1434 replies to this topic

[SickBoy]

But there's a bad habit among game journos of being extremely open about how chummy they are with various industry personalities. None of them seem to get that the second you brag about going to karaoke with Tim Schafer or having drinks with Itagaki, your professional opinion on any of their work is immediately suspect, whether you consciously adjust a review score or not.

Some of them are playing the extremely juvenile "you're just jealous of my job" card, but that's just sidestepping the very legitimate point being made.

I've been reading the thread with one eye open (still afraid of ME3 spoilage), but this is one of the reasons I stopped listening to Weekend Confirmed. It's hard to take a guy like Garnett Lee seriously when he namedrops developers "my friend X" nearly every episode.

Maybe it was always that way, and I know, his goddamn show and such, but it seemed like the show has become more and more about Garnett and his exciting life. I expect personal stuff in podcasts, very much so from P1P... but I never feel like I'm hearing a sales pitch for how cool you may or may not be.

Hmm.. rant veering off topic.

[rafterman]

I think a lot of people get into games journalism to make contacts and friends in the industry. But it's horribly unprofessional to be so close to the people whose products you review. It doesn't matter how honest you are, there's already a taint to what you do. About Weekend Confirmed, I find Garnett to be very, sometimes overly sympathetic with developers and overly critical of the big 3 hardware makers. He sides with them a lot and makes a lot of excuses. I don't begrudge anyone having friends in the biz, but it's really hard to discuss product critically when you or the guests you bring on are involved in making things. "This game kind of sucked." "Well, they were under development crunch time and blah blah blah." I don't give a crap. I want discussion of the final products and not discussions about how hard the job is.
Back to the games journalism, well it's not journalism. It's opinion writing some of the time, criticism if we're lucky, and rewritten press release info. Just go look at Kotaku and you'll see there's no journalism going on. That said, journalism as a whole is pretty damn shoddy these days.

[Jonnjonzz]

How many "games journalists" end up going to work for the companies they praise so loudly and openly? I can think of about a dozen off the top of my head.

[Owozifa]

I think they're onto a good point about gamers lack of "sophistication." Or rather a lack of sophisticated expectations. As a class, most gamers can watch Toy Story 3 and appreciate that it's a much deeper film than Cars 2...we don't lack sophistication. We just don't seem to care that most game plots are sophomoric at best. We even defend that point. How many times have you heard gamers defend this "young" industry for its lack of good writing?

That is such a completely worthless argument. I played tons of games that had superior writing in the early 90s. Not to mention the well-regarded games of Infocom's last days in the 80s, the truly young days of games. If anything, when games only expressed themselves through text on a screen, the writing HAD to be good because that's all there was. I do not think that writing necessarily is important for every game as it is a diverse medium, just like film, but when you have giant muscled guys with guns it's a little easier to let it slide when maybe it shouldn't have. But if I had a stack of my favorite films here, some would be surreal plotless exercises in visual excess and some would be just some guys in a single room talking. And everything in between. My list of good video games would probably be something similar.

As for all this hullabaloo, I only care whether or not art can grab me by the brain chemicals. Maybe some of the game journalists should turn their focus likewise.

Edited by Owozifa, 30 March 2012 - 02:39 AM.

[Jonnjonzz]

So Capcom is having some event in Rome. Are they flying journalists out there? If so, why do they not understand it when readers talk about money hats and and how we might think some of them are being payed off.

[Kirbutashi]

[gokieks]

I lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes before I just stopped reading that review.

[PlayerOneStewy]

Spending the first half of your review telling me that the internet and other reviewers liked this game too much guarantees that I won't read the second half of your review nor will I pay attention any subsequent review you write.

[Owozifa]

What review is this?

[gokieks]

What review is this?

Kotaku's review of Xenoblade.

[SickBoy]

It would be interesting to see what you'd get if reviewers imagined the games they were reviewing could only be discussed in terms of their content. I.e: no referencing the wider Internet or a broad range of similar titles; no beer party analogies; very little contextualizing exactly where the game fits in the pantheon of gaming, etc.

Typed up a real rant earlier, but lost it somehow

[SickBoy]

It would be interesting to see what you'd get if reviewers imagined the games they were reviewing could only be discussed in terms of their content. I.e: no referencing the wider Internet or a broad range of similar titles; no beer party analogies; very little contextualizing exactly where the game fits in the pantheon of gaming, etc.

Typed up a real rant earlier, but lost it somehow

[Jonnjonzz]

1up still riding on their high horse from the whole Mass Effect 3 debacle. At least they aren't calling their readers entitled this time.

[PlayerOneStewy]

To be fair, Legend of Dragoon was shit.

[gokieks]

It was a thoroughly mediocre RPG, released for a platform that had one of the best RPG lineups of any system ever.

That said, it is a shit article.

