E3 Cynicism and Games Journalism

Well whatever your job is you can usually find things to complain about so I don't really see the issue with that aspect. Of course no one likes hearing people complain over and over again about something fairly minor, especially in a job that is so cushy. I mean a lack of good games and interesting topics changes the subject of their work but not really the amount of it. Complaining about silly things like getting up early to go to a games show makes you seem like an ass that no one wants to be around or listen to. That goes for anybody that complains overtly all the time. Also not to get too down on people who write about video games, but I always find it funny and a little sad that the most complained about and hardest thing about their job is spending three days walking around a convention center talking to people about games and doing PR interviews.

I think games journalism is a joke term in all honestly and I think the GB guys are decent in that they avoid that term. Most of what they do on the written side is rehash a PR statement and condense what a developer told them about a game into a few paragraphs.

The real question is, why do you care?

Remember they HAVE to play a lot of these games daily. Their opinions really dont reflect players like me who get to choose when and what to play and at my own pace. Their constant yawning negativity is growing tiresome, unless of course when  they praise Nintendo and their genius(sarcasm).

@Milkman said:

And I understand that everyone is working hard and I understand the relief when it's all over but when I read things like "God, E3 is the worst. I can't wait to go home", my blood starts to boil.

I hate this. Joystiq was disgusting with that this year. Listening to their podcasts made me furious in the lead up to E3. Boo-fucking-hoo. You have one of the most desirable jobs in the world and you're going to have to pull some late nights for a week. Get over yourselves.

My overall point is hey, let's have some fun playing video games and I know the onslaught of Call of Dutys and FPSes can be a drag but there is always something to be excited about.

The only thing I'll say against your post is that if people were upset and bitching about the content of E3 this year, rather than the event itself, I think there is something to be said for it. I also think though that this irritation needs to be directed back at the Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony for their mainly poor showings. I for one would like to see more journalists shouting down Nintendo for the abysmal performance (As it seems like most people are just saying, "Yeah, it was dissapointing," when they should be saying, "What the fuck is going on at Nintendo?"). Game journalists could serve an important purpose in showing the gaming pubic's distaste for Nintendo's disregard for showing any decent reason to buy a Wii U or could complain in articles and previews about the boring glut of military shooters. Developers read these things and get the pulse of the public through that kind of stuff and if enough people are saying it, they might get the picture.

BUT, as you have said, people complaining about E3, as in the event, are totally missing the big picture. It's a display, for better or for worse, of what the industry has on offer for the next year. That's something awesome to be a part of, and whether you get to leave the show writing angry articles about the decline of the industry or with chest-swelling excitement for all the great things coming in the future, it's still pretty amazing to get to be part of it.

@FilipHolm said:

E3 is always a disapointment... why do we keep having high expetations? Next year I won... wait, next year they're supposed to show new consoles... damnit..

The phrase, "Hope springs eternal," comes to mind. I'd rather live that way though and constantly depressed about the state of gaming.

OP's premise in the final paragraphs seems to boil down to "if you cover the entertainment industry you're obliged to be entertained by it." That's so much nonsense I don't know where to start. Movie reviewers don't even need to move their limbs except to feed themselves occasionally. Why does VIDEO GAMES get an automatic pass of wonderment and bedazzled joy, but anything else should be taken a bit more somber? "Getting pissy at an agriculture biotech trade show, now that's legit. You kids think Activision is the Anti-Christ, let me introduce you to Monsanto... that whole red-tree-in-the-stomach thing? They're doing that NOW in Brazil." C'mon, seriously. :P

Decrying cynicism is equal to decrying fanboyism. They are extremes, they are not the bell of the curve. The reality is, after 15 years of trade shows one sees through the smoke and mirrors. Every motherfucker on every stage wants their hand in your pocket, and in the pockets of your readership. And oh, by the way, what happens at E3 will impact your career for the next 5 year cycle. Why else does everyone in the press have this love affair with PAX? Because it's about the players, not about the industry. Not about the perfect marketing family future we're supposed to spend Nintendollars in.

