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General: Breaking Through the Press
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
MMORPG.com's Player Perspectives columnist Jaime Skelton writes her column this week on the sad state of gaming journalism.
Although it's closed its doors to the general public, E3, and events like it, are still geared for the general gaming public. While the press holds the invites, the material is geared for gamers: mostly eye candy like trailers and screenshots, with demos being filtered through press feedback. Even without a circus, the shows tend to be over-the-top with hopes of wooing gamers early.
For those of you who have tried to follow all of E3 this week – and not just a few games or companies – I salute you. E3 is overwhelming for anyone, and like many other gaming journalists, I've been struggling to stay afloat in a sea of information. Although I didn't get to make it to the show this year, I'd wished I had simply for my sanity; the ability to focus on demoing products and interviewing instead of sorting through hundreds of press releases, dozens of trailers and screen shots, and filtering through varying opinions of those on the floor would have been a relief.
Comments
Have to admit, there are a few sites I avoid because of terrible journalism practices. IGN for instance. It's the little things like using "aloud" when you mean "allowed", bad grammar and horrid spelling that will quickly turn me off an article. I expect that from forum posts and blogs, not from someone claiming to be an actual journalist.
I totally agree with zeowyrm.
Seems too many "journalists" not only report poor information or don't give us what we want to hear and regurgitate whatever the PR and marketing tells them to.
I just can't stand it when it seems that some articles don't even use a spellchecker or a solid proof-read. Heck, even cnn.com had some crap articles recently.
A good article, if sites just become the mouthpieces of games developers I stop reading them as they will not give me any informed information on a games highs and lows anyway.
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
Ign and gamespot perfect examples of regurgitation, i'd rather read fortunes from used toilet paper than read anything on either site.
First off, MMORPG has gotten a few criticisms for their gaming coverage being a bit press-release and advertiser driven, but, that aside...
um. OK, I've worked as a freelancer and a stringer for "real" publications, and I currently blog on gamasutra (volunteer/industry blogger) and regularly get blog stories promoted. And that's the level of most game journalism as it were -- it's like your hobby newsletter. Most people don't get PAID. If MMORPG paid, I'd write for y'all, but if I'm not getting paid, I like the professional readership on Gamasutra better.
Then again, go to any newspaper/magazine, paper or web, these days -- most people who write features aren't journalists with j-school degrees. The most common degree as I observe it these days is communications or marcom, unfortunately, and it really screws with the quality of real news reporting these days. Having people report on geopolical or economic/business news with no technical background in the area of expertise, who were trained in PR more than journalism, makes the mainstream press SUCK these days.
But then again again, this isn't the Christian Science Monitor, right? Last time I checked, this is gaming, which is a lot like sports writing. The proportion of folks writing sports news with actual degrees in it, past the top tier of sports journalism, is TINY. And at the top tier, there's probably a disproportionate number of journos who are really the equivalent of commentators, rather than journalists, who often enough started out as play-by-play or players.
Entertainment press too -- we're a hybrid between sports and TV/movies, really, in terms of our structure of content/coverage, and as gaming gets more mainstream parts will look more like Entertainment Weekly, and as competitive gaming gets more real, we'll look more like Sports Illustrated.
Folks, EW and Sports Illo are the very models of the future of gaming journalism. And I bet they don't have a lot of j-school folks. We are probably never going to rate j-school degrees, because most people who take j-school degrees are going to report on breaking news, not gaming journalism. At least, not until this field has a LOT more cred.
And again, until it pays well, it will pretty universally suck.
So, more interesting question -- how do we get it to pay, so it might not so universally suck?
yrs,
Shava
p.s. went to that gaming journalism blog you pointed to -- when gaming journalism gets real, you'll find the real jobs on gamasutra jobs or other game industry job boards. Those ads are all for "volunteer" jobs and/or content scammers with one *possible* exception. Not a great source for a good description of the current or future state of the field, I think...
