Games Journalism 2017: Gaming news in a post-truth world

I think Polygon largely lost their way when their original idea - writing long-form articles about gaming and the people behind the industry - didn’t quite pan out and they had to add nerd/pop culture articles like movie reviews and editorials about toys.

Honestly I saw them adding pop culture because everyone involved was getting burned out on games. Wasn’t Polygon the place where the reporter sent to get a preview of a big name game had a midlife crisis and declared gaming to be rubbish instead of writing about the thing he was sent to do?

I think games reviewing and tech reviewing are very similar in that after you’ve seen your 1000th laptop or cell phone or other commodity gadget (Bluetooth speakers, headphones,etc) many reviewers just crack and have to find something else to do. Ben Kuchara’s “I’m not a gamer” thing he posted in the midst of GG and when being a gamer seemed like a dirty thing again, etc.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, all of Polygon’s worthwhile content is YouTube videos and podcasts like CoolGames Inc.

Yeah, there is probably something too this. Polygon produced some of the best long form games writing I’ve ever seen, think the Charlie Hall piece on Squad/ Kerbal or the Rob Zacny Homefront one. Problem is that is (relatively) expensive, and probably lower revenue than a bunch of articles done in a few hours about… whatever nonsense. It’s the same arc that happened to the Escapist. They initially had their ‘magazine’, but eventually that was no longer the main focus of the site. They refocused on some, admittedly good, video content. But even that was not forever, as Loading Ready Run and Extra Credits left.

It’s tough, because those long form high quality articles are exactly the only type of articles I like in games media, but I realize I am a minority there.

Long form sucks not because it isn’t good - it is good - but that there is too much stuff to consume in the world in general. It’s an oversaturated market that unless you’re making The Best Longform Article Ever you’re just not going to get a fraction of the eyeballs a few good tweets will.

Polygon has also shown some degree of contempt for games and game culture (and the diversity in game culture itself), and that is a surefire way of alienating the very audience you are supposed to reach.

Anyway, if Polygon is gone today, I will hardly notice. I stopped reading them years ago and I see no reason to go back.

Past a certain point, Polygon was showing contempt for people who didn’t line up with every last one of their high-minded social criteria, whatever those happened to be this week. Since I can’t help but be one of those less-desirables (instinctive contrarian), my enthusiasm for visiting their site was diminished by the obvious contempt.

What I find weird is how you guys still read Games Journalism in 2017!

I’m not sure I’ve made a point of visiting the front page of any place but Qt3 in the last calendar year.

Then again, I don’t really play games, either. . .

My dude, you think you enjoy being unplugged from it?

I see things show up on Facebook or Qt3 or wherever and my relief at not having to give a shit about how much of an asshole Bobby Kotick or whomever is being today is a physical thing.

Oh, I don’t even know that I enjoy being unplugged from it, so much as I just can’t see much need for it, either the painfully overwrought moral condundrums of Polygon or the Teehee Asian Titties! yellow journalism of Kotaku. . .

Okay, maybe I enjoy the disconnection just a little.

Glixel ran some good stories, Jon Davison was running it.

Yes, Crecente is a bit of a dirtbag. Big downgrade there.

I didn’t even know Glixel existed until now, but I need to check these out. I used to enjoy John and Simon on the old 1UP podcasts.

Ow. Suppose you’re right.

Plus, didn’t they have some spiel about “updating game review scores through the years to keep them relevant” and then never did that, or when they tried to do that they found out it wasn’t a good idea, or something?

My guess is that it turned out to not be worth devoting effort to when no one on Earth would ever see the updated review scores - Metacritic only takes the first score they see, no one is going to click back to archives just to see if their favorite 8/10 game got a score bump after the most recent content update, and I can’t see any games news site wanting to devote front-page and RSS-feed space to articles about games from two years ago.

There was also the time they did that with the SimCity release, once the full release came out and the servers were borked. They revised that down.

And naturally got a ton of hate for it.

So much for games as a service.

Oh! A nice one! Yes, it’s one of those dreaded tweetstorms, but he’s directing it at game journalists. Besides, the main thrust is pretty well summarized in his first tweet.

Everything in the world is the fault of game journalists.