Videogame news: how do you get yours?

Well? The four sites I've used the most in the past:

Kotaku — I hated Kotaku for a long time because they couldn't shut their stupid mouths regarding vapid social issues in every other post in a pathetic attempt to look profound and progressive, but they've got better recently. It's not just videogame coverage, and none of the coverage is deep or smart or anything, but it is broad: anime, miniatures, board games, rpgs, japan, technology — if you wanted to look at any of these topics more seriously, any dedicated site would be better, but for a casual selection of nerd culture tidbits I don't mind Kotaku too much.

Rock Paper Shotgun — their main problem by far is their writing, which is so forced eg. forcing "humour" and "commentary" into every post, which see them falling flat on their stupid faces nine times out of ten. Like, it can genuinely be cringe-worthy to read sometimes, watching these talentless hacks half heartedly following company policy to add "personality" to every post. Even when it's just pointing out a new trailer they have to manufacture some awful schitck — we just want to see the trailer you idiots! Making a pun then talking about how bad the pun for three paragraphs doesn't add value to your posts! Christ! On the upside, I do find out about some interesting games from these guys.

Polygon — nice graphic design. News coverage is not comprehensive and they don't even seem to pick the best stories. Probably a combination of layout, story choice, title choices and reporting style, but I'll scan their news page and nothing really excites me. Kind of a boring site.

All Games Beta — best videogame news site on the internet? Zero bullshit, just screenshots, videos and developer comments, in a perfect, straightforward, clean layout with the focus on the games, all recent content on the same page one story after another, no ads. No commentary (either professional or in comments sections), which means no idiocy but also no insights, but seeing as idiocy rules everywhere and it's bad commentary which makes so many other sites intolerable, I'll happily lose the potential for good if the bad is non-existent. I wish other sites could learn something from this one (and then kill themselves).

Youtube and Giantbomb is all I need. Yep, I get updated with the latest bullshit and gaming news. On top of that their just fun places to visit to take your mind off of reality. To unchain your mind and set yourself free from all the pain that binds you.

I breath game news like air.

Wait...

Game news is like air to me?

I dunno.

Pretty much go to every site I can. I love seeing pathetic attempts at new headlines. It's like watching ants scurry out of dirt mounts for a crumb. The amount of non-news borrowing is so out of control today it makes for real comedy. You know how many websites took that "THIS GUY ON AN NFL TEAM PLAYS POKEMON" story? Answer: too many.

All that aside I find that gamesindustry.biz often has a lot of stories before other sites pick them up. I also just like using Google's news search for any game I might be interested in.

I use Gameinformer, Polygon, PlayStation Blog, PlayStation LifeStyle, IGN and the Giantbomb forums.

What can I say? I like to know EVERYTHING.

Ign, Joystiq and Giant Bomb.com

I haven't been following so closely lately. If I need news I check IGN and Famitsu. Despite their problems they cover most news.

Usually though, I just visit Giantbomb and watch classic game room on YouTube when I feel like it.

http://www.giantbomb.com/http://www.neogaf.com/forum/http://kotaku.com/https://twitter.com/

The only gaming site I visit is GB. Used to visit IGN, GS etc. on a regular basis, but lost interest in those sites some years ago. If there's some important news someone will post it on GB's forum or GAF, I don't need to know all the useless bullshit GS, Kotaku, IGN and Polygon post just to fill their sites with something.

Twitter and this site mainly. I have the Zite app on my iPad which is OK too. I am only really interested in the major news, I find a lot of news on sites is pretty throwaway.

I just go to forums and usually catch wind of things this way. people make threads for everything. don't you just love it? sonic boom for instance has at least 2 threads in the first page alone.

I dont even go to giantbomb.com, its giantbomb.com/forums baby!

Giant Bomb's forums, Joystiq and Twitter mainly.

This, precisely.

Joystiq for my general gaming news, GoNintendo for my Nintendo news, Rock, Paper, Shotgun for my indie PC hipster bullshit news, and finally Giant Bomb for whatever is left over.

