That's very true. I don't necessarily think that a critical review has to be as timely (though what timely constitutes when we're allowed for a publication at any point after a release date can be relative), but it does help to draw attention while a game is still fresh in people's minds. I wrote a blog post earlier this year on my thoughts regarding Lightning Returns that was posted on March 1st, though the game was released in North America less than a month earlier on February 11th. It got a fair bit of attention in terms of response as well, with forty-seven comments (including my responses). But if I had written the exact same blog post a year from now, or later? I'm not sure what sort of reaction that might have gotten.

Yet, I'm reminded of what I consider one of the worst review mill reviews I ever read in GameSpot's review of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Judging by the tone and content, it feels like it was obviously written under heavy time constraints, and the reviewer had to rush through what is actually a very long game with a difficulty that spikes early before progressively getting easier as time goes on. It took me a bit less than a month of solid playing on my evenings and weekends in order to finish the game on the normal difficulty. And going back to the review after I finished the game, it reads as though the reviewer never truly finished it, particularly in the way he comments on the story. I have to wonder, how would that review been different if he didn't feel pressured to finish the review in time for the game's release? It may not have been more positive, but I feel that it could have certainly been better thought and written.

As for Grantland, I really should try reading more of their pieces. I have to admit that I do have an aversion to Bill Simmons; he can come off as cloying, and particularly grating whenever New England sports teams are involved. But he's not the sole contributor to the site, so I should be better in giving it its due.

@hailinel: Honestly, I think that example demonstrates why we should have Quick Looks and Critical Reviews with no middle ground. The former's useful for quick and dirty impressions for those eager to buy something brand new and want some affirmation that the game's not complete dreck, while the latter can arrive at its own pace and give itself time to form properly. Sort of like the microwave ready meal and the sous-vide of video game coverage, respectively. (And appropriate, since I think those two are all that Dan Ryckert will be eating from here on out.)

@mento: That would actually strike the best balance, all things considered. On the one hand, you get the immediate coverage at release for those that are interested in it, and on the other, you get a much more in-depth look at the game and all of its qualities or lack thereof. I wonder if any website out there has considered this particular coverage model.

@mento said:

This bit made me chuckle. I have no idea when jokes about Dan Ryckert's diet will get old, but it certainly isn't today

Interesting to see no mention of Rock Paper Shotgun. They've done very little with video/audio but have been producing great long-form articles for years. I'm sure they're not rolling in cash but there are plenty of industry vets who are making a living there, plus plenty of freelance work.

If those Gamespot writers created articles that were well-written and interesting I'd never have known, because I've never encountered anything on Gamespot that seemed worth paying attention to. If you're doing the sort of review mill crap that Hailinel mentioned above, I can't see a reason to dig into your site when I can just come here for video content or to RPS for a good read.

Well now you know why I comment on so many blogs, including yours. I figure I'm useful as a reader than as a creator given the state of things.

The problem I think is actually largely on the consumer side. There is so much choice out there now on the internet and so much of it being generated for free as the barriers to entry for creating content is all but gone, that any person can find instant confirmation bias satisfaction in very quick doses, many times with a laugh too. There is an untapped market for deeper stuff I believe, but the monetization model I don't think is worked out yet.

Given the choice I think most folks will take that instant satisfaction infotainment over intellectual analysis and discourse. If you think about that is exactly what Giant Bomb quicklooks when working well generally offer. It certainly isn't deep commentary as a lot of times at least one of the guys jump into the game completely cold.

or Fox News/MSNBC over PBS

or Snicker's over Broccoli

or Twilight over To Kill A Mockingbird

etc

PBS may not be as popular as Fox News or MSNBC, but it is publicly financed. Maybe the way that some writers have been turning to Patreon and similar crowdfunding sources as a means to deliver their critical work is a channel that's well-worth considering in that regard. It's not a stable form of income, but it is direct support from those that are interested in the content that the writer wishes to provide.

Right, and I doubt PBS or NPR would survive without that gov't funding. If PBS or NPR didn't exist today, would the citizenry support a tax increase to create one? Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I doubt they would...

