Is it time for gaming journalism to grow some balls?

[TheWPCTraveler]

DevilRising said:
1. The truth about Phil Fish is that he is a poser and a loser, not a gamer and not someone who was likely ever really interested in MAKING video games. He's probably some shitty art school student who thought he could make something "deep and artistic" and gained undeserved "rock star" status for about five minutes because his highly overrated (and not all that original) game sold a bunch of digital copies. As soon as he came under even the slightest bit of criticism, he gave up and "quit making" the sequel that he likely wasn't even really wanting to make in the first place.

2. Back in the early to mid 90s, "Gaming journalism" actually meant something. Magazines like EGM, Game Pro, Nintendo Power, etc., were actually worthwhile purchases that gave you relatively unbiased, and fairly objective reviews and previews on games, and didn't give "opinion pieces" so much as informative articles on developers, games, etc. In fact, I loved Game Pro's approach they USED to have to rating games, where there was no "Aggregate score" at the end, they rated each facet of a game separately, Graphics, Control, Sound, Fun Factor, etc., and they really told you about the game, not just whether they PERSONALLY liked it or not. They would tell you if a game looked great, but played like shit, or played okay, but had an awesome soundtrack, or played like shit and had a "meh" soundtrack, but was fun as hell. There was no "scale of 1-10" rating, they just told you how each facet of the game ranked, as objectively as possible, and then let YOU, the gamer and prospective buyer, make up your own goddamn mind. If a game straight up sucked, they'd tell you so, but it wasn't just because that was THEIR opinion, but because, by and large, the game actually did suck ass and was poorly made all around.

"Gaming journalism" has been a joke for the last 15+ years, easily, especially all these websites that just feature "Joe Blo" reviews, by guys who call themselves "journalists", but actually aren't, they're just gamers getting paid to post their opinions on the internet. Yet their "review score", all that people even look for these days when LOOKING at reviews, still holds great weight over whether or not some people buy a game. And I'm talking about big outlets too, like Kotaku, IGN, 1Up, GameTrailers, etc.

Especially when you take into account the uber-corporate sellout nature of outlets like IGN and GT, who straight up shill certain games/systems/non-gaming related products (Mountain Dew, Doritos, etc.). It's sad, it's pathetic, and it's not "journalism". "Journalism denotes an ounce of integrity and actual intent to write the truth about a given subject. They don't do that. They just give their personal, highly biased and personal-taste colored opinion, and that's that.



So yeah.......

This, really. I used to read gaming magazines, the ones that fought for their time in the spotlight with good game reviews. They were so fun to read, and I'd really feel enlightened afterward.

Now, I have to read the comment section to at get a fuller take on the matter, which sucks even more because there are so many trolls or blind fanboys around now.