@Jimbo said:

Gross. If it's gonna be billed as a press conference, the press should probably ask if there's any chance the companies involved could cut that shit out. 'Ask' as in "cut that shit out or we're collectively boycotting your show". I hope the press members present didn't accept the little 'gift' they were offered at least.

Meh. Swag is swag. The raw expenditure value of a year subscription, or a fancy 2 gigabyte memory stick with a press kit is probably about the same to Microsoft/Sony publicity. A PS+ membership or a new Xbox 360 Slim is pretty small potatoes to any press member I would ever listen to. Maybe a two-man blog who still gets a buzz from free games in the mail, sure. But sites like Joystiq just give their haul away. No need to refuse it, just like there's no need to turn down junkets. They can serve the right purpose for the ultimate customer, and the better writing shops make those decisions wisely. The same issues affect "regular" journalism, and absolutely some publications are known to be biased, and some set a higher bar. This is why metacritic means so little to me, 90% of those reviews have no credibility to me personally.

I imagine that E3 is probably one of the worst ways for journalists to see new games. Everything is packed in so tightly and everything has a huge time constraint. Add to that the fact that you have to navigate an overcrowded conference center and it's pretty easy to see why people hate it.

@Milkman said:

@iAmJohn

Kevin Smith, is that you? Is this going to your first topic on your new "no critics allowed" talk show?

What? When did I say no critics allowed? Like I said, there's plenty to be sad about with E3 at times but it's the extremes that I'm worried about.

Any job can become monotonous over time. It's all the crap that we don't see that probably gets to them. Besides, E3 is such a non-event IMO. How much hype have we seen only to be disappointed later on? Remember how the 3DS once took E3 by storm? A year later it was a joke.

It is hard for these journalists to get excited for footage and demos that they have played several time. I have lost count the amount of times Jeff has said over the week that "This is the same demo I played twice."

I do not blame them, and I think that E3 is going to continue to become this, a showcase for the games, while announcements will be spread out over the year by the publishers so they can control the message.

I imagine that E3 is probably one of the worst ways for journalists to see new games. Everything is packed in so tightly and everything has a huge time constraint. Add to that the fact that you have to navigate an overcrowded conference center and it's pretty easy to see why people hate it.

I think anyone, especially those who work as professional critics and editors for various sites like this one, have every reason to judge these games and the Consumer more so because of how much games cost. If you want me to pay 60 dollars for your game and up to 400 dollars on your hardware, it better be damn well worth it.

@pepsimaxofborg said:

It's not cynicism, it's wisdom.

I'd say it's more jaded experience. Wisdom is what comes after being jaded and after having revitalised your interests.

@Brodehouse said:

@Hunkulese

I imagine that E3 is probably one of the worst ways for journalists to see new games. Everything is packed in so tightly and everything has a huge time constraint. Add to that the fact that you have to navigate an overcrowded conference center and it's pretty easy to see why people hate it.

I think it's actually the time constraints that make it economic for both sides. They would spend 6 months a year booking time for trips to see all the different games they see in 3 days at E3. The fact that you still need to be physically present to 'see' games is really the problem, but of course digital information has a 100% chance of leaking.

Being economical doesn't change the fact that it's still a shitty way to experience new games.

Jobs are JOBS. I don't care if you're a clown in a circus, because your job is a job no matter what. There is no job that is above being tedious, rough , stressful and difficult. There is no spoecial edict that procliams , "Any job that isn't miniumum wage grunt works is fantastic all the time."

From the sound of it, for game critics, e3 is a hot, smelly, noisy, and crowded place. It is a place where booth workers and development staff you know when asked a straight question will give you only a crooked answer. It is a place where most of the people on the show floor have NO BUSINESS being there because they are not buyers for retailers, not press, not employees of developer/publishers...they are stupid fanboys who snuck in to stand "goggle-eyed" in the way of people trying to do work.