I don't know if Patreon/crowdfunding is a viable answer, but at least it's a new attempt to solve what is becoming an old problem. As you alluded to what is good about those methods is I think this kind of work is best funded directly by consumers. Once you get advertisers involved, given the way social media etc works today, I think the creator starts to lose control of the work in a way they don't when getting compensated directly by readers/viewers.

And I think that's what's good about Giantbomb's model as well,if you are CBSi management I think you have to like the idea of subscribers given the way the banner ad market is these days.

I'm a bit conflicted about this all. Sad to see talented people lose their jobs, but games criticism hasn't meant anything to me in a long time. It was really useful when I was first getting into gaming, but once you know what you like, you know what you like.

Yeah, there's no truly perfect solution yet. It might be a difficult road, but there are definitely avenues that show more promise than others.

It's only scary if you don't have personality or are out of touch with today's market. I don't mean to talk down or call anyone a shitty critic but we live in a world where people want personality and video content.

Reviews in the grand scheme of things don't matter and the fact that many people are making millions on twitch and YT prove that. People want personality and entertainment and the people who want to be informed have their blogs and feeds to get news. It's not a scary time for game critics it's a scar time for people who can't adapt in a always changing field that is the video game industry.

Sorry to say but it's not the 90's anymore if it's not a video Review I have no use for it at all.

i dunno about anyone else but i think UI is the primary culprit for why i don't ever click on articles on major gaming websites. I go to Gamespots front page and see just a mess of large pictures, 30 second News Update videos and then 100 news pieces that i probably already saw on twitter or reddit earlier today. I'm supposed to wade through all that garbage to find a well researched Article in there some where once a week? Yea thats not happening. I will usually read a article by Colin Moriarty or Patrick because i follow them on twitter and they lead me right to it. If i didn't have Colins twitter, i'd never luck into checking IGN and that being on the front page at precisely the time i check it once every few days. If you want to write meaningful stuff and research a topic for a month. You better have fans and people who will read what you write, i don't think its wrong to ask writers to have a personality and be likable and active enough to create a fan base for themselves.

Also i much prefer to hear someone talk about something important than read it. I'd rather hear Jeff get deep into the nitty gritty of Acclaim and Midway relations than read a article about it. I don't think its wrong to expect writers today to write speeches or scripts for a podcast form or video feature form of a important topic. Hey you want to write about the troubled development of this Indie game and the reasons they used Cryengine over Unity. Instead of writing a article record the interviews, dress it up into a nice podcast or video feature. The content can still be excellent without having to only be in text. It comes across in the OPs comment that long form writing is the only way deep and meaningful information can be spread. That simply is not true, the same information can and will be spread by smart people who can create interesting and thoughtful video and podcast content.

@indridcipher: Yeah the current layouts of most game sites do not do a great job of highlighting strong features. The places of prominence on the front page of most sites are often used as rotating spots for the newest content, rather than as soapboxes for the strongest content. Because those "featured" pieces of content can be literally anything I often don't even regard those huge article links as worth clicking on. I would compare this with a site like ESPN.com or Grantland or really any of the ESPN affiliates, where the huge, page filling promos are dedicated to a new feature whenever they come out, sometimes even going so far as to alter the layout of a site to promote one feature.

@slag: And I thank you for all of the feedback. You are definitely my reader MVP. Writing on GB can seem like throwing ideas down a well sometimes, especially when something I write gets pushed into forum purgatory by another forum topic on the best RPG of all time. Its good to know that someone actually read my post rather than clicking on it then backing out.

I would be really interested in reading a site structured that way. I thought GB might go in that direction when they started looking for new hires, considering they are already awash in Quick Looks. It looks like they are doubling down on video since they hired Dan instead. At this point Patrick is holding down the feature front all by himself and Alex is contributing the odd review here or there.

Complaining about the move towards video content over written content on Giant Bomb is kind of stupid...

@pinner458: I am not complaining about the move to video. I am worried that this is being treated as an either or proposition when I think that both forms of content are valuable in their own way.

Wait, is that an example of putting a lot of effort into something or not? I seriously can't tell. Looks like just another screenshot LP to me, except it turns out the giant bomb forums aren't nearly as well suited for them as Something Awful or lparchive.

