Response to Video game journalists, stop making s*&t up article
By coloursheep 27 Comments
I am aware that this is very long, but after reading the article I had a lot to say and hope that you do have the time to read through all of it
You can find the original article here http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/10/28/dear-video-game-journalists-stop-making-s-up.html
As someone who spends a large amount of his free time with video games it stands to reason that I also spend a large amount of time on video game websites, not as many as some people but still enough to know very well what is out there, and reading your incredibly labelled "exclusive rant" Dear video game journalists, stop making shit up i had several problems.Firstly you claim that a lot of articles on gaming websites are "a repeated rumor that was reported by another site with little to know(sic) evidence", in some cases that is true of websites and I agree with you. However I found it interesting that an article on your front page entitled 'Grand Theft Auto 5 to be set in LA and have several playable characters' to fit all of these criteria. It is a repeated rumor (from kotaku) that was printed with little to no evidence. So I would suggest that if you are going to be all high and mighty you probably should not claim that your site is better than others because it does not do this or that while having an article clearly visible on the front page of your site that does a lot of the things your are complaining about.
Another serious issue I had with the article was your attack on game journalists that hype up games during previews only to then give games poor reviews. You claim that your site would never do this and that its not hard to judge a game while it is in development and that have never played a game that you have not had a stern opinion on within five minutes of play. Once again I feel that you are shooting yourself in the foot by attacking the integrity and professionalism of games journalists while admitting to more that one very unethical practice of journalism.
Lets begin with the issue of previews. Firstly it is a preview, meaning that anything seen is subject to change and tend to focus on the positive aspects of the game with mentions of the issues with the hope that they will be fixed in the final product. The point of releasing a preview as I see it is to show where the game is now and look hopefully to what the final product could be. Many of the previews I have read have ended with the writer expressing his like of many of the aspects of the game and his desire to see the issues that the game has resolved. You might think that is to positive and discounts the issues that the game has but,with the game not out the writer is not making a judgement on the overall quality of the game, that is what the review is for. Also I would like to think that game journalists writing previews aspire to effecting the outcomes of games by pointing out the issues and providing their opinions on how the game could be improved and the issues straightened out prior to the final release of the game. With this in mind any "hyping" of the game could be seen as a challenge to the developers to meet the level that the game could be if any small or large issues are resolved before release.
Another issue with previews is what you see is limited and you don't get to play the entire game, sometimes what is shown does not leave a good impression but playing a different section of the game later, or even the same section but within the context of the whole game can give you an entirely different impression. As an example in the lead up to the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum a member of gametrailers say the game at a event and discussed his disappointment with the game, particularly the the combat, how he felt it was too automatic and did not require enough skill to pull of the moves( referenced in Invisible Walls, gametrailers weekly podcast show). However only a short time later the same journalist had another opportunity to see the game and his opinion on the combat was entirely changed(Also on Invisible Walls but a later episode). In my opinion after playing the game it is very possible that the first time he saw the game the section or "vertical slice" he was shown was from early in the game or possibly was modified to be less complicated to make it easier for the journalists to get into as with all the moves and gadgets the game's combat can be overwhelming. Then the second viewing he was presented with much more options with the combat and saw it's full potential. It was not the fault of the journalist that his opinion changed simply a poor or misguided approach was taken by the development team when previewing the game.
Now if we take into consideration your claim that you have never played a game that you did not have an stern opinion on within five minutes of playing the game I'm sure that you can see how that would be problematic. Firstly, most games have some amount of time where the game is not good, recently Final Fantasy XIII was criticised for have a slow opening that tok much to long to get into the action and unite the various smaller groups leading to a disjointed story and making the battles harder and not as interesting as they could have been. However after the stories came together, as well as your party, the game became much better to the point of being a very, very good JRPG. Now I am not saying that you must ignore the fact that the first !0 hours of the game were below the standard of the rest but if you followed your attitude of thinking about games then that could easily prevent your ability to appreciate how great the game becomes. It is very difficult for humans to change their minds once they have been made up as such it is vital that during the preview and review process game journalists keep and open mind about the product they are looking at. If you see a game once and decide it is terrible and can not be improved upon then there much less of a chance that if it is improved that you will be able to appreciate it. If the gametrailers journalist followed your style then it is possible that he would have missed the fact that Arkham Asylum is a fantastic game with great crowd combat. The take away from this is that you cannot be too stern with your opinions when previewing or reviewing a game because it can very easily cloud your judgement for the rest of the game leading to a lower score than it deserves.
Finally I would like to give you some constructive critcism about the way in which you presented your article. Firstly you called it a rant, now I can see that Gametyrant likes to Keep It Real, but as Dave Chappelle showed us Keeping it Real can go wrong, and in the case of this rant it went wrong. The issue with calling something a rant is with the connotations that come with that title. A rant is generally not know for being reasoned or thought out in any way and is essentially someone who is angry about something yelling and screaming about it to anyone who will listen. If you are really trying to change the way gaming sites operate , and not just get hits because people want to read about one site calling out another, then labeling something as a rant really makes it very difficult for you to be effective in this goal.
The rant issue and Keeping It Real leads to the swearing throughout the article, nothing is realler than blanking out swear words on the internet. Swearing causes all the above problems as well as many more. Swearing rarely if ever adds credibility to an argument and the only time I think it could help if it was used to show a person's clearly growing frustration to the point where they exclaim a single swear word. The way you use it throughout this article is definitely not doing your argument any favors. Calling it a shit review as opposed to a bad review makes it sound like you are fourteen and for an industry that has to deal with people, generally around that age, on Xbox Live and PSN screaming expletives at strangers during matches it is ounding like one of them is probably something that you want to avoid. Also even ignoring the swearing the language in the article is not at all formal, and while that may not be the style that GamingTyrant generally uses the type of article that you are writing here desperately needs it if you want your argument to hold any weight. Also if this writing style goes against what is normally done at GamingTyrant all the better as it will make this article stand out and seem important as some of the issues you are discussing clearly are.
Another issue with your article is how general it is. There is not a single example or reference anywhere to be found in the article and considering how you suggest in the opening that what you are complaining about is so abundant in games journalism you would think that you would be able to easily find many examples to help demonstrate your point. Now I know this is not university and your not writing an essay but still I'm sure you can see how my response was aided by the inclusion of examples to support my points and yours could too.
My last point and I know this has been a very long response but I hope you did manage to read it all because I too think this is an important issue but disagree with how you went about addressing it. Anyway, to my point. The way you refer to games journalists is an issue throughout the article and gives a very bad impression to the reader. Referring to them as fan boys, not studying journalism or following the rules of reporting, being video game developer bitches, placating the wishes of developers and the big three and generally doing a disservice to the gaming community, makes you seem jealous and petty. Do not take this as an insult but I'm sure you are aware that Gametyrant does not have the audience and reach as many of the sites that you are writing this article in reference to and by referring to them in such a way it makes you seem jealous that their sites receive many more viewers and advertising and having a much bigger impact on the gaming world. This is not how you want to be viewed because it gives you a potential ulterior motive behind writing this article and even though you make good points they can get squashed by people claiming that you are only writing the article to try and get exposure for your site by bashing on others. If you are truly writing this article with the hope of changing something within games journalism then you cannot provide people with reasons to doubt the validity of the article and your motives for writing it.
Your article discussed some important issues in gaming but there were issues with the way it was presented and how it clashed with some of the statements that you made which really took a lot of the potential impact out of the article. I hope you read this and would be happy to continue discussing this with you.
Matthew Hager
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