How Can Video Game Journalism Improve?

As the year draws to a close, we tend to reflect on what we could do better. It’s been a busy year for video games, not just in terms of releases either. New consoles, new games, new controversies, and new ways to cover it all. The New Breed Covering video games has become a changing … Continue reading How Can Video Game Journalism Improve?

[PixelGateUk]

General discussion should remain, I hate it when sites turn off comments and kill any chatter in the process

[cberg25]

I absolutely understand when sites kill comment sections. With rare exceptions, comments on an article only foster inflammatory dialogue. Intellectual conversations left comment sections generations ago. They're a relic of the past that just feed trolls.

[kylethemurphy]

I'm honestly torn. As a content creator I think it's great to have a dialogue with people that enjoy your work. But most comments sections really are a terrifying place.

[Rude-ro]

In turn, with the true evidence of financial influence and biased leans in most commercial media sites... there is the chicken and the egg philosophy at play.
A huge percentage of the media base their articles on clickbait topics thus inflaming the community.

How do we change the media? We can not. Where there is financial gain, there is corruption. Giving the people a place to voice their opinion in said articles allows a true balance. No matter how crass people can get, it is still better than the marketing dollars of major corporations having free reign influencing the media as evident as it is.

[_-EDMIX-_]

What is the point of Journalism if not to allow the community to voice their opinion?

[MagicBeanz]

Its not the sites per say that control the comments its the moderators put in place by those sites who often have an agenda and use their ability to delete comments and ban people as a means to control the conversation based on their own personal views and bias. Its wrong and unfair but it is what it is.

[drizzom]

Have to agree. Even on places like Reddit there are people with direct relation to companies running the moderation. Any negative opinion ends up getting deleted. If not, the echo chamber downvotes it into oblivion.

[rainslacker]

Exactly this. Nowadays, it's one of two scenarios. Mods who strike down any dissenting opinion, or complete lack of effective moderation. The idea of moderating the forum beyond the spam or "inappropriate" comments is a long lost idea, when the reality is, a well moderated forum, where things are kept on task with the topic, and discussion is lead in a way which is constructive and open for all is quite engaging. For articles, this means the author/mod not engaging the trolls, possibly blocking them if they get too uppity, and actually engaging in the conversation to explain their point of view, and have a nice give and take to actually discuss their point of view, and allow others to openly express theirs.

But nowadays, too many sites are driven by ad revenue, so turning away the trolls, who tend to be the most active on a site, thus generating the most revenue, is not a good business model. It takes a pretty big site, and extremely good and impartial moderators to achieve a nice balance that doesn't affect the bottom line, and even the biggest gaming sites nowadays don't bother, and prefer to hide behind the "who gets to decide" line to relieve the pressure of having people accuse them of bias, because these same mods don't know how to actually steer discussion so it's constructive....or in some cases, like N4G, it's about what they are allowed to moderate, which really isn't much, and this site doesn't have enough mods to actually moderate effectively.

Go to some sites though, although I feel there were more in the past, and the difference between a well moderated forum, and the general internet are stark.....and the well moderated forums are much better....and it isn't because the mods just keep the trolls at bay, but actively work to make it better.

[Garethvk]

Less click bait would be good.

[PixelGateUk]

while i agree, i do feel the term clickbait is thrown around far too much these days, mostly by people just trying to throw shade

[kylethemurphy]

Agreed. Clickbait is gross, but people crying clickbait too often doesn't help anything. It's also gross.

[Rude-ro]

It gets thrown around because there is more evidence of financially influenced media than there is non biased media.
Most sites also created the stigma and thus makes it very easy to yell "clickbait".

There are very few gaming sites that show a balanced view in gaming. Very few.

[PixelGateUk]

@Rude-ro

Or, as i tend to see it more often, people disagree with a post and thus throw a fit and scream 'click bait'. Heck, most just react to a title without even reading a post

[ninsigma]

" Heck, most just react to a title without even reading a post"

That's the point. If the title is reaction worthy then it's likely click bait.

[PixelGateUk]

@ninsigma

So how would you title things? legit question, remembering you have to fit into SEO and various plugins/social media. Plus the added element of not making reading the thing pointless?

[Rude-ro]

Study marketing business...
The title is usually the target. Not the article.

To clarify...
In today's online marketing and traffic generating, companies turn to key words or phrases to generate traffic.
So, "_____ is not doing enough to support ____ in gaming"...
Then you create a site that garners to specific people so that they will generate traffic for said title.
Said title gets bumped in search browsers and reaches the average consumers that are searching for something related to something in the title.
Boom, message is sent.
Do this over and over as a sort of gorilla tactic against other businesses to send negative tones to consumers via search engines.