The Giant Bomb staff just really needed new bodies to fill the void that Ryan left, first and foremost, and as Ryan was also heavily a quick look/video guy, it makes perfect sense that they'd go with Dan and Jason in that regard. Maybe now that they're back at full-strength (so to speak), they'll consider ways of branching their coverage out with future hires.

Not to advertisers they're not. Good writing and reporting will have to be crowd funded to be sustainable.

There's a delicious yet sickening irony in what you're saying.

You know why Bill Simmons can get away with writing massive articles about minutia? Because he's funny. His staff writers can do it because they're informative (for the most part). They actually provide content designed to keep the reader interested. Video games writers are amateurs, even the ones you pointed out as having ten years of experience in the industry. They aren't writing for an audience, they're just writing what's on their mind or describing an event they had to go to or a game they played. They somehow expect that writing a three page opinion piece on the nature of sexism in games or microtransactions is going to hold people's attention just because it held theirs. Or that it's enough to transcribe an interview or describe a preview as a pure information dump. Unless they attempt to engage their audience, they won't. Why would I spend my internet time reading about how character design is misogynistic if I can look at girls in lingerie (or not in lingerie) instead? Why would I read a review when GiantBomb has a video up that's almost as informative and actually has jokes to keep me entertained?

I'm not saying that there aren't answers to these questions, but I'm not positive anyone, especially anyone at Gamespot, bothered to ask them.

@veektarius: But how much of the writing that game critics produce are actually things they chose to write? I mean for the most part previews and reviews have had strict templates for years. This leads to poor articles and a lack of growth on the part of the writers. I couldn't imagine being told that the only style I can write in about for months on end is technical review. That would be a creative catastrophe. I would love to see what these writers could do with reviews if they were unshackled from the traditional format, which is exactly what allows Grantland's critics to flourish. I mean Westley Moris barely gives see it or don't style advice in his articles, they are almost entirely cultural commentary. I think that allowing writers to stretch a little is perhaps a better experiment than just laying people off because the product you told them to make isn't selling. I mean Giantbomb's reviews have moved this way a little by allowing writers to openly admit that they are writing from their own perspective, but it could (and should) be taken further.

I bet games editorial writers have a ton of control over what they write (and they still aren't very good at it). As far as previews and reviews, you're probably right to distinguish between site-mandated and authorial style. I don't know how much freedom a typical review writer has on format, though one would think that in a competitive space with tight margins, a few fresh ideas would float to the top somewhere. I suspect that to the extent that experienced game journalists write articles that seem formulaic and uninspired, it's more because that is the format they have always written, and that which they have read in the past and strive now to emulate. I don't think it's because the Hemingway that lives inside each of their hearts has been caged without outlet for ten years, and that given artistic license, he would flourish. If he ever existed, that Hemingway has probably died of starvation by now.

Most of our video game reviewers are gamers first and writers third, fourth, or not at all (Dan Ryckert is a notable exception, but I haven't seen him write for the site at all). I'm not sure how much benefit of the doubt I'm willing to give them.

@veektarius: I would hope that removing the review score would also help limit some of the rightious indignation that users feel whenever the game they like gets a lower than expected score. Its a little harder to complain about a review if you don't have a score to point at. Then you have to actually engage with the critic's work if you want to discuss a review.

I would love to know if there have been sites that have foregone the technical/ final score style or if the threat of being de-listed from metacritic is enough to force people into writing reviews that are meta-critic friendly. It seems like there is a contingent of game sites that value the exposure metacritic provides over trying to put out compelling work. There are definitely shoddy editorial on game sites, but if writing jobs keep disappearing then there won't even be roles for good writers to fill. I mean its not like laying off 7 people from Gamespot opened 7 positions for other (potentially better) writers, those positions are just gone.

I have to imagine it would still be very easy to dismiss a review you don't agree with, even without scores. It's all about reduction.

Scoreless reviews, while they sound good in theory, don't work in an ad-driven internet environment. By and large people read reviews as a by-product of clicking to get the score, not the other way around. Take out the scores and you'll drastically reduce your site traffic which equals death. It works a little better in print media, because you're paying for a product to ostensibly read, not skim review scores. I think EDGE magazine toyed with this for a while.