Nice article, and highly accurate from what I've seen working in the industry. I've worked with producers who have been well aware of the frequent truth that the media often just regurgitates whatever they are told - and those producers actively encouraged the copywriters of press content to be over-the-top in self-praise in the provided material. The assumption was that the glowingly positive material would just be directly used as "truth" in whatever blog, review, or update published by the press.
It's like money laundering; whereas in this case the praise of a product is being cleansed of association with its own developers, and stamped with the apparent approval of some seemingly unbiased judge that the potential customer can supposedly trust.
The diligent journalists will question the material given, request illustrations, demonstrations, and examples before repeating whatever they are told. I salute those people, who are doing a useful and difficult job and performing a vital role as customer advocates. As a developer, I vastly prefer to be open and honest with my customers - it makes for a better relationship. Sadly, many video game journalists are just in too much of a hurry, trying desperately to surf the flood of information, to be critical. I can be sympathetic, but as both a player of games and a developer of games, I don't approve.
I write news for two sites, and get paid. It's nothing compared to a "regular" job, but I have not, nor will I ever, accept a volunteer position for keeping up to date on news.
Also, considering that MMORPG pays its freelancers for every piece, I imagine they pay their hired staff too
Painfully true. I completely agree.
Does it really matter? if you understand what's being said?
Really? How much of their content comes from user generated content? Last I checked, a lot. I inquired after a "position" to cover Second Life some time back, and found that they wanted one story a week for no pay. Maybe it's changed in the last couple years?
yrs
Shava
I agree with the article, but there is also something else that is "pushing the tides", so to speak.
Gamers are no longer just accepting everything thrown at them as the absolute truth. You can see this very clearly in almost every forum of MMORPG. It doesn't matter how "official" something looks, or how neatly polished it is, you will see the gamers ravage every single item they can about the information. Skepticism is rampant, and I am happy it is. This encourages true investigation and forces companies to either push harder for a better polish, or moves the gamers away from the lower quality game.
While journalists might have to watch the hands who feed them, gamers have no such qualm, and will readily bite whatever hand comes their way.There are still a few sheep among the flock that will follow whatever is told to them, but gamers as a whole are being more bold in what information they consume. IMO
Nice article. I don't suppose you have any interest in the F2P market? We could use a more balanced and less elitist attitude in the department.
Anyway,
I'll call them cowards. If these so-called reporters spent more time doing investigative work, instead of walking up to the marketing departments and asking for information, and actually digging into the trenches, gamers wouldn't get surprised by sudden bits of information that was somehow left out until release day. The gaming media industry gets a lot of flack because it actually deserves it. Like you say, they take hype and pass it on, no questions ask. They use kid gloves in interviews, and when the gaming rep says hey, no worries, DRM benefits the consumer, they just nod and move on. The relationship between these so called-reporters and the industry is too close, time to severe those ties to nothing but threads across the board. If this actually happened, the marketing departments would just have to suck it up because they'd have no one to turn to but the people that actually hold their feet to the fire too.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Assuming this is a reply to the spellcheck/typo poster -- two things -- for some of us, reading a typo is like a smack in the face. We have a sense of language that makes it like hearing bad sound quality, or seeing a really rough edit in a professionally produced video. it makes us go WTF? and also loses any trust we have in the overall quality of the product in general.
Because spell checking is so easy, there's just not a great excuse for this. If the person is lazy about spell check, what else are they rushing or not paying attention to?
There's a tendency for spelling/editing folks to be written off as spelling Nazis, but these things are professionalism diagnostics, and in my experience, pretty accurate.
yrs,
Shava
Now that I think about it, I've stopped relying on "official" reviews of games when I make a decision to buy. I'll usually start there to kind of get the gist of what a game might be like, but as far as how well it's been executed, I'll nearly always rely on player reviews, usually culled from various forum posts.
I hadn't even realized that I'd stopped trusting in the journalistic integrity of the game industry, but I suppose that's exactly what's happened. Now, I put about as much stock in a review from from an industry rag as I do in the information released directly from a developer or publisher. I think after weeding through the trolls and the fanbois, the opinions of fellow gamers is what really matters.
