirectly saying that their blogging days are dead.

Everyone's screaming at each other and they don't know why.

Next up, selfies are dead too because nudes will leak.

Remachinate · Sep 4, 2014

antitrop said:
I think there is an increasingly large group of games journalists that are remarkably unhappy with their chosen profession, and are using GamerGate as a good excuse to distance themselves as far as possible, without admitting that they probably never should have been a games journalist in the first place.

It's probably not a good sign that I don't know if you're referring to the PR nature of journalism or the misogynist culture as the reason journalists are being driven away.

digoutyoursoul · Sep 4, 2014

Can Fanboys fuck off aswell ? That would be great.

SerTapTap · Sep 4, 2014

Slate? To be frank I was expecting a blog post or something. All I can say is I'm personally quite happy outside of the journalism sphere myself.

I've already commented on this issue more than I care to, but the general adversarial back-and-forth between audience and content creator is very sad.

unbias · Sep 4, 2014

The very end made me laugh. Regardless of the content, he was very articulate. His talk of social media eating everything in site(see what I did there?) is very true. Hopefully peoples jobs remain secure.

StoopKid · Sep 4, 2014

shagg_187 said:
They're indirectly saying that their blogging days are dead.

Ice cold

alstein · Sep 4, 2014

Places like this do the job they used to do quite well. I'm more likely to get a game if it gets a good review from a bunch of forum posters than from one gaming journo who I know is interesting in different things than mine, especially when it comes to the genres I like.

That said , I do respect Tom Chick's opinion on strategy games because he is a strategy gamer. That said, no game journo is what I'd call a serious fighting game player. I think Heidi Kemps is the best FG reviewer, but her reviews are geared towards more casual players (which is fine, but not for me) She understands that she isn't going to win EVO, even if she participated in one.

BennyBlanco · Sep 4, 2014

Yea, personally don't really use any of these sites. I get more out of watching 5 mins of gameplay on youtube and reading impressions here than I do reading some long, drawn out wall of text with a 1-10 rating at the end.

At the end of the day game journos are just regular people with their own opinions and are no more an expert than you or me, so their reviews and scores don't hold any more weight than any other rando online with me. Actual news generally breaks on twitter and GAF. Those sites sourcing NeoGAF and tweets to write an article are basically just ad supported middle men.

Shiina · Sep 4, 2014

I only read gaming news sites like Gematsu and I give the oprainfall website a click now and then but I stay very far away from all these websites named in the OP. I don't need their reviews, I don't need to read PR drivel and most recently(?) I certainly don't need to be insulted.

Koren · Sep 4, 2014

There was something like... game journalism???

Damn, that's news.

Care to link me to some? I'm curious, never saw any...

Taruranto · Sep 4, 2014

I think that in 1 month everyone will forget this ever happened.

gigantor21 · Sep 4, 2014

Excellent article, and one that sums up my disgust with several journalists' reaction to recent events far more convincingly than I could ever manage.

The key term the author uses is "vacuous self-importance", which many of the "gamers are dead" articles were too slathered in to take seriously. Seeing the poison coming out of both sides has made it very difficult for me to expect anything worthwhile to come out of this mess.

This paragraph also stood out:

It is understandable that online gaming journalists would be uncomfortable in this situation. The antagonism of the gaming press toward its audience stems partly from justified outrage at the horrible behavior of a small subset of it, but also from helpless resentment toward the entirety of the press’s shrinking audience—hence the self-defeating attempt to generalize the former into the latter. Rather than stressing that the vast majority of gamers are reasonable people who don’t harass women, hold reactionary, protectionist views, or start vitriolic online campaigns against the press, the websites trashed the entire term “gamer” and, to no one’s surprise, earned 10 times the enmity overnight.

Simply amazing.

SerTapTap · Sep 4, 2014

alstein said:
That said , I do respect Tom Chick's opinion on strategy games because he is a strategy gamer. That said, no game journo is what I'd call a serious fighting game player. I think Heidi Kemps is the best FG reviewer, but her reviews are geared towards more casual players (which is fine, but not for me) She understands that she isn't going to win EVO, even if she participated in one.

This is a good point...I frankly can't and don't trust the reviews of mainstream games media on a range of genres I enjoy. No one at IGN or Polygon is ever going to properly understand the relevance of the changes in the new Disgaea game, they're just going to say the sprites are pretty but the numbers are very large and my head hurts 7/10. And shmups...no one of that sort even reviews shmups, even less so the JP only games I'd really like reviews on.

What I always wanted my Youtube channel to be is something for people of a vaguely similar mind to find information on games/genres that either aren't covered, aren't covered in depth or just aren't properly understood by the general press. It's part of why I don't really show AAA games on my channel--you can find that everywhere.

