Do you take video game journalism seriously?

[courtdog]

Name a game that recieved BAD reviews that was actually good? I mean bad.

Ok, off the top...

Ghost Recon Wii
Too Human.. wasn't great, wasn't BAD at all. But most would remember journalist shytting on it
Similar could be said for Fable 1
Madden 64 was the best version out at the time, but so many people acted as if the more powerful n64 couldn't make better graphics
ET on Atari, deemed terrible. But I remember liking it as a kid
I got shyt to do tho, so I can't look into this more right now...

Not really. But video game journalism has similar faults to music reviews. It's highly subjective, and the same reasons many critics love or hate a project often don't fall in line with that of consumers (L.A. Noire, Life is Good). Another problem with both genres is that the industry has major influence over both sets of journalists, so that reviews often tend to be "overrate" the product. A 60 on Metacritic more often than not means the game really sucks.

The trick to reading reviews is that you gotta find a critic whose tastes you can follow so that you know when to listen or read and when to ignore.

You still setting yourself up because a reviewer doesn't tell you "Yo, I turned"
It'll happen eventually if that site doesn't care about its integrity.
I would tho
Anywayz, the best way to gauge is similar to how you would gauge if a movie file is good or not via say... a torrent site.
Check the comments. But you can't take just any user comment as gold
It really depends on how popular a site is. Cuz a dead site with a billion user comments is fake comments made by the site itself aka if you went to a site trying to sell you something (I got penis pills for the low shawty)

Speaking of penis pills for the low, I want to send a special shout out to my nikka Blvd "dikk Pic" Brawler
Do people still read Blvd Post? fukk NAH

 

[phillycavsfan]

Every piece of journalism produced by a media corporation will have bias, they all have to answer to someone.

But not all journalism comes from major media corporations.

 

[badvillain]

But not all journalism comes from major media corporations.

How many successful and reputable independent media companies/newspapers/sites are there left in America though? I bet under 15 to 10%.

And back on topic, most of these tech/video game sites are owned by major media corporations or like dude said controlled by the advertising money that powers the site.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

But not all journalism comes from major media corporations.

true, but EVERY publication has a slant. I work for the 3rd largest paper in Detroit right now. And trust me while we aren't owned by some mega-media conglomerate like Gannet, we still have to answer to someone. I can't write about movies, music and tech really the way i want to because there's a bajilion factors that go into what actually makes the paper.

With that said, people nowadays don't run to journalism for what they don't know they go for what they want to hear. Game Journalists are no different from music and film reviewers. But since the Game is an interactive experience and you might not play the game the way everyone else does...it can drastically change how you view it.

Everyone watches movies the same way, and listens to music the same way. Games are vary in how they are experienced.

I think its a valid aspect of the Fourth Estate but its just SO hard to really say what makes a game "good". Film and music are much easier to review and i'm saying this from experience

 

[2 Up 2 Down]

I only read user reviews and what people say on message boards. Sometimes these journalist either don't spend enough time with the game or already come into a game with a bias. That's what happened with Victorious Boxers

 

[Savior]

Name a game that recieved BAD reviews that was actually good? I mean bad.

Yea to me reviews are good to show what games are pretty much trash and to find some hidden gems. If some game by an indy developer I never heard of is getting great reviews Ill be checking for it cause u know they aint paying anybody off for the scores. Big releases I can't check for tho...a game like CoD or Halo will NEVER get less than an 8 no matter how garbage it is. U gotta hit the boards and get player opinions for those

 

[winb83]

BioShock Infinite Review in Progress - IGN
how does one get an exclusive review for Bioshock Infinite? Does the publisher agree to such terms under journalistic freedom? if you play their game and feel like its a 6 can that review still be exclusive and still get published first?

video game journalism is a joke. its nothing more than another form of advertising from publishers.

 

[NZA]

game journalism is actually worse than political journalism

theyre paychecks come so directly from game companies that in order to earn a living you have to play ball at least to some extent.

giant bomb and rock, paper, shotgun, and rev3 games are good, though. in general, destructoid reviews are good, but some of the personalities there are obnoxious.

