Tag: games journalism

1571: Fork in the Road

I’m at one of those points in my life where I feel I’ve reached a definite “fork in the road” where I need to decide if I’m going to continue on my current path, or branch off in a different direction. Going backwards is not an option, but both paths ahead are fraught with trials and difficulties.

The road to the left is a continuation of the road I’ve been taking. It’s the road that proceeds merrily through the land of Gamindustri, looping and wending its way past anthropomorphised hillocks and clouds before taking occasional detours into explosive-devastated warzones, alien landscapes and racetracks. It’s a fun road, but you never know what’s coming next; over the next hill could be a pot of gold, or there could be a pit of spikes.

The road on the right I don’t know much about. Not long after the fork there’s a tunnel, and the lights inside seem to have failed. It’s difficult to tell how far the tunnel goes, too; there’s no way of seeing the light at the other end of it. But there are people coming and going, and they look if not actually happy then certainly at least vaguely satisfied with what is going on. None of them look as if they’re afraid about what’s happening either now or in the future, and it’s then that I notice that posted along the side of the road are a number of uniformed officers. They’re not armed and they carry kindly expressions on their face; I get the impression they’re there to keep everyone safe and protect them from the unknown. There is no such detail on the road to the left.

All of this is a rather pretentious way of saying that I think I’m going to have to make a decision soon: whether to continue pursuing life in the games industry, or whether to try and branch off in another direction. As I alluded to above, both roads carry their own fair share of potential pitfalls.

Were I to take the left road, it’s doing so on the understanding that I can’t relax. Even if I work my hardest, there’s no guarantee that I won’t simply wake up one day to discover an email politely informing me that I will soon be out of a job through no fault of my own. And when that happens, there’s no guarantee of being able to immediately score a new job; more often than not, it means a return to either begging for scraps as a freelancer or, were the unlikely to happen and I find myself with a new position straight away, having to work my way back up from the bottom, effectively starting my career over again. This has happened to me a couple of times now and it is already starting to get a bit old.

Were I to take the right road, I have to deal with the true unknown, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to find my way to safety and security. My particular combination of qualifications and experience opens up a relatively narrow number of potential career paths to me, and looking at job site listings it can be challenging to determine exactly what type of job I should be looking for, or if it’s even worth applying to things that sound like they might fit the bill. There’s also the feeling that I’m walking away from something that, when it goes well, I do genuinely enjoy doing.

I love writing about games. But I hate — hate — how volatile the games journalism business is. I understand the reasons for it — and it’s a risk we all acknowledge when we enter into it — but that doesn’t make it suck any less when promising careers are cut short for reasons that aren’t any fault of the people in question.

Which is why, to be perfectly frank, I’m leaning towards the right road. I’ve already put in some applications to jobs that are nothing to do with games, with the intention of, if I successfully secure a position, continuing doing games writing purely for myself and those who wish to follow me through projects such as MoeGamer. Given that Andie and I have recently purchased a house — we get the keys tomorrow, in fact — I am getting to the stage where financial security and not having to continually worry on a week-by-week basis about whether I still have a job is worth far more than being able to say that my hobbies and passions are also my career.

That’s a sad and disappointing way of looking at the world, and I’m annoyed that I’m even thinking that way. But unless there’s a significant change in the way the games journalism business works, I’m not sure I can take going through this whole process again.

1423: Enough With the “Corruption” Allegations

Cracked published an article today that pissed a lot of people off. (I’m not linking to it, but here’s a Pastebin of the relevant section.)

This is nothing unusual, of course, what with Cracked being renowned for clickbaiting rather than particularly rewarding content, but today it crossed a line from being relatively inoffensive clickbait into perpetuating some bullshit that has been on the rise for a few years now: the assumption, among certain members of the public, that game journalists are inherently corrupt, and that good review scores are frequently “bought” by publishers, particularly those who are advertising on the site in question.

The assumption that this sort of thing is going on probably goes back to “Gerstmanngate” back at Gamespot, when Jeff Gerstmann was let go following a mediocre review of Kane & Lynch from Eidos, and the story runs that Eidos put pressure on Gamespot to let Gerstmann go because they were ploughing a lot of money into the site at that time, paying considerable amounts to “reskin” all of Gamespot with a Kane & Lynch theme. It took several years — and Gamespot purchasing Gerstmann’s new online home Giant Bomb — before the full story came out, and it actually wasn’t all that different to what it appeared to be in the first place, though there were a few other factors at play, too.

The fact is, in this instance, Gerstmann didn’t do anything wrong, and Gamespot’s behaviour in this instance was highly irregular for the rest of the industry — so much so that it’s an incident still talked about today, and one which hasn’t been recreated since. And yet somehow we’re still plagued with the assumption that the big gaming sites — and indeed some of the smaller ones — are in cahoots with the publishers, with stacks of cash regularly changing hands in exchange for good review scores. The Cracked piece’s evidence for this was the disparity between Metacritic critic aggregates and user review scores for a variety of popular titles, including Mass Effect 3, Call of Duty Ghosts and a few others — neglecting to take the commonplace practice of “review bombing” into account, whereby Metacritic users deliberately skew their scores in one direction or the other in an attempt to influence the overall user rating. (This also happens on Amazon.)

