Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits: Archive

Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits

January 2011

45 posts

On 'Game Journos' & Game Journalism Industry,...

Nhaler continues to talk sense. Must be a blue moon: nhaler: Yesterday I posted a rather hyperbolic jab at the gaming-journalism industry. Frustrated with my own general lack of insight presented on the matter, I’ve reconfigured my approach to the issue. Written in response to my Open Appeal to ‘Gamejournos’ and Game Journo Industry, a tumblr in that industry reblogged and added: “everyone...

Open Appeal to 'Gamejournos' & Game Journo...

There’s a lot going on in nhaler’s post, but it’s worth reading. He makes some excellent points. nhaler: I recently sent a message to Ben Patton/Paddon/whateverI’mnotajournalist at gamejournos.tumblr.com, more commonly known as “Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits”, or GJAIF for short. Obviously. Edit: QUEUE FAILED! What else is new? For the uninitiated, ‘Game Journos’...

Anonymous asked: Stop claiming you're taking a 'new direction' with your site. You're pulling the exact same shit you always have. Your goal here - to put game journalists and critics on trial in the hopes of lifting the standards of everyone in the industry (I assume that's your goal, right?) - is admirable, but your execution is fucking awful. Certainly somebody should be running a site...

Anonymous asked: In response to the concept that IGN's readership skews towards younger ages:
It shouldn't matter because Dead Space 2 is an M rated game and not one of those gray area M's like Halo:CE. The game is unquestionably for an adult audience. As such I don't think it's unfair to posit that any review of the game should also be written primarily for that adult audience. -...

Anonymous asked: I appreciate the effort to show up inadequate reviews but I think some of your points in your latest Dead Space 2 review are not required. I think the first two comments you write detract from the overall point you're making.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the reviewer writing in the style that these two excerpts illustrate. The first is his opinion and the second is an...

Anonymous asked: About Gregg Miller. I can read your jealousy between the lines you fucking noob! Go fuck yourself with a shovel you fucking fuck!

bapeonion asked: Re: "About the Smurf's video game article from Joystiq..." post (http://gamejournos.com/post/2918949664/about-the-smurfs-video-game-article-from-joystiq-i) and your reply:

While I agree with you completely, I worry that you're misconstruing how you've come to your conclusions and that it might make readers question your motivations. Knowing your critical...

Anonymous asked: Hi there. I only began reading your articles recently, and I find myself humbled by the coverage here.

I suppose I feel humbled because I used to write video game news for a website myself, and I remember this one time where I made a horrible factual error but was told to not edit it and to ignore the hate mail that came because of the factual error as it resulted in more clicks to...

Anonymous asked: having just found you, i have been reading a lot of this site and laughing :) Good job dude. Also, found the post where Kotaku showed the sony playstation press site password etc. Still works by the way, good job sony!

Anonymous asked: With the superbowl only 2 weeks away we will inevitably see posts on blogs and IGN etc about how Madden feels the superbowl will go, who will win and the score. Do you consider this news worthy of posting, or just crap?

Anonymous asked: About the Smurf's video game article from Joystiq: I agree with your second point on what was wrong in that article, but the first, on how newsworthy it is (the announcement of a video game tie-in to the movie), doesn't seem fair. I am not sure what methods you are using to determine how "newsworthy" a video game is, but I doubt you or any single person can determine that....

IGN's Greg Miller has no idea why his Dead Space 2...

SPOILER ALERT: The review in question contains spoilers for both Dead Space and Dead Space 2, so if you’ve yet to play/finish either game I suggest you give his review and this critique of it a miss. Have you read IGN’s review of Dead Space 2, published at the tail end of last week? If you haven’t, allow me to offer my appraisal of the work: It’s a terribly-written,...

Original Gamer podcast - Jim Sterling vs. Ben... →

Last week Jim Sterling and I sat down to record a podcast moderated by Original Gamer, and now you can have that conversation plumbed directly into your earholes. Which is nice. For you. Of course, the few comments on the OG post for the podcast are hilarious. Apparently Jim utterly destroyed my arguments by agreeing with me on several points, and I’m a troll who agrees with him on several...

