The End of Video Game Journalism 

IGN saw this video and gave it a 7

Video game journalism died in 2007 when GameSpot fired Jeff Gerstmann for giving Kane and Lynch a bad review while the website was littered with Kane and Lynch full screen ads and banners.

Journalists: (does everything possible to make everybody hate them) Also journalists: "Why arent we making money?!"

from my pov, a steam review from a user who put 150h into the game is at least 10x more valuable than a review of a journalist why played for 15h

You can’t make people like things, and you shouldn’t get offended when they don’t like what you make. Cream rises to the top. Bitching about someone else’s end product isn’t going to make your turd float.

Its like the journalists have weird agendas that aren't just gaming. I don't listen to them at all and I used to.

Their only job was talk about video games, and they failed, they dont deserve this job

To sum up the problem: Games journalists = People who are not gamers, therefore are motivated by anything other than providing a genuine service to gaming communities

If you're a journalist and worried about being replaced by AI, then you're not really a journalist.

I don’t visit video game publications sites for 2 reasons: one is that webpage advertising has become so insanely aggressive it makes the website unusable. The other reason is simply that the content on RU-vid is far better.

Gaming journalism actually died at least 12 years ago with the Mass Effect 3's ending scandal and all the big gaming outlets calling gamers entitled and defending Bioware as one. This is where the first cracks started to appear and it became obvious that there was something deeper going on. Mass Effect 3 was a prequel to what was coming in 2014. Some people may have been too young to remember, but those of us who are old enough remember everything very clearly. Get your history right, kids.

Its crazy because 20 years ago, people bought magazines and it was exciting to see people talking about video games and giving more personal advices and tests. Now there is nothing personal, it's the opposite of what people wants

I miss game magazines. I remember when DMC4 was announced, there was an article in a magazine called Game Power specifically about how hot the girls looked. "There's no point in good graphics if the girls aren't hot, and DMC 4 understands this universal thruth very well." It's wild to think that the person who wrote this was a game journalist.

The internets golden age is over and now controlled by corporate interests. Makes no sense spending time cruising the net anymore. Back to spending more time with hobbies and socializing.

Seems like Gamer Gate landed the first blow on them and then instead of trying to recover they double, triple, quadrupled down and wallowed in the mud for years on end, shedding more and more of their actual audience. Can't say I'm sad to see them go.

Stellar Blade was a perfect example, in the past the journalist would only review the game and probably make some jokes about the character body being so juicy. They would never behave like a puritan from 17th century making the Studios change their work ( and ironicaly the left/woke are the puritan ones today)

Press S to spit on grave

Who else here hates when you want to look up something simple, you see tons of articles that are really long and explain a whole backstory and all contain the same information while the answer could have been provided with 3 words?

Go off king. Gamer Gate was about this. It was corrupt journalists. It had nothing to do with women in gaming, even a little. It was a journalist that happened to be a woman in a serious conflict of interest (Sleeping with developer of game reviewed - not mentioned in the review). The entire narrative flipped and it became about "gamers hate women" when that wasn't even on the table. That's when I knew gaming journalism was over. Everyone fell in line. Glad to see a reckoning coming. GGNORE.

To be honest it’s just not the way people want to consume media anymore. Also anytime I try to read a video game article it’s always badly formatted for phone and has so many pop up ads I can barely read the article. Not to mention a lot of the time the ads are so bad they make the article unreadable due to blocking the text.

We have journalism... it's RU-vidrs + Steam Reviews + Gameplayvideos from YTers

Have you ever been on any of these websites for finding certain items or something. Usually you need 3 lines and maybe a map but they use a full 3000 word essay talking about everything and anything other than just how to get it till the very end and about 5 ads inbetween the paragraphs too, its ridiculous

No dude the people who killed video game journalism is video game journalists. Remember the coordinated "Gamers are dead" articles of 2014? They let gamers know that they were no longer writing articles for them and so the gamers mostly moved away from the VG news sites and went to YT.

Game Journalism hit its peak for me during the days of buying PlayStation Magazine and getting a free demo disc.

what a surprise that shit were you google for "how do i find x" you click a link that says "thats how you find x" and then you land on a site with the headline THATS HOW YOU FIND IT, followed by a 100 word intro about some bullshit, followed by another 200 words on some other bullshit hinting that they are about to tell you how to find it, yet another 200 words later they still have not told you how to find it dies out

They did it to themselves...

