Stephen Totilo, formerly of MTV's Multiplayer blog, recently joined Kotaku as a managing editor. He posted this today:
What bothers me about this quote is the use of the word "journalism". I don't really think any of the game blogging sites should label themselves as journalists because they're not... that's why we call them bloggers. Bloggers are less concerned about fact-checking and proofreading and more concerned about hits. There's no time to make an attempt at journalistic integrity because the story must be posted NOW. Sometimes, just to post a story, they'll have a paper-thin source that could be real or fake (I think they posted a story last week where the source was a Wal-Mart employee). Yeah, this is all pretty obvious to a lot of us, but I bet most of Kotaku's readers probably couldn't figure out what made the heyday of EGM/1UP the best source for gaming news.
I know, many people will poo-poo at me taking something as trivial as game news so seriously, but this is just one brand of information on the Internet that has now been dominated by blogging (this one just happens to get a lot of hits). That said, I posted this thread to see what everyone thinks of the current landscape of game journalism. Personally, after the death of EGM and the neutering of 1UP, I find myself more annoyed than usual by most of the gaming sites. Destructoid is hardly even blogging, it's just a random spattering of Internet lingo and memes. Joystiq is just nerds trying to be funny, and Kotaku's just fun to read when the writer approaches near-Engrish levels of spelling and grammatical errors.
I think the best guys out there for gaming news are Giant Bomb. They actually fact-check their shit (a problem with the bloggers), have fast-loading original media content (a problem with the journos), and they're actually pretty funny (a problem with both bloggers and journos).
Oh, and some obligatory ass-kissing: over the past six months Alex's MCP column has been featuring some of the best writing on CHUD (and the whole game news blogosphere, for that matter). He's generally just better at pointing out some things in a story that most other game news outlets fail to make.
Quote:
| Never mind why your new Deputy Managing Editor has come to Kotaku. Why are you here? What kind of person leaves a nice games-reporting job at MTV News, gives up running their own blog to work under the iron fist of one Brian Crecente? Me — your new Kotaku deputy managing editor. People asked me why I came here. Was it the fortune? The fame? The groupies? I told people who asked that I came to Kotaku because I respect the strong journalistic core of Kotaku. That's the part some people don't see because they're distracted by some of Kotaku's other colorful qualities. I like it all, but I confess that what I can bring best is more journalism. The more of that that we can do well, the better, I say. As long as someone else writes some funny posts. When my switch to Kotaku was announced, I was stormed with replies. Some people were happy, like the guy who said he already reads the site 24 hours a day and now needs to read it 48 hours a day. (I told him to buy two computers and run both simultaneously like he was managing multiple World of Warcraft accounts.) On the other hand, a couple of people told me they wouldn't follow me here, saying they think Kotaku only "serves the straight white male gamers and no one else." I think we're all best served to listen to each other and figure out how we can improve. But enough about why I came to Kotaku. As readers, why do you come here? |
I know, many people will poo-poo at me taking something as trivial as game news so seriously, but this is just one brand of information on the Internet that has now been dominated by blogging (this one just happens to get a lot of hits). That said, I posted this thread to see what everyone thinks of the current landscape of game journalism. Personally, after the death of EGM and the neutering of 1UP, I find myself more annoyed than usual by most of the gaming sites. Destructoid is hardly even blogging, it's just a random spattering of Internet lingo and memes. Joystiq is just nerds trying to be funny, and Kotaku's just fun to read when the writer approaches near-Engrish levels of spelling and grammatical errors.
I think the best guys out there for gaming news are Giant Bomb. They actually fact-check their shit (a problem with the bloggers), have fast-loading original media content (a problem with the journos), and they're actually pretty funny (a problem with both bloggers and journos).
Oh, and some obligatory ass-kissing: over the past six months Alex's MCP column has been featuring some of the best writing on CHUD (and the whole game news blogosphere, for that matter). He's generally just better at pointing out some things in a story that most other game news outlets fail to make.