I can categorically state that any respectable site worth its salt in today’s modern gaming industry is completely independent from developers and publishers, and has no moral or financial obligation to be nice to people. Reviews of video games are the opinion of one or two people at most, and common practice in the industry sees people who are interested in particular genres being given games of that type to review — it makes sense, since they have the specialist knowledge, and giving a game of a particular type to someone who clearly is not experienced in that genre often attracts accusations of bias in the other direction, so sites can’t really win.

Packets of money do not change hands in exchange for review scores. The most contact your average video game journalist has with a publisher during the review process is a couple of emails back and forth requesting review codes, and perhaps another when it’s all over sending a link to the publisher’s PR representative sharing the review. Review events such as the writer of the Cracked piece describes are relatively unusual, and most outlets deliberately eschew these tightly-controlled environments in favour of giving their reviewers adequate time to spend with the game and get a good feel for it, rather than playing edited highlights with a PR person breathing down their neck. These events do occasionally happen, of course, particularly for big games, and they can be useful — Call of Duty events can be a good opportunity to test out the games’ multiplayer modes before the game goes live on public servers, for example — but for the most part, lavish, PR-funded events tend to be for previews rather than reviews, and again, no money exchanges hands. Because why the hell would it?

The Cracked piece is based on a number of completely unsubstantiated assumptions, and on a number of flat-out inaccuracies. Publishers do not pay either outlets or individual reviewers for the right to quote their words on box art or in trailers, for example; nor do any but the most disreputable publications charge publishers for reviews — look at the recent controversy over Indie Game Mag, for example; they’ve since released the person who was attempting to charge for reviews and ditched his policies, since pretty much any games journalist or outlet with any respectability was genuinely shocked and disapproving of what was going on there.

I’ve worked for a number of different magazines and online outlets over the years — both paid and unpaid — and all have been the absolute picture of honour, respectability, professionalism and ethics. Ironically, the rest of the Cracked piece actually made some fair points about the state of the industry in 2013 — though I disagree fundamentally with its core assertion that the industry is teetering on the brink of a crash — but, J.F. Sargent and Dave Williams, your unsubstantiated allegations about the games press are massively disrespectful to those of us who work our arses off every day to bring people the latest news, views and opinions about what’s hot in gaming, and it’s extremely disappointing to see that even after widespread criticism of the Cracked piece today, it still has not been edited, modified or clarified.

Perhaps this is revenge for all the times people have referred to Cracked as lowest-common-denominator Internet clickbait with absolutely no journalistic integrity; unfortunately, pieces like this one today only go to prove that there’s more than an element of truth to those allegations.

1367: Alpha

Eurogamer published the first of its “alpha and beta reviews” earlier on the subject of Peter Molyneux’s possibly rubbish new God game Godus.

The posting of said review, coupled with the accompanying justification for it (including why it doesn’t carry a score) immediately prompted the usual snark on Twitter. This made me gnash my teeth in frustration.

After the previous paragraph, it will probably not surprise you to learn that I’m actually in favour of Eurogamer doing what it’s doing — and no, not just because I work for their sister site USgamer. No, I actually think this is an important thing, particularly given recent developments in the growing “early access” model of selling games — and the fact that some people apparently aren’t aware of said developments.

You’re probably already familiar with the basic “early access” programme — buy something, often for a cut-down price, and get immediate access to an early version of the game so you can 1) try it out before everyone else does and 2) provide some feedback that can actively help with development. It worked for Minecraft, it worked for Frozen Synapse and there’s plenty of others out there it’s worked for too.

Here’s the strange new development, though: a number of free-to-play games have put themselves in Steam’s Early Access catalogue. Nothing unusual, you might think, until you notice that they’re actually charging for you to play this early version. In effect, you’re paying to be part of a closed alpha/beta test for a game that won’t cost any money to download when it’s finished.

This is weird, no?

Okay, in most cases you’re not just paying for access — in the case of Snow, you get some bonus items and in the case of Magicka: Wizard Wars‘ upper tiers, you get a full copy of Crusader Kings II for considerably less than its full retail price — but it still seems a little odd; I can’t get away from the fact that you’re “buying” a free-to-play game.

And this is why Eurogamer’s idea of specifically reviewing commercially available alpha and beta versions is a sound one. It’s something distinct from a hands-on preview — which is what most of the snark from earlier was comparing it to — because it discusses something that people can actually hand over money for right now, despite the fact it’s not finished. A hands-on preview typically comes from something that not everyone has access to, be it a play with the game at a developer’s office, a behind-closed-doors look at a trade show, or even a report on a demo from a consumer show such as Eurogamer Expo that not everyone would have had the opportunity to attend for whatever reasons; by contrast, an alpha/beta review lets people know whether or not it’s worth spending their hard-earned money on something that may or may not cost a different amount of money when it’s finished being developed — or indeed something that may be completely free when it’s finished.