It's a sad sickick little world and one of the major gaming companies is responsible for its birth.

[ninsigma]

For a starters less of this: "PS4 vs Xbox One: Who Won 2016?". That's by gaming bolt though so I don't think we expect much from them.

Also this:
"The Last Guardian Review - This Just Isn't a Good Game | ZyroXZ2"

Why say anything in the title?? It's sole purpose is to make those who enjoy the game mad enough to click on it to retaliate against crappy journalism. This site also gave it a 7 despite that headline so essentially they've said it's bad but scored it well, totally makes sense!

It's those sort of titles, the ones that are designed to garner annoyance from readers, that need to end. What's wrong with just calling it "The Last Guardian Review"??

[Garethvk]

I see it like this. If you do not agree and it is not a controversial topic or one that will inspire debate it is not clickbait. But if it is an outrageous statement or something of little substance with a deceptive or inflammatory title, then there you go.

[MagicBeanz]

To many arm chair journalist for it to improve, any joker with internet access nowadays can pretend to be a game journalist. Consequently we get biased fanboy driven articles and reviews and it has turned a once respected profession into a joke.

[PixelGateUk]

'once respected profession '

It's never been respected, like ever. That's been the whole argument for various causes (some we shall not name). Video game journalism has mostly been seen as a nerdy sideshow, hence constant attempts to water down into stuff like you see on Ginx TV etc.

On the flipside, you could argue that the reactions of people does not help matters either, it just makes things look petty

[MagicBeanz]

There was a time when it was more respected, a time when it was a real job you had to earn, during the days of gaming magazines, before all the internet journalist showed up, you might just be to young to remember those days. Now its just to easy for people to proclaim themselves game journalists.

[OB1Biker]

I totally agree but I think it's even worse. The biggest gaming sites are getting worse and worse, relying on un verified negativity to drive traffic. It's up to a point where there's no ethic at all regarding the truth and journalists cynically write disinformation without bothering checking.
Of course most sites are biased too, many gamers don't question enough what they read and are reluctant to believe it would be that bad.
As it is its easier to improve than to get worse.

[rainslacker]

While true about any internet user, it's not like the actual "reputable" sites have much better content a lot of the time. It may be formatted better, run through spell checker, and checked for grammar errors, but the reports and conclusions aren't exactly any more compelling than the average internet journalist can muster. 99% of the time, one can find more compelling arguments, or sometimes even more factual information, with the comments sections of a particular article, or forum that discusses a particular topic.....which is kind of sad, and probably why I spend more time in comment sections nowadays than the actual articles.

In any case, more than half the news nowadays, gaming or otherwise, seems to be more editorial than actual journalism. There was a time when they weren't as seperated, but nowadays, I consider them completely different things. Editorial used to require research to glean facts, and present an opinion on a topic....thus requiring some journalistic aspects. But editorial nowadays seems to be more about the opinion, than getting the facts straight to present a solid argument on why the facts are actually good or bad for the reader. It's more like the authors are hoping to sway public opinion by spewing out any random throught, regardless of merit or truth, often basing their argument on lies or hyperbole.

[MagicBeanz]

Agreed, just look at many of the articles posted at this very site, they are clearly meant to inflame and antagonize a reaction. Its junk journalism and its a shame. Occasionally we get a decent article that's unbiased and just gives us information we can use for our game purchasing decision making but all to often its inflammatory click bait we see. I'm sure me saying that wont sit well with the mods but I'm not just saying that for no reason, its pretty clear it happens and others have echoed the same sentiment, it makes it hard to respect a particular site when so much of whats being presented is this fanboy driven stuff with clear agendas attached to them. It would go a long way to support not only the integrity of the individual making the article but the integrity of the site posting said articles, if we could get more unbiased straight and to the point articles instead of graphics comparisons and articles about why console A is better then console B.

[rainslacker]

Click bait has run rampant as of late, although it's always been a thing around here to some degree. Comment sections have gone way downhill since the redesign though. I don't blame the mods per say, as they are just abiding by the rules of N4G itself, which does't really rate the actual quality of the article, which sometimes I wish it would, but then based on a discussion I had with Christopher over a different topic, it does lead to the mods having too much power to direct the flow of information, so it's kind of a catch 22. As far as the actual moderation goes, I think that's just a matter of not enough mods, or the ones they do have not having enough time to do what they're there for. Plus they're only human, and it can be burdensome to have to keep putting up with the same crap over and over again. Kind of a no win situation, and having moderated forums before, I know it's not something I'd really ever care to do again.