On the other hand, I don't really like having to know someone's tastes before I know how much faith to put in their reviews. I shouldn't have to know your life story before I know whether you know WTF you're talking about. That's what bugs me when big sites review niche games they don't seem to understand. If you don't like strategy RPGs why are you reviewing Disgaea? You are not informing my purchase.

Meffer · Sep 4, 2014

Don't shit on the hand that feeds you, because it'll be thrown right back to your face. In my opinion these gaming sites are being quite childish. Its also pretty weird that they made the same article, practically the same even, in such a short amount of time.

digoutyoursoul · Sep 4, 2014

Koren said:
There was something like... game journalism???

Damn, that's news.

Care to link me to some? I'm curious, never saw any...

Kotaku found out what happened to Lucas Arts & Star Wars Battlefront 3. I thought that was a terrific piece and sadly a rarity in a world of glorified PR.

http://kotaku.com/how-lucasarts-fell-apart-1401731043

Dredd97 · Sep 4, 2014

the trouble with games journalism is the journalism bit...

you can put a fork in games 'journalism'..it's done...

they finally announced (unintentionally of course) their own deaths last week with the tirade of hate for gamers... i really don't think they expected such a backlash (or perhaps they did, who really knows)...but if they only partially realized before hand gamers thought they were irrelevant, they got the message loud and clear later...

youtube and the enthusiastic gamers have finally done them in, and like printed news before, they failed to move with the times and have been left behind, to recycle PR fluff from the big players in the gaming sphere...

unbias · Sep 4, 2014

Taruranto said:
I think that in 1 month everyone will forget this ever happened.

I agree. But I think his talk about everyone moving to social media is troubling and true. Hopefully these bloggers or journalists land on their feet if the market shrinks on them.

Deleted member 17706 · Sep 4, 2014

I did find it kind of funny how so many different sites seemed to jump on the idea that "gamers are dead" after that Dan Golding blog post.

Anyway, gaming journalism has been irrelevant to me for quite some time. I would occasionally visit RPS to find out about PC gaming related stuff, but now PC gaming is the hotness and everyone is on board, so it's plenty easy to get my information from GAF and other forums.

I still visit Giant Bomb and subscribe, but that's more for entertainment than any kind of meaningful video game coverage.

I guess I just don't find very much value in written articles about games.

Kayhan · Sep 4, 2014

Rather than stressing that the vast majority of gamers are reasonable people who dont harass women, hold reactionary, protectionist views, or start vitriolic online campaigns against the press, the websites trashed the entire term gamer and, to no ones surprise, earned 10 times the enmity overnight.

This would appear to be the heart of the matter.

digoutyoursoul · Sep 4, 2014

Dredd97 said:
the trouble with games journalism is the journalism bit...

you can put a fork in games 'journalism'..it's done...

they finally announced (unintentionally of course) their own deaths last week with the tirade of hate for gamers... i really don't think they expected such a backlash (or perhaps they did, who really knows)...but if they only partially realized before hand gamers thought they were irrelevant, they got the message loud and clear later...

youtube and the enthusiastic gamers have finally done them in, and like printed news before, they failed to move with the times and have been left behind, to recycle PR fluff from the big players in the gaming sphere...

A lot of these YouTubers are glorified PR in my view. Anything for subs and views. I like the simple ask a friend recommendation, demos or word of mouth.

140.85 · Sep 4, 2014

Last part is best, lol.

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.

Doctor Ninja · Sep 4, 2014

I said this once but I'll say it again, there is barely any actual journalism in gaming press.

Journalism isn't about taking news from official feeds and post it it's also and mostly about going deeper and scavenge all the info to discover the true story,it's sort of like detective work. The video game industry is VERY protective with it's information and anyone who leaks out. All this to serve marketing departments for easy advertisements. And they blacklist any journalist institution that try to get some info out. Remember that getting blacklisted is a huge deal and and them not getting any info means that they'll lag behind those who are supported by the industry itself to give them early access to game demos and whatnot. Journalists nowadays just write down silly ill informed opinion pieces and they don't do all the detective work needed partly because they fear of getting blacklisted for doing so and because articles like these generate more traffic.

If we don't support the good Journalists and call the others on their bullshit, this won't change.

maquiladora · Sep 4, 2014

everythingwasover.jpg

SerTapTap · Sep 4, 2014

Taruranto said:
I think that in 1 month everyone will forget this ever happened.