[Jonnjonzz]

When did 1up start letting GameFAQs message board posters write articles for them?

[MojoBox]

After the forth or fifth round of layoffs no doubt.

[Owozifa]

I just saw a certain large video game news site refer to AAAA games. That's nonsense, everyone knows the only games worth anything are AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA games.

Seriously, why does gaming have the most annoying trends in terminology?

[mik]

That reminds me, I wanted to talk about the term (and pervasive misuse) of the term "AAA" on the podcast this week. Totally forgot. Maybe next week.

[PlayerOneStewy]

I give that idea AAAAA

[gokieks]

That reminds me, I wanted to talk about the term (and pervasive misuse) of the term "AAA" on the podcast this week. Totally forgot. Maybe next week.

AAAAAAA+, would listen again.

[Jonnjonzz]

Seriously, why does gaming have the most annoying trends in terminology?

Because the most prominent people in the gaming press are aging, out of touch hipsters.

[Wenny]

Because the most prominent people in the gaming press are aging, out of touch hipsters.

I'm so old I can't tell the out of touch hipsters from the out of touch assclowns.

[Owozifa]

AAAAAAA+, would listen again.

Hah. I feel sometimes like I'm the only person who ever leaves eBay feedback that just says "Great service, thanks!"

[Jonnjonzz]

I'm so old I can't tell the out of touch hipsters from the out of touch assclowns.

They can be both.

[Jonnjonzz]

More GameFAQs message board poster quality articles coming from 1up.

[Wenny]

More GameFAQs message board poster quality articles coming from 1up.

I feel like that article would have been better as one of those "humorous" lists that 1Up seemed to publish ad naseum a while back.

[SickBoy]

Why context is important: "Sony is blaming a price-cut and the 2011 Thai floods for a big loss in the company's PlayStation division, with $2.8 billion walking out the door never to return."
http://kotaku.com/59...oses-28-billion

Calling their consumer products and services division the "PlayStation division" is highly misleading, and Kotaku isn't the only site to do so (but it's where I saw it first). Certainly it includes the PlayStation, but as with Microsoft, it includes a lot of areas that are likely bleeding money worse than their gaming division.

[gokieks]

I don't think the lesson there is so much "context is important" as it is "Kotaku writers are hacks who don't bother reading the source before whipping up a stupid post".

Which is something that pretty much everyone already knew, of course.

Edited by gokieks, 10 May 2012 - 04:49 PM.

[SwimOdin]

Walmart.com's description of Diablo 3

http://www.walmart.c...Mac-PC/19237343

The Diablo III PC/Mac Game revolves around an interesting plot which will keep you spell bound. while you are playing. This Strategy Video Game also has some similar setting as the Diablo II like Tristram. The Witch Doctor is a new character in this game, is reminiscent of the Diablo II Necromancer, The Barbarians in this strategy video game have a variety of revamped skills at their disposal on the basis of the use of their incredible physical prowess. Bring home the PC video game to solve the mysteries of the mighty Barbarians.

Edited by SwimOdin, 11 May 2012 - 08:03 PM.

[Owozifa]

Poetry.

[Jonnjonzz]

1up talks about the differences between the Lost game and the Walking Dead game since they are both based on TV shows. Execpt the Walking Dead is based on the comics and not the TV show.

[Owozifa]

Even if it was based on the TV show I never stopped to think to myself that it was at all related to a Lost game that came out years ago!

[Wenny]

1up talks about the differences between the Lost game and the Walking Dead game since they are both based on TV shows. Execpt the Walking Dead is based on the comics and not the TV show.

The best part is the dolts in the comments saying that this complaint amounts to "semantics"...

[aspro73]

Walmart.com's description of Diablo 3

http://www.walmart.c...Mac-PC/19237343

Brilliant. So they finally succeeded in training robots to write about games.

[momerath]

"Wield the might of a thousand powers"

Sounds pretty sweet.

[SickBoy]

http://ca.ign.com/ar...m_medium=social

Dear IGN: Proofread your infographics.

"The excitement for the future of motion controls is half that of the disinterest"
"More people do not care about motion controls than actively want it."

Statements a little less kludgy than example 1 and a little bit of noun/pronoun agreement wouldn't hurt in an item that has maybe 100 words to it.

[Owozifa]

Yeah that sounds about right for IGN readers.

[Kirbutashi]

I only care for the sleakest of hardware myself.

Could they have made a more boring set of graphics?

[SickBoy]

Sleak. Nice.

Also, is this only part of the graphic or are they being purposefully obtuse?

The top line reads like the poll question (how interested are you?)

And the actual data portion of the graphic doesn't make clear what that data actually is. Did respondents give a percentage answer of how interested they were and this is the response in aggregate? Is this people who were somewhat or very interested? Is this one guy's response about how interested he is?

This isn't exactly rocket science. And the graphics could definitely look a lot sleaker.