Being informed is important, particularly when it comes to making a decision about whether or not to spend money on something. I think we’ll start to see more of this sort of thing in the near future, and it’s going to be an important part of how we look at the development process of games in the coming years.

1015: JARNAWRITINGLIZMZ

The discussion surrounding the recent “Games Journalists Might Be Corrupt” debacle continues, it seems, with a recent piece by Ben Kuchera over on the Penny Arcade Report summarising nicely why it’s an issue worth discussing. I don’t really want to get into that conversation again right now because it’s already being researched and reported on by people with more time and resources on their hands than me.

What I do want to talk about, though, is the ancillary discussion which always crops up any time Issues surrounding “games journalism” crops up — that is, a matter of what is “games journalism” and the divide between “journalist”, “blogger” and any other definitions you’d care to give.

I saw an interesting quote earlier today on Twitter. I forget who it was from so I can’t link to it, unfortunately, but it read something like this:

“Don’t get into games journalism because you like games. Get into it because you love writing.”

That’s exactly the reason I enjoy writing about games — because I love writing, as the 1014 posts prior to this will attest. I mean, sure, I love games, too, but I could love games without wanting to write about them, and yet I voluntarily compose thousands of words on the subject every week — here, over at Games Are Evil and for my day job. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it.

There’s something of an air of snobbery surrounding writing about games, though, and it’s all to do with that “J” word. When outlets like Polygon publish a piece like this, you get people expressing genuine surprise that someone has “done some actual games journalism”. For sure, well-researched investigative pieces are very much worthy of note and should be praised — but just as in regular newspapers, they are not the be-all and end-all of writing. In mainstream culture and current affairs, we have plenty of critical and opinion pieces alongside the deep-dive investigative pieces — so why is this sort of thing looked down upon in games writing?

It’s the obsession with that “J” word. “Journalism” carries with it certain expectations — specifically, reporting and investigation, and perhaps uncovering some facts that might not have come to light otherwise. But there’s just as much value in someone composing an in-depth personal response to something they’ve played in detail, or indeed an opinion piece on a pertinent current issue in the industry.

It’s not “one size fits all”, in short, and I think part of the problem in the “writing about games” sector (whatever you want to call it) is that too many outlets are trying to be one size fits all. We see sites like VG247 posting articles on everything from the latest DLC drop for Call of Duty to sales figures via who has got a new job on a magazine — something which the vast majority of gamers who are not involved in the industry probably wouldn’t give a toss about. We have sites like GamesBeat experimenting with a review format that features feedback from a games critic, a business analyst and an academic, and it’s not entirely clear who that’s for.

We need greater focus and less generalisation. The outlets that are good at “real journalism” such as Kuchera’s Penny Arcade Report (and to a lesser extent Polygon) should keep doing what they do because it’s important — and it’d be good to see more outlets focusing on this side of things with properly-trained staff. But at the same time, the sites who are effectively “magazines” as opposed to “newspapers” should keep doing what they’re doing too. Their work is no less valid or important, but their purpose is different — while the “journalistic” outlets’ primary purpose is to inform, the “magazine” outlets’ primary purpose is to entertain. There’s a degree of crossover between both, of course, but I can’t help but feel that focusing on either one or the other rather than ending up doing a half-assed job at both would benefit everyone in the long run.

I actually wrote a piece on this subject a while back regarding the ever-controversial Kotaku, a site which consistently draws heat for its seemingly “irrelevant” articles and often irreverent attitude. I still stand by what I say in that post — if Kotaku was more honest and open about its target audience (18-30 year old men) and tailored its content accordingly, then I feel it would be a better publication as a result.

It’s also what I’m trying to do over at Games Are Evil with a limited team and resources. We’re not under any illusions about being the first to report on anything or the most timely with our coverage, but in acknowledging that fact and taking a more “magazine-like” approach — weekly, focused columns punctuated by brief news snippets on subjects that are a little “off the beaten track” and regular features such as our daily Song of the Day — I feel we’re building a better, more distinctive publication rather than yet another “me too” blog, and one that I’m actually pretty proud of so far.

Anyway. The “games journalism is broken” discussion will probably continue in perpetuity, particularly given recent events. I do know one thing, though, and that’s that I am really glad I am not Lauren Wainwright right now.

1011: Sigh… Another Shitstorm

Boy, it all kicked off earlier. Again.

For those who missed the whole shebang, basically, this is the flow of events over the last two days to the best of my knowledge.

