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[Column] General: The Way I See It
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
I don’t consider myself a journalist. I write about video games and sometimes technology. When I think of journalists I envision the likes of Barbra Walters, Ed Bradley, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, and Edward R. Murrow. Women and men of great stature that have made lasting contributions to society through their craft. I write and make videos about games.
Read more of Rob Lashley's The Way I See It.
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Comments
I'll see it when i believe it or i'll believe it when i see it or don't see it.
This would be of course expected of EVERY article on this site,just tell us what you think honestly of games.
Interviews ,no thanks,often pre-constructed questions and answers with a one dimensional viewpoint,which is to mislead viewers into buying that product.Game developers can already put out their own marketing non game play video,they all do it,we should leave the articles to more honesty than FAKE honesty.
Almost nothing gets by me and i am sure little gets by most other readers,it only makes the writers and the site look bad when they FAKE it up.
Ripper at times,not as much lately but in the past was just awful,some of the stuff he would get all excited about were so fake it looked sad.Basically like "OH WOW you can change the hair color" this is awesome,that sort of stuff,just doesn't fly or come off as legit.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It might not be the first time, but it's the first time I've seen it, I am glad to, as I've been arguing this point about game journalism for a long while. It's hobbyist in nature, asking questions like" why does your game suck", would lose you that access you so desperately need to pull sites like this off. With the exception of rare instances where devs put themselves out there to take it, usually to save face in the face of some mistake they made.
Some people do expect Cronkite like hard hitting questions as well as prudence. It would get you no where, except fringe status and blacklisted. Much like many forms of entertainment news. IT is not the nature of the job.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That's all people expect from this site Rob. It's easy to get caught in hype sometimes and just as easy to fall into the negative team as well. It all comes down to personal taste, which in games varies quite a bit. Just don't become the Fox News site of gaming
fair and balanced should only have one meaning, that's all we ask.
I think value is highly dependent on the game. In the case of h1z1 it has relatively little value, but if they were to feature an indie game with low exposure it probably means a lot.
It is a weird cyclic thing.. Journalism came from a very grass-root place, ordinary people with a flair for storytelling, then it became part of a system... rules were laid down and people started to get educated... Then the internet became easy enough to use and it began all over again... Grass-root people with a flair for storytelling... Are they journalists... No not really... At least not most of them, they lack the proper education to call them self that... But they still fill the role...
Who knows... It is the moment that creates greatness.
This have been a good conversation
My advice? Don't write about anything that isn't already being talked about in the forums. It comes off as a desperate attempt to get readership because it's only being written because of all the forum posts. It would be one thing if you got some scoop story and wrote an article BEFORE the forums were flooded with posts about it, but in general, you guys are always late to the party... and then you go ask what we think? We've been saying it for days if not weeks already!
Game reviews? Do something different than the canned 9 out of 10 scoring system. Write about what you liked in the game and why. So much emphasis gets placed on graphics quality, user interface, and the like that the actual game... the reason you would even play the game is completely forgotten. I mean really, you could tack on any game title to the top of any game review and basically still have said the same thing had you wrote it anew. It's so damned cookie cutter.
The whole posting of game announcements is a bit silly. I mean every website on the planet delivers the same announcements. Patch 6.1 coming on Tuesday! What does it say, the exact same information as the press release. Why not talk about the features instead of just repeating them? Selfies... what is your take on adding such a feature to gaming? Does it have some fun twist? Is it an utter waste of time? Anything is better than posting a canned press release. We can read that anywhere.
Basically... it would be nice if it actually appeared as though you've played the games you write about beyond just a cursory overview. Quite frankly, no one expects a review on every game on the planet... it's why having sub forums for all these games is a waste of space for the most part. You can't possibly play all these games to the level you expect the consumers will. We'll choose some obscure game and fall in love with it. Do we need an article on it just because the game exists? No. Write about the games you actually enjoy playing, not just the ones that pay for the websites' advertising or get the most posts about in the forums.
You talk about avoiding hype? The forums on your website are full of hype... writing about what we talk about is merely hopping on to that hype train.
To use names of possible great journalists all while downplaying the role of gaming media discredits every single thing you will ever do...so quit....seriously, you believe nothing you could ever do will amount to anything important.
The entire idea of what you did is just plain draw dropping and it was all done to downplay what you will be doing to provide an excuse not to push the bar or even do what is expect of you by readers.