I remember looking forward to read reviews in many of these sites, see their top 10s, see their videos wrapping up the year. Man, I miss those times, around 2010-2013. In that time, they could give a game I liked a 5/10 but it felt genuine, they had valid reasons to dislike a game. Now, I can even predict what certain sites will say about a game. It's sad.

The best method of honest Video Game Journalism is to watch gamers play the game in front of you on RU-vid and there is a good gamers Who give details on the story and why the map design, monsters, etc. are great

game journalist =/= game activist we have many game activist but little to none game journalist.

That Park Place & Niche Gamer are the only gaming journalism sites that dare to report & write against the approved narrative. they're both based af. highly recommended. they arent afraid to say what we as gamers are all thinking. but those are the only two exceptions ive found.

Games journalism was already breaking up in 2007-2009. Everybody thought Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and the 1Up Network were just printing money, remember? After all, they had all the “superstar gaming journalists” (like Seanbaby, Jeremy Parrish, Jane Pinckard, Ryan O’Donnell, Garnett Lee, Shane Bettenhousen, Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Luke Smith Jeff Green and John Davison, among many others) that were all portrayed as gaming celebrities. They supposedly had massive RU-vid audiences for shows like “The 1UP Show” and “1UP Yours.” But the truth was, they were not. Even before Hearst Corporation bought them, and then started dismantling them, it was starting to unravel two years before, in 2007. When Luke Smith famously left to shill for Bungie full-time, the bleeding had already started. When Hearst Corporation bought them, the truth was undeniable. It was all a scam. It was all hype. It was over-staffed and losing money. It had all been propped up to sell. When the 1Up Network died, and most of the “star journalists” that were smart enough had scurried as as fast as possible NOT TO FIND NEW “JOURNALISM” JOBS, but instead to “sell out” and become official professional shills for all the big software companies and franchises, the myth of the value and integrity of “games journalism” should have been destroyed. Gamergate should have never happened, because the conclusion that “games journalism is dead” should have been reached seven years prior.

Gaming journalists constantly hate on gamers & wonder why Gaming journalism is dying 🤷🏾‍♂️

As a psychology student, one thing one of my teachers used to tell me a lot is that "Nobody sees nothing. You can't see what doesn't exist." He would say in relation to these type of things where yeah there is nuance, yes people exaggerate and misinterpret signals, yadda yadda, but usually, if you sense something, there is something there. If your instincts tell you something is bad, there is a reason for that, there might not be a good reason, but there is a reason.

Been watching your videos for about a year now. I enjoy your dialogue and takes. I’m excited to see where you will take your channel. Thanks for the entertainment and for all the effort. (You and the editors 🤣)

It sucks how most content creators cant say what is obvios because they are afraid to get canceld by the woke crowd.

In the beggining they had no competition , and many "journalists" thought , this is an easy job. Then the real gamers came ...

I enjoy hearing the different voices on IGN video podcasts, particularly Gamescoop! Definitely noticed a rare moment or two where a voice who otherwise consistently presents genuine takes did seem to hold back in a situation where he'd previously called out this type of bias on a previous occasion. Happy to hear a little support for some of the personalities at IGN, because I've seen countless brutally honest takes that were in opposition to a recent IGN article which had sparked controversy at that time. Also, as a regular viewer of at least half of IGN's main video podcasts (I watch them on YT), I see them highly recommending fairly obscure indie games constantly. But these always seem to be indie games they genuinely had a great time with, not just random junk that is unknown. Even to the point where the vast majority of those indie games are games that don't appeal to me (or most viewers probably,) but it's clear that person really loved it. When someone intelligently presents a genuine perspective that I initially disagree with, that's usually more interesting than hearing someone echo what I already think. That happens really often on "Gamescoop!", and even on "NVC" (where most think BotW and TotK are the best thing since sliced bread.) Over time, it becomes clear that there are some personalities who are better at presenting their perspective than others, at least in a way that appeals to me. Ultimately, I'm just grateful that IGN continues to amplify voices of the different people who work there, especially when they disagree with each other and spark a great back and forth about it. PS: I enjoyed Asmongold's take on this one a lot. Definitely an upvote from me.

