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People are sell-outs, the industry is too small and nobody cares.
Let me first explain what I mean when I use the term “journalism”. Nobody uses the phrase right, and I’m not going to buck that trend. Ignoring all the proper definitions, I see journalism as the act of reporting on news and events. In doing so the journalist makes sure to find the truth as best he or she can, and has a strong emphasis on investigation. This is what I want “journalism” to mean.
Annoyingly for me, very few people agree. Most people who write about videogames take the untroublesome definition of journalist as a person who writes about news. To me, that makes you a writer. A very good writer perhaps, but still a writer. (Most examples of “great videogame journalism” I get pointed to are just examples of good writing.)
So many have reached for the title it has become almost meaningless. Get a domain for $8, install Wordpress, subscribe to Kotaku and re-word the popular news in your unique, edgy style. Pop! You can now attach the phrase “videogame journalist” to the end of your name and be happy with your accomplishment. Now get off my lawn. Read more →
In a vein attempt to keep this video a bit shorter than previous ones I picked just one main thing to talk about this week. I then proceeded to not think my thoughts through carefully enough, and the result is the slightly poorly worded video you see below.
Essentially; I want NG to promote a higher standard of gaming press among other things. However, as we are not a generic videogame site, doing so is tricky. I also have many, many plans for where NG is heading. If you have any ideas about that yourself, what you want the site to be, then please do let me know.
If you were to look into our forums today, you may notice something has changed from last week. We have a brand new section called “Community Reviews“. Do not fear this change! For it is good change.
For you see now, your opinion can also be made loud and clear on Negative Gamer! How’s that for socialism! The thinking is that whilst we here running the show talk a lot about games and pass off our opinions as informative reviews, you may also want to do this. Any addition to the conversations being had about gaming is a good thing from my end, and I happen to believe this growing community has some interesting things to say.
You’re welcome to follow our review structure and write your own, Negative Gamer style reviews. Or, you can go with the more standard review styles found on other sites. Or maybe even invent your own style! It’s up to you. I know I’m just interested in reading more people’s opinions.
In future I may start to link to the Community Reviews from within the main reviews, so people can get more opinions on the games they’re interested in. This means you need to make sure to proof read your text thoroughly (failure to do so may result in Half Left screaming “YOU APOSTROPHE RE” so loud a kitten dies).
So there you go. That’s a thing that is.
Crispin Boyer (former EGM editor) doesn’t seem to like crap writing. In his most recent post, he offers up a few of his pet peeves of modern videogame journalism. It seems that now he is on the outside looking in, the poor quality of a lot of writing is becoming ever more apparent.
My worry is that you folks breaking into the media today grew up reading so much bad stuff that you think, “Well, I guess this is how you’re supposed to write in the games biz.” [...] Now that I’m out of the games media and get my features/previews/reviews from the web and magazines just like everyone else, I fear a nightmare future of the same ol’, same ol’ utterances. It’s up to you newbies to break the vicious cycle.
As somebody trying to improve their writing skills, his post doesn’t tell me what to do, more what not to do. Essentially; be better.
If I can get philosophical for a second, writing is the closest thing to ESP you’ll find outside of Art Bell. It’s your brain transmitting words to someone else’s brain. Don’t clutter the conversation with a bunch of useless crap.
His point about the length of the article I completely agree with is a point I have seen echoed around a lot in recent times.
As far as I can tell, the majority of verbose articles exist because either a) more money is made form multiple page long reviews, or b) the author isn’t quite skilled enough as a writer to condense what they are trying to say. The latter is something we should expect and live with, but the former is just reinforcing bad habits.
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