Gaming journalism is getting so much harder to read.

[PanYue]

So this might be a mini-rant and the such, so I'm sorry if it bothers you guys but this is something I really wanted to get off my chest. I understand this article might be long but I thought I'd write it on the escapist, since this seemed the best place that I visit to voice my concerns and sadness.

I'm a big online news reader. I like reading The Escapists reviews and Kotakus news reports (As well as IGNs reports, too) when I wake up in the morning before work. But lately I've been getting more and more bothered by Kotaku's articles in general. It used to be quite fun to read and they'd keep me in the know with stuff that I would almost always miss, like One Piece: Pirate Warriors announcement.

But the past couple of months have been just awful. Kotaku has become just an absolute mess. Let it be noted that I read .com.au and some news posts are reposted from the USA Kotaku site, not sure how many of them I read are from USA and how many are originals. XP

Anyway, there was one tipping point in general that made me lose complete faith in Kotaku as a news site - and it was a series of articles written by a "Jason Schreier", where he commented on the art style of the upcoming Dragon's Crown game.

Links to said articles:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/game-developers-need-to-stop-letting-teenagers-design-their-characters/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-real-problem-with-that-controversial-sexy-video-game-sorceress/comment-page-2/#comment-1233780
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-artist-behind-dragons-crown-explains-his-exaggerated-characters/#comment-1254052

I'm giving them more revenue by writing about this, yay! :V Anyway, the thing that's just awful about these articles, and what made me lose so much faith in Kotaku and its choice of authors, is that this really isn't an issue. The author doesn't like the art style, so he makes a report about it (if you can call it that). Usually things of such an opinion don't count, but somehow this got continued on to two more articles. He calls the fact that the sorceress looks the way she does a controversial choice, and then acts like he won when he makes the artist apologise for doing what he does best. I just can't comprehend how disgusting that is. Especially since so many other artists are 'guilty' of having a style like this. But people like that style, and they are allowed to. Good for them you do what you want to do with your amazing art skills. I can't draw or colour very well so seeing art skillfully done and in a personal style is great. I don't always like it but that doesn't mean I cause an issue because of it.

And then there's the article recently written by Patricia Hernandez where she writes about how a gay joke in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon may not be that harmless.
Link: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/the-gay-joke-in-far-cry-3-blood-dragon-is-harmless-or-is-it/comment-page-2/#comment-1320433

Kotaku has had quite a few articles with sexism as the main point. Quite a few. Like the 30 days of sexism article, the "Sony had no female executives" article so on so forth. But this one is just amazingly awful. It screams "give me clicks & more revenue please" by blowing something that was just fun, NOT HARMFUL, and making it a problem and blowing it out of proportion.

Why is everything a problem? Why do I have to get upset by things? Why is it we are prosecuting an artist who is doing his job, with his own art style? Why can't you just keep yourselves unbiased and report on games and game related news like a good journalist does. Everytime I read kotaku now, I get annoyed at the articles and what they contain. It's not what it used to be.

So I guess I have The Escapist and IGN left now. Despite the "OMG PAID REVIEWS" thing IGN gets, they do good with their reporting and I like that. Those Rewind videos are quite nice. Again I apologise for the long post, but sometimes you just gotta let it out and I'm sure posting THIS on one of their articles wouldn't get me far.

tl;dr: Kotaku is giving off bad vibes by making issues over small problems or making a personal opinion count as news, and making a controversy (But not really) just because they don't like something.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ya that quite simply isn't news or journalism it is just blogging where people write all manner of stupid shit that just crossed their mind, so if you aren't into that then look for a site that does news instead.

And that would be why I never go to Kotaku for anything.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Yeah, Kotaku isn't exactly the greatest gaming site in the world. Most of their stuff is just them going "FIRST! Here's a smidgen of news!" or the headlines are just blatant ways of getting people to click and view the article. Patricia Hernandez especially can be a particular offender of the latter.

 

[hazabaza1]

The writers at Kotaku are just fuckin' dumb. There's still good journalists, you just have to look a bit harder.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

So this might be a mini-rant and the such, so I'm sorry if it bothers you guys but this is something I really wanted to get off my chest. I understand this article might be long but I thought I'd write it on the escapist, since this seemed the best place that I visit to voice my concerns and sadness.

I'm a big online news reader. I like reading The Escapists reviews and Kotakus news reports (As well as IGNs reports, too) when I wake up in the morning before work. But lately I've been getting more and more bothered by Kotaku's articles in general. It used to be quite fun to read and they'd keep me in the know with stuff that I would almost always miss, like One Piece: Pirate Warriors announcement.

But the past couple of months have been just awful. Kotaku has become just an absolute mess. Let it be noted that I read .com.au and some news posts are reposted from the USA Kotaku site, not sure how many of them I read are from USA and how many are originals. XP

Anyway, there was one tipping point in general that made me lose complete faith in Kotaku as a news site - and it was a series of articles written by a "Jason Schreier", where he commented on the art style of the upcoming Dragon's Crown game.