I would also like to rise up the topic regarding monopolies with the idea, of international gaming journalism. Not all nations, for example in Europe or South America, follow US media. Or even English media. They have their own journalism and their own media. That is also something to keep in mind. Not all the world is IGN or USA, even tho by number they are the most followed as the "western world" tends to be on youtube, and has been for the longest time.

Games jounalism, and really journalism in the broader sense, has been replaced by small independent people. Asmon's opinion of a game has more weight than all of the game review sites combined because I'm aware of who he is, what games he likes, and his past reviews. This USED to be true of the others but instead of moving to RU-vid and putting a face to a name, it's just some article on a website. ADDITIONALLY because of the nature of youtube, I can go back and look at his opinion of ANY game to get an idea of whats important to him. For instance, I wouldn't put a lot of weight behind an FPS/BR/MOBA review from Asmon, because that's not typically his genre of game. How we do know that? Because we can see what games he plays because he streams them. I don't have the same intimate knowledge of a reviewing on IGN. Reminds me of the review of Doom 2016 when whoever the heck was playing was absolutely terrible at FPS games. Why should I put ANY weight into that reviewers opinion when they can barely play the game? You can extrapolate that same sentiment out to basically almost every journalist there is. Their opinion is basically meaningless.

This is not rocket science . If you choose access over being honest with your audience they will leave.

If they are dying because they dont speak what the users want isn't this good? Im the only one that likes to know what people think about somthing to get my own beliefs in check? I understand the collective thinking of those websites and agree with you, but if they need to speak what readers want to listen than they will continue to be a monopoly again, but now they have readers backing them up. Makes no sense

"Normal ppl dont read articles" EXACTLY aint nobody got time for THAT! 😂

When it comes to the Google ai answering questions, it usually points me in the right direction. However, I still go to wikis to expand on or look back to the information. They aren't cannibalizing eachother they are coexisting.

IGN/Kotaku/etc: This video gets a 7.5/10 not made for ''''modern audiences''''

Maaaaaaaaan I remember back in the day before smart phones, when I used to *PRINT* videogame reviews from Game Spot, and IGN to *READ* while taking a shit at school LMAO!

Man I just really miss the days of PlayStation magazine, Game Informer of old and G4. It just felt like such an exciting and fun time. Like excitement about games existed and it was contagious. Now it’s like rare we all get excited together, and then a game releases and it’s actually exciting.

"Everything and everyone is compromised". Yea I felt this with Belluar a few months ago when he did the Kotaku video that got major backlash. During the entire SBI steam group arc and how they and people who defended the steam group were attacked and misrepresented by games journalists he didn't say a single word. But when he did finally speak about gaming journalism he only spoke about how AI is ruining jobs for game journalists and how important games journalists are. Not even mentioning SBI or all the blatantly false articles games journalists have made to make people loose faith in them It was then later revealed that his game company and the game they made worked with people closely affiliated with SBI and allegedly some of his own relatives work high up in the game journalist space.

Who would have thought that gaming journalists (political activist writers who never made it to DC) shitting on their audience wouldn’t work out?

I trust a politician more than a gaming journalist or movie critic nowadays. I'm sure if Disney puts out a show of Yoda taking a shit for 2 hours on a toilet, critics will still give it 90% because they're either shilling or scared.

THE Main reason the Kill the Justice League failed was because of how they did "Batman" and killed him off. It was absolutely terrible, and the live service aspect ruined it for people.

For me, the end of video game journalism is the fact that I can go to Steam, click on the game, scroll down, and find a review by a random dude that played the game for 5000 hours.. That's like a full college degree type time commitment as opposed to the IGN dude that couldn't pass the tutorial because dash jumping was too hard...

I've heard that junior journalists get pushed into game journalism early into their careers and they deeply resent this happening to them, so they put zero effort into their work and seek only to get out into a different sector of the industry as fast as possible.

Something I see conflated a lot is _"cheering that the terrible thing is failing"_ being the same thing as _"cheering that the industry is failing"._ That your happiness over a failure in the industry is a self-destructive thing, and you will lose out in the end. But this has a false assumption: we were engaging with the industry in this way in the first place. Let's be honest, there is only one way that the consumer can directly impact the market: give money to what you don't want. Slow or stop the money flowing into the things you don't want to see anymore. When we see one of the things we don't like disappear, then we are seeing change happen. Sure, another terrible thing might show up, but the disruption is an _opportunity for change._ Let's face it... when an industry of junk that you were not participating in collapses, then you haven't really lost anything. You weren't engaging with it in the first place, and now there's at least a CHANCE that something you like might build up in its place.

