According to a study by Pew Internet Research conducted in 2002, 65 percent of college students consider themselves gamers (or video game enthusiasts, if you prefer), so chances are a good number of them also read the occasional game review or gaming news story to keep up with the latest happenings related to their habits.As one of those gamers and a practicing journalist, I would think that, ideally, there would be a credible source of this gaming news, and some may argue that magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly or Game Informer are those credible sources. Others look to online outlets like IGN.com and Gamespot. But I’ve started to notice a trend among these sources.
For one, the size of the magazines is diminishing; as a long-time EGM subscriber, I’ve watched the magazine go from the thickness of a CD jewel case to the thinness of your average newspaper section. The content is disappearing, and game companies’ advertising dollars are rumored to be going to publications that promise good reviews regardless of the true quality of their games. The situation is getting out of hand. As far as the online options, sites seem to be getting less and less content uploaded on a regular basis.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the lack of objectivity coming from gaming reporters. I’m not talking about reviews, of course they contain opinionated writing. It’s the hard news stories that hold bias.
It’s a cardinal rule in the journalism world to tell a fair story, not just one viewpoint of it. For example, some stories on 1up.com contain not only the facts, but also snippets of personal opinion, usually directed against a developer or company the writers don’t particularly like.In the gaming world, we call it fanboyism. These trolling, flaming fanboys go out of their ways to glorify the systems they adore and usually come in three forms: Sony fanboys, Nintendorks and M$ (Microsoft) fanboys.
Not that there is anything wrong with loving a certain company that profits from you on a regular basis, but when your writing becomes a projectile missile of gaming hatemongering, its time to reevaluate your role as a gaming journalist.
In regards to the video game industry, media companies have an excellent subject matter to tap into but are failing to take advantage of it properly. The industry is growing more than ever, yet finding a publication that reports fairly and logically is getting harder to find at the same time. At this point, gaming journalism should be respected more, with the professionalism and credibility of publications like Wired and Popular Science, which cover a spectrum of technology-related news.
Until the fanboys are out and real journalists are in, gaming journalism will go the way of “E.T.” for the Atari 2600: buried somewhere in a New Mexico desert.