Links to said articles:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/game-developers-need-to-stop-letting-teenagers-design-their-characters/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-real-problem-with-that-controversial-sexy-video-game-sorceress/comment-page-2/#comment-1233780
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-artist-behind-dragons-crown-explains-his-exaggerated-characters/#comment-1254052

I'm giving them more revenue by writing about this, yay! :V Anyway, the thing that's just awful about these articles, and what made me lose so much faith in Kotaku and its choice of authors, is that this really isn't an issue. The author doesn't like the art style, so he makes a report about it (if you can call it that). Usually things of such an opinion don't count, but somehow this got continued on to two more articles. He calls the fact that the sorceress looks the way she does a controversial choice, and then acts like he won when he makes the artist apologise for doing what he does best. I just can't comprehend how disgusting that is. Especially since so many other artists are 'guilty' of having a style like this. But people like that style, and they are allowed to. Good for them you do what you want to do with your amazing art skills. I can't draw or colour very well so seeing art skillfully done and in a personal style is great. I don't always like it but that doesn't mean I cause an issue because of it.

And then there's the article recently written by Patricia Hernandez where she writes about how a gay joke in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon may not be that harmless.
Link: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/the-gay-joke-in-far-cry-3-blood-dragon-is-harmless-or-is-it/comment-page-2/#comment-1320433

Kotaku has had quite a few articles with sexism as the main point. Quite a few. Like the 30 days of sexism article, the "Sony had no female executives" article so on so forth. But this one is just amazingly awful. It screams "give me clicks & more revenue please" by blowing something that was just fun, NOT HARMFUL, and making it a problem and blowing it out of proportion.

Links to said articles:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/game-developers-need-to-stop-letting-teenagers-design-their-characters/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-real-problem-with-that-controversial-sexy-video-game-sorceress/comment-page-2/#comment-1233780
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-artist-behind-dragons-crown-explains-his-exaggerated-characters/#comment-1254052
Link: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/the-gay-joke-in-far-cry-3-blood-dragon-is-harmless-or-is-it/comment-page-2/#comment-1320433

http://www.kotaku.com.au/

There's your problem.

Kotaku is like the daily mail of gaming journalism: bog roll.

Plenty of other outlets such as Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer offer much more interesting in content. Claiming that gaming journalism is down the pan because Kotaku are shit is like claiming music is terrible because all you've ever watched is American Idol.

 

[Legion]

It's the new go-to method of game journalism. Copy the "real life" tabloids by exaggerating things and making a big deal out of minor issues to generate views/readers and rile people up.

Some websites are worse than others, but fact checking being replaced by opinions seems to be becoming a lot more prevalent.

 

[PanYue]

I was reading the thread title and I regret saying "gaming journalism" as if Kotaku spoke for all game journalists. Ah heck, I'll just remember that for next time. But yes my eyes have been opened to what rep Kotaku actually has. hahaha

 

[shrekfan246]

I'm joining the other people here; Kotaku basks in the angry cries of petulant [REDACTED]. They're not really "gaming journalism" so much as "Let's see what flame wars we can instigate today!"

That's not to say other websites don't do the same things. Two of our very own Escapist newsies like to straddle the line between sarcasm and flamebait really closely, and it rustles a lot of jimmies within the community here. But websites like Destructoid or RockPaperShotgun are generally still interesting and reliable. Well, Jim Sterling likes to rustle jimmies too, but he's still an excellent games journalist and does really good opinion pieces on GameFront.

 

[Panthera]

Gaming journalism isn't really taken seriously in general, so the sites that get the most attention are the ones that can shout the loudest, so that just gets everyone into a shouting competition to see who can make the biggest mountain out of the smallest molehill. Problem is, to get out of that, someone needs to start getting really well known for not engaging in randomly exaggerating everything they find to manufacture controversies, and it's hard to get attention being serious and reasonable when your competition is all about provocation.

 

[LetalisK]

Ya that quite simply isn't news or journalism...

I would actually disagree. This kind of stuff is closer to the sensationalist bullshit and "First!" screeching that passes for news in other mediums than not, imo. The worst offenders being the 24/7 news channels. Ratings above all.

 

[Requia]

Can anybody give exampels of this that *aren't* Kotaku? They're not exactly what I'd call a legitimate source...

 

[Windcaler]

The issue Ive often had with Kotaku is its more blogging then journalism. You can take one part of any game and write your thoughts about it. Thats fine if you just want to do an opinion piece but its not news. There can be a middle ground where the facts are stated with a slight bit of opinion at the end which the escapist does.

If you want a reputable news source I would drop Kotaku and IGN and look into Edge magazine. Edge is one of the oldest and most reputable news sources out there. IMO they usually do a good job on their articles

 

[Drauger]

Well the escapist is starting to look a lot like kotaku wih is ashame since i really enjoyed reading news here, check this the Amazon gets her trailer from dragons crown, so the escapist puts it in the main page... read the opening of the article:

Dragon's Crown: Introducing The Amazon

​

Dragon's Crown's character roster is now complete.