I dunno, I would have said that we'd all forget about the instigation for all of this after a week. That was what, 2, 3 weeks ago? Kotaku (puzzlingly) banned Patreon, some people were allegedly "dragged out" but I'm not sure if jobs were specifically lost. The whole thing is much crazier than I ever expected. I was trying to ignore it all out of respect to the original instigation situation but that's proven difficult.

digoutyoursoul said:
Kotaku found out what happened to Lucas Arts & Star Wars Battlefront 3. I thought that was a terrific piece and sadly a rarity in a world of glorified PR.

http://kotaku.com/how-lucasarts-fell-apart-1401731043

Kotaku is a super weird mix of general almost-PR, boring crap, Japanese Culture (wat), and suddenly actually good articles. I can't bear to read them with frequency because of that inconsistency though.

SneakyStephan · Sep 4, 2014

Well they are pretty irrelevant to me.
They collectively get like 3 (ad blocked) clicks a month from me, and those are always from some thread on gaf linking to them. And then only to point and laugh at what kind of embarrassing/foot in mouth stupid thing they wrote.

Once in a blue moon someone will do some actual journalism and write something useful or meaningful but it's so rare it's hardly worth mentioning anymore.

I used to have several boxes full of old gaming mags stashed in my storage closet, but that was when objective writing and actual researching outnumbered PR product overview dreck.

Mooreberg · Sep 4, 2014

antitrop said:
I think there is an increasingly large group of games journalists that are remarkably unhappy with their chosen profession, and are using GamerGate as a good excuse to distance themselves as far as possible, without admitting that they probably never should have been a games journalist in the first place.

Pretty much. If you hate your customers so much, you should try selling something else.

I can say that the last few weeks has contributed to a radical transformation in terms of which sites I have bookmarked, and which YouTube channels I subscribe to (hint: less of one, more of the other).

The article does a really good job of articulating what seems obvious to everyone except the writers at Polygon, Gamasutra, and RPS. I guess the mentality is to circle the wagons while they still have wheels.

Deleted member 17706 · Sep 4, 2014

Also... I wonder if GamersGate.com saw more business during this whole debacle?

Mononoke · Sep 4, 2014

I've said this in the other thread but...

I absolutely think this industry needs to be open to criticism and dissenting opinions. Just because it's your hobby/passion, doesn't mean others can't have criticisms of it. Because it's their hobby/passion too, and they have just as every right to be apart of it as you do.

However, as someone that actually sides with the feminist/activist view point (with regards to the problems this industry faces with equality), I just can not understand one bit, this idea of trying to get rid of the gamer label. It's so arrogant to declare a label that people identify with as being dead. It's arrogant to even tell people what they should or shouldn't identify themselves with. It's arrogant to shame people for identifying with something, just because you don't (or you don't like the label. Well guess what, not everyone shares that view).

I have no issue with there being criticism of the labels. For instance, often people use this identification as a way to shut others out that don't fit their criteria. Those are very negative traits, and they deserve to be called out. But this idea that the press is deciding for everyone that the label is dead, or that they are going to tell people that they can't identify themselves as x or y is silly.

And even if you think identifying yourself with a culture/sub culture is dumb, or something you don't subscribe to, it's still completely counter-active to educating your wider audience (the people that you want come to your side), when you make a sweeping declaration that addresses a lot of people. Because let's face it, A LOT of people identify themselves as gamers. And the majority are not misogynistic assholes (note: none of the writers that declared the label was dead suggested that the majority were). But my point is, they are trying to take on a label/culture that a lot of people identify with, and are trying to get rid of it by force.

Do you really expect these people to...not get defensive? The sad reality in all of this though, is that for all the people being offended by the Press lashing out...it's nothing compared to the BS that women and journalist have to face constantly. They can't even enjoy their hobby to the same level as the opposite gender. They can't even voice their opinion without being attacked. And yet, all of this is getting obscured because I. Journalists are trying to declare something is dead, and alienating the audience they need. II. Assholes are using peoples grievances with the press to sweep people up, when in reality it's just a group of people pushing back against any legitimate criticism of their hobby. But the press sure as hell didn't help matters in pushing people into the side that is attacking them.

djplaeskool · Sep 4, 2014

This article is pretty on-point.

Rather than stressing that the vast majority of gamers are reasonable people who don’t harass women, hold reactionary, protectionist views, or start vitriolic online campaigns against the press, the websites trashed the entire term “gamer” and, to no one’s surprise, earned 10 times the enmity overnight.

Interesting observations abound.

Fehyd · Sep 4, 2014

Definitely like the article. Its very on-point, and pretty much encapsulates a lot of the ire coming from the gaming community.

unbias · Sep 4, 2014

Doctor Ninja said:
I said this once but I'll say it again, there is barely any actual journalism in gaming press.

If we don't support the good Journalists and call the others on their bullshit, this won't change.