@video_game_king: Certainly, but you literally can't complain about a review without either reading some of it or reading someone's opinion of it if there is no easy target like a score. Without the kernel of information that is a review score to get indignant about you might need to actually refute a perspective or an argument. It seems like much of the hate reviewers get about their reviews is based purely on the score. It feels like half of the fight is getting users to become reader in the first place so that you can have a discussion from there. Removing the artifice that is a review score might alleviate some of the completely uninformed hate, like Jeff getting hate mail fore giving Twilight Princess an 8.5. He got hate for giving that stupid number score, not for his critique of the game itself. If you only have the critique to go against then that problem goes away. Now it certainly could go away by just driving away casual users from written reviews entirely, which is another problem entirely.

I don't know how the score came into this. I'm a big advocate of scores, actually. And metacritic. Well, to the extent that I'm an advocate of anything. A score doesn't preclude good writing - I realize that you admire Wesley Morris, but he isn't good because he doesn't give things a score. He's good because he finds a way to work in something insightful about what makes a movie good or bad in pithy and resonant ways. I think he could easily attach a score to his reviews and he just doesn't out of his own preference. Perhaps he would, if there weren't a million other places to get such a review (and besides, RottenTomatoes probably codes it as a positive or negative review anyway).

Anyway, when I say that reviews need a change of format, I'm not saying they need to be made more long-form and navel gazing. There might be a market for that somewhere (though changes at Polygon suggest that there isn't). I'm saying that before they write, they need to ask themselves, "how can I review this game and write something entertaining at the same time?" They do it all the time with video (Zero Punctuation comes to mind as I'm writing this - does that guy still exist? I never did like him much.), but for some reason the written word has been equated with a flavorless information dump.

@veektarius: I guess that I just associate removing the score with longer form critical writing because tacking on a numerical summary of a work just doesn't seem to jive with working on a well-reasoned argument. Why allow your readers to circumvent your ideas and just fixate on a score. I agree that there is a middle ground here where the reviews have scores, but the writing itself improves and maybe allowing writers to focus their reviews on topics rather than attempting to cover everything is the way to go. Like what if most reviews just ditched the paragraph about the frame-rate and lost the paragraph describing the feel of the controls. What if the writing were not just described as good or strong, but instead the themes were explored rather than listed. That would work for me.

@video_game_king: Seems to me like you'd be the only one who can accurately answer the question. I've read some pretty incredible screenshot LPs where it was blatantly obvious how much work went into them, like "The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing" and the Planescape Torment LP. But I have no idea how much effort goes into an LP on average and I didn't actually read yours. I'm guessing that the response to yours was lukewarm even though you actually spent quite some time on it, then?

I'd like to add that in this case it isn't your fault, babe. I simply have no interest in more Katawa Shoujo after having played through it 5 times myself (even though the first girl was also by far my favorite, Rin).

Why do you have to entertain, though? Engage, certainly, but entertain? There's just something a little condescending in that, like you can't trust your audience to take your work seriously, otherwise.

Guess which girl I'm covering now.

I thought that reviews were already doing this...

This may end up as a semantic argument, but my usage of entertain is broad and not meant to imply something lighthearted or glib. To my mind, something can be entertaining if it conveys a large amount of interesting and previously unknown information, or you could just crack jokes about Kim Kardashian, whatever works for you. Just so long as it allows the article to serve a recreational purpose for a sufficient number of people to support your website.

@paulunga: Based on how much work I have to do just to record a 10 minute video for my Deep Looks, I would imagine taking those screen shots, uploading them, and then writing stuff for each one is quite the undertaking.

@video_game_king: I'm gonna be honest, when you link to an obscure jrpg soundtrack video I don't understand what you mean. Are you implying that is what you are doing in your reviews?

@thatpinguino:

It's mood-setting music. The Internet is a tone-deaf environment, so I'm bringing in some tone. At least when I feel like it.

@video_game_king: Ah ok. I thought that was a reference to one of your many obscure Japanese game reviews.

