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The Death of (Video Game) Criticism
Denver, 11:39 AM
Sat Dec 5
48 posts in the last 24 hours
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Brian Crecente
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The Death of (Video Game) Criticism |
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12/04/08
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12/04/08
Maybe what papers need to do is cut out the crap that E!, Entertainment Tonight, etc. cover, and try focusing on just being the best source for truth, accurate information, intelligent writing, and accountability. Find some way to convince people that they can only get the best source of pure news from you, buying your paper, paying for a subscription to your site. Though just writing that, I can imagine how that strategy may not be financially sound at all. Maybe things have to hit rock bottom before the situation can get better. Or maybe, even if newspapers in any form do 'recover' they'll never be able to support as large a staff as before.
12/04/08
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12/04/08
[www.rockymountainnews.com]
Looks like you got out just in time.
12/04/08
:(
12/04/08
Trouble on the Rocky Horror News Mountain. : /
12/04/08
I also think there should be a limit to the ownership of news media outlets, as some people like Rupert Murdoch control far to great a percentage of global news media, allowing them to really call the shots as per what's news and what isn't.
12/04/08
What SHOULD have happened was that newspapers should have been cultivating a market to read online and in e-readers -- in fact, they should have come together and developed an e-reader standard. They should have begun the transition before their decline was so pronounced that they may not recover.
They weren't nimble enough and they never evolved, now we as a nation are on the cusp of losing something unbelievably essential to the core foundation of this country. Instead of Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair we have anonymous writers on the Smoking Gun.
12/04/08
Enough doom and gloom. This article does give me faith in video game criticism. Although it is barely learning to crawl, I can't see video games ever getting caught up in the whole celcrity cult thing. Some may kiss the ground that some developers walk, but we don't see these people while playing the games, so I really don't think it will get as bad as movies and television (fingers crossed).
Sorry, I ramble too much.
12/04/08
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12/04/08
There is a place for what respectable newspapers can do, but they may have to change formats and suffer a dark period before they can be as relevant as they once were.
12/04/08
I'll leave it at that. I wouldn't want you to censor my comments against your establishment like you're so eager to do. "No naysayers! Only truth, justice and the Kotaku way!" Right, Brian?
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12/04/08
Also, I don't say that it's about celeb worship, i say it's about something else, so this isn't really a pot/kettle issue.
12/04/08
I remember back when I wrote for my college paper, we would get movie posters, boxes of cds, t-shirts, keychains, screeners, Jerry Springer-themed condoms and countless other things that I can't even remember. If I got this at the tender age of 19, what was a paid professional getting?
Saying that you don't hear about Brad Pitt sending this crap out is like saying that you don't see Miyamoto's return address on the package. They hire armies of PR flacks for this in every industry.
It's broken in every field of criticism.
12/04/08
Hmm so they don't advertise the free crap they're getting. But honestly I don't see the bias in that medium. I don't see certain film programs/magazines blatantly slurp certain stars/companies like in gaming. The only close comparison would be political shows/sites that happily show they're bias.
Think of it this way. I can evenly compare the love Sean Hannity has for repubs to the love G4 shows to the 360 (they actually said the 360 made Netflix relevant) to Rachel Maddow's "hard on" for Obama. I can't think of an example of this in Film. Someone help me out. What maybe Oprah and Tom Cruse? But I may be hijacking this blog, if so sorry Crecente.
12/04/08
1 is the Mission Impossible 2 phenomenon, where a movie gets good reviews when it comes out and then in retrospect a year or 2 later, everyone (even the critics) pretty much admit 'yeah, it was crap'.
There's also the 'damage control' phenomenon where turkeys are given B/B- reviews instead of the F's they reserve. When's the last time you saw a big name movie truly dragged through the mud and fed to the wolves at the time of its release? I can't think of it. Not even "Phantom Menace"
Also, think of the names that keep showing up on covers. They create a context where these people become cultural fixtures
Gaming journalism is young. The flacks haven't learned the subliminal tricks yet, the way that music and movies have years ago. In 15-20 years, games journalism will evolve its own version of sneakiness.