I, for one, am thankful for people like Jason Schreier I hope we don't lose people like him to this big change.

i cannot remember the last time I have looked at any game guide on IGN or the like. If I need a guide on something I go straight to YT. I find that being able to listen to someone explain something and see them do it at the same time much more helpful.

"every single gaming site has the exact same opinion on every topic." True. Hive mind nonsense, there is no actual personal opinion everyone just regurgitates the same agreed upon safe opinion. What value does that provide to the consumer???

16:23 it's not about how valid you think the complaint is, it's about how many people have that complaint

The Game Journos Pro email exchanges showed us 10 years ago that all of the journos work together in a hive mind

You know that scene in the First Jurassic Park where the T-Rex eats the Velociraptor? Same thing. We know the T-Rex isn't our friend we saw that... but it's still great to watch the Velociraptor get its comeuppance.

all journalism now is so bad that there no word degrading enough to describe it, there literally 5 to 10 people who good and honest at this job, in gaming it's just easily detectable

"In an imaginary world where I get sick" I always knew you received Nurgle's blessing.

They haven't journaled in years. The last good one was Schreier but he's turned to the dark side now

A lot of it died during Gamergate, it has been in it's death throes for a while now.

Asmon killed game journalism

My only annoyance with Asmon’s opinion is he appears to view all sites as a collective, and not the journalists that work there. There’s going to be good ones and bad ones at almost all publications.

I thought the order of Suicide Squad was that the comic book nerds bought it, thought it was garbage, then like a month or two later, the SBI stuff was figured out. It was more along the lines of 'make a game that pisses off nerds that would ordinarily love it, and you'll just get what you kind of deserve...'

Ai isn't just about scrubbing information, Ai is about making an inference based on existing information. That's why you hear ChatGPT "makes stuff up" or "lies about things" because it's trying to form an option on existing information. Journalists can absolutely be replaced by ai, assuming ai always has updated information; however, we like good journalists for: perception of topics people care about, ability to easily/truthfully communicate a topic, and personality while communicating said topic. Sure, ai might be able to copy that, but it will be far more difficult. If you're able to do all 3 of those things--your job is secure for a while.

400 thousand minimum on SBI detected didn't buy Suicide Squad

I play a game with AI generated content, OOTP 25, it generates pictures of the baseball players that are generated. It straight up enhances the game and makes it more enjoyable. AI has its place, but it is a tool in the tool box of developers. It should not be the only tool used, but it should be a tool that gets used when appropriate.

so the problem with not only journalism but the internet in sum is: they don't understand that what matters isn't how they see the world but how the world actually is, it's fascinating how Asmon manages to find such interesting ways to sumarize an idea, like well deserved.

Gaming print journalism is just much less necessary in an era where we can see streamed gameplay footage often before the game even comes out. So you have to add something else to just the raw information about a game, like humor and entertainment value. Majuular, Sseth, DoshDoshington etc guys like that do a great job of that and thus are popular vidya game youtubers.

Honestly, I credit Totalbiscuit with starting the decline of traditional games media. I would argue he was at least one of the first major instances of a games journalist operating outside of a traditional games publication who built not just his own brand and persona, but also a foundation of CREDIBILITY with the audience. Love him or hate him, the man was open about his opinions and biases and you understood where he was coming from.

The amount of ads on a site is an indication of the quality of the site. If it’s plastered with ads and it’s always harping on you to join some trash newsletter, they’re spiraling into bankruptcy.

It’s not the ‘beginning of the end’, it’s the death throws in the endgame

One big issue with REAL game journalism dying is that it is just being replaced with AI generated copy/paste articles that are rarely true across hundreds of sites.

In my whole life I've never read a single article of these people, always wondered who did, glad to see them fade away. Big W.

I feel like the "internet outrage and advertisers leaving" is a bit of a red herring, especially now that the curtain is falling off from the "15 people got angry at Twitter". Having seen how things work in other industries and politics, nowadays it's about direct conflict of interests and negotiations behind the scenes between big players (it's not equal between small indie games)

Benis

Oh jolly days of magazines actually having different narratives, directions etc. having discussions with each others and having different writers with drastically different opinions existing on a same page.