@Hunkulese said:

@Brodehouse said:

@Hunkulese

I imagine that E3 is probably one of the worst ways for journalists to see new games. Everything is packed in so tightly and everything has a huge time constraint. Add to that the fact that you have to navigate an overcrowded conference center and it's pretty easy to see why people hate it.

I think it's actually the time constraints that make it economic for both sides. They would spend 6 months a year booking time for trips to see all the different games they see in 3 days at E3. The fact that you still need to be physically present to 'see' games is really the problem, but of course digital information has a 100% chance of leaking.

Being economical doesn't change the fact that it's still a shitty way to experience new games.

Being able to talk to several big developers within walking distance and seeing hands on demos right there on the spot is a shitty way to experience games? Because they have to walk through a crowd and schedule appointments? All year round they get things sent to their office and people come to them for interviews and demos. E3 seems to be that one time of the year when they have to put in some sort of effort into doing what regular journalists do on a daily basis - you know, walk around, check things out and talk to people as opposed to sitting at your desk all day getting sweet "scoops" by someone e-mailing you a link. All of E3 is built up around, and for, gaming press - it sucks for non gaming press as you're standing in ridiculous lines to see anything worthwhile.

So, I've listened to the same stuff you guys have, and what they say =/= what you hear.

Let me be blunt. You are crazy internet nerds who hear things, and then exaggerate them to fucking hell. People are tired, they have crazy schedules, and they don't pretend to be excited about stuff they're not excited about. They are excited about the things that they liked, which is what you fucking heard. Stop collectively being like that time during the GotY podcasts when you all got overblown in interpreting a disagreement as some unbearably tense argument, or when you misinterpreted Ryan joking about Brad as Ryan totally hating Brad, you neurotic nerds.

I completely agree with the OP. If your job is to play videogames and that requires you to go to a convention once a year and report on them, then STFU with the complaints. Seriously. If your job is so horrible, go sling burgers at Burger King instead, I'm sure that would be less stressful for you if checking out videogames for three days straight is such a chore.

Again, this is in no way directed at the GB-crew, I think they conducted themselves great, as always. You can say you're tired/worn out/whatever, but straight out whining like in the quoted tweet leaves a bad taste.

I agree with this. Even the hardest of days in this profession are nowhere close to what other people have to go through to make a living. A bit of gratitude would be nice towards everyone. Honestly though. A lot of people complain way too much these days. Just all around frustrated but can't pin point what is making them so.

@Milkman: Good points.

E3 is always amazing, I would give almost anything for a chance to go.

@Jace: I thought Splinter Cell looked fine, it isn't like a Call of Duty game just because it's in the middle east, it looked more like Assassins Creed than anything else.

@big_jon: Gameplay wise, yes. Setting wise, it's copy/paste from CoD.

@Jace: I would imagine that is not the primary environment.

@big_jon: The demo and the reveal trailer disagree.

I always find it funny when people turn on the press conferences and then start going OH GOD THIS IS SO BORING GUHHHHHH. Like they're being forced to watch. I'm going to do that with the news from now on. COME ON CHANNEL SEVEN WEATHER I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HUMIDEX GET TO THE FOUR DAY FORECAST!

"We're doing a press conference, if you want to watch it live you can do that here!"

"Okay, I'll guess I'll spend my time watching this."

"Alright, so this year-"

"GUHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

I thought E3 was really good this year...

I'd rather have journalists as cynical, condescending pricks than fucking sycophantic to publisher and hardware manufactures.

If something at E3 sucks or the event itself is terrible....I WANT to hear about it!

When the mention of E3 sent Vinny into a thousand yard stare this year...I hafta give the people who go there some slack. It's real easy to think "man, I'd kill to have that job!" But after years of doing it, I know it'd lose it's luster at times for me too.

