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Saturday 9 November 2013

The farce that is current video game journalism


A lot of you may have noticed a few "video game journalists" (Adam Sessler being one of them) acting rather un-professional lately, by either constantly contradicting themselves, making ludicrous, biased statements and generally just being pretty crappy at their jobs, whilst at the same time making the whole profession look bad.

Not that this is anything new in the world of video game journalism, in truth the bar has been pretty low for some time now, due to petty console wars and fanboyism being rampant in the industry. Choosing to take one side and blindly defending it at the cost ones reputation and credibility, is a practice many video game journalists eventually seem to succumb to (To be fair though, the unwritten rule does seem to be to choose a side or take heat from both) This may be due to the fact that no matter which side of the fence you choose to stand on, you'll always have an army of fanboys eating out of the palm of your hand, so long as you're whispering sweet nothings to them about their beloved and chosen preference. Not only does this practice bolster a persons ranks, it also insights flame wars due to the anger and uproar coming from the other side.

There's usually two possibilities when a video game journalists starts talking nonsense, they are either a fanboy who wants only to look for the best in whatever they are defending or attempting to put on a pedestal. Or they have an agenda, and are willing to use misinformation and even lie through there teeth in order to further whatever goal they have in sight. There's always the third possibility that they've gone stark raving mad, but more often than not it's one of the other two.

Now obviously there are people with legitimate "non biased" personal opinions, right? Well, in reality it's simply impossible for anyone to truly draw their opinion from a well of pure thoughts, because "opinions" no matter what you may think will always be objective, containing personal and biased ideas, formulated through pre-conceived notions and preference. For example, I'm not a fan of sports games so my opinions about them will always be negative in comparison to those who enjoy them, even if I try to look at them objectively it's impossible for me to formulate an opinion with nothing to draw from, I could try to be subjective and look for what others may like about them, however it would still be a biased opinion based on personal assumptions and pre-conceived notions.

A person is not able to formulate an opinion without personal and biased viewpoints inevitably effecting their final conclusion. However the difference with fanboys and those with a personal agenda, is that fanboys tend to avoid even looking at what they like in anything but a positive light, where as those with an agenda choose to spread lies and misinformation knowing full well that what they say is nonsense. My point being? There are far too many fanboys and those looking to further their career at the cost of their credibility currently calling themselves "video game journalists"


Flame bait, I'm really not sure what should surprise me the most, how old the practice is or how painfully effective it continues to be.
Flame wars are the bane of genuine journalism, they make it incredibly difficult to talk openly and intelligently about current, pressing matters due to the close minded people who flock to them, in order to either troll, defend or denounce whatever the articles chosen topic happens to be. However they are incredibly handy at directing traffic toward particular websites especially those with an agenda, remember that many of these "video game websites" aren't interested in publishing facts, news or even intelligent opinion pieces, they simply want "hits" and flame-bait, in the form of reviews or articles is the perfect means to get them.

That being the case, is there really any wonder as to why there is so much blind, fanboy driven nonsense being posted on numerous video game news and information websites all over the Internet? With so much misinformation, blatant lies and biased opinions disguised as facts coming from supposed video game journalists, you'd think we'd all be more inclined to take what we hear with a pinch of salt. But no, gamers, or better yet people, are fickle, if we have a preference for something (which we all do) we naturally like hearing that it's doing well, we also like knowing when it's ahead of the competition. Further more, we like to imagine that the success of whatever we may happen to be a fan of is somehow also our own success, but in these delusions we allow ourselves to be lied to, all so that we can brag about being better than those who support "the losers" all while the exact same nonsense is happening on the other side of the fence.

The console war is not the sole problem, the console war provides competition, it also prevents any one company from gaining a monopoly and forces the console manufacturers to try to out-do one another. But it also breeds contempt, not solely due to people believing their chosen allegiance is superior, but because people begin to deliberately ignore where their favourite companies are going wrong, too preoccupied with hating on the competition and all too willing to lap up whatever nonsensical drivel people in the industry, or even video game journalists are spouting.

As The console war round 2 kicks off, it will yet again be up to gamers to decide whether or not they want a clean fight and real journalistic coverage. Or more sucker punches, fanboy drivel and flame-bait articles.

So what can be done? Well, my advice to all of you is to stop fanning the flames. It's simple really, as soon as you stop paying attention to flame bait articles, journalists screaming for attention or just talking nonsense, then all the genuine video game journalism will be pushed to the front. I'm not saying everything will be fixed over night, but trying to fight fire with fire has proven time and time again to be futile. As for the fanboys, well there's always going to be fanboys, but the more legitimate journalism we have available to us the more easily we'll be able to call them out and put a stop to their misinformed claims or outright lies.

Like most everyone reading this blog, I enjoy playing video games and I honestly care about the video games industry. If this blog has opened anyone's eyes to the many issues currently plaguing video game journalism, or even just made you think twice about clicking on a blatant flame bait article, then I consider that a small victory for us all.

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