Is There Really A Need for Serious Gaming Journalism?

[Mythmaker1]

kowenicki said:

I rarely seen any.

All I see is graduates from the "school of fanboy" or people that couldn't possibly make it in real journalism... poorly researched, badly presented and sensationalist.  Usually kids with a chip on their shoulder.  The main problem is that this is mostly an internet based industry and therefore getting hits is the main driver.

Good point. Probably doesn't help that the infrastructre isn't really there. Not a lot of interest from mainstream press to branch out, which means the only real coverage comes from the most passionate fans...who are also the most biased.

starcraft said:
Absolutely there is. There is virtually no professionalism in gaming reporting.

Look at the Xbox ONE. Poor journalism resulted in a backlash that led to the most innovative features any company was prepared to offer next generation being shut down. It also resulted in the chronic misreporting of Sony's decision to charge for online for over a week, because the gaming media was tickled pink that Sony teased Microsoft to cover the announcement.

Its only after all the damage is done that the gaming media has started to feel a hangover and ask 'what have we done?'

That is a very good point. It was more or less a one-sided beat down on Microsoft, and there wasn't the greatest degree of fair discussion on the topic. At the same time, and as someone who followed the coverage as closely as I could, that probably also had a great deal to do with Microsoft's messaging. It took several weeks for them to properly explain their policies, and by the time they'd spelled it out it was really too late. Granted, it wouldn't have been as much of an issue if the press had been more professional about the whole thing, but Microsoft was pretty unresponsive on the whole issue.

NeoRatt said:

After listening to that eye opening conversation, the first thing I thought of is how everyone stomped all over MS for its DRM decisions and then how there has been very few articles to recast the truth about X1 now that MS reversed their decisions.

To me, that shows that gaming media is very lopsided. And it goes both ways. Sony was cast as the bad guy last gen, now it is MS. The reality is that coverage should be much better balanced and reflective of the broad 250,000,000+ people that bought consoles not just the PS or XB or Wii fanboys that mascarade as balanced journalists.

That's probably the biggest problem. The pool of talent for journalists in this industry is mired in bias, since someone suitably passionate enough to speak out on games likely has some strong biases to start with.