But keep on pushing the nonsense all why wondering why you don't get massive traffic from the 100s of millions of gamers around the world and keep telling yourself that your not serving them, has nothing to do with it because...excuses.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
"I don’t consider myself a journalist. I write about video games and sometimes technology. When I think of journalists I envision the likes of Barbra Walters, Ed Bradley, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, and Edward R. Murrow. Women and men of great stature that have made lasting contributions to society through their craft. I write and make videos about games."
Very refreshing to hear someone from this site outwardly admit this, because (frankly) you're not journalists, nor should you be masquerading as if you were. I don't mean that to sound offensive, so please take it with a grain of salt.
A few of the staff on this site seem to act as if they are employed @ 60 Minutes, even though they can't manage something as basic as proof reading an article prior to posting to ensure clarity and accuracy. It's embarrassing to be honest. The quality of front page news here has dramatically decreased over the last few years and it's always due to simple mistakes.
Your column is one of, if not the, most enjoyable to read on the site (imho, of course), and this latest entry only reinforces my opinion about the subject.
Keep up the good work Grak.
I enjoy your stuff - especially when I disagree with it... and not just because your head looks like mine
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I used to be hooked into watching youtubers and their twitch streams when I was watching jesse cox's, total biscuit, dodger's, and many other youtubers out there but after a while, there messages and some kinda hostility just rubbed me off a bit. It got to the point where I just stop watching the videos and also cut-off funding and de-favorate them because I don't share the same hostile beliefs as they do.
After playing certain 30 fps games such as Assassin's Creed Unity and The Order 1886, many youtubers are against those games, and so are the rest of the people that followed these people. I don't understand it when they have not played the game yet or they wanted to hate it because they prefer the 60 fps, they expected the best game that is competitive, fun, and overall experience when the expectation that they wanted did not even appear in those games because the game itself follows a different type of experience.
I myself played Assassin's Creed Unity and The Order 1886, I've bought it because I want to experience a interesting storyline and the continuation of the story of the Assassin's Creed games as I always have. I also bought The Order 1886 for the same reasons but this game does not have a series just yet but the game is great, it felt like I was playing a movie so to speak, and I'm not really hostile towards the QTE, because I fail to see the reason why people hate QTE to begin with (unless it's frusteration, then that's understandable at certain points). I enjoyed the game so far and I'm close to beaten it, and speaking of beaten it. There are tons of negative feedback about the game not having a longevity to begin with, but honestly that's FPS in the nutshell. I never seen an FPS game that can last me more then 3 days, it's like people never played the single-player campaign from Call of Duty, or never played Singularity, or even Wolfenstain: The New Order.
I'm starting to believe now that peer pressure in the gaming public is a notion that's been going on and now we have certain people that don't think for themselves and play the game without any outside influence that could ruin the experience just by negatively ranting about it because of silly reasons and let the gamers themselves think for themselves. People expect way too much when the game comes out like destiny... they think it's going to be the new world of warcraft for consoles, but after my experience, that is not really true for me because the game lacks an interesting story for me to follow and that I know for sure that bungie want to make something other then halo but they failed to innovate and change anything that is nothing halo related and it's familiarity. I've stop playing destiny after beating the final mission and not bought any of the dlc's because of my lack of interest in the game.
I'm now following a very simple rule for myself now so that I don't be moved by others, and that is "The perfect judge is you, don't let peer pressure change you, you make the change by what you want to believe, not what they want". Be open-minded and test out everything, find the pros and cons of the game, and try to be on the devs shoe's and think about what they wanted in the game and who is there targeted audience, why did they develop the game this way? basically question everything that can come at you and you may find the truth of things when you explore the possibilities.
If only he were playing Archeage! Trion has special mounts for Trove streamers to give away. trying to make the game look more popular than it is?
(I love Trove, BTW)
Look man, this is a good article but whether you're a journalist or not depends on if you're doing journalism. Are you writing content for publication by a site that exists to inform their readers about what's going on? Yes? Congratulations! You're doing journalism. It's a trade press, sure, but that doesn't change anything.
However you see it, or whatever claims you make doesn't change what you're doing. The people that work for Giant Bomb are all doing journalism. Saying "We're bloggers," isn't a free pass that changes what it is you're doing. Not when you're not writing a blog. They're journalists, because they're doing journalism and the work they produce needs to be held to the standards of journalism, whether they like it or not.