How so? I stopped visiting polygon a long time ago.

They started as a ''serious'' website and hired a bunch of experienced people to write long form, researched pieces. Not long ago they laid off those people and kept a few writers who now write a truckload of fluff pieces with clickbaity headlines.

@flameboy84: @pyrodactyl: Yeah, it's a legit shame. For as much as I've ragged on Polygon on the past and how full of itself it was right from the start, it does (or did) have a lot of talented people working there that I was glad to know were getting regular paychecks. The McElroy duo especially. It's opted to take this self-destructive "You won't believe what game character will cameo in this big upcoming Hollywood picture" tangentially-related clickbait-y route than simply call it quits or scale down to a smaller, focused team producing quality content like GS has. Professional gaming journalism/critiquing sites are all finding ways to deal with this recent crunch, displaying varying levels of pride and contempt for their audience in the process.

I'm content knowing that Giant Bomb's one of the few sites to do it right and will probably survive, bug-out bag style, but then it was also fortunate to be standing on top of the hill when the water levels began to rise.

@mento: So was old Polygon an example of a place where long form writing and features actually existed?

I dunno, I feel Polygon is still quite good about this stuff. Their essay series about Poland is really interesting: http://www.polygon.com/features/2014/7/16/5885167/poland-game-industry

@thatpinguino: I believe it was largely the point early on. They wanted to focus on long-form written stuff and be a site like Rock Paper Shotgun, rather than build a lot of infrastructure for looser video content like a lot of gaming sites were doing in the wake of GB, Roosterteeth and YouTube. They were also making grand statements about being the Traveling Wilburys (not a direct quote) of gaming journalism too, but they were known for getting a little ahead of themselves in those halcyon days.

@paulunga: To be fair to the place, I mostly see Polygon through the filter of those already biased against it (and sites like it, such as Kotaku) who occasionally quote the awful article titles that they're running with incredulous disdain. It used to be that most of the Polygon vitriol was reserved for their inspirational documentary and certain staff members like Gies and Kuchera, but now it's almost exclusively these types of awful articles. I hope articles like the one you linked aren't just once-in-a-blue-moon worthy pieces, because that's precisely how quality writing can find itself buried and under-appreciated. Who wants to sift through all that muck for a few jewels?

@mento: It's quite funny that you mention kotaku of all things. I find that site to be much more intolerable. They have their fair share of Top X lists, posts almost devoid of any content other than some video or meme one of their writers found entertaining and Brian Ashcraft. I can't really pinpoint much more awful stuff than that because I'm very forgetful and only visit that site something like once a month, leaving disappointed by their journalistic standards.

To be fair, I know almost nothing about Polygon, either. Every time I read something on their page it is because it was linked by someone else and actually worth reading.

That sounds ideal! There's definitely room for both and in terms of business it makes sense too.

It could work a bit like the Gasoline station model - Critical reviews are your commoditized low margin loss leaders (the Gasoline) that help establish your brand (via Metacritic etc) and drive traffic, while the videos would be your money maker (Snacks, Car Wash etc) where you make your margin. At least on paper anyway, I'm sure there's a lot of details that would have to be worked out.

For awhile I thought that was what Gamespot was going for, but I guess they probably didn't do a good enough job of establishing their personalities to where it could support the writers. Which is too bad because they have some promising talent.

hah, my pleasure man. Thanks for writing and making what you do!

Yeah having blogged etc myself on here, I know there isn't many ways on here to measure reception. That lack of interaction can feel emotionally draining especially in something creative like writing. So I figure people like yourself who do make good stuff deserve to at least get some visible feedback. Even if I don't have much to add, I figure letting someone know I like what they did can be helpful. :)

I think it's probably safe to assume that for every commenter you get you probably have around ~50-100 lurkers (or some other significant multiple) who like your work enough to consume it. That seems to be roughly how it works on the internet.

also re: Polygon- They used to have some incredible pieces

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/6/19/4406600/small-town-man-John-Marston

Hah, thanks man. Fwiw I don't do that for everybody, but there's about 6-12 folks on here including yourself who make really good stuff I want to support. The nice about reviews on here is you can hit that rec button, so you can still a show a person you liked what they did even if you don't have much to say.

and yeah commenting takes time, which is why I don't blog/write reviews myself. I don't have time for both. Figure you guys put out better stuff than I would anyway.

re: inside baseball stuff- It's weird how that's totally changed in the social media/internet age. It used to be the inside baseball stuff was a complete mystery in the GamePro/EGM Magazine era to the vast majority of gamers, the only looks you got behind the curtain so to speak were heavily scripted interviews etc. And the coverage on TV News was non-existent other than to decry some manufactured outrage.

