While I think - as with any industry with broad coverage - that quality varies a lot and there are some good writers/journos around, the video game industry does seem to be the worst offender.

But consider:

1) if you think you're a shit hot writer/journo why would you pick video games to focus on? You're unlikely to get a Pulitzer Prize writing a review of Bad Sonic Game 8 are you? I suspect the industry doesn't attract the hottest high flying writing talent right of the bat.

2) a lot of coverage is essentially amateur via blogs, etc. Hardly the cream of the crop scenario

3) the industry is highly driven by commerce and getting "hits" which encourages hype and inaccuracies.

4) video-games are hardly the most important topic that could be written about - in that it's easy to think "so what" if you lie or get creative (I mean journos covering important topics can lie and cheat so image how easy it must be to justify when it's only some hit generation fluff about a video-game you're manufacturing?)

5) the industry has a lot of bias and panders to a lot of the various fan-boy camps - again you'll see this in mainstream press with coverage slanted to one political party or another : surely it's easier to feel less harm is done playing up to some 360 or PS3 fans than backing certain political parties?

Basically, the issues aren't any different from other industries and mainstream press just magnified and probably more obvious and amateur.

Well that was a reasonable post.

I wasn't even aware of the fact that he wrote articles. I just used to visit his website back in the day. (I'm kind of an internet OG, you know.)

Maybe part of the reason video game journalists are so subpar is because they're writing about their hobby. I mean, I can only assume that one gets into video game journalism because they like video games to begin with, and that's not exactly conducive to attracting the most talented writers. Plus I know that if I suddenly had to write about games for a living and play games that I didn't really want to in order to write about them, I'd start to hate it and it would come across in the quality of my work.

That's exactly what I thinking. You explained it much better though. From what I've read, I also think Eurogamer has some quality writers and reviewers. As far as reviews, they're one the few sites that I consistently trust.

That sounds like every article he's ever written.

Trolling for hits. It's cool to do it now.

I am not trolling.  I am merely stating what I believe in.  Video game reading material doesn't really scream quality most of the times.  I was just merely trying to point out that most of the video game magazines, video game articles written on the web, etc all mainly suck.  The degree of terribleness can span from the article being extremely bias or just poorly written.  I believe with sticking to such topics as smartphones killed hand held and (insert next system released name) is doomed isn't helping their image.  Being negative allows other to bring up decent suggestions.

Oops thought you were talking about me trolling for hits...

I have noticed I made a lot of suck threads lately.  Whether it be from people driving to more recent music...  I need to stop being such a Debbie Downer!  I am actually kind of proud how I turned my music after 2000+ thread around.

He is alive and is a writer for cracked now.... http://www.cracked.com/blog/author/seanbaby/ 

Aye. Games journalism is almost purely professional op/ed writing, much more fun than just having to regurgitate what comes down the wire from the AP or Reuters.