Yesterday:

  • Twitter “debate” erupts over whether or not it was ethical for UK games journalists attending the annual “Games Media Awards” ceremony to be tweeting promotional hashtags in the hope of winning a PS3.
  • Winners of said competition name-checked by several Twitter users.
  • Several of said winners speak up and say they are giving away their PS3s.
  • Eurogamer publishes this article by Robert Florence (now recreated on GAF because the Eurogamer-hosted one has been edited) in which he notes that journalists defending such a competition could be seen as corrupt. He quotes tweets from several public sources (mostly Twitter) in said article.
  • MCV staff writer Lauren Wainwright, who was originally quoted in Florence’s article, posts on Facebook “Yes, I’ve seen it. Yes, it’s slander. No, it’s not being taken lightly.” and quickly makes it clear that she is referring to Florence’s article.

Today:

Most of the salient points surrounding this issue have probably already been addressed far better than I will do in this post, but since this is my personal blog I thought I would give my take on the matter, as something of an “outsider” to the UK games industry. (It’s true; despite living in the UK, pretty much all games/tech journalism work I’ve done in the last few years has been for American outlets — the last UK publication I wrote for was the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, and that was back when the N64 was one of the current-generation consoles.)

I have come to the conclusion, not just as a result of this shitstorm, that I am Not A Fan of the UK games journalism industry.

Actually, that’s not quite true — there are plenty of people in the UK industry with a considerable degree of integrity who sadly toil away in relative obscurity. People like Lewis Denby over at Beefjack, Ashton Raze and Tom Hoggins over at The Telegraph’s games column, and itinerant freelancer Chris Schilling — and scores of others, too, most of whom I follow on Twitter. These are all people that I may not have had the pleasure of actually meeting in most cases (though I met Denby at the Houses of Parliament one day) but whom I have interacted with and have grown to trust the opinions of. I have no issue with these people.

However, what I do have an issue with is the “old boys’ club” that is at the core of the UK games journo industry; a toxic heart beating away and infecting all around it with its bitterness and vitriol. In this inner circle, most people seem to actively hate their job, mocking it at every opportunity and deriding genuinely interesting ventures such as a games journalism introductory session that IGN attempted to host in London a short while back. The apparent priority for a number of these individuals — from what I can tell from their public output, anyway — is getting drunk and taking the piss out of the medium they’re supposed to be representing. “VIDEOGAMES,” they’ll say (and misspell), deriding something that everyone is already aware of and completely ignoring the more interesting things going on in the business.

The focal point of all this vitriol is surely the Games Media Awards, an odious annual event hosted by Intent Media, the parent company of Wainwright’s employer MCV. Now, you might not think that celebrating the achievements of hardworking journalists is a bad thing, and for the record, I don’t either — but for the last two years I have seen nothing but obnoxious behaviour surrounding this event. I don’t know about you, but for a professional industry awards ceremony, I expect a certain level of professionalism, formality and decorum — none of which are readily apparent in the slightest when looking at the GMAs, which are little more than a pissup for journalists organised by PR staff and publishers.

I knew that something was up when the “humorous” Twitter account promoting the event last year was publicly lambasting anyone (including me) who took umbrage with its less-than-professional tone. These suspicions were only confirmed when the sponsors for the event showed up brandishing about a million free condoms and with an army of dwarfs in tow. The event was a complete debacle and many of the journos present did decry the sponsor Grainger Games’ behaviour as abhorrent, to be fair — but equally, there were plenty of “oh man, I was so drunk” stories circulating.

This year, it was a different controversy — specifically, a whole lot of behaviour which Florence quite accurately pointed out could be interpreted as shilling. Journos were getting their photograph taken with the dude from Far Cry 3 and tweeting about some game I’ve never heard of called Defiance, and publicly sharing both on Twitter. Some people quite rightly criticised this, and that’s what kicked off this whole debacle. Specifically, it was Intent Media and various other members of the “inner circle” defending their behaviour that kicked off this whole debacle.

You see, part of the problem with the “inner circle” is that it believes itself superior and immune to criticism. At no point were those who had been “caught in the act” willing to discuss the possibilities that their actions might be misinterpreted, whatever the actual intentions behind them. Wainwright’s “complaint” and possible threat of legal action is just one of many silencing tactics that have been used surrounding this issue, with the others being the old favourite “remember when we just talked about games? Games were fun!” and “get back to work” arguments.

Well, yes, games are fun, and it would be nice to get back to talking about them. But these conversations that we’re having here are important, too. This whole ridiculous situation came about for a reason, after all, and it’s something that the industry should learn from. Specifically, outlets should begin getting their staff better acquainted with media law, and they should also instill in their employees a culture that criticism is not always a negative thing; sometimes it is an opportunity to grow, change and improve.

Will the industry actually learn from this, though? Probably not, sadly. I would, however, like to state for the record that I have never seen this level of ridiculously shameful behaviour from the American games press. Sure, there’s been plenty of public spats — particularly surrounding high-profile figures such as Destructoid’s Jim Sterling and the Polygon crew — but nothing that’s actually left me feeling as ashamed of the industry I’ve worked so hard to be a part of as the last 48 hours have.

