blog of war

As you can imagine from my title I've never really been a fan of game journalism....
On the one hand they provide a service, they tell the public about what new releases are coming out, they provide info on titles in development and offer their own opinion on games that are about to be released, or at least that is what they used to do, now thanks to the great leveler of the internet their industry is less important in the chain of game production and in the end isn't that what all this moaning is about from game journos. You see game journos are ego driven, once a long time ago they could make or break a game even before it had been released so the real game industry had to treat them with respect but not anymore, take the recent example of "We love Katamari" every game journo was praising it saying this game deserves to be a hit because it moves the industry forward, it has great ideas blah blah blah but in the end the general public had no interest in it and it was relatively ignored in Britain now in the old days because the press was behind it that would have guaranteed "We love Katamari" top spot in the charts for weeks to come.
The gaming press in general have a great talent of blaming everybody else for their own mistakes take the argument that because of the internet, game magazines are selling less copies WELL look around Q magazine, FHM, NME, What magazine, GQ you don't hear them complaining hmmmmnn maybe your shoddy attempts of journalism have finally caught up with you and in reality the average guy on the street could write a better review of FIFA 68 than you...
Lets take Kieron Gillen as an example on the one hand he says "If Games Journalism is just a job to you, you really shouldn't be doing it. The word should be vocation. but on the other hand he moans about having to meet 19 day deadlines surely someone who is doing their vocation should be able to pull out all the stops and make deadlines isn't that just basic journalism.....
As I was saying earlier journalists no longer have an impact but to be fair its not all entirely their fault lets take "Need for Speed Carbon" as an example. Let me start off by saying that I hate the need for speed series, bad handling coupled with the fact that I can't understand why anyone would want customizeise a virtual car have made me always stay clear of this series but I know that this game will top all the game shop charts for weeks to come, why! well because its the next update from one of E.A.s franchises, same can be said for the next G.T.A, Halo and Final Fantasy games you see if what you are writing about is stagnant then how can you make that interesting, so a modicum of sympathy goes to journalists in that respect...
Now a little bit about New game journalism or NGJ well what can I say, talking about your personal perceptions of a game rather than being subjective or neutral, I have a problem with this style when it come to games writing firstly when Hunter S Thompson did it in the 60s it was in reaction to the time. Watergate happened, for the first time the American public found that their government was lying to them, the facts became less important to people and journalism became about expression now I don't think a bunch of journalists feeling threatened by the internet really compares. so for that reason I think the gaming press can do without it, secondly if you are going to write about any technology be it games or otherwise, I'm sorry but facts are the story, not a story about the facts please....
Till next time.......