No such thing as 'game journalism'

Interesting post on GameDaily.Biz about game journalism and citing sources.

The thread title is a quote from Luke Smith, talking about the peculiar nature of journalism in this hobby, which has become almost 100% internet-based.

1UP News Editor Luke Smith knows what it's like to be burned by part of that 10 percent, and he isn't very fond of the experience. On his personal blog, he launched a salvo against competitor IGN for failing to provide proper credit for a story he broke about the Stamper brothers leaving Rare.

Not much to argue here, we've all probably seen this stuff in our own surfing. Just one hurdle game journalism has on the road to credibility. Still, it's a meaty piece, check it out.

I think, thanks to the internet, Journalism is dying. Or at least taking a beating with its head in the toilet.

When I was still doing news it was one of my least favorite aspects of it. 90 percent of the stories are regurgitating a press release or sourced from a larger national newspaper. There are very few outlets consistently making their own news from scratch, like we expect actual journalists to do. The audience needs to demand higher standards, and so far they've voted with their clicks for sites like Joystiq and Kotaku.

I'm sorry...did you say that Luke Smith was levying criticism about the quality of game journalism?

*Laughs Hysterically For Fifteen Minutes*

Sorry. Ahem, as you were.

Mex wrote:

I think, thanks to the internet, Journalism is dying. Or at least taking a beating with its head in the toilet.

I think that's more to do with people's use of the internet. A global spanning web of instant information should never hurt journalism. What I think we have to start seeing is a journalistic community that cares more about filtering and consolodating rather than getting there first. The only competition for speed is quality. A reporter can be a week late with a story if he or she tells it in a way that I can understand and remember, which the internet as a whole does not do.

In the future journalists will be called refiners. I called it.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:
Mex wrote:

I think, thanks to the internet, Journalism is dying. Or at least taking a beating with its head in the toilet.

I think that's more to do with people's use of the internet. A global spanning web of instant information should never hurt journalism. What I think we have to start seeing is a journalistic community that cares more about filtering and consolodating rather than getting there first. The only competition for speed is quality. A reporter can be a week late with a story if he or she tells it in a way that I can understand and remember, which the internet as a whole does not do.

In the future journalists will be called refiners. I called it.

Though it shames me to say it, I'm siding with Certis here. Before a journalistic community of integrity can exist, much less grow, there must be readers that demand that integrity. Demand begets supply.

I don't see why my point and Certis's point can't coexist.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Before a journalistic community of integrity can exist, much less grow, there must be readers that demand that integrity. Demand begets supply.

I've been demanding a decent follow-up to Half-Life for 8 years and I only got 1 game.

Journalism has a test of entry like any other profession. There is a wall separating the creators from the audience, even if a thin one. Journalists need a certain point of view to be successful, an impassioned detachment with a little bit of sensationalism.

I feel journalistic integrity is earned, both by publications and by the industry as a whole. I can't remember the last time a journalist called for improvement and anyone listened.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Though it shames me to say it, I'm siding with Certis here. Before a journalistic community of integrity can exist, much less grow, there must be readers that demand that integrity. Demand begets supply.

Mind you that there's an argument that supply begets demand as well.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian#Keynes_and_the_Classics

Here's another problem: some people who write little news blurbs on teh interwebs fancy themselves 'journalists'. At least Joystiq or Kotaku present themselves as gossip rags, and nobody demands journalistic integrity from them. Except other gossip rag writers, it seems.

Don't you hate it when you write a long pithy reply and then the net dies and you lose everything.

The short version of the brilliant rebuttal I lost:

Games Journalism suffers from the curse of entertainment news. Like all entertainment news, most of it is driven by hype and gossip (ET anyone) or scandal. We're grown up now. We live in that world.

It also suffers from the net-centric journalism problem. These issues plague journos everywhere from finance to politics to tech. Stories are regurgitated back and forth until there are no good sources and everyone quotes themselves. Yet bloggers break real stories and provide solid work.

Like E-news, there ARE places where this isn't true. To be blunt: here, escapist, gamasutra, bill harris -- there is an audience for BETTER stuff. Stuff that is true, honest, occasionally overly self-indulgent (raises hand) but also GOOD. The same can be said for film journalism.

