Games journalism (lol)

[pedroluchini]

It's been a few years since I stopped following game-related news. Professional reviews are useless for assessing a product's quality, while press events are more about showmanship than actual information.

Last week, I found an interesting article via LinkedIn (in one of those rare instances where LinkedIn makes itself useful) about games

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[stolisomancer]

At the average industry press event, the room is maybe twenty percent full of "real journalists": people who get paid a real, working wage to cover the games industry and report on it. The rest are a mixed bag of enthusiasts who're there for free: entry-level writers, the B-list heroes who're trying to get their website into the big time, a couple of freelancers whose livelihoods depend on kissing as much ass as possible, and the odd starry-eyed newbie who can't believe he's there at all. They're there because they love games and they probably got assigned there because they specifically love these games.

This is one of the growing pains of games journalism. As long as ninety percent of gaming coverage is done by enthusiasts, for whom the proximity to the business is their chief reward, this is how this goes down. In order for that to reverse itself, you need a consumer base that is willing to support high-end games journalism with its dollars, and right now, we do not have that in North America.