I’ll leave you with this excellent piece by Jeff Grubb from back in the early days of Bitmob. I agree with everything my hirsute honey says. And that’s the last I will say on the matter!

#oneaday Day 771: The Trouble With Kotaku Might Not Be Quite What You Think

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Yesterday, Internet Rage focused the full power of it’s +5 Cannon of Ranting at Kotaku, and not for the first time. On this particular occasion, the problem was this article, by all accounts a rather obnoxious piece by comedian Kris Kail describing the fact that he supposedly managed to get laid several times in a room filled with Sonic the Hedgehog memorabilia.

The article drew heat for several reasons. Firstly, it was simply quite bad taste. Secondly, it was rather obnoxiously self-congratulatory, and a thinly-veiled attempt for Kail to sell more copies of his book Slacker’s Paradise. Thirdly, and this is the thing that Kotaku has most commonly taken flak for in the last few years, it was really only tangentially related to video games.

Editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo took to Twitter shortly after it became very clear that reaction to the article’s publication was almost universally negative. His response, though, was somewhat curious, as it seemed like he was apologising for something different to what everyone was upset about.

“The only person who has to apologize for stories on Kotaku is me,” he tweeted. “It was my call to run the Sonic story. I had expected it to come off as funnier. That was an error of judgment. But, more significantly, I owe our readers an apology for okaying a story that implies all gamers are straight men. I should’ve caught that. It’s no small thing. No article on Kotaku should make you feel that you don’t count as a gamer. If one does, that is my fault and inconsistent with Kotaku values. I must also add that humor and writing about sex isn’t off-limits at Kotaku. We just have to do it right and not forget our own standards.”

While it’s good that Totilo responded so quickly to criticism, certainly on my Twitter feed the fact that the article was supposedly assuming an all-straight male readership wasn’t really the issue — rather, it was the poor taste and seemingly rather pointless nature of the article on a site which is supposedly about video games.

But that got me to thinking. What is Kotaku really trying to do?

Then a theory hit me. It became obvious what Kotaku seemingly wants to do, despite its half-hearted attempts to be “inclusive” to everyone. It wants to be a “men’s magazine” a la FHM, Maxim et al, but one that focuses on games. Were the site to be branded as such and have the confidence in its content to say “yes, we are specifically aiming at a straight male demographic” then articles like the above actually wouldn’t be all that out of place. Those who didn’t fit into that core demographic might not enjoy that sort of content, sure — but if the site was obvious enough about its intentions, it wouldn’t provoke nearly as much ire.

There’s precedent for this sort of thing, too. A good few years back now, there was a short-lived magazine from PC Zone and Maxim UK publisher Dennis known as Escape. It focused on video games, Internet culture and the Web’s formative years alongside the usual scantily-clad ladies found in more “general interest” men’s mags like its stablemate Maxim. It’s a real shame it’s not around any more. There’s actually arguably a place for a publication like that on newsstands today.

Because you know what? It was pretty good. It brought together Things That Men Like under one convenient header. Games. The Web. Girls. Sports. “Alternative” culture. It took a few risks with its content, too; most memorable for me was the occasion when they quasi-scientifically attempted to test the theory that video games were better than sex by wiring up my brother to a heart monitor and then making him have sex, wank, talk to a stranger, play a video game and bungee jump. Surely a high point in his career. (Bungee jumping “won”, by the way.)

I can’t help but feel that the “blog/news aggregator” format for gaming sites has had its day, and that the way forward is for outlets to specialise both in their content and their core demographic. Video game culture is all-encompassing nowadays, covering men, women, kids, adults, straight, gay, trans, nerd, enthusiast, casual, PC, console, any combination of identifying characteristics you might name. As awesome as that is for the cultural penetration and acceptance of gaming as a mainstream medium, it does mean that you start to get to a stage where you can’t please everyone. So why not focus on a specific demographic? If you’re up-front and honest about being, say, a “men’s” site and focusing on content as such, those people who have no interest in straight male-focused content can move on to any of the bajillion other sites out there (it’s not as if we have a shortage, after all) while those who enjoy that sort of thing can stick around without feeling “guilt”.

Some sites are already wise to this. We have GayGamer.net specifically choosing to cater its audience towards (I quote) “boys who like boys who like joysticks and girls who like girls who like rumble pads”. We have Gamers With Jobs specifically catering towards the older gamer who doesn’t necessarily have the time to play everything but enjoys some mature discussion. We have Girl Gamer, specifically aimed at female players. And doubtless there are numerous others catering specifically to other markets, too.

So why doesn’t Kotaku bite the bullet and make a bold shift in editorial direction, specifically stating that it is going to court the straight gamer market above all else?