I agree I'm so sick of the whining from game journalist they have fun jobs but I think there jaded at this point Shane Shatterfield even admitted to it that hes jaded.Alot of these guys don't know how lucky they are not working at some shit hole job but doing something there passionate about or maybe they where.But now they can't do any other jobs so they stay in the industry and just get more bitter over the years the whining is annoying as shit every year ohh E3 wow you have to get off your ass deal with it everybody that watches it doesn't want to hear you cry.Especially when there's people that would love to have your jobs.Not me though I can't turn a hobby into work I'll probably end up hating it that's probably what where starting to see.I can understand complaining about it maybe once or twice but every year it sounds awful to the people watching it.

I can understand where those journalists complaining about E3 are coming from.

I used to work at a movie theater. Customers would talk about how awesome it must be to work here since I got free movies, and they would always say "you probably spend all your free time here watching movies here, huh?" I'd tell them, "no, not really". When they asked why, I'd ask, "do you like spending all of your free time at the place that you work?"

The fact that I got free movies didn't matter, the point was that I didn't like being at the movie theater, because that was the place I worked. Even when I was off the clock, I couldn't go there without being reminded of everything I hated about working there. It's not a very pleasant experience for me to go out to see a movie, no matter how much good the movie itself was, and regardless of the fact that I can see it for free. I have now associated movie theaters with everything I hated about my old job. To sum up, working at a movie theater destroyed my ability to enjoy them.

To explain the point I'm making here, for journalists, E3 is work. When you look at E3 as a gamer, you can pick and choose the games to read about, to watch videos of, and you can ignore the stuff that doesn't interest you or looks awful. If you're covering E3, you don't get that choice. You have to talk about the game that looks bland and unoriginal, and at the same time the only thing you can think about is how you have so many other games to cover, and you're stressed out because you don't know if you'll have enough time to play all of them AND write articles about them. At the same time, you may not have gotten a chance to actually play the games you wanted to play.

I don't blame them a tiny bit for their cynicism. As a longtime video game fan who has always loved the E3 reveals and games shown, I can still recognize that it must be an absolutely awful experience to actually have to cover it, and I would never, ever want to have to do it myself.

Same goes for the job of being a video game writer in general. I wouldn't seriously want to do it myself. Who the hell said it's one of the most desirable jobs you could have? Not to me, it sounds some parts of it would really suck. Like, Jeremy Parish at 1up has said that he hasn't gotten a chance to get far into Xenoblade, a game that he's really enjoyed, because he's busy covering other games. To me, that sounds awful. I loved Xenoblade, and the idea that I couldn't play as much of it as I wanted to sounds terrible. I'd hate it if I couldn't play the games I wanted to play because I had to cover other, newer games. As somebody outside the industry, I can choose what games I get to play and I don't have to worry about having to play newer stuff. I can spend a month playing Xenoblade because I don't have to play any of the newer games coming out, I'm not forced to play games I don't want to play.

That's because this E3 was absolutely shit and most of the games were casual, cinematic linear crap games.

I'm not surprised people are cynical over it, I am.

The thing is these guys have to stay in crappy digs and be fed PR nonsense for a week only to be shown the same stuff that they saw behind closed doors months before the conference. They next NEW things that are relevant to gaming's evolution and future because they know they're going to have to cover what comes out this year anyway. There's a disconnect between them and us, because we're excited about AC3 when they want to know how the console market is going to look in 3 years.

@Juno500: While a lot of what you wrote is true for literally every other gaming website out there - it's not as relevant when pertaining to GiantBomb because they don't have to cover anything they don't like. Unlike Gamespot or IGN they only cover games they feel like covering and sometimes they'll do a shitty game for a 30 min filler QuickLook. So yah, if you're working over at IGN or something and they keep slapping third rate titles from the bargain bin on your desk to review then that really sucks - and then going to E3 might suck because you have to literally almost cover everything when senior editors get to cover all the exciting stuff. Everyone at GiantBomb basically went to see only the things they cared about, and they still complain incessantly about how awful E3 is. I cringed during those really awesome E3 Bombcasts every time they had that obligatory opening "WOW guys we survived day two of E3..SIGH..."

I bet when you go into work, cool stuff occasionally happens.