Patch notes aren't news, but don't tell VG247...

That’s something of an exaggeration, but nevertheless my stance on whether or not patch notes count as news has not wavered over the last few months - patch notes, despite what VG247’s Joe Anderson may think, are not news. There’s an exception to that rule for most console games, where it isn’t always readily apparent what’s been changed, but I think insofar as MMOs...

Anonymous asked: So you're going to E3? Interesting, joining as media my friend? I'll be there it'll be nice to meet the face of someone who has helped reshape the industry. I've heard many people talking smack about you in the media room I think it's funny how people who criticize for a living can't handle being criticized.

Anonymous asked: Will you be at PAX East? I write for a site you've criticized plenty and I actually enjoy what you do. I'd love to have a chat.

Anonymous asked: I like your Asura's Wraith comment because it links to another post you made about an article that compared game journalism and actual journalism. Some game journalist don't act aggressive when it comes to getting information about not will known games. Do you believe that most game journalist actually just write about games to have a chance get in the industry instead of for the sake of...

Ryan Clements - The Last Person who should be...

A reader sent me a link to this preview of The First Templar over at IGN, written by a man named Ryan Clements. The name didn’t ring a bell, although a quick search on the blog reveals that he rather foolishly wrote a post asking if Microsoft could “win” E3 last year, which is reason enough for me to wish to see him pushed off a ledge and fall into a comically oversized blender....

This post was written on my iPhone, so please excuse any typos and spelling errors. Oh dear, I’ve rather taken a bit of flack for my criticism of Joystiq’s “coverage” of Ubisoft’s The Smurfs announcement. Apparently I’m just being a humorless pedant. Lawks. Certain Joystiq writers always react extremely negatively when I mention their site on the blog....

Game Fanatics decides to run "Konami acquires full... →

If you didn’t know already, Konami have taken steps to purchase the remaining shares of Bomberman developer Hudson Soft., a company they already had majority ownership of. That’s interesting news and it raises questions about the future of Hudson franchises like Bonk and, of course, Bomberman. The last Bomberman game we saw with Konami branding on it was the utterly unforgivable...

Anonymous asked: In prior posts, you've made clear your disdain for Future Publishing - and why not? Platform-specific magazines are pretty wank, official or otherwise. And GamesMaster is for fourteen year olds (or, from my own experience, younger). But what about Edge?

It's consistently well written and well produced, with compelling features, thoughtful reviews, and a decidedly mature...

William Wilkinson: Macbook Pro Scam #2 →

wardrox: willw: Today user ”Only You, Babe” joined Tumblr at 12:55pm, in the next three minutes they reblogged five generic pretty photos, and a minute later posted this: Someone got me a mac book for my birthday not knowing that I already have one. I can’t return it. So I’ve decided to give it away! It… I’m tempted to unfollow anyone I’ve seen reblogging this. It’s clearly a scam. ...

An open letter to Kotaku

Let’s cut to the chase: I don’t like you. I don’t like your approach to gaming news, I don’t like your utter disdain for your readers, and I don’t like the blog network you’re a part of. It wasn’t always that way - Kotaku was my go-to site for gaming news for the longest time until I realized that at least 50% of your news output in a week had bugger-all...

[Submission] Game Informer: The Technology Behind... →

Reader-submitted content follows, with some minor edits. My notes are added to the end in italics. The Radiant AI technology introduced in Oblivion went a long way toward making the NPCs act in realistic ways. If you followed a citizen through his daily activities, you would likely witness him or her eating breakfast, setting out to work the land, stopping by the pub for a pint after work,...

“Capcom’s upcoming Asura’s Wrath was one of the big surprises out of...”

– Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett. Both Kotaku and Joystiq decided to poke fun at the apparent radio silence over Asura’s Wrath following Capcom’s trailer/screenshot drop today. If we forgot about Asura’s Wrath it’s because nobody has covered it since TGS. Why, I ask? Kotaku in...

journeyofagamer asked: May I just ask If you read Rock Paper Shotgun? It's the only place I've come to trust for games to be honest.