As far as the individual sites go though, I do agree, one bad apple can spoil the bunch. Even Gamingbolt has some decent articles and interviews, but the stuff we see on here is utter tripe 99% of the time....and it proves your point about how it affects the status of a site. But outside a couple sites like that, it's rare that the users around here are aware of any particular site's reputation, and tend to take everything on a surface level with no attention given to credibility or ethical reporting practices.

[Tetsujin]

Here's an easy one:

Stop click bait articles
Stop "Top X" lists requiring clicks per topic
Verify sources
and the biggest - stop the dumb opinion pieces that start flame wars.

[PixelGateUk]

' stop the dumb opinion pieces that start flame wars'

This could literally be classed as anything someone disagrees with, even if the post itself is balanced, fair and well formed. I don't think saying 'never post anything people can disagree with' is a good move forward. Unless you mean something like 'Xbox is the best, ps4 is poo' etc

[Tetsujin]

It's the ones like "why X system is better than Y," those are the ones I'm referring to. Something like "Which service is for you?" followed with actual stats, those are fine because it uses numbers in a non biased way.

The ones I've seen lately are either anti-PS, anti-Nintendo, or anti-Xbox; which after a while gets old. I understand people have preferences, but respect others decisions in their console of choice.

[Phil32]

The problem is in part with the audience of gamers. Many just want confirmation bias, and many only click on headlines that are either "this is garbage, here's why" and "this is the GOAT, here's why." There's very little room for middle of the road opinions. Most just want the extremes, and thus, the gaming sites have to provide that content to stay relevant. I mean, how often do we see clickbait and extreme opinions as top stories on N4G? A lot.

[PixelGateUk]

That's mainly due to how N4G works. People get angry, leave comments insulting others, people reply, heat is gained, boomed. N4G is propelled by the user, not the posters. Most stuff would go past unnoticed if people kept their actions in check

[drizzom]

People didn't react this way in the past before these polarizing titles got popular with journalists. People aren't just perpetually angry. They got angry for a reason. The articles are what set off the behavior. Be it because they were misled, baited, or in some cases even outright shamed unfairly when all they were looking for was news about their hobby or whats going on in the industry.

[ElementX]

The problem is every site rehashes the same news. These people aren't journalists and what they do isn't journalism. They simply republish press releases. What happened to interviews? What happened to actual research? Most of the articles I've seen are amateur and written by people without any sort of English and grammar education

[ApocalypseShadow]

As others have said,too many armchair writers,too much bias and hidden paychecks(cash,advertising,cli ck bait,free swag,etc) and lack of the fundamentals to get the point across. Reviews were more like Consumer Reports that just reporting the facts. Then, letting the consumer decide if they should buy it. Sure there were scores, but the review backed up the score.

Graphics-how it looks
Gameplay-what do you do
Story (if there is one)-what is it about without spoilers
Controls-do the controls respond well
Replayability-is the fun factor enough that it would make you play it again and again

You can use external examples like God of war is to Devil May Cry in the same genre. But you review the game on its own merits. And it helps that you like and understand that type of game.But a reviewer and journalist's job is to only present FACTS. Same with consoles.what does it do right and what it does wrong.

But modern day reviewers and journalists worry about money,incentives and fame over doing their jobs correctly. Leading to almost a complete breakdown between writer and reader. If websites won't tell you a game is broken before you buy it and gives something rave reviews like IGN for example, in the end, we as gamers aren't being properly informed.

[PixelGateUk]

But what happens when there's no review copies issued due to a publishers policy, and people still pre-order in the masses? surely there has to be some consumer responsibility

[drizzom]

Id say it should be widely made known by journalists that a publisher has this policy before the ability to preorder surfaces.

I agree that the consumer does have some responsibility. I believe they have the responsibility of knowing everything they really should know about a game before they decide to purchase. However, because the media is in the state its in now, consumers cant get access to the proper information needed before they decide to preorder something. It is far to easy to end up subject to manipulation or just useless information that has nothing to do with what they are looking for. Thats why the focus in on improving the sources where buyers get their information: journalists.

[OB1Biker]

Spot on regarding reviews. Totally agree. Reviewer's aren't focused on helping gamers decide ; they are focused on writing some sort of essay to push their own views throughout the review. They don't care about the game. They care about having 'a strong opinion'.

[PixelGateUk]

Are we talking about likes of Polygon or? just for point of reference

[Chaosdreams]

Remove. Personal. Opinion. When giving a critical review. The personal bias or anything of that nature should be left at the end if at all and shouldn't mess with the score.

