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Do you think modern gaming "media" has actually helped gaming in anyway?

pramod

Banned
I seriously cant think of a single thing.

The only main thing modern mainstream gaming "media" or journalism, ie IGN, Kotaku, etc is be a big distraction and in many instances have actually made this hobby WORSE with their undeserved influence on game devs and publishers.

Why do these sites need to exist? Why do we need to care about what "professional" game reviewers think? Just tell me the details about the game and when its coming out and just fuck off and let me enjoy the game.

The only good gaming "media" these days are the youtube creators who are true gaming fans and making videos about the games they love.
 
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BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
games journalism is an absolute joke now. youtube reviewers do a much better job at reviews. IGN and the like are basically just advertising firms with the occasional article about how triggered they are or a dumb top 10 list. what's crazy is that games are now a huge business. bigger than hollywood. and the media surrounding it is still a sham.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
The only thing they have done is greatly harm the video game industry.

We don't really need much of these sites really.

At least they must believe in true players and with passion, like us.

Personally, I learned this lesson in the N64 era, I was a fan blinded by Nintendo... until one day I realized that what these analysts often do is deceive.
 
Do we count twitch streamers as media? If so obviously. And a good amount of gaming youtubers make some suber essays which remind me of the heyday of movie essayist. So of course. Writing on games is a pretty good one.

But make the hobby worse? You can block them out and act like they dont exist so I dont see how its worse cause of them.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
In modern day, nope.

Although their review score will always help as I'll skim Metacritic to see the game's score.

YT gameplay clips from random gamers is good enough for me.

I'll then use YT gamer clips and websites for further digging like COD gun, perk, map guides. Mainstream sites do a shit job at this.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
If anything, the books by passionate people help establish a history for the medium. People like former game journalist Steven L. Kent, who wrote The Ultimate History of Video Games. Which documents a lot of what happened with video games. There’s a bunch of other books that dive deep into the creation of video games. You have to also consider how much of the internet is archived and it exists for no other reason than to be reference on some Wikipedia article. A lot of it is nonsense. A game journalist only gets recognized if they were the only voice during that time. Metacritic still gets mentioned in most video game articles on Wikipedia.

A lot of the social media comments help drive some people to buy games, some of them are pure toxic to video games period, and some is just filler. A lot of news articles are downright pointless informative articles, that are probably written because they’re paid to keep their readers up to date.

I think people like Geoff Keighley, who basically has enough contacts in his pocket to host his own award show as well as “-“press conference”-“ is beneficial when no one else is doing this. It’s to the point where a former game journalist is doing more than the big giants are. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can release YouTube reels, Instagram photos, and change the banner on their FaceBook page.
 
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The modern gaming press with their "expertise" and "recommendations" are hardly reliable. There are Youtubers or regular gamers out there that have caught/exposed them in their some times blatant oversights. Oversights that directly had an impact or influence on the overall reception of a given game's total verdict.

The collective dunking on GodHand should've been the canary in the goldmine. Now Mikami is retired and stuff like that is a lot less likely to be made. Its almost like half the time their score scale is reversed.
 
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John Candy No GIF by Laff
 

Soosa

Banned
No.

Because it is not about games anymore, it is about how big BOOBS the "reviewer" have or what kind of minority of minority they represent or about their retarded political agendas that dont have anything to do with the game.

Maybe it is caused more because of video reviews, because before reviewer were just faceless or small face on the pages of a magazine, now it is more of some asshole acting 10000000 emotions/s to gain views and if they are a woman they must be half naked.

If the sexuality of reviewer and their political agenda is more important than the game, their review is less meaningful than counting dog shits on the side walk and rating games by that.

Dog shits are at least somewhat real thing, unlike these imaginary problems of main character not being fat trans male-to-dog-thing.

Games (and movies/any media) is form of art and if reviewer cant separate their personal characteristics and views from that, they arent suitable for the job
 
Are you talking about the cabal of surgically enhanced druid inquisitors who analyze the thoughts and opinions of developers and fans so they can be inspected for wrongthink against the hive?

No, I don't think too highly of them. Any game reviewer who considers himself a ""Games Journalist" does not make content for me. Thankfully small YouTube channels fill the void of magazines lost to yesteryear. Big fan of Game Ranx, GMan, Civvie, and ACG.

I like the tone to be "I'm an adult reviewing a silly product meant to keep children entertained" rather than "I'm a more serious version of a war correspondent"
 
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supernova8

Banned
No because they are usually on the payroll in some form and so cannot genuinely give an honest opinion. Same goes for youtubers who get early access, they will only say anything negative long after a given game is already out.

Only reliable people are those with nothing to lose.
 

Chiggs

Member
games journalism is an absolute joke now. youtube reviewers do a much better job at reviews. IGN and the like are basically just advertising firms with the occasional article about how triggered they are or a dumb top 10 list. what's crazy is that games are now a huge business. bigger than hollywood. and the media surrounding it is still a sham.

