Videogame media is a maelstrom of conflicting voices all
with differing agendas hoping to be the loudest in a loud room. Publishers seek
to promote their content, manufactures their systems. There are the fans who
just want to enjoy their games and there are fans who want to analyze them
(that’s me). And there are countless other
voices that I cannot hope to name but matter nonetheless. But then there are
those whose job it is to make sense of this chaos and then present it in to the
world at large. They are called videogame journalists.
The job of a journalist is by in large to tell the truth.
They filter everything that has happened recently and produce easily digestible
informational content for the common public to consume. Sometimes the job is
groundbreaking and earth sharking as the revelation of truth changes the way
the world is perceived. Sometimes the job is just boring, something interesting
does not happen all the time. And videogame journalists are no different. They
struggle, succeed and then struggle again to bring forth information from the
cacophony of noise.
Then once the journalist has brought the information to the
light another voice rises. A voice that challenges. A voice that engages and
re-evaluates. A voice that sings praise as much as it sings of failure. That is
the voice of the videogame critic, one whose job it is to make opinions and
take stances on not just the games themselves, but on what the journalist has
said. Critics evaluate the merits of creative works and creative mediums using
critical and analytical thinking. Videogame critics are no different.
The difference and distinction between journalist and critic
is clear in every form of media except that of videogames. It is a common misconception that all writing
on videogames is videogame journalism. The title videogame journalist has
become an all encompassing term to describe anyone who ventures forth into the
written, or filmed or audio, world of videogame related media. And even though
I may be damning myself, that inclusionary idea is wrong. Not every person is a
videogame journalist nor is every publication a journalistic endeavor. The multitudes
of voices filling the room are not all the same. They have different agendas, different
opinions and different purposes to be speaking. There are videogame journalists
and there are videogame critics. And they are different people.
Two of my favorite videogame journalism publications are IGN and Gameinformer.
IGN is an entirely internet based service providing fast and mostly accurate
breaking news. However, that is a double edged sword. IGN is a hype machine as
much as it is a news outlet. It is good for immediate coverage, but lacks more substantial
journalistic pieces. That is why I like Gameinformer as well. Being both an
internet presence and a physical publication Gameinformer lags slightly in the
breaking coverage aspect of news delivery. They make up for that however, by
having more substantial journalistic coverage of events, games and the industry
at large. The people at Gameinformer investigate, fact check their sources and
produce quality content. They may not be as fast as IGN, but when paired together
the two provide me with almost all the coverage I need.
What I find lacking from both publications is any real criticism.
That is why they can only provide almost
all the coverage I want. By taking the role of primarily news publications,
both outlets attract a high level of public awareness. And it is just good
business that once the public will is bought it should not be squandered. So
they lack pieces that offend, that challenge. They ultimately lack pieces that criticize.
Both publications publish reviews and opinion pieces, and all the respective
authors are entitled to their opinion. Yet, I find that an almost pandering
blandness infiltrates these pieces. IGN will never give a hyped about game less
than an 8.5 out of 10. Gameinformer retains slightly more journalistic integrity,
yet the corporate strings are easy to see. Why is it that Assassin’s Creed and
Call of Duty get a cover article every year?
It is harder to trap down on my favorite videogame websites
for criticism. Where as it is easy to list the sites dedicated to journalism, a
site fully dedicated to videogame criticism is rare. Most of my favorite
videogame critics are people who have posted their work through many differing sites
or even media. With that being said however, there are two websites I would
like to recognize for their continual outstanding criticism: The Escapist and Unwinnable. The Escapist walks the line
between being a journalist news outlet similar to Gameinformer and an entirely
criticism driven space. They push and publish breaking news articles with fervor
while also offering insightful criticism. Opinion pieces are common to The
Escapist as well as a level of quality that some of the other publications
lack. Mostly their reviews challenge and occasionally offend because they actually
take a stance and say something, not simply pander. Unwinnable is site
dedicated solely to criticism and analysis without any journalistic, breaking
news, endeavors. A commonality to all work published on Unwinnable is the
personal narrative and or reflection that videogames can bring. It is an
interesting take and one that I think deserves to be further explored.
(It became apparent to me during my writing of this that my
opinions in relation to the differing publications show themselves in terms of
the pronoun I use in relation to the publication. I did not even realize this until
I wrote it out. IGN is an “it”; unpersonable, indifferent, slightly scary.
Gameinformer, The Escapist and Unwinnable are “they” respectively; groupings of
people and writers, less scary.)
At the very last I would like to take a moment to recognize
my favorite videogame critics. These are the people who inspire me to be
another voice yelling in the crowd:
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