As for general articles, single page - information worth reading - written well - personal spin.

[KaZeDaRKWIND]

By being more than clickbait

[Tankbusta40]

Stop calling it journalism, start calling it political opinion. Almost every single so called game journalist injects their personal politics and bias into everything, it's no longer even a valid place to get information. If it's not pushing an agenda it's over hyping games with "10 reasons you'll love xxxx" up to days before release for clicks, then they bash it in reviews.

But I guess you can't blame them, mainstream journalists are worse, look at the biased American election coverage, you'd have thought a baby raping axe murderer was running against a Virgin angel.

The extends to even sports journalists. Some kid from Duke tripped a kid in basketball(guy was unhurt) and sportswriters today we're coming after the kid like he pulled a Last Boyscout and drew a gun and shot someone on the field. This need to be overly politically correct so they don't get fired is just leading to one sided coverage for everything. No way a trip(I don't care if the kid did it last year) warrants the type of politically correct vitriol that was displayed today.

Journalists in general seem to fight their peers to be the most outlandish politically correct writer or commentator(and by pc I mean only far left of center) and in the end it just leads to one sided and awful discussion.

[PixelGateUk]

I think you may have went more into another topic there about coverage in genereal

[Tankbusta40]

My point with the examples, if it wasn't clear is politics and opinion are ruining all facets of journalism because there is now a realm of political acceptability that is adhered to by nearly everyone no matter the field and it only results in a singular view point. Game journalists have just followed suit by instead of objectively reviewing a game, they inject their person politics(like the other examples)

A further example using video game journalism is the Overwatch thing. Apparently a character is gay. Every article you read is about how wonderful and revolutionary it is. I have yet to see a mainstream article by anyone disagreeing with the decision or arguing against it.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

I say just report facts followed by the journalist's views against said facts ( I believe full objectivity is impossible due to human error). Take in constructive criticism from readers and maintain mutual respect when it comes to arguments about your articles. Also try your best to keep politics away unless it is brought up in said game. At this point, it should be recognized but not dwell upon or shouldn't be used benchmark to sway your your opinion of the game positively or negatively.

Finally, admit mistakes and fully take responsibility for them. If it's sincere, I'm sure the majority will forgive the author's shortcomings.

[Kallisti]

Less clickbait

[Perjoss]

Austin Walker's Waypoint, Giant Bomb and Easy Allies have been a breath of fresh air for me as outlets that cut all the lame click baiting and have valuable and funny things to say about video games.

[stokedAF]

I like maximillian and his crew as well. He generally covers fighting games but if there is any news I will hear it from him. They have general enthusiasm and it shows. It's entertaining, informative and a true form of "hobbyist commentary". Opposed to the journalists that settled for gaming because they couldn't get anything else. They don't complain about stupid stuff they just enjoy games.

[3-4-5]

* Stop lying

[stokedAF]

It can't. Gaming journalism isn't one large entity that can improve with common goals. Some are already great, many are utter trash. That's never going to change.

My suggestion would be intellectual honesty. It's hard when you are paid for clicks though. That style of revenue breeds sensationalism, it's just the business model. It's not about "being right" it's about being controversial or first to the punch. Very little can save that mentality. Paid subscriptions? Nope. Patreon? Nope. We just have to accept that the vast majority of gaming journalism is trash like the vast majority of all media is fake trash. Find sources you like and stick to them.

[_-EDMIX-_]

The way I see it the greatest thing that can help gaming journalism is for many people in the industry to accept that gaming is a respectable medium

It seems that many sites are scared to have news feeds in regards to having video content to tell the news and we're sort of left to IGN to have their little news segment daily telling us what's happening in the industry but what makes me so upset is when you look at any other industry they have their own couple companies that talk about current events daily and we're still in an era of gaming where not every company does this and that I believe needs to change.

There's so much news in the game industry daily it's not even funny , somebody simply needs to find it. I also have no respect for sensationalist who try to masquerade as journalists , there so many untold stories in gaming.

My biggest concern about gaming is there isn't enough journalists that are chasing that small Untold Story.

Look at journalists like Lisa Lang she has made a name for herself over the years for going places that lots of people clearly do not want to go and she's been able to tell stories that lots of people just never knew even existed.

We all personally know that scene in gaming not only are personal friends know about we all know about certain situations that probably always come up that most journalists do not report in my personal opinion that is the interesting stuff that some of these up-and-coming journalist need to focus on.

As an Avid Reader I want to be taken to a place I did not know existed in the gaming culture...