The answer is sadly probably the most simple one. Hits. By attempting to be “universally appealing” (and, as we’ve seen, often failing) Kotaku aims to get the largest possible audience of people who are just interested in “video games” as a general, amorphous concept. More hits means more advertising revenue means the site can continue to grow and be a household name in gamer culture. At the same time, controversies such as that which occurred yesterday over this article attract people to the site, in much the same way as the Daily Mail posts deliberately contentious headlines in order to direct outraged traffic their way. Any publicity is good publicity, as they say.

It’s a cynical view, perhaps, but it’s also not an unreasonable assumption to make given Kotaku’s recent history. Consider, however, something that Arthur Gies of Vox Games said on Twitter last night:

You know what brings people to content? Good writing. You know what else brings people to content? Outrage. Which would you rather support?

There is a place and a demographic for content such as the Sonic the Hedgehog piece we saw yesterday. But that place is not on a site which purports to be universally appealing to all gamers.

The solution to this is one of rebranding and targeting that specific audience without guilt or apology — but sadly, I can’t help but feel it’s a bit too late for Kotaku now.

#oneaday Day 643: Out, Hyperbolical Fiend!

I think I’m allergic to hyperbole.

Well, okay, maybe “allergic” isn’t quite the right word. I don’t break out in a rash or anything any time someone says that something popular is good. But I do tend to find that excessive hype actually dulls my enthusiasm for something rather than fuels the fires as it may once have done in the dim and distant past.

Take the recent release of Batman Arkham City. By all accounts, it’s a marvellous game (apparently) but I have very little desire to rush out, buy it and play it. There are a number of reasons for this — cashflow, the fact my Pile of Shame grows seemingly by the day at times, and the fact I’m still playing Xenoblade Chronicles — but seeing the relentless fawning all over it recently has been a little offputting. I find it doubly offputting due to the anti-consumer practices which have been foisted upon it — for the unfamiliar, a chunk of game content is locked off behind a single-use code, meaning that only people who purchase the game brand new will be able to access it without paying extra.

From what I’ve heard, this butchered content actually isn’t particularly good, anyway, so at least that’s something — but it still smarts to know that companies are wilfully screwing over consumers in the hope to make an extra buck. There is literally no good reason for this to be implemented in the case of Arkham City, which is a single player game. Online passes which lock off multiplayer modes can use the “it’s helping to pay for the servers” argument, which is slightly more plausible, though which can still be easily debunked.

But we’re not talking specifically about Online Passes here. We’re talking about hyperbole in general.

The “big games” of the year are all coming out within the next few weeks, and it’s surprising how little I care. I attribute this to several factors: firstly, most of them are first-person shooters that involve Soldiers With Guns, and secondly, having seen the PR circus teasing pointless information about them for the last [x] months, I’m sick of the sight of them already and they’re not even out yet.

I perhaps wouldn’t be quite so sick of the sight of them were it not for the fact that the publishers of these heavily-hyped titles treat them as “products” or “consumables” rather than what they actually are, which is interactive creative works.

Let me give you some sample quotes from press releases to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here.

This delay is a move to ensure players and fans of our promise and vision to produce high-caliber games that deliver the best quality game experience.

— Sony, on the Payday: The Heist delay.

We are thrilled to see Ezio enter the world of Soulcalibur, as we believe the values of both brands fit together. We think that this partnership will bring a great new gameplay experience to both Soulcalibur and Assassin’s Creed fans.

— Ubisoft, on Ezio being the guest character in Soulcalibur V.

Letting fans vote for the UFC Undisputed 3 cover athlete is a unique way for us to connect with our extensive worldwide audience of UFC fans, fighting game enthusiasts and more casual sports followers. We look forward to seeing if Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre or Cain Velasquez has what it takes to grace the cover of what will be the most invigorating MMA videogame release to date.

— THQ, on the pointless social media marketing ploy that is getting people to vote for what sweaty man will appear on the box of UFC Undisputed 3.

As you can see, these titles are being treated as products, commodities, things to be sold. All soul is sucked out of them any time you let someone with a title that includes “Vice President of [pointless-sounding department]” or “CEO” talk about it. Meaningless adjectives are applied, and talk turns to “brands” and “engaging with audiences” rather than “making a fucking badass game”.

The developers should be talking about these games. The people who are creating them, building them, testing them. Not some suit who has probably never picked up a controller by choice in his life.

Imagine how much better a press release would be if it were written by the developers and they were allowed to show some enthusiasm and/or honesty about their work, rather than sticking to a rigidly defined PR schedule.

In fact, let’s do better than that. Let’s write one.

LONDON, October 23 2011 — Studio A33 today announced their new game “Hobbit Blasters”, soon to be available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

The game revolves around the tired old concept of pointing a gun at things and pulling the trigger, but this one features arcade-style point scoring with big numbers and loud noises that make it more fun than anything you’ve ever played ever.