We’re going to be going through a transitional period while I rejiggle the format: If I see something I take issue with, I’m going to post about it. I’ll probably explain why I take issue with it, too. I won’t post every damned thing I see that I dislike. Because, honestly, this blog isn’t supposed to be a bullshit aggregate. Post frequency on this site will...

What do you think of the shitstorm surrounding...

I don’t agree with people who say Jim is just trolling when he gives games lower scores than everybody else. His reviews are honest and his scores fit his text. He’s one of the few reviewers who I feel accurately use the 0-10 scale. That said, he’s not always the right guy to review a game. Often it seems like he’s reviewing games that aren’t his thing. This is all...

On the Norris article - the same could be said for...

Well, yes. Obviously yes. Let’s not kid ourselves into pretending that some of the problems I have with game journalism don’t impact other sectors of journalism. I’m sure that the old “I could find anyone else to do your job” thing happens *everywhere*. The point is that it shouldn’t. Ask me anything

Massively "Soapbox" article about game journalism... →

A tipster, who I shall dub “Nifty Nickname” based on his/her request that I give him/her a nifty nickname, sent this article to me. It’s pretty incredible, repeating a few of the points I’ve been making but offering far more detail and explanation than I have to date. This is why I want to change the way I do things. I want to write stuff like this.

Massively "Soapbox" article about game journalism... →

A tipster, who I shall dub “Nifty Nickname” based on his/her request that I give him/her a nifty nickname, sent this article to me. It’s pretty incredible, repeating a few of the points I’ve been making but offering far more detail and explanation than I have to date. This is why I want to change the way I do things. I want to write stuff like this.

[Submission] Kotaku performs journalistic alchemy,...

Reader-submitted content follows: I realize that calling out specific publications for specific infractions may not be something that you want to do anymore. I simply could not let this article from Michael McWhertor regarding the Giffords shooter in Arizona go unaccounted for. So, sorry if I’m wasting your time but at least it will be cathartic for me. Basically, what it comes down to is...

[Submission] Kotaku performs journalistic alchemy,...

Reader-submitted content follows: I realize that calling out specific publications for specific infractions may not be something that you want to do anymore. I simply could not let this article from Michael McWhertor regarding the Giffords shooter in Arizona go unaccounted for. So, sorry if I’m wasting your time but at least it will be cathartic for me. Basically, what it comes down to is...

A cautionary tale

A reader buys a gaming magazine (because this story is set in the early-00’s when people still did that sort of thing) to get a look at the EXCLUSIVE! review of a new game, which for the sake of argument we’ll call Goblin Invaders. The magazine has been running stories and updates on the development of this title for some time now, and excitement has been ramping up. Now, finally,...

“During an argument with a publisher about the disappointingly low salary I was...”

– Tim Norris, at some point presumably prior to the Present-Now. This sort of attitude is apparently still present in modern game journalism if the emails I get from writers and editors is any indication, although I couldn’t comment on how prevalent it is.

I find it amusing that mere hours after Jim Sterling posts a video rant about gaming news sites posting stuff that has zero relevance to the games industry, Dtoid’s Dale North posts about a new variety of Reese’s Pieces launching at CES. Because it launched at CES, a technology show where sometimes games can be found. I’ve relaxed my attitudes on what does and does not...

auberonkingoffairies asked: I'm so fucking glad you're back.

Because I was accused of making shit up in my...

I have been reliably informed that not a single gaming journalist got excited about Deus Ex: Invisible War. Everybody knew from day one that it was going to suck, and nobody generated any false hype. What sort of fool am I, lying about something like that? But what’s this? Santa Claus delivering a late package? My heavens, it’s full of Truth Bombs! From IGN’s IGN’s...

auberonkingoffairies asked: I'm so fucking glad you're back.

This was supposed to be a review of Super Meat...

It’s not uncommon, when reading about games, to be told which games we’re supposed to be excited about. I think I was about half an hour into the demo for BioShock when I realized that I wasn’t actually excited about the game at all, rather that excitement had been artificially generated by the press coverage. I still bought BioShock anyway because I rather enjoyed the demo, but...