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I am hardly a luminary of my field but if you take a look at some of my features you’ll see they are drastically different from the idea you may have in your he

I am hardly a luminary of my field but if you take a look at some of my features you’ll see they are drastically different from the idea you may have in your head. Lots of folks more accomplished than me who hit way harder. All the coverage about crunch, for instance, or sexual harassment scandals at big companies—-these are topics broken by games journos. If your only exposure to this world is shitty SEO spam or cleverly-disguised marketing, I could see why you’d think the way you do. But there is so much good games journalism out there. I don’t recommend writing off the field like that.

bshacklett 3y ago
That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? The vast majority of content that people see is low effort garbage that is pushed by media companies that are just looking to make a quick dime off of advertising revenue, and that’s very easy to do with AI. Ad-based “news” is always going to have this problem, because getting clicks just requires getting people to the page; the quality of the content doesn’t matter nearly as much as the headline. The incentives for quality content just don’t exist in the current business model. Paywalls obviously aren’t the solution, either, because news is nothing, now if it can’t be shared, and paywalls stop that dead. It also takes time and effort to build a brand, as you rightly stated before. The other important factor is how easy it is to lose trust in that brand, which means high stringent and transparent fact checking needs to be a part of the solution, alongside _proper_ retractions when someone _does_ get it wrong. The only way I can imagine things improving is for independent journalists to get together to ditch the big media outlets and find some real solution to monetizing their work and keeping everyone accountable to accurate reporting. Obviously that’s much easier said than done.
Levitz 3y ago
> All the coverage about crunch, for instance, or sexual harassment scandals at big companies—-these are topics broken by games journos. Sorry to be blunt but, that's not games. That's games journalists who want to be activists in their own fields. That, just as the gorillionth take on how this or that is problematic, is just people wanting to inject their politics into a hobby and it can't disappear soon enough. I don't see that as an advantage of journalism. I see that as an evil to endure for a good that isn't there.
- edavison1 3y ago
  How is exposing malfeasance and illegal corporate activity activism? I hate to retreat into platitudes here but good journalism shines a light in the dark, it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, that’s kind of the name of the game. If you’d prefer these topics go unaddressed and companies continue to take advantage of their workers or whatever, not sure we have enough in common to have real discourse on the subject. Sorry to be blunt lol.
- Cheezewheel 3y ago
  >All Game Journalists do is act as little more than spokespeople for corporations >>Actually here Game Journalists also report on X, Y and Z >Nah that is just people injecting politics and being activists This is a pretty dumb "No true Scotsman" argument you are smuggling into the conversation here.

bshacklett 3y ago

That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? The vast majority of content that people see is low effort garbage that is pushed by media companies that are just looking to make a quick dime off of advertising revenue, and that’s very easy to do with AI. Ad-based “news” is always going to have this problem, because getting clicks just requires getting people to the page; the quality of the content doesn’t matter nearly as much as the headline. The incentives for quality content just don’t exist in the current business model. Paywalls obviously aren’t the solution, either, because news is nothing, now if it can’t be shared, and paywalls stop that dead. It also takes time and effort to build a brand, as you rightly stated before. The other important factor is how easy it is to lose trust in that brand, which means high stringent and transparent fact checking needs to be a part of the solution, alongside _proper_ retractions when someone _does_ get it wrong. The only way I can imagine things improving is for independent journalists to get together to ditch the big media outlets and find some real solution to monetizing their work and keeping everyone accountable to accurate reporting. Obviously that’s much easier said than done.

Levitz 3y ago

> All the coverage about crunch, for instance, or sexual harassment scandals at big companies—-these are topics broken by games journos. Sorry to be blunt but, that's not games. That's games journalists who want to be activists in their own fields. That, just as the gorillionth take on how this or that is problematic, is just people wanting to inject their politics into a hobby and it can't disappear soon enough. I don't see that as an advantage of journalism. I see that as an evil to endure for a good that isn't there.

edavison1 3y ago
How is exposing malfeasance and illegal corporate activity activism? I hate to retreat into platitudes here but good journalism shines a light in the dark, it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, that’s kind of the name of the game. If you’d prefer these topics go unaddressed and companies continue to take advantage of their workers or whatever, not sure we have enough in common to have real discourse on the subject. Sorry to be blunt lol.
Cheezewheel 3y ago
>All Game Journalists do is act as little more than spokespeople for corporations >>Actually here Game Journalists also report on X, Y and Z >Nah that is just people injecting politics and being activists This is a pretty dumb "No true Scotsman" argument you are smuggling into the conversation here.