“Seriously, you know, it might sound a bit lame,” said Dave Thunder, lead programmer on the project, “but give it a chance. Hobbits are annoying. No-one ever seemed to comment on that fact when Lord of the Rings was big. We’re allowing you to blow the shit out of those little scrotes in HD and you wouldn’t believe how satisfying it is, particularly if the guys from the publisher have been in all morning making us sit through pointless meetings about stock value and other things we really couldn’t give a flying fuck about. There’s blood and guts and it really, positively, absolutely is fun, I promise. And if it isn’t, you can have £10 of my own money. And a pint. And a cake.”

Hobbit Blasters is in early stages of development but Studio A33 is more than happy to show off its work, warts and all, to any who are interested in seeing it.

“It’s a bit shit at the minute,” said Sally Harpy, lead graphic designer on the project. “But that’s to be expected. We’ve not long been working on it. What do you want, stunning graphics from day one? Give me a fucking break here. I’ve been slaving over concept artwork for months, and now I have to implement all that shite into the game. But if you want to come and have a look, be my guest.”

Hobbit Blasters is due out when it’s finished.

#oneaday, Day 319: Report This Post, It Contains Opinion

There is an increasingly popular—and increasingly worrying—tendency for games journalism and writing about games (which some people are keen to point out are two different things) to be judged as “broken” or “lame”.

On paper, you can perhaps understand why this is. Gaming is one of the most popular subjects for wannabe writers to pebble-dash the Internet with, and there are so many people out there who want to do it “professionally” that a good 90% (I made that up) of gaming-focused sites out there can’t even pay their writers, however awesome they are. As such, there is a lot of crap out there, but it’s generally quite easy to spot, and there’s certainly no need for sites like this.

Fellow #oneaday-er and all-round lovely grumpy chap Ian Dransfield of Play Magazine wrote an impassioned rant on this subject. I highly recommend you go and read it. Now. Go on.

I agree with the Dransfield. No kind of journalism should be homogenised, automaton-written garbage. It should have scope for individual opinion and comment, and certain outlets should have the opportunity to develop distinctive “voices” on the matter. It’s worked for our newspapers for years, after all—for all the shit everyone gives the Daily Mail about their bizarre and often misguided opinions, at least they stick to their guns. Similarly, were the Daily Express ever to write about anything other than Princess Diana, the nation would be in uproar.

One of the things that bugs me most about today’s games journalism is the plague that is N4G. For the uninitiated, N4G is a community-driven news-aggregation service. Community members may post articles to a “pending” queue, and they then have to get ten “approvals” in order to show up in the main news feed.

Fair enough, you might say. It separates the wheat from the chaff, surely. And surely the people who have approval rights must all be published professionals, right?

Wrong. Anyone can submit any page to N4G with no requirement that the article be your own. Get three articles approved by the community (a simple case of rounding up ten Twitter/Facebook friends to help you) and voila—approval rights. This then means that your opinion has as much weight as someone who’s been doing the job for fifteen years.

This may still not sound unreasonable. So let me show you the drop-down menu of options available for “reporting” an article if you believe it to be “inappropriate”:

Yes, you have read that correctly; one of the options for reporting an article as unworthy of appearing in the N4G news feed is that it is “lame”.

N4G is seen as a primary means of promoting games-related articles, and sure enough, it does seem to generate a lot of hits for sites, so I can’t fault those people who do take advantage of it to get more readers to their sites—fair play to you. I can say with some honesty, though, that I have never used it as a place to go to find out the latest news. The whole thing is too chaotic, too run by people who write comments after reading only the headline and not the article and—ugh—it makes me mad, I tellsya. I can’t take it seriously in the slightest.

My main issue with it is one of the things Dransfield points out in his article: who are these people to say what is and is not “relevant”? What gives them the right to brand something as “lame” simply because it doesn’t have “HALO IS A REALLY COOL GUY” in the headline? What gives them the right to ignore a supposed “duplicate article” on a subject which offers some opinion or additional facts over and above what has already been written first, in haste?

Absolutely nothing. Traditional news outlets and even longer-established specialist press (such as publications for music and films) aren’t held to account in the same way. But games journalism, being a younger industry, seems to be held to entirely different standards, and judged unnecessarily harshly. There is a lot of negativity surrounding the games press, and not enough positivity. Trolling and flame wars are particularly prevalent on articles about games, and platform-specific articles seem to bring out the very worst in the community.

Here’s food for thought then: in a world where we’re so concerned about free speech a goodly proportion of the Twitter population in the UK (and beyond) is supporting the legal fees of someone they’ve never met, why are we so harsh on this particular breed of writers? Why shouldn’t they be able to write what they feel, rather than what will “get hits”?

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#oneaday, Day 255: The Big Pixels are Here!

Ladies and gents, it’s my great pleasure to reveal The Big Pixels to you.