Games just kinda showed at your local store one day, and all you had to go by was word of mouth, TV ads, some usually deliberately misleading boxart and some hype previews.

I feel like some journalists are catching up for lost time for all the industry coverage we didn't get during gaming's first two decades.

I think that's a strategic choice and as well as an inspirational one. Most reporters I've met are people people, in that they seem to be more interested in human interest stories than mechanical analyses (i.e. Politicians more than Policy, Scientists more than Science, CEOs more than their businesses, Artists more than their art). I imagine it might be the same for a lot of game writers. So they are going to be attracted to what interests them, the people in the industry, and frankly it may be something they feel gives them a leg up on their competition.

E.g. Anybody can write about Broken Age and their experience playing it, but if you know Tim Schafer and the folks at Double Fine you can write about them and their creative processes which gives you an edge over your competitor who doesn't have that access.

Still I agree with you, I miss actual conversation about the games themselves. I want both things from gaming sites and I don't think they are mutually exclusive wants.

@mento:

I avoid Polygon at all costs, but stumbled across it today. One of their top headlining articles? "33 Facts You Didn't Know About Toys" which was just a video to content on some other site.

Buzzfeed, much?

Games are weird because they have grown up with the internet, while other mediums had very different histories in terms of their criticism and journalism. While all industries have the weird, clickbait-y style of journalism, they all have traditional coverage; namely, because there is an actual tradition for it. Game journalism existed for such a short time before the internet that it seems to have evolved entirely along with it, leading to most coverage being weird clickbiait. Weirdly enough, it's only in the past few years, when this style of coverage has grown increasingly popular, the people have started treating games with enough reverence to write long-form critiques and discussions about them. Personally, I feel like there is no reason for me not to believe that games "criticism" will continue to grow and become more mature as the medium continues to mature, but as for how people will get paid for it, I have no idea. Patreon is an interesting concept, but it's still hard to see if it's sustainable, or actually makes sense outside of a pie-in-the-sky dream. What it really comes down to, I think, is that people still don't know how to monetize the internet, and games journalism is temporarily a victim of that. Ads do not distinguish between quality content and filler, and therefore everything is filler. I think that as people begin to understand the internet more, there will be more space for game critics and journalists to make a living off doing just that. At least, I hope so.

@slag: yeah taking advantage of the additional access is certainly a way to differentiate professional coverage from amateur. It also seems like most game people approach coverage from a journalism perspective than an academic literary studies perspective. I would love to read a little more of the latter from people who have access to more developers and sources than just the game itself. I bet that playing one game enough to really form a strong argument about it might be a little difficult considering the pace most game writers have to churn through games. Simply keeping up with game releases is a pretty big time sink.

@grantheaslip: I think you make a good point and I agree. I like to read about the games. I'm far less interested in the industry or how games spill over into political science or sociology. I'm curious if you have specific examples of things you would like to read about? For example, I enjoy reading about the gritty details of gameplay, how a game fits into gaming history, and how it compares to games built around the same time.

I kind of just stopped reading gaming articles at some point. I still read most GB reviews and occasionally a PC Gamer or RPS article. That Berserk blog was pretty good too. Theoretically I suppose written articles could contain more useful information than a video segment but that doesn't seem to happen all that often in practice.

With video you generally get the primary source right there, in the thing you are watching.

Meanwhile written articles are full of unsupported assertions and factual errors. Or grossly misrepresented to support some fringe viewpoint. And no sources given. "We don't have time for that!" Great. Neither do I. Pretty much mirroring problems with modern print newspapers and magazines.