"I like big butts and I cannot lie," wrote warrior-poet, SirMixaLot in his 1992 musical celebration of the female posterior, Baby Got Back. The Baron of Badonkadonk would no-doubt approve of Dragon's Crown's Amazon, whose hips make the jump from child-rearing to bear-rearing.

Then the thumb nail he selected was from the sorcerer.... someone in the forum points it out and Grey carter says, "don't know why is it a big deal" , and then changes the thumb nail for one of the amazon river... really nice.

 

[Riku'sTwilight]

Came onto this thread hoping to hear how it's all rubbish - got what I clicked for.

While some sites aren't bad, others I read are terrible.
Gaming 'journalism' now has basically boiled down to this:

1) Read article from kotaku or other website
2) Repost article in slightly their own words on their website
3) Wait a little while
4) Don't bother to spell or typo check said copy-paste
5) Get annoyed when people call you out on copy-paste writers personal bias.

aaaand repeat ad infinitum.

 

[The Madman]

Plenty of other outlets such as Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer offer much more interesting in content. Claiming that gaming journalism is down the pan because Kotaku are shit is like claiming music is terrible because all you've ever watched is American Idol.

I've actually been really annoyed with Rock Paper Shotgun lately. I realize a lot of the issues they talk about are ones that genuinely need to be addressed and indeed should be spoken about, but on the other hand they've been getting pretty silly lately with their accusations of sexism and self-righteous indignation.

For example here is the article that got me reading RPS in the first place: The Girl Who Wanted To Be God

It's an in-depth analysis of SHODAN, the pulp villainess from System Shock 1 and 2. Refreshingly candid in how it approaches the character and how SHODAN's personality is unashamedly schlocky and gratuitous, but how that is a good thing. She's over the top and lascivious and that's exactly how the character should have been.

Can you honestly see RPS today publishing anything like that? I can't. I mean these are the people who got upset over the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer, a situation where much like SHODAN above the gratuitousness is fully intentional and indeed part of the setting. It's silly and ridiculous and completely Cyberpunk in all the most awesome ways, yet they became so offended by that from this one trailer alone that it's deafened all other conversation. When that trailer was released maybe 10% of the discussion going on was actually about the setting or game, while 90% of it just devolved into pointless finger-pointing and accusations. Honestly it got kinda embarrassing when they did an interview with one of the people at CDProjekt RED and brought up their 'debate' in place of asking more questions about, you know, the game itself.

I just can't help but feel their recent crusade has begun to have an effect on their journalism.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Plenty of other outlets such as Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer offer much more interesting in content. Claiming that gaming journalism is down the pan because Kotaku are shit is like claiming music is terrible because all you've ever watched is American Idol.

RPS isn't much better. It might have bigger words but it's not above involving itself in such nonsense.


There also seems to be a big problem with news sites and lack of investigating the regurgitated news releases a little deeper.
For example how many sites have examined the 1.3 million loss of subscribers from World of Warcraft recently and decided to investigate it further instead of taking the misleading news release as fact.

RPS has really been getting on my nerves lately. They still have good articles, and I enjoy their reviews, because they tend to treat their work with a lot of humor, while still making a lot of good points and getting across what they're trying to say with an eloquence rarely found among the gaming press. But their news section has just gone into full "GAMES ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS" mode, so let's get angry about EVERYTHING all the goddamn time. I actually agree with a lot of the things they're saying about the shady business practices of certain companies, but their critique is under threat of getting buried under the sheer mountain of snark they deliver it with.

Edit:

I've actually been really annoyed with Rock Paper Shotgun lately. I realize a lot of the issues they talk about are ones that genuinely need to be addressed and indeed should be spoken about, but on the other hand they've been getting pretty silly lately with their accusations of sexism and self-righteous indignation.

Okay, I'm not the only, apparently. Yep, they need to stop seeing sexism in everything all the goddamn time. Another aspect of the "GAMES ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS" I was talking about. And they get really fucking prickly if anyone calls them out on it too.

 

[Zhukov]

Welcome to games no longer being exclusively for children and teenage boys.

That's all you're seeing here.

Things like Dragon Crown's excessive boobage and homosexual slurs are going to raise eyebrows now. Get used to it.

Also, "just keep yourselves unbiased and report on games" sounds awfully like "stop confronting me with dissenting opinions and just tell me when Cleavage Quest 6 is coming out".

 

[PanYue]

Also, "just keep yourselves unbiased and report on games" sounds awfully like "stop confronting me with dissenting opinions and just tell me when Cleavage Quest 6 is coming out".

I guess it does, but that wasn't my intention. I was too busy worrying that i had made the post too long so I tried to not go into too much detail. But the idea I was trying to show here is that i didn't want them to keep thinking their opinions make worthy news all the time, and that their dissatisfaction with something deserves to be called a "controversial subject" in an article. I'd rather they report on something and not blow their opinion out of proportion like Jason did.

Opinions still matter in articles, sure. But I see there being a limit, you know what I mean? XD Like I appreciate things like "Check out these sexy new releases from ____" or something, where the Author gets excited about certain games and the such, that's all fine and good. Video game sexism articles? They're fine too as long as they don't cover the front freaking page with nonsense. hahaha