 

[KevCo]

i like video game reviews, just cause it gives you a real look at the game, i just dont pay attention to the scores. honestly, i love classic game room reviews, they cover every system, ever, and its usually very entertaining

 

[winb83]

game journalism is actually worse than political journalism

theyre paychecks come so directly from game companies that in order to earn a living you have to play ball at least to some extent.

giant bomb and rock, paper, shotgun, and rev3 games are good, though. in general, destructoid reviews are good, but some of the personalities there are obnoxious.

if you're talking about MSNBC and Fox they both pander to their particular sides. there's no fake journalistic integrity there either. you typically have a pundit hosting a show and you know they're a liberal or a conservative and that's why you're watching them. they basically tell people what they wanna hear.

video game journalist pretend to have integrity but get paid by the companies they're supposed to be critiquing. in fact if it wasn't for publishers advertising dollars they wouldn't have jobs. if publishers didn't give them games to review they'd have to invest in buying them themselves. they depend on advertising dollars to exist. if the next Grand Theft Auto comes out and its a 7 out of 10 in reality how many of them will really call it that?

 

[King Sun]

Not really

 

[NZA]

if you're talking about MSNBC and Fox they both pander to their particular sides. there's no fake journalistic integrity there either. you typically have a pundit hosting a show and you know they're a liberal or a conservative and that's why you're watching them. they basically tell people what they wanna hear.

video game journalist pretend to have integrity but get paid by the companies they're supposed to be critiquing. in fact if it wasn't for publishers advertising dollars they wouldn't have jobs. if publishers didn't give them games to review they'd have to invest in buying them themselves. they depend on advertising dollars to exist. if the next Grand Theft Auto comes out and its a 7 out of 10 in reality how many of them will really call it that?

im not saying political journalism is great, it is definitely screwed up. im just saying that the problems with game journalism are far more extreme. you have an industry with people who make so little money that they are easily bought off with free food, shwag, and access to events. you really cant compare this to political journalism

furthermore
1. it relies on access to games and information in order to compete with other sites. just look at the reaction on twitter to the bio shock review in progress for IGN. if you dont play by publisher rules, you get late information, which kills you competitively

2. ad money on the sites. i do believe the guy from giant bomb lost his former job over making sponsors angry. having to both critique a game, and run paid ads for that game is a conundrum unique to arts and entertainment reviewers, games in particular since even movie reviews have displayed more integrity than game publications. at least there still are a few government regulations that govern political ad buys

really, breh. it's worse.

 

[winb83]

im not saying political journalism is great, it is definitely screwed up. im just saying that the problems with game journalism are far more extreme. you have an industry with people who make so little money that they are easily bought off with free food, shwag, and access to events. you really cant compare this to political journalism

furthermore
1. it relies on access to games and information in order to compete with other sites. just look at the reaction on twitter to the bio shock review in progress for IGN. if you dont play by publisher rules, you get late information, which kills you competitively

2. ad money on the sites. i do believe the guy from giant bomb lost his former job over making sponsors angry. having to both critique a game, and run paid ads for that game is a conundrum unique to arts and entertainment reviewers, games in particular since even movie reviews have displayed more integrity than game publications. at least there still are a few government regulations that govern political ad buys

really, breh. it's worse.

most movie reviewers work for a larger outlet where the movie reviews are just a portion of what they do. video game journalist typically work for video game publications where that's mostly all they do.

honestly video game publishers advertising budgets are why video game publications even exist and since that's the case they're part of the publishers ad campaigns. you go on their websites look at their magazines and 80% or more of the ads are for video games.

its kinda sad that these people wanna act like there's any integrity to effectively being an extension of game publishers ad campaigns. if I turn on MSNBC or Fox I see ads for all types of things. they don't owe their entire existence to political ads.

 

[NZA]

most movie reviewers work for a larger outlet where the movie reviews are just a portion of what they do. video game journalist typically work for video game publications where that's mostly all they do.

honestly video game publishers advertising budgets are why video game publications even exist and since that's the case they're part of the publishers ad campaigns. you go on their websites look at their magazines and 80% or more of the ads are for video games.

its kinda sad that these people wanna act like there's any integrity to effectively being an extension of game publishers ad campaigns. if I turn on MSNBC or Fox I see ads for all types of things. they don't owe their entire existence to political ads.

exactly, the political journalists make more money, acquire more prestige, and get money from more sources. games journalism is a ghetto and there's very little ability to insulate reviewers from the influence of publishers.

if major media outlets would buy and finance games media, the problem could be reduced. there also has to be a level of prestige that comes with the position. even if a studio hates roger ebert, ebert is getting invited to practically every screening

and when you look at these independent game reviewers, they are on cloud nine when they finally start getting free review copies. it's only a matter of time before they feel the need to start playing that payola

 

[Liquid]

Giant Bomb is probably the best overall.