@CL60: @ck1nd:
You guys got me. I'm just a hipster douche who can't feel anything but hate for things which are popular with other people.
But slights against me aside, I don't think any video game journalist worth their salt ought to repping for kickstarter projects. To get behind or cover a game looking for production money feels gross to me because it feels like advertising. Could one view QLs as advertising? Sure, but these are games that are going to come out one way or another. Kickstart projects are looking for people to give them money no matter how you look at it, and whether or not these games will eventually deliver on anything they have promised is purely at the discretion of the game maker. If they offer a good idea, grab a bunch of money because of the good will of game journalists and the gaming public, and put out a POS that cost them nothing to make, they aren't liable for it. Game journalists have effectively helped that scam come to fruition in that case. So if people choose to spend their money on such gambles, that's their business, but I see no place for games journalists in that equation.
If you look at a typical preview of a game to come out, have a game journalist get excited about it, and then a crappy product comes out, the journalists can always then say, "This didn't live up to the promise, don't buy it." The gamer is saved from spending their money on a bad product.
By comparison, take a kickstarter project, have a game journalist get excited about it, gamers are convinced to go fund the project, and then a crappy product comes out. The game journalist can then say, "It doesn't live up to the promise," but it's a little late for all those folks the journalist's preview convinced to go fund it. That sort of thing doesn't sit well with me, and I think it would do game journalists well to stay away from kickstarter's projects until their funding run has been completed. After that, they should have at it like they would any other game.
But even if you think that's pure paranoia or you have no sympathy for people who might be convinced to fund a bad project by a positive preview, I think there are more than enough games coming in you average week, whether they be big AAA blockbusters, or small indy games, that coverage can be focussed on things that are coming out. I think coverage would be better expanded into the less covered steam and indie game realm than projects that may or may not come out.
Log in to comment