I've been bothered more and more by something I've been calling a feedback loop that exists within gaming media.
Essentially, the opinions of "journalists" influence the opinions of their readers, who in turn become overzealous toward certain games/franchises. Then, since the media is ultimately a business, the media has to cater toward the overzealous fans so as to not upset them so they can retain their views/ad dollars.
Basically, the loop is:
media influences gamers (previews, reviews, Top 10 lists, etc) -----> gamers drink the Kool aid ----> gamers get upset if media says anything bad about the Kool aid -----> media continues to overpraise game out of fear of losing viewers (top 10 list, overly positive retrospectives, etc) -----> gamers Kool aid is validated/new gamers drink the Kool aid ---- and so on
This presents a problem because it removes objectivism (as much as such a thing can be objective anyway) in favor of traffic-based opinions and lists that will retain and not offend the lowest-common denominator/majority of their viewers.
It also leads to a tremendous lack of actual criticalthought toward what makes a game good, both on its own merit and compared to other games.
Essentially, the opinions of "journalists" influence the opinions of their readers, who in turn become overzealous toward certain games/franchises. Then, since the media is ultimately a business, the media has to cater toward the overzealous fans so as to not upset them so they can retain their views/ad dollars.
Basically, the loop is:
media influences gamers (previews, reviews, Top 10 lists, etc) -----> gamers drink the Kool aid ----> gamers get upset if media says anything bad about the Kool aid -----> media continues to overpraise game out of fear of losing viewers (top 10 list, overly positive retrospectives, etc) -----> gamers Kool aid is validated/new gamers drink the Kool aid ---- and so on
This presents a problem because it removes objectivism (as much as such a thing can be objective anyway) in favor of traffic-based opinions and lists that will retain and not offend the lowest-common denominator/majority of their viewers.
It also leads to a tremendous lack of actual criticalthought toward what makes a game good, both on its own merit and compared to other games.