So keep on doing your journalism, and keep on doing fine at it.
Great points dude.
Hey Rob,
Keep up the great work.
A vast majority of the articles and columns even on this site are fake drivel. Most of them I choose not to read, some of them I read only to troll.
All I ask is for honesty. If you're a positive person who sees the grass as always green, that's fine and I'm sure it will show through your writing and I'll trust your opinion as objectively as I can.
But when articles are being put out that claim WoD was largest WoW expansion to date when it's clearly the smallest I'm not going to take you seriously.
Thank you all for your feedback.
@Wizardry. I hope you'll see it and believe it.
@Nemesis I did too.
@Distopia. Thank you.
@DMKano. This topic could be a column in of itself. Since most things are cyclical in nature I can see a time when it swings back to websites from personalities. I agree that some personalities do have too much sway but I'm concerned that if I did broach this topic most would just write it off as sour grapes as opposed to an honest opinion.
@Fearum. Please no, never that. I'll avoid becoming the FOX news or CNN. More like Last Week Tonight.
@Thinktank. I can see how indie games would have much to gain.
@Tawess. Thank you for that perspective.
@Pepeq I'm assuming you meant to say don't write about anything that "is" already being talked about in the forums. While I see your point not everyone is active in the forums. I think when contributors to the site talk about thing important to the community it can pull more people into the debate.
I think most people that work for the site would tell you we would prefer to do reviews without scores but there are reasons that we do them with scores. I've scored things less than 8. I gave Destiny a 7. Some of the earlier reviews I did I would maybe have scored lower but in general I feel I give scores that are deserved. If they powers that be decided that we were going to change to a recommendation such as play, don't play I wouldn't be okay with that too.
In regards to the news that is something we have to do. Yes other sites do it also but there is a large base of people that we are there go to site on news for games. Why would we want to stop providing them news just because they can get it somewhere else?
@JJ82. I respect that you have a different opinion than most of the people in the remarks and from myself. I'm not sure if you have an axe to grind or not though. I've seen you lay into a lot of writers on this site lately. It seems you may have missed the point or decided just to focus on the opening paragraph and ignore the rest.
@TerribleTemper. Thank you. I will.
@Iselin. Being bald is truly a blessing.
@Darkedone. Always listen to the voice inside your head. Don't get caught up in group think. Which I think easily happens on the internet.
@Torval Once it's live send me a message. Twitter or through this website. I'll DM for you.
@Dreamo I didn't realize they were doing that. Interesting.
@Sketocafe. Thank you. Maybe I should learn to accept the title of Journalist.
@Zarkin86 Thank you. There are a lot of other good ones too.
@GettCouped Thank you.
@Tracho12 Thanks for the comment and I'll continue to be honest with you.
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The journalism here is above sensationalism which is why I even come. I have visited the site ten times more than I post. Which really means that I come to read and move on.
I trust the journalism far more than the paid hype.
Thank you for asking.
1. Everyone should have a different opinion. When people jump in like they do here it smacks of conformism. People should be showing their disagreement even if its only slightly...like how I posted only about the part I disagreed with. People far to often act as if it must be all for or all against. I cant stand that. If I read something and see 1% I don't agree with, I would rather point that part out, then just comment about the other 99%.
2. I actually do have an axe to grind with the gaming media as they all too often only represent either themselves or the gaming companies, and not the readers. So many places are seeing a drop in visits but few step back and try to figure out why, The respect of most gamers have been lost and needs to be regained yet I don't see anyone changing what they are doing to earn that respect back. I do however see a LOT of excuses for it though.
3. Are you sure I missed the point and not you? My entire post was how you undermined yourself and what you do with your statement and it wasn't necessary and was actually a little shocking. It was as if you were trying to justify what you are doing by excusing it. Most gaming sites do just this, give only the opinion of the writer. If your goal is to be like everyone else, say it. Be like Fox News, have a little page with fine print stating that it isn't a news channel, but a form of entertainment where opinions are given. Own it. Or, actually try to be unbiased. Give real negative aspects of what you are writing about along with the good aspects and let the readers decide...stand out, earn back gamers respect...and perhaps see the popularity of this site jump since it will be one of the few places people can go for a full view of the topic.
Because when it comes to opinions...everyone has one and the internet is flooded with everyone giving theirs. So what makes this place stand out if its going to do the same? There, is my axe to grind.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/