Expecting Game journalism to somehow be different or better than film/tv/book journalism is ridiculous. I think we as an industry do a pretty decent job. But never forget that there's no difference between, say, IGN or Kotaku, and E! or the hollywood reporter.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Though it shames me to say it, I'm siding with Certis here. Before a journalistic community of integrity can exist, much less grow, there must be readers that demand that integrity. Demand begets supply.

Readers consume whatever they're fed. You just need to show them a difference in quality and create that demand. It's chicken and egg IMO.

If it counts, I thought Geoff K.'s articles where he described the lead up to a game's release were great. We need more of that.

Nobody's going to give me props for finding a way to cite Keynes in a thread about videogame journalism?

Bah! Philistines!

Thirteenth wrote:

Readers consume whatever they're fed. You just need to show them a difference in quality and create that demand. It's chicken and egg IMO.

wordsmythe wrote:

Mind you that there's an argument that supply begets demand as well.

Neither applies to this discussion. I could write a daily article about the inner workings of the office that I work in, but just writing it isn't going to generate interest for no reason. Somehow I don't think Say's Law applies to internet publications where for any one type of good the supply is only limited by the bandwidth of the host.

souldaddy wrote:

I've been demanding a decent follow-up to Half-Life for 8 years and I only got 1 game.

Poor analogy. You and millions of others demanded a decent follow-up to HL1 and you all received it as quickly as possible. Had you received more follow-ups or received the one more quickly it wouldn't have been a decent follow-up.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Neither applies to this discussion. I could write a daily article about the inner workings of the office that I work in, but just writing it isn't going to generate interest for no reason. Somehow I don't think Say's Law applies to internet publications where for any one type of good the supply is only limited by the bandwidth of the host.

Also, writing that daily article would probably get you fired.

The question at the base of whether supply creates demand, or the opposite, or neither, is whether there is a reliable supply of good gaming journalism. Ultimately and ideally, the fact that gamers want good journalism would eventually lead to someone offering it rather regularly and making some nice change [pun intended] from it. However, I think the real inefficiency in the system here is that gamers are largely content with the sort of stuff that passes for journalism these days. Since so much of it is free, the only cost to the consumer is that we have to think for a second and try to weed out the truth from the hype (instead of having the journos do it for us). That's not really a huge cost, though -- particularly when, through the magic of forums and internet collaboration, we can cooperate to weed out the pernicious lies that the field is heir to.

Put simply: Do we need better journalism? Aren't we, as gamers, doing well enough without?

Danjo Olivaw wrote:
souldaddy wrote:

I've been demanding a decent follow-up to Half-Life for 8 years and I only got 1 game.

Poor analogy. You and millions of others demanded a decent follow-up to HL1 and you all received it as quickly as possible. Had you received more follow-ups or received the one more quickly it wouldn't have been a decent follow-up.

Don't you have gangsters you should be killing right now?

wordsmythe wrote:

Put simply: Do we need better journalism? Aren't we, as gamers, doing well enough without?

The people reading this thread? Probably.

The average user of Live? Probably not, but as Rabbit pointed out there are a few sources of better game journalism. It's not like we can force them to partake.

[FIXED for clarity.]

souldaddy wrote:

Don't you have gangsters you should be killing right now?

The boss frowns on murderizin' moronic coworkers.

EDIT: You know, I think I'm arguing for your original point unless I'm interpreting it wrong.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

Put simply: Do we need better journalism? Aren't we, as gamers, doing well enough without?

The people reading this thread? Probably.

The average user of Live? Probably not, but as Rabbit pointed out there are a few sources of better game journalism. It's not like we can force them to partake.

I don't need it. I just read with a healthy amount of cynacism and seem to avoid wasting my money. I know there are some that fall victim to The Deceiver's snares (did I just compare the industry to Satan?), but there are plenty who are either willing to let that be the case or are able to escape the hype trap.

I'm just curious: Is there "Movie Journalism"? I read there was some "Music Journalism" in the 60's or 70's, but I wasn't there.

Maybe entertainment media doesn't lend itself to serious "journalism"?

And by placing quotes on "Journalism", will I spark a debate on what "Journalism" is?