Unfortunately, your description of traditional media can be increasingly applied to YouTubers. They’re essentially PR and marketing departments for gaming companies, but without health benefits or 401k/pension.
 

nush

Gold Member
Modern game "Journalists" hate the job and the audience they have to bait clicks from. They really think they are better than that and are just biding time until they can get a real journalism job from an outlet with credibility. The delusion is off the scale.
 

Vandole

Member
Just to be a little different, I will mention one big positive. There are no shortage of indie games in the world that would easily go unnoticed had it not been for a lot of game sites picking up their notices and press releases. They brought a lot of attention to games that most people would never find out about otherwise.

Case in point, when Team Cherry launched a kickstarter for Hollow Knight, they hit their goals so quickly because a lot of sites were very quick to profile and share the story.

Gaining media can and does act as a central hub for announcements and updates for upcoming games. That's something that streamers really can't easily offer just due to the nature of the medium. So I'm all for having them keeping us informed. That's it, I'm really not interested in their opinions most of the time.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Let's face it - most of what we want is news/upcoming hype. Games journalism is miles away from this. GAF is a good aggregator but most news these days is just an official tweet. Even 5/6 years ago the climate was different due to insiders and legit industry leakers. It's rare we get an actual massive leak these days (remember AC on a plane!). You can scour loads of sites and not come up with anything interesting really. It's the same stories across multiple sites.
 

captainpat

Member
They've helped spread awareness about the shit working conditions at a lot of studios. Pretty sure your average gamer youtuber/streamer isn't going to talk about those things.
 
No.

Because it is not about games anymore, it is about how big BOOBS the "reviewer" have or what kind of minority of minority they represent or about their retarded political agendas that dont have anything to do with the game.

Maybe it is caused more because of video reviews, because before reviewer were just faceless or small face on the pages of a magazine, now it is more of some asshole acting 10000000 emotions/s to gain views and if they are a woman they must be half naked.

If the sexuality of reviewer and their political agenda is more important than the game, their review is less meaningful than counting dog shits on the side walk and rating games by that.

Dog shits are at least somewhat real thing, unlike these imaginary problems of main character not being fat trans male-to-dog-thing.

Games (and movies/any media) is form of art and if reviewer cant separate their personal characteristics and views from that, they arent suitable for the job
Co-signed!

Gaming critics have all gone to shit because like seemingly everyone else in the entertainment industries in the US, they're all social justice activists first, and critics/journalists/editors second.

Imagine being in the military and saying to your CO you refuse to be deployed because the military didn't make a statement in support of LBGTQI+ Pride month.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
traditional 'gaming media' AND old farts gamers had damaged gaming overall with their ridiculous standards like "replayability" and full price crooked perception.

Yes, YouTubers and 'video essays' and stuff like that are fat better videogame coverage.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
Frankly, I think it has actively damaged gaming. It has made it divisive for clicks and has let personal opinion override any kind meaningful review process.

It’s the same in all media right now. Editors are being pushed around by their staff
 
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p_xavier

Authorized Fister
If you speak French (or want to read English subtitles), watch Gunhed TV channel on YouTube. The guy is a bible in gaming knowledge. He recently did an episode on Satellaview and was really in depth. Sad that he doesn't have much subscribers nor views because his research is really top notch.

 

FunkMiller

Member
Games journalism has become largely redundant as anything useful to the average gamer, because it has become so reliant on the goodwill and support of the games industry.

At some point, a collective effort should have been made to distance gaming journalism outlets from accepting any gifts, back handers or favours from the very people they are meant to be reviewing. This did not happen.
 

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
Its all Marketing and Promotions now

So-called gamergate was 100% correct so many game jornos I used to follow and few I even made friends with turned out to be total shitbags

looking up certain ex-1up/EGM people made me wanna get drunk its depressing as hell
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Media gets hype going I still like reviews, random hot takes and hosts lighting up games for being bad or good.
 
If you speak French (or want to read English subtitles), watch Gunhed TV channel on YouTube. The guy is a bible in gaming knowledge. He recently did an episode on Satellaview and was really in depth. Sad that he doesn't have much subscribers nor views because his research is really top notch.



There's been a lot of foreign language gaming documentary vids on YT I'd love to watch but not knowing the language or even English CC options not being available is a real bummer.

Thankfully the Japanese Saturn tech video (the one on transparencies on Saturn) and Super A'can vid (both from the same channel) had English CC options. The latter the creator was even kind enough to do an English voiceover version of the video on.
 

RPSleon

Member
I personally think the random Metro clickbait "reader articles" full of irrational hot takes (that my phone browser reccommends to me) make the medium feel more mature and help it and us grow in the right direction.
 
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