4 ms·

I do agree, the bickering about politics is a little silly when you consider just how terrible the actual "journalism" part is. I think there's a general feelin

by jchw 3y ago

I do agree, the bickering about politics is a little silly when you consider just how terrible the actual "journalism" part is. I think there's a general feeling that all journalism has faltered a little bit in the face of the Internet and a 24 hour news cycle, but I'm not even sure video game journalism was ever good. I'm not sure it was ever really 'journalism'. I'll admit I do miss the older generation of video game 'journalism' nonetheless. Had its problems, but the thing is, it did feel like people were sharing their genuine and honest opinions as a capital-G "Gamer" more often. It became mostly known for the stereotypical attitudes that people have since come to dislike, which you can see manifested sometimes e.g. in old Penny Arcade comics. The only irony is that it feels like somehow, people's more progressive attitudes manage to have even less nuance than the older "unrefined" opinions that have since been walked back on by many. You can see this especially in the bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games-I'm not really sure how a bunch of people were convinced to go all the way from 90's style "toxic masculinity" to a totally puritanical anti-sexuality stance in such a short period, but I'll be damned, they really managed to do it. What happened in this time period, though, is interesting. There's really no such concept as a "capital-G Gamer" in a society where pretty much any kind of person plays video games to at least some degree. There's still a spectrum of different kinds and different levels of dedication, but the lines are firmly blurred. Gaming is just another thing that people do, on computers, phones, whatever, wherever. To me, the modern era though, won't actually be colored by how gaming went mainstream, or by any event involving gaming at all. It'll be about how everyone became phony and full of shit with pandering to trends and moral grandstanding. I'd be willing to place a wager on that one. Unfortunately, that isn't specific to gaming, gaming journalism, or any kind of journalism.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
> I'm not even sure video game journalism was ever good In my youth I read a few PC game magazines. Not sure about the accuracy of the reviews but the people writing them did try to make their reviews as entertaining as possible with jokes and what not. Sadly, those old magazines are long gone so I can't really go back and re-read them to see if it's just rose-tinted glasses. I don't even remember the magazine name or which country it was from. Edit: Come to think of it, those reviewers were kind of like Yahtzee (formerly*) of Zero Punctuation fame. * https://twitter.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/1721687212541280425 https://twitter.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/172168721254128042...
- praisewhitey 3y ago
  There are a lot of old video game magazines on the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/videogamemagazines https://archive.org/details/videogamemagazines
AlexandrB 3y ago
> I'll admit I do miss the older generation of video game 'journalism' nonetheless. Had its problems, but the thing is, it did feel like people were sharing their genuine and honest opinions as a capital-G "Gamer" more often. It's important to recognize that the stakes were lower back then. When games cost hundreds of millions to develop and market and are expected to have revenue in the billions bad reviews have the potential to have a massive impact on that revenue. > You can see this especially in the bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games-I'm not really sure how a bunch of people were convinced to go all the way from 90's style "toxic masculinity" to a totally puritanical anti-sexuality stance in such a short period, but I'll be damned, they really managed to do it. I don't know if I agree. If you look at the most profitable gaming sector - mobile gacha games - some of these games are extremely "horny". But there's also another elephant in the room here that has nothing to do with games journalism: China. I think a lot of content in popular games is toned down so it doesn't run afoul of Chinese regulators. There are examples online[1] of it being done retroactively, but if a game is being developed from day one with the Chinese market in mind, you would never know what was cut to make that happen. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/49x7m0/chinese_wow_censorship_comparisonlots_of/?rdt=36424 https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/49x7m0/chinese_wow_cen...
- jchw 3y ago
  > I don't know if I agree. If you look at the most profitable gaming sector - mobile gacha games - some of these games are extremely "horny". Oh I'm not arguing horny games don't exist or can't be popular. That's the thing with being dishonest with yourself and maybe with regressive attitudes towards sex in general: it's not that people are any different biologically than they used to be, it's just the social climate that people are living in. People will happily parrot on about how everyone is "pornsick" nowadays and then open an incognito window right after. I've experienced the whiplash of witnessing people like this personally. I'm sure it's not literally everyone... but I think in general it's underestimated just how two-faced the average person will happily be. I don't really know a ton about gacha games, but players of gacha games have certainly developed a ... reputation on the Internet, and media coverage of this has not been very kind either. If social norms hadn't been shifting so much, I'd imagine that micro-transactions and a cutesy art style would be the things people lambaste the most about games like Genshin Impact and their playerbases. Instead, it has taken an oddly dark turn.
pjc50 3y ago
> bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games There's a certain amount of "puriteen" pushback, but BG3 has done extremely well out of it without a backlash. The trick was to do something other than the same old exploitation.

by jchw 3y ago

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago

> I'm not even sure video game journalism was ever good In my youth I read a few PC game magazines. Not sure about the accuracy of the reviews but the people writing them did try to make their reviews as entertaining as possible with jokes and what not. Sadly, those old magazines are long gone so I can't really go back and re-read them to see if it's just rose-tinted glasses. I don't even remember the magazine name or which country it was from. Edit: Come to think of it, those reviewers were kind of like Yahtzee (formerly*) of Zero Punctuation fame. * https://twitter.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/1721687212541280425 https://twitter.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/172168721254128042...

praisewhitey 3y ago
There are a lot of old video game magazines on the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/videogamemagazines https://archive.org/details/videogamemagazines

AlexandrB 3y ago

> I'll admit I do miss the older generation of video game 'journalism' nonetheless. Had its problems, but the thing is, it did feel like people were sharing their genuine and honest opinions as a capital-G "Gamer" more often. It's important to recognize that the stakes were lower back then. When games cost hundreds of millions to develop and market and are expected to have revenue in the billions bad reviews have the potential to have a massive impact on that revenue. > You can see this especially in the bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games-I'm not really sure how a bunch of people were convinced to go all the way from 90's style "toxic masculinity" to a totally puritanical anti-sexuality stance in such a short period, but I'll be damned, they really managed to do it. I don't know if I agree. If you look at the most profitable gaming sector - mobile gacha games - some of these games are extremely "horny". But there's also another elephant in the room here that has nothing to do with games journalism: China. I think a lot of content in popular games is toned down so it doesn't run afoul of Chinese regulators. There are examples online[1] of it being done retroactively, but if a game is being developed from day one with the Chinese market in mind, you would never know what was cut to make that happen. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/49x7m0/chinese_wow_censorship_comparisonlots_of/?rdt=36424 https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/49x7m0/chinese_wow_cen...

jchw 3y ago
> I don't know if I agree. If you look at the most profitable gaming sector - mobile gacha games - some of these games are extremely "horny". Oh I'm not arguing horny games don't exist or can't be popular. That's the thing with being dishonest with yourself and maybe with regressive attitudes towards sex in general: it's not that people are any different biologically than they used to be, it's just the social climate that people are living in. People will happily parrot on about how everyone is "pornsick" nowadays and then open an incognito window right after. I've experienced the whiplash of witnessing people like this personally. I'm sure it's not literally everyone... but I think in general it's underestimated just how two-faced the average person will happily be. I don't really know a ton about gacha games, but players of gacha games have certainly developed a ... reputation on the Internet, and media coverage of this has not been very kind either. If social norms hadn't been shifting so much, I'd imagine that micro-transactions and a cutesy art style would be the things people lambaste the most about games like Genshin Impact and their playerbases. Instead, it has taken an oddly dark turn.

pjc50 3y ago

> bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games There's a certain amount of "puriteen" pushback, but BG3 has done extremely well out of it without a backlash. The trick was to do something other than the same old exploitation.