The problem is, there isn't enough there to support these guys. They are already struggling as it is, either do to low standards on hiring(increasing competition) or simply because there isnt enough there and the internet is full of "me too" business models. The game press, since it went new media, practically needs the blog stuff. There is too much competition out there anymore to convince too many readers to actually pay people, so advertisement is the only way to go, and that requires traffic.

I honestly feel for them, while at the same time not enjoying reading the game-sites. It's almost like a guilty form of compassion, cause I know it's cause us consumers have to many options.

Cerato · Sep 4, 2014

"Hey, I heard everyone was talking in really broad strokes, so here's my article of broad strokes criticizing journalists for the broad strokes they use to paint people who talk in nothing but really broad strokes."

jschreier · Sep 4, 2014

Slate said:
These articles share some traits in common besides their theses: They are unconvincing, lacking in hard evidence, and big on wishful thinking.

Hmm, OK. I wonder what sort of hard evidence this piece is going to bring up to prove its point.

Slate said:
The antagonism of the gaming press toward its audience stems partly from justified outrage at the horrible behavior of a small subset of it, but also from helpless resentment toward the entirety of the presss shrinking audience

Wait a minute.

KOTAKU:

POLYGON:

Slate said:
These articles share some traits in common besides their theses: They are unconvincing, lacking in hard evidence, and big on wishful thinking.

OK, then.

Anyway, unsubstantiated claims aside, this article takes a big swing at an issue that is very real -- the "us vs. them" mentality that is plaguing a large portion of video game journalism -- and hits a foul ball when it could've gone for a home run. Shame. I think that anyone who is focusing on the word "gamer" is just missing the point that everyone writing these articles is trying to make. Lots of people talking past one another. It's really too bad. (Also too bad that he glamorizes YouTube personalities. I mean, if this campaign was ever really about corruption, gamers would be going after them.)

ThreePiMatt · Sep 4, 2014

Returning to the real world, the biggest problem with all these claims is that they are demonstrably untrue. A quick glance at financials shows that “gamers” are not going anywhere. If “gamers” really are dying, no one told the marketing departments for these publications, which continue to trumpet their “gamer” demographic to advertisers. What is going on instead is projection. As long as these journalists held a monopoly on gaming coverage, they could maintain a dismal relationship with their audience in spite of the fact that “most games coverage is almost indistinguishable from PR,” in the words of disaffected game columnist Robert Florence, who himself wrote about corruption in gaming journalism before quitting Eurogamer. But all that’s changing with the rise of long-form amateur gaming journalism and game commentating on YouTube and Twitch.tv, the latter of which was just bought by Amazon for $1 billion as the gaming press was declaring the end of gamers.

This paragraph generally sums up my feelings. Written previews and reviews are becoming increasingly relevant. If I want to know whether a game is worthwhile to me I'll check out whatever Giant Bomb has done on it. Thirty minutes to an hour of raw gameplay video will tell you a thousand times more important information than a preview/review. You can't bullshit raw video. The same goes with other YouTubers out there.

Freeman · Sep 4, 2014

What is to me almost unbelievable is how ignorant most gaming journalists are about what they are talking about. This becomes even more evident when they are talking about any technical aspect of games. They have a tendency to pose as experts of everything and ironically make fun of people making comments or posting on forums for doing just that.

Bitmap Frogs · Sep 4, 2014

digoutyoursoul said:
A lot of these YouTubers are glorified PR in my view. Anything for subs and views.

So are the game 'journalists' for the most part.

gigantor21 · Sep 4, 2014

Sir TapTap said:
Kotaku is a super weird mix of general almost-PR, boring crap, Japanese Culture (wat), and suddenly actually good articles. I can't bear to read them with frequency because of that inconsistency though.

They did an amazing piece on the Duwamish, an actual tribe in the Seattle Area, as part of a larger op-ed on how much Second Son draws from the city's history and what parts of that history Sucker Punch pulled away from. I don't know how they managed to slip that in between the usual Gawker-style stuff that keeps me away from the site.

Sojgat · Sep 4, 2014

Cerato said:
"Hey, I heard everyone was talking in really broad strokes, so here's my article of broad strokes criticizing journalists for the broad strokes they use to paint people who talk in nothing but really broad strokes."

I like you.

FinalStageBoss · Sep 4, 2014

Gaming journalism has always been a joke.

alr1ght · Sep 4, 2014

Over the last year or so, I've realized how a large number of them are completely incompetent and wondered why I should care about what they think in the first place. I pretty much ignore them all now.

swazzyswess · Sep 4, 2014

Cerato said:
"Hey, I heard everyone was talking in really broad strokes, so here's my article of broad strokes criticizing journalists for the broad strokes they use to paint people who talk in nothing but really broad strokes."

Awesome. This stuff is getting really old.

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