You may recall some days ago that I was mourning the loss of Kombo. Kombo’s still not dead yet—feel free to drop by and support the remaining writers—but, to be frank, it’s probably only a matter of time. It’s very sad to see the end of something which has clearly had love, care and attention poured into it over the last few years, and I’m happy that I was part of the experience for a short while.

But this post isn’t about mourning the past; it’s about celebrating the future. And that future begins with today’s launch of The Big Pixels.

The Big Pixels are a group of friends first and foremost, video game writers second, and we decided to band together to produce something that we’d want to read ourselves. Intelligent, thought-provoking games writing. No flamebait. No traffic-whoring. Just the kind of thing that gets people stroking their chin and going “Hmmm”, and hopefully provoking some discussion. Those of you who follow The Squadron of Shame will undoubtedly dig what we’re doing. And those of you who are tired of the same old news stories posted everywhere day after day will surely enjoy our work, too. It’s an N4G commenter-free zone!

We’re there to have fun and build a community, not to chase page hits. So the important thing for you (yes, you!), the reader, is that you enjoy it. Read our work. Tell us what you think in the comments. Feel free to share any pieces you find particularly interesting or entertaining. And help us to build up our own unique little corner of the internet; a home away from home for those who are sick of “Top Ten Tuesdays” featuring boobies, guns or any combination thereof, or people who are sick of seeing the same picture of Michael Pachter on every article where he says something contentious and/or stupid.

Since you’re reading my blog, I’m going to draw particular attention to my own posts, of course. I am nothing if not a whore, after all. So while you’re over there, feel free to check out a “reprint” of my article on game development’s gender divide (featuring much-appreciated assistance from the very lovely Mitu Khandaker and Lauren Wainwright), a companion article to the most recent SquadCast on video game music, and a discussion of adult gaming. I hope you like them; and be sure to check out my buddies’ work while you’re over there. And don’t forget the Looney Bin, receptacle for all manner of game-related crap that we’ve encountered in our journeys around the web.

It’s been an interesting journey over the last few days, and it’s only just beginning, for sure. Stay tuned to The Big Pixels, as we’ll all be pushing out a wide variety of articles on all manner of game-related subjects every week. Follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook for the latest and to make us look popular and awesome.

Also, our review scoring system has a rainbow unicorn pixel in it. And there is absolutely no way you can say that isn’t the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen. Unless Maru is your cat.

#oneaday, Day 248: All Change! Again

It’s been a curious few days for some people and things that are very dear to me. First up, you may have read my impassioned mourning of the apparent loss of Good Old Games the other day. Turns out that, as some suspected all along, the site was simply coming out of beta and relaunching. Not only that, but awesome WRPG Baldur’s Gate is coming to the site, with more to follow. This, hopefully, means that Planescape: Torment can’t be far behind. Because the one loaning incident I regret more than anything else is loaning that game to someone and never getting it back. I’m not even sure I know who borrowed it. So if you have my copy of Planescape: Torment, please return it to me. Or at least buy me a copy on GOG if/when it appears.

So that was sad and became happy, although some are still ranting and raving about GOG’s handling of the situation. Okay, it perhaps wasn’t the best PR stunt ever (some blaming that famous Polish sense of humour) but it got people talking about GOG, and it turns out that what they were planning was actually awesome. This isn’t the place for that debate, though.

The really bad news, though, is that the gaming site I’ve written daily news for and called home since March of this year, Kombo.com, is folding. This is terribly sad news as the team at Kombo are some truly talented people who worked their hardest to provide awesome content every day, whether it was opinionated twists on news coverage or original content.

Former Assistant Director of Reviews Matt Green sums the situation up over at his blog, so pay it a visit and feel free to offer commiserations either there or indeed here. I sincerely hope that everyone who was involved with Kombo lands on their feet and gets the awesome writing gig (with appropriately awesome pay) that they deserve. Note: This includes me. So if you know anywhere who needs an awesome writer who is also British (which apparently adds +1000 awesome points) then let me know. You can feel free to point them to this site—I have links to samples of my work on the menu bar above—or to http://pjedi.co.uk/links, which also has said links.

So, with that said, I think it’s time for a little light relief. The Internet provides many means of light relief, not all of which are appropriate for public consumption. (Hey, what you look at in your own time is your business. You pervert.)

By far my favourite means of light relief that the Internet provides is cat, monkey and/or dog videos, however, so I shall now share a few of my favourites. Thanks in part to Alex Connolly and Chris Person for having a link war on my Facebook profile earlier.

May I firstly present to you, courtesy of Dave Gorman on Twitter, an elephant playing darts:

Followed by the charmingly literal “A Monkey Washing A Cat.”

And then… er… this.

How about THIS?!

Andross’s enemy is my enemy!

And finishing with indisputably the best cat video on the Internet.

I thank you. For those who have had a nightmarish, difficult or stressful few days, I sincerely hope the sight of the above has cheered you, if only slightly. May tomorrow be a better day.