Games Journalism Fart Attack: 2013 Edition

I figure with the new year we could use a new thread to discuss the truly awesome examples of what passes for journalism in games these days. On the bright side, even if games journalism may not be getting that much better, I think journalism in general is slowly becoming worse enough that at some point we'll reach parity.

So bring on the Fart Attack!

To start things off, here's a somewhat bizarre take on interviewing a game designer. At some point I think the plot gets lost when an interview with a very interesting figure somehow becomes autobiographical.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/18/ken-levine-and-the-conversation-part-one/

Rock Paper Shotgun has been steadily crawling up its own ass for a while.

It used to be good for daily doses of PC and indie news, with a smattering of thoughtful articles and general gaming related thoughts. Now, it's like the last bastion for the PC master race, interspersed with deep thoughts by Jack Handy, all doused with its love affair with bad puns.

I couldn't get past the fourth paragraph. They ended up in bed, right? Because that's where the story seemed to be headed.

A much as I like RPS in general, ugh, the starfucking.

Yes.

I think the beginning of the end for me was this posting of a Splinter Cell trailer purely so they could complain about how the series is now for kids, and then they went and posted this whiny bullshit about how people are playing Dishonored wrong and I knew I was done.

There is a story on the front page that actually uses the term "console kiddies"*, all because Dead Space 3 devs aren't making the PC version superior, where "superior" means "better graphics".

*Before being changed to "console zealots"**
**Because that certainly makes you seem like less of a whiny baby?

I reckon the problem RPS has these days is that the founders, who were old hands with years of journalism experience (stretching back to when you could actually make more than pennies money from it) have gradually filtered away from making posts to the actual site onto other things. Kieron now writes half of Marvel's comics, Jim ran a kickstarter and is making a bunch of games, I think even Alec is doing something else half the time. Which only leaves John Walker from the original crew and his posting style seems to have shifted a bit over the years so his brand is now becoming the less interesting, but definitely more clickbait-y, strident rants rather than thoughtful pieces about him crying at puzzle games or whatever it used to be.

They've been replaced by some new fellas who seem alright on the whole, but they are inexperienced and I would say it feels like they are imitating what they believe to be the 'house style' of the site rather than finding their own distinct voices yet. I'd guess that both of these problems (old hands leaving, new guys being inexperienced) are related, at least partly, to the real difficulty in making any money as a writer in games journalism.

PROTIP: If you're on Twitter and want a good source for quick PC gaming news, check out http://www.pcgamesn.com/. They don't have an RSS feed so you need to follow their Twitter account. Rob Zacny writes for them, among others.

I got the impression RPS hired the new guys based on whether their style would fit, so it ended up being a self-selecting process where they got the people who were basically caricatures of the original writers.

Actually, all of the above examples are Alec Meer, who for some reason hasn't managed to grasp that RPS is pretty big these days despite him being there from the start.

Thanks for the (just the?) tip. Polygon has also quickly joined my rotation of websites visited for gaming news.

I really like the flare path thing on RPS. But yea now that you guys mention it, it does seem to be on a decline.

So ah.. what about Qt3 huh?

We have a thread for that.

To be fair to RPS, they have plenty of worthwhile content as well. Take their whole XCOM interview series, for instance, or some of those "Gaming Made Me" pieces. And they were one of the very, very few sites that - I feel - gave a fair shake to the Game of Thrones RPG.

I browse RPS because they're the only place that covers most of my gaming interests (war games, weird indie shit) in one place. I've discovered a lot of neat free indie games from their weekly free indie game column that I otherwise never would have found.

On the other hand, I rarely read the articles and never the reviews.

Another strike against them.

RPS has gone to shit. If it's not navel-gazing masturbation about bad art games, it's console bashing or PC cheerleading with the occasional maudlin diary entry about games and Life with a capital L. Their community, both on their forums and in their comments, also went off the deep end.

I'm not sure which caused which. Did the community sour and the new guys just tried to pander to them? Did they give up on moderating their forums/comments? Or did the crash in the quality of writing scare off the more intelligent audience?

They've always been deep up their own asses, it was just that Gillen was a good enough writer that it made the site tolerable.

That was just painful to read and that's with skimming through most of it. I like to think that my site hasn't been mentioned on any bad writing threads because I'm a good writer (and not because no one knows about the site.) I'm not even sure what most of the questions he actually asked during that interview/short story were.

What site do you write for?

Jab's site: http://game-wisdom.com/

That's okay, I'm pretty sure I avoid getting raked over the coals in these threads mostly because I post here regularly.

Fuck, I was going for "shrill demagogue."

We really should have a sticky thread for all the places our members write stuff. Websites, blogs, etc. That way people can pimp all in one spot and not feel like they are spamming the board.

I could have sworn that there was a blog pimping thread somewhere on BF, but I don't think it's stickied anywhere.

Pimp Your Blog thread.

Well it is MCV, which as the last thread amply showed is one of the worst outfits in games journalism today.

Editing separates the shit sites from the good ones. Or at least helps differentiate them.

It's a big part of it, for sure. Not coincidentally, editing requires a lot more training and experience than writing and you can get a job doing it elsewhere for real money if you're any good at it.

That's true, but it's also true that it's a field that is mostly in danger across the board, especially with internet-focused, time-sensitive stories. In the current climate, the wait-time for editing is almost a competitive disadvantage versus having a guy on staff who punches up your headline and attaches an amusing picture to it.

I guess I'm just saying the whole editing thing doesn't seem like a growth field, either.

I could comment, but I think we all know what I'd be saying.

Is it:

FUCK YOUUUU WALKER!

?

Ah, the inevitable email exchange and attempts to police our comments from Game Informer. How I love them so.

— John Walker (@botherer) February 6, 2013

John Walker, you so sassy.

His problem is with CD Project (or their publisher) not with Game Informer - and if he's really bothered, he could stop giving them free advertising for their upcoming game, and then the two parties could discuss who needs the other more.
But his "Buhu, GI won't let us steal their content"-screed is stupid.

It's not that the doesn't understand the concept of exclusives as he worked for years at PC Gamer where that sort of thing was par for the course. Instead, I suspect it's part of his whole seeming 'disbelief in copyright of any kind' ideology.

Though if I recall RPS wasn't too keen when another website just cloned their content. So maybe that's more a Walker thing than a whole site thing.

He views screenshots and info on upcoming games as marketing material, and considers it stupid and shortsighted for companies not to want their marketing materials disseminated as widely as possible.

I agree with that, but as Hanzi said, he shouldn't be bitching at GI, but at CD Projekt.

Exactly. Just because a company is being stupid and shortsighted doesn't mean he gets to take what others have paid for.