I was recently looking something up about Stellar Blade because I could not figure out what I was missing around the solar tower. The article mentioned the frustrating traversal at times (which I died more often to than in a fight) but in the same breath they mention her high heels which in some costumes don't have the heels and asking how she is doing that... dude I wanted to fucking know what I was missing in that puzzle. Another thing why I hate articles from media is that the titles are either misleading or, the worst part, the tiny snipped of information I was interested in, is buried somewhere at the end of fully bloated article about the entire game and where to buy it and other non-sense and then after some more Ad inserts you get the information the article said would talk about.

Gaming journalism started ending in ~2010, if not earlier (the Kane & Lynch thing was, like, 2007, right?). 2014 was a large hit, but people have been talking about the shit parts of it well before that. And now it's getting "worse". "You can't spell ignorant without IGN" has been a phrase for a VERY long time.

i agree with certain points but the main issue for me is that websites became boring. articles were written like AI before AI and they are superslow, not working on sundays; just nothing. youtube is exponentially faster, I get accustomed to creators way more easily and it´s either quick instant news or really deep videos with gameplay and all.

That's a big reason I stopped reading reviews, too many reviewers trying to push their agenda on me. That also goes for Steam reviews, too many people give an otherwise good game a negative review not because it's bad, but because maybe the game has Pronouns that hurt their feelings, or something the publisher did that has nothing to do with anything in the actual game.

Journalism is supposed to be objective truth. Not opinion. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore

Asmon is the only person I've seen tell people the Windows sound was him, not me. He deserves a gold medal for this.

6:38 "Excuse me, that was me not you" Conssumate professional.

Games journalism is dieing because 80% of the time the writer of the journal has less experience than the player. I can't even tell you how many "OP build guide for Elden Ring" guides I have come across when that game came out and somehow, someone who is getting paid to pay games is worse at making a build than me. Like what the hell? Also, numerous times they are just flat out lieing. A 2 minute checking of the wiki instantly contradicts their entire blog. Lastly, the delivery is HORRIBLE. They design the blogs to require you to sit there and read like 10 paragraphs in order to get any small snippet of information they have if they have any.

You know if you ever happen to ponder about an alternate career you appear to display aptitude that would scale well as a litigator. Notwithstanding the patience to put up with law school for 3 years, Travis County could otherwise have a pretty good litigator for hire.

Games "journalism" has always been a complete joke of an industry. It exists to fluff up game releases in exchange for access.

I stopped reading Rock Paper Shotgun 10 years ago when they went woke and told everyone Rimworld's scripting is sexist and no you can't disagree because that's toxic and also you're sexist. Well, it took a while, but finally voting with my wallet paid off. Shame though, I liked reading their takes on games. I just didn't want the activism on the side.

Almost everytime you read an article, its most of the time inaccurate, not about the game, something people already knew 15 years ago or just not about gaming. Its like they think they ve invented the light bulb. Game journalist are not reviewers.

It'll evolve. It won't really die. There are good jounos in video games. Jason Shrier is one of the best. He uncovered a lot of what happened with suicide squad. Apparently WB let them do what they want. The former heads of Rock steady seem to have let the ship sink since they were leaving and keeping it under wraps. They even hired people on and didn't tell them they would be working on a live service game. There's a lot more to the story. There's also inside games who are pretty good and been around since the early 2000s and hand their hands in many different things like G2A, Funhaus, early Rooster teeth, etc.

6:35 wholesome

I miss when "journalism" used to be tips, tricks, cheats, exploits, good builds, and maybe in depth look at lore, We lost our way.

O you still have video game journalism? I tuned out during that whole gamespot debacle with that confused dude in a dress and that other guy Jeff

No problem, happy to do my part 👍😂

I don't go to eurogamer for insight or opinion. I just needed to know where the 49 cans are in stellar blade, and they served.

the fact that if they review a game negatively they will have their early access for future games revoked says it all. They're basically forced to rate everything positively

I work a full time job, have a wife and a kid, yet probably still manage to play games more than these "journalists". That is the biggest problem

You talk about investigativ journalism. A big part of journalism is to check for the authenticity of a report or evidence. Another big part is to put all relevant information about a topic into an article that can be understood by as many people as possible and state the matter in a way that the reader can decide what happens or what it means without adding your own bias.