Does that mean you can't bitch about your job ever?

If the press are tired of E3 then that's a good thing for us. The more cynical and jaded they become, the less we hear various members of the press tow the line to support unscrupulous business practices (and tripe like "gamer entitlement") in the name of maintaining relationships with publishers and developers.

Twitter? Seriously? Anyone who gets upset about (or even pays serious attention to) opinions expressed in tweets really needs professional help.

My $0.02 is that you have two options for dealing with this. Either watch and read the polished articles and reports coming out of E3 that are fairly sterile and just give you the facts. Those are easy enough to find on the front pages of the bigger sites. Or, do what I did back a few E3s ago. Find and follow a group of people who have personalities that you can relate to, and don't constantly rub you the wrong way. Giantbomb is that group of individuals for me. I don't always agree with them, but I always feel like I could sit down and have a beer with them while shooting the shit about games.

The average sane person doesn't know anything about the personal tweets of a disgruntled "game journalist". It's only a problem if you search it out.

I think the bigger problem is not cynicism and game journalist but rather the reaction to them.

It seems like people are unable of making their own judgement on a game but rather depend on those Twitter accounts and news articles to tell them what to think. I'm not discounting the value of game journalism, but it should be used as one of many forces that allow you to make a decision on a game. I bet a significant number of people will watch a new trailer or gameplay footage of a new game and immediately after read the comments to gauge the general reaction which they then use to make their decision. It's like saying "if all these people didn't like it, then I don't like it".

In terms of cynicism on Twitter, if you don't want that sort of commentary then follow the "official" accounts from your desired gaming website. Sure if you follow one of the individual members of the GiantBomb crew on their personal account, your gonna get their personal views. If you don't want that, don't follow them.

For E3: Someone needs to properly define this as "a show for gamers" or "a show for business". At the moment is straddling a line that tries to satisfy everybody but ends up satisfying nobody.

@laserbolts said:

I don't see how you can be miserable at work when your work is visiting a video game convention for a few days out of a year when you are not playing videogames and writing about them. Jesus I have to work super hard in ridiculously hot weather and I don't get half as bummed out as some of the games journalists out there. They should be thankful they are fortunate enough to have the jobs they have.

This mirrors my thoughts.

I've actually seen the gaming fans as the more cynical group this time around. I've seen a lot of the press say that the games on the floor weren't bad but a lot of gamers just watched the press conferences and declared this to be the worst E3 ever.

@Milkman said:

We're talking about video games here. Video games. Your job is to play (and write) video games. Yeah, there is a ton wrong with E3 and the giant spectacle but if you can find a way to be that miserable at a VIDEO GAME CONVENTION, get out of the industry. This week, no matter who you are, if you're at E3 you saw a bunch of cool games. If you weren't excited for any of the games at this show, you're in the wrong industry.

I think you don't realize video games are serious business, They influence millions of people around the world and are most likely to become the predominant media for entertainment in the XXI century.

The time for video games were a slacker's/kid's ghetto is over. I'm glad there is journalist whiling to put out fingers into mediocre practices within publishers/studios - self complacent brings nothing good in the long term.

The thing I'm sympathetic on is how can anyone be enthusiastic covering the same material year after year. When the vendor does this over and over and over again and then turns to the press and goes "Wow, wasn't that new and exciting?" what should their response be?

Most of the hardcore gaming audience that pays attention to E3 is impossible to please. Cynicism and high expectations make it impossible to please everyone. Journalists more often than not have to cater to the whims of readership or risk losing clicks or subscriptions- an ironic coincidence of having so much competition for eyes I think.

I too wish it was some other way, but I don't know how we'd get there. Games rarely surprise anymore, but that's because we have been doing this for so long and the average gamer age and gaming experience is going way up. I have a new son, 4 months old. Maybe in 5 or 6 years when I give him the option to play, that'll bring back some of the wow and discovery for me personally. For the industry, not sure what to do. It's strangely depressing to read most coverage and commentary anymore.