Comments on: Editorial: Why video game journalism is unlike any other field

By: Nick Simberg

Nick Simberg — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:55:16 +0000

The best part about Gamer Limit – even without free games from publishers because we gave one of their other games a high review score, the reviews will keep coming. This site is FULL of passionate gamers (and fairly decent writers, too) that will play games just because their love them, and we will talk about them just because they are what we like to talk about. If publishers don’t give us their free crappy games for us to hold up and scrutinize to the world, we’ll STILL buy games ourselves and tell the world our opinions in an objective, eloquent manner.

That’s what we do. We’re gamers, and we’re writers. We don’t just say what others want to hear. We say what we believe is the truth, and we say it clearly. What more can you want?

By: Simon Jones

Simon Jones — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:21:48 +0000

Interesting piece, James. It’s a shame that games journalists rely so heavily upon the corporations that make the games, creating a sort-of “conflict of interest”, if you will.

You are correct, though, that this industry is incredibly young, and I too hope that in the future a similar level of respect will be awarded to us.

By: Chris Carter

Chris Carter — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:41:16 +0000

Excellent article James; you hit on a lot of reasons why I think Gamer Limit is above the curve, and isn't subject to publisher pressure. In fact, we talk about this in great length on our latest podcast.

By: Austin Sutton-Jennings

Austin Sutton-Jennings — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:12:00 +0000

That was a great article, I think gaming journalism is gaining it’s own personality but has to suffer a lot more scrutiny, because a lot of gamers are happy to come and be vocal on websites, and some devs actually pay attention to what people online are saying (look at the Left 4 Dead 2 thing).

By: James Pinnell

James Pinnell — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:08:42 +0000

@ Lexx

We’ve been submitting articles on N4G for a while, and while though the general overall quality of work submitted on that site is arguable, I enjoy the possibility of various eyes on my work, regardless where they come from.

Thanks for the comment though, I’m glad you consider my writing of a higher standard then *should* be on social media sites.

By: petey pablo

petey pablo — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:30:33 +0000

Game journalism is a joke, they get paid by these production companies to either trash or give their games excellent scores. Let’s take Halo 3 ODST for examaple. That game should have never received a score higher than a 8, but Microsoft has so much money it’s hard not to give them a passable score. These games journalist tend to get upset when they hear the gamers call them on it but it’s like the article say; the gaming industry is big business. When you spend millions on making a game the end result for the publisher is a profit.

By: Paul W

Paul W — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:45:43 +0000

I hate the majority of the public and the mainstream media’s lack of intelligence in analysing videogames and the culture that videogames have created. However, whilst someone who conducts interviews with people who make the games and feeds this back on their website, hopefully including some intelligent analysis of this, can call themselves ‘journalists’, I think that it should still be remembered that this does not necessarily mean that their own opinions are any more insightful or well argued than the very best user reviews and ‘amateur’ articles submitted by games players on shopping sites or forums. It is an ‘us and them’ mentality that the mainstream media use- games ‘journalists’, whose qualifications may be no better than anyone else’s, shouldn’t follow the mainstream media in this.

By: Wardrox

Wardrox — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:41:18 +0000

Good read (again, I did actually read it last night, but was a touch too drunk to really gain any great insight).

It basically boils down to current gaming journalism being an extension of PR, not journalism. As time goes on and the gaming media getting wider and wider, smaller and smaller, eventually the current PR tactics just break down. It’ll be interesting to see. I think also if we can inspire people not to be shit when it comes to game writing, or at least to try not to be shit, that’ll help.

By: Tracey

Tracey — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:57:42 +0000

I think a lot of ‘games journalism’ isn’t journalism, not because it has anything to do with how seriously our industry is (or isn’t) taken, but because the majority of the time we’re writing about the games themselves. The majority of ‘game journalists’ really are game writers and game reviewers, in the same way that I feel that most music journalists should be called music writers, and arts journalists should be arts writers. Unless there is any journalism being done, then it’s not journalism.

I don’t think game writers need to try and validate what they do by trying to classify it as another unique form of journalism, because journalism is what it is. It’s made up of news values, and while it is possible to have actual ‘games journalism’, the nature of what we write about tends to mean that there aren’t big stories worth breaking or hot gossip about corruption. We mostly write about the games themselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

By: Floost

Floost — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:46:17 +0000

I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.

By: Daniel Growns

Daniel Growns — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:12:16 +0000

I just remembered another thing I forgot to mention last night. I also think we are taken more seriously because here especially, as an industry gamers seem to write more constructively.

I have never seen “it has omg pew pew lazors” or “this game just fails, no reason it just does.” on this site

By: Matty W

Matty W — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:44:28 +0000

I’ll tell you what I told Wardrox over at Negative Gamer, James: I don’t accept any editorial about games journalism that isn’t in Top 10 form

(Great article, however!)