12/04/08
Forget sophisticated analysis of important cultural texts-- I'm more worried that college students can't find Iraq on a map but can nevertheless tell me the detailed individual histories of every turdbag on "The Hills." Film critics are luck they've survived this long.
And what does that say for game criticism? That it's dead in the womb? I have not seen game criticism on any site reach the level of sophistication of an NYT film review. We've got years to go before reaching that level-- that's fine, we have to learn to crawl before we walk-- but it does not bode well that the general trend in cultural criticism is toward less sophistication and more flash.
Maybe we can just blame consumers. You'll read an NYT review of a Cohen brothers film to learn what that writer thinks about the directors' ability to capture our contemporary condition on film. On the other hand, most people reading a Call of Duty review just want to know if the opportunities to blow shit up are worth their 60 bucks. Game critics have to feed that beast before getting all deconstructive. Kind of sad, but the market dictates these things.
12/04/08
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I don't know when Ebert and Siskel started giving thumbs to their subjects, but E's always done stars for reviews in the Sun-Times. That said, I'll make the case for a binary thumb system that it's so vague that it forced Ebert to justify his opinion verbally rather than packing it into the 'score,' unlike Pitchfork which has such a wide range of grades that you often don't need to go past the number.
I think the last major entertainment media not to grade its subjects that I knew of was the Onion's AV Club. I used to pore over their long form reviews, which were so well-written that they occasionally outshone their subjects. Then once the grades came in, it felt like they started getting lazier and shorter. I read them only through joyless compulsion now.
12/04/08
Though I would agree the Up/Down thing did eventually lead to review readers to focus entirely on the ultimate result moreso than the actual review that was written.
Case in point, a fair majority of responses to IGN review scores.
12/04/08
12/04/08
What's wrong Mr Crecente, not enough attention span to proof read your own article? Was it too LONG? :)
12/04/08
12/04/08
While the big papers have to cater to a wide audience, due to their inflexible and permanent type format, the internet news sites have the advantage of immediacy as well as having a front page full of headlines. These headlines are easily expanded upon with nothing more than a simple click which takes people the full story, that can be as long or as short as the writer feels.
In addition, the ads are just as easily displayed along the side or within the page, and not needing a special spot taking up limited space on a page. In the digital format, there is no ads and story fighting for space, as there is unlimited space.
Granted, online provides for it's own challenges, like having too many (or too annoying) ads driving people away, and having a lot more competition from even the smallest upstart. But where newspapers, magazines, and the like need to compete to grab attention within a localized audience, the internet lets the people interested in the subject find YOU.
In short: The future is now, and Kotaku shall lead the way!
/viva la revolution
12/04/08
Obviously, its a less serious issue when you're talking about soft topics like video games...at least for now. I believe as the medium matures over the next couple of decades the necessity for vastly less spin will become apparent. As it currently stands, you have major outlets making offerings like this: [psp.ign.com]
But let's face it, video games are still (to a certain extent) toys and can be reported on with a certain degree of levity. Whether that be Brian Crecente's (frequently) wistful musings or Luke Plunkett's low-grade trolling. The problem with the latter (as well as the IGN example) is that shitting all over a console that members of your readership like and, depending on the headline, are actually reading about smacks of a juvenile antagonism that holds back game writing as it leaves its infancy.
Serious analysis has arrived, but I think we're still a ways away from serious criticism if the actions of 1UP, EGM, IGN, or the occasional rogue Kotaku editor are any indication. The problem as I see it is that far too many editors/writers are approaching the issue of criticism (particularly in the broader sense of critiquing an entire console) from a mindset of "if it has problems, rag on it more" and "if it's popular, don't rock the boat". It would seem as far as we've matured regarding the latter sentiment is to write articles or reviews that tear apart consensus just for the attention it garners . I've yet to see any hard proof that game journalists are willing to offer constructive commentary on soft targets without resorting to flamebait.
In short, I think most people in the field need to ignore the throngs of noisy drones clogging the internet and just present well articulated, constructive articles and opinions without resorting to stoking fires.
12/04/08
I'll agree with you to a certain extent, except serious analysis to almost anything can be found if one looks for it. It's only a Google away, as it were.
Almost any musing in the world can find an audience. Hell, newspapers are finding that their readership actually being BETTER with online editions than regular editions.