GameTrailers forum, Giantbomb forum and seldom subscribed YouTube channels.

@samsonbarabbas said:

These 2 are the only ones I really follow, plus Giant Bomb. Though with all due respect to Patrick and Alex, a lot of the times they are covering the same news stories (or at least Alex is) except like 30 minutes later than Kotaku. There's really only so many press releases to talk about on a given video game news day.

So I subscribe to Kotaku's RSS feed, but don't read like 90% of the stories. Literally, I will look at 20 stories in the RSS feed and read about 2. To their credit, they never really miss a major news story, if only because they report on literally everything, so 90% of it is useless chaff. If the article actually seems interesting, I'll read the source article, since the Kotaku commentary usually just highlights whichever part they can use to make a headline.

I have the same issue as you with Rock Paper Shotgun, in that most of the editors think they're much, much funnier than they are (at least, the current editors). I don't think it's fake or some editorial mandate like you do, but I do think they're all weird British video game journos who have odd sense of humour, but I just think they lay it on a little thick most of the time. I do like that they replace "Origins" with "Oranges" whenever it's in a game title. "Arkham Oranges" indeed. Also every time they talk about Sir, You Are Being Hunted feels like a weird conflict of interest, even if they're trying to be as objective and not-constantly-praising as possible about it. I like that they cover weirder PC games, but I also don't read a ton of what they post. Better than Kotaku's rate by a bit but not much.

Giantbomb Cast - Haha yeah right they don't really talk about games on there.

Polygon - I really enjoy their articles, they have interesting pieces on the deeper side of the industry or little one off stories like the one with the voice actor for John Marston in Red Dead Redemption.

Joystiq - I use this site just for general news stories.

Silicon Era - Everything weeabo and Japanese.

US Gamer - These guys are slowly replacing Joystiq for me.

If it isn't on Giant Bomb then I don't know about it.

Giant.. Bamb?

Don't really care about vidja game news. However I do care about Dark Souls 2 news, which I get absolutely everywhere I can find it.

I go to IGN for all my gaming news.

All Games Beta... it's like Kotaku but without the gossipy-like articles , weird shit from japan or any kind of unnecessary comment that has more to do with the writer's opinion than the news itself.

Kotaku. They get news out pretty fast, and I like the majority of their writers; lots of deserve opinions at that site. People hate on them, but people also hate on things like gone home (because fuck art? No idea...) I try to tune the whole 'SJW hate parade' out. Doesn't make a lick of fucking sense to hate people for having pretty harmless opinions about video games.

Destructoid and Giantbomb are pretty much it. Destructoid covers just about everything including weird ass Japanese titles most other sites seem to ignore, so they're right up my alley.

Would that I could use Giant Bomb for everything, but they're pretty selective, so I supplement my gaming news with Destructoid. They post enough that I don't feel like I'm missing stuff. It's definitely quantity over quality though, some of the writers can occasionally be a little infuriating. I like Dale North at least. Haven't found a news blog I prefer yet though.

Forums, honestly. I consistently get much faster news, and a much more unfiltered and honest take on news, reading these forums or others (like Neogaf, for instance, which is unfairly maligned) than I do from paid games press types, many of whom just seem to compete over who can be the most "fair and balanced" Serious People and take forever to get with the picture. I used to frequent Destructoid, but that was before Sterling left. Haven't really paid much attention to the site since.

Eurogamer and Edge write pretty good features, though, and aren't as timid as American games press outlets. And honestly, if I only came to Giant Bomb or the Bombcast for my news, I'd be missing quite a lot of things that the cast tend to deliberately ignore and/or outright forget about. GB itself does a pretty abysmal job of covering all the news.

@bisonhero: I kinda agree with some of the current RPS articles, but I will have not have bad word said about the early period of RPS. Also there's nothing weird about our sense of humour.

Giant Bomb, if it's important i'll hear it here eventually.

Kotaku is a really great info dump, they are just constantly updating with news so that's nice, but I can't stand the Gawker entity and the amount of Gawker that rubs off on Kotaku articles that are obviously attention baiting for clicks.