Yeah, that was pretty much what I was getting at. Honestly, I don't care about the degree involved, as long as the article looks professional and you can back up your sources. First impressions are everything, and if the article looks like it was put together by someone with a junior high level writing, I can't take it seriously. Again, I don't hold forum posters/bloggers to the same standards. But if you're getting paid to write, for heaven's sake, make it look good.
Thomas' comments were "politically correct" by today's standards. Pay attention. Her "truth" is exceedingly popular these days...
Journalism is one thing reporting the truth. Asking hard questios now thats what we really want. We want to know the nitty gritty. However now days it seams that most of what we are being handed is the company line, and thats when thing go wrong.
To many times lately there seams to be a push from what a lot of us see for many of the gaming sites to backup the game companies, and there seams to be some colusion going on.
Thats when the true journalist will step out of the way and get back to the truth and not the game companies line.
Oh well I digress.
Just give it to us as it is without a slant, the same can be said of the mainstream meadia always toting the line of the fed.
I went to PAX East on a press pass, and I can tell you that some game companies just don't schedule time with the people who ask hard questions. It becomes a choice, sometimes, for someone who wants an interview or hands-on or review copy -- kiss up or give up.
When it gets to the point where the journalsim in this field *matters* enough to the game companies that being smacked for stonewalling a particular writer looks bad on their reputation, we'll see better game journalism, in the form of really critical reviews. In the meantime, metacritic was the most cited must-please outlet for most game companies. *sigh*
We won't see hard questions until the access issues are straightened out, and that won't happen until there are trusted sources of hard criticism, which won't happen until there are hard questions, which won't happen until access straightens out which won't happen until...
At this point, there are specific reviewers I trust, and even specific forum posters I trust -- but not a single web- or print-based publication, really.
yrs,
Shava
Yes I agree with that statement of specific reviewers I trust and as of late that number has gotten smaller.
The only things I ever go by when evaluating a game for purchase is whether a trusted friend likes it or if it every single pic and video of actual gameplay I see interests me. Why? Journalism as an industry sold it's soul a long time ago. Opinion pieces are the only things I care to read anymore. At least then the writer is up front that what I'm reading may or may not be bullshit. Otherwise there are too many variables that can dictate the tone or even the content of what the writer is presenting as journalistic fact. The news is such a joke as it is so its actually funny to most people when others get outraged over spelling and grammar. If you're in the industry and take it seriously that's great for you. Just don't expect the rest of us to care about the littlethings in an industry that is rife with inconsistancies and outright lies as a whole.
It's always important to look at the good and the bad and decide for yourself, regardless of the subject, but especially in things as subjective as games. What you like and what I like are going to be two vastly different things. Everyone knows that journalists these days (cnn, fox, mmorpg, whichever) make their living not from the readers, but from the advertisers. The very people they are supposed to be interviewing for stories.
"You can't make a man understand something when his job requires him to not understand that something."
I think the freelancers writing here are greater than the actual staff, and I do get paid for every column, review, and special feature I do.
There's more I could comment about this issue (regarding MMORPG.com in particular), but won't do so in the public forum.
Allow me to answer for the literate public at large:
YES!
That sums it up pretty well. It's not advertising so much as it is the access issues. Some game companies are bad when it comes to press relations, but many are respectful.
Of all the reviews I've written, two have burned bridges - at least in so far that both went dead silent on me after the review went up and was sent back to them. Which is amusing, because I know that has to reflect a certain soreness on their part - my review style takes after a more "constructive criticism" approach than a "scathing review" approach. Interestingly, I'm reconnecting with one of these two companies now, so perhaps, on their part, the silence was caused by a different matter.
Of two other very negative reviews I've written, off the top of my head, both companies are in close contact with me still and don't even mind if I ask harder questions. I know, too, many others of us who have managed to keep good relations with companies after negative reviews - as I said, they usually know when they release a bad game.
Nesrie: I actually am growing to enjoy F2P games more as time goes on and I learn to adjust to their model. I obviously don't believe they're "the future," but they're not a bad model when done right.
Indeed.