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

EDIT: You know, I think I'm arguing for your original point unless I'm interpreting it wrong.

I'm a Libra, which means I don't have a perspective, just balance I think you are right, I just focused in on that one idea, that demand has created the system which we now have. I think wordsmythe is partially correct, the journalism system has it's own rules and the products it creates don't always fit the needs of its readers. For example, some of the "demand" from game journalism is from the advertisers, the folks that provide preview screenshots and all that. Nag on EA long enough and you might not get the big scoop on their games.

Plus I think any complex system needs leaders to "right the ship" sometimes.

I said to my friend sit down
Sit down, sit down, you're rockin' the boat.

wordsmythe wrote:

Nobody's going to give me props for finding a way to cite Keynes in a thread about videogame journalism?

We're just trying to keep this thread out of P&C.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Neither applies to this discussion. I could write a daily article about the inner workings of the office that I work in, but just writing it isn't going to generate interest for no reason. Somehow I don't think Say's Law applies to internet publications where for any one type of good the supply is only limited by the bandwidth of the host.

I suppose not enough people will appreciate better quality gaming journalism if that even comes around. Making the previous argument makes me a hypocrit of sorts. I don't care enough about news in the gaming industry all that much as it is, and should I be compelled to learn more about a particular story, a few more paragraphs will do.

But there's got to be people out there who feel strongly about gaming journalism. They are the ones who can make the demand, only they don't know how to ask, or where to look. If someone someday just decide to take that extra mile and publish the better quality gaming journals, who knows?

Take GWJ for example. Most people are content with the loosely moderated forums, but not all. Someone out there has been begging for a forum that isn't flooded with insults and nerds trying to show how tough they are. Most of us didn't do anything special to make our demands known, because we didn't know how to ask or who to talk to. Still we ended up right here, and now it's going to be tough to go back.

I sort of feel that, especially since the people who care the most about good journalism are largely involved in the field in some way, the unwashed masses are prepared to let the field kipple-ize itself into ruin.

wordsmythe said Put simply: Do we need better journalism? Aren't we, as gamers, doing well enough without?

No, we are not doing well enough without. GWJ is an editorial site where people discuss the news on threads. 1up is a fansite that eats hype and spits out polished opinion, albeit plenty shiny. What I give Luke Smith credit for, and what I wish we could have from other outlets, are answers to the tough questions, or at least someone with the balls to ask them.

In that last 1up podcast Luke talks about catching big names off-guard in the green room of an awards show and asking them the tough questions, i.e. "why can't we get enough Wiis?" These tough questions cannot be answered in an e-mail interview, as Jeff Green (the EIC of GFW for crissakes!) uses to write his news. It is the methods of the journalists that need to improve and the willingness of these games producers and other companies to allow those methods to be used.

In summation: That we get Jeff Green on a podcast is fascinating, but the people we really want are the ones making the games and the hardware that are able to answer the questions. What we need are games journalists willing to put some feet to the fire, and for that I give Luke Smith some credit. Then, we step out of the echo chamber of the internet and into the NY Times of gaming.

The NYT is drivel!

Besides that, as much as it would be nice to have real journalism in the field, I don't feel like I'm some marginalized, oppressed wretch because we lack investigative reporting. We can't get enough Wiis? I guess I'll play my 360 then, or read a book.

wordsmythe wrote:

Besides that, as much as it would be nice to have real journalism in the field, I don't feel like I'm some marginalized, oppressed wretch because we lack investigative reporting. We can't get enough Wiis? I guess I'll play my 360 then, or read a book.

Yea... "hard-hitting" questions, for the most part, don't exist in games journalism. It's not because the journalists are weak, but more because there's just so few tough questions to ask. Why can't we get Wiis? Because they can't make them fast enough.

The best you can hope for is someone to ask questions people care about (and don't know the answer to) and to be honest.

Funny, during my first 2 years of College, I concentrated in Journalism. I front loaded all the Journalism 101, Advanced Journalism, etc....and then I realized that the things they taught me have no validity in the real world. Nothing that people call Journalism actually exists these days, in any genre you care to name.

I don't know if that's specific to the major of journalism. That's just college.