Giantbomb obviously. As others have mentioned I almost get more news from the forums here then anywhere else.

Joystiq is also a great info dump but with none of that TMZ attitude of Kotaku.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

And for the brief time it existed I enjoyed the Penny Arcade Reports.

I also subscribe to Machinima on YouTube, their target audience is clearly teenage boys but they are fast when it comes to uploading trailers for new games so that's why I keep them around.

Gamebomb.ru

Agreed. Joystiq is the ONLY news blog that I read. That and NeoGAF is all I need.

I use GB for my main coverage and to get info on games, but always watch the crew play stuff.

Joystiq is my go to "has anything important been announced," so they are my junk games news site but I do like them.

I just use this forum. I don't follow gaming news as much though, I have less income and less time.

Just Giant Bomb. They don't cover everything, but I reckon I'd get to know about anything I need to know on here.

For news, mainly the bombcast and these forums, The Escapist and Rev3games youtube channels only.

I used to read most sites, listen to most podcasts... Now it's mostly just Twitter (which basically links to almost everything nowadays), the weekly Bombcast / Spooks & Wolf Morning Show... and the forums.

Giantbomb forum topics and IGN. Anything that overlaps is important.

I really don't care enough to seek it out. Most stuff will get posted on the forums anyway.

I honestly wait for there to be some sort of series of long rants on message boards. I'm really tired blogs' community art threads of "here are some cute plushies of Dr Who characters" or the "trends of music videos that kinda look like video games if you squint long enough" and then there's the "we don't know much about comics but here's what's happening through a press release." It's this culture trends aspect blogs try to do that appeal to an odd sort, not me, I always felt Boing Boing they have done it better in over the last 8 years and Tumblr seems to just adapt better then blogs I don't fallow any more. Sometimes I just want to look at Dave Cockrum art and not read some click bait headline

I check IGN since they put news out pretty regularly. But 90% of the time I use GiantBomb, Gamespot, or GameTrailers.

Giantbomb, plus twitter and reddit for breaking news.

@scroll said:

What constitutes the early period of RPS? I've heard that said in the RPS comments as well. I'm just not sure I'm on board with how all of their articles go off on crazy tangents in support of some weird wordplay the writer thinks is funny. Sure, put your personal stamp on it a bit, but RPS (at least in the few years I've been reading it) gets excessive.

That being said, I still can't tell any of the editors apart by their writing styles. Maybe I'm not paying attention, but as far as I'm concerned, all of the pun-laden headlines and tangent-filled bodies of articles may as well be written by the same bloke.

I don't need news immediately or constantly anymore, so Bombin' in the A.M. is a good enough wrap-up for me. When I get bored enough, I'll check out polygon.com/news just to see what's up. I've missed a lot of really stupid sounding stories, and couldn't be happier about that :D Have enough stress in my life that I don't need to read about every drama happening in my favorite hobby.

Giant Bomb and Joystiq for the most part. I listen to a lot of podcasts though, I commute 120+ miles daily to get to work and home so I burn through a lot of them driving.

If I want news I go straight to the source; NeoGAF.

Giant Bomb and Polygon, mostly.

Ign, gamespot, and the escapist all have the same articles in the morning. Then I see it's nothing I give a finger fuck about and I come to Giantbomb for some fucking good times.

www.giantbomb.com, it's a website, about video games.

@bisonhero: Maybe a year to two years ago? Back when they did a play through of Neptunes Pride and the like, also when Gillen and Quinns were on board.

I look at IGN's newsfeed, since they cover TV and movies and stuff, too. One stop shop, really, at least on getting information out there.

I check the Game Informer site, as well.

The Joystiq home page works best for me. IGN is just too cluttered. I keep forgetting about Polygon...

I really miss the days of the Joystiq podcast with Chris Grant, Justin, and Ludwig. Blueberry Muffin Tops!

I come to Giantbomb for the podcast, videos, and reviews. I read the news here too, but for straight up reading of the news it's Joystiq. If Giantbomb ever brings back the quests...I'll return to my obsessive clicking an viewing on here.