Nostalgiapocalypse: *SPOILERS* Journalism *SPOILERS*

The word ‘˜news’ gets thrown around a lot these days: from clichéd openers to consumer reports on the possible health benefits derived from spending money on products shown in consumer reports. Outfits for your beloved pets and the latest celebrity snatch showing have often been touted as subjects of importance. While lesser stories such as job security and economy have quite rightly been smothered from harming our sensitive inclinations of ego.

Oppression through fear mongering was once a lone stallion in the heresy of reporting, but it’s been such a stud that the paddock is now filled with illegitimate bullshit-offspring and the sheep who want to follow them around. The world of video games was basically founded on the principals of ‘buy this stuff’, but that is where a clear line is drawn. Everyday news can’t put in spoilers what tomorrow is going to hold, it can influence you, intimidate you, slightly molest you. But at the end of the day it does not explicitly show will happen to you as a person in the future.

Recently videogame blogs have decided that leaked footage of story defining moments is to be dubbed as front page news and requires a headline that ruins the entirety of the disclosed narrative exploration. The futile use of the word *SPOILERS* in front of each post is just a measure of redundancy to provide a scapegoat for why it is in fact your own fault that a game’s plot has decayed into a meaningless list of events that will occur. There is never a thought that perhaps, the footage was not shown publicly because it may, you know, cause a game to lose all impact and narrative flow. The only thought is that of the bright lights of page views as they dazzle brilliantly atop the stage of journalism, shining on a chorus of a rather striking big band adaptation of Hallelujah… while the can-can is danced.

There are greater concerns with this fact than a poor telling of an interactive story through a block of text. Narrative in a videogame is often the driving force, the reason to push onwards after repeating a five-minute section for over an hour. The progressive story structure possible in gaming (although not often explored) leaves the contrivances of A Hero’s Journey for actual evolution of character manipulation and empathy.

By stating what will happen throughout a game’s story as a simple matter of this happens, then that happens, it takes the majority of the power away from a story teller. For instance, if a certain enemy was particularly difficult for the majority of a game and the player eventually was to obtain a means to easily defeat them, a sense of empowerment and gratification would cause a greater experience for that player. However if that player was to know of that means from the start, empowerment would be replaced by relief and the motivation for the player is not to see the narrative but to simply find an easier way to finish. The ability to dictate player interactions and motivations is the distinction between a good game and a great game. Borderlands may be a fun experience with friends, but Bioshock will be remembered as something meaningful.

Recently a substantial event which occurs in Call of Duty 6 was displayed as something all players should go into the game knowing. The footage was promoted as ‘œthe mainstream media will have a field day with this, what are they doing?’. When the only way said media would have acknowledged its existence is by reading it from gaming blogs, who could then report on how they were right. The issue with this is that gamers should not have known anything of the sorts. The entire section became an interactive cut scene to break the gameplay instead of a thought-provoking plotline that made you question yourself and the characters around you.

Games journalism is only a recent medium but it has still changed dramatically in the past couple of years. Print may have been expensive, slow to process and caused you to actually read, but the upside was everything had to be set in stone in order to publish. The lack of high-speed internet left all information to come through approved PR systems and opinions of actual writers that cared about the industry. Fan loyalty was earned through content instead of a maze of links and in doing so, a better quality was produced because it was necessary for survival. It was basically more about the ideals of what games are or mean and less about what games are coming out and are they worth your money. Some say the death of true games press died with EGM, but I say it died when Maxim was seen as a suitable replacement.

The purpose of gaming journalism as it is now, is to inform consumers on products, so that they can make informed decisions on whether or not they eat this week or go sell their soul to EB. This simple factor epitomizes the established sense of greed found within the subset of gaming. News is used to make a profit, reviews state whether you should buy a game, not whether you should play it, console wars are just a validation that your money was well spent and fun is just a consequence in game production that helps for marketing. Until this mentality is aborted as the misconception of importance that is personifies, the gaming industry will not move forward and gamers will forever be seen as mouth-breathing, knuckle-draggers that like to throw money at each other.

The majority will never think for themselves, it is not in our nature to venture from the safety of others’ words, to seek refuge in the fact they speak only the truth and only want what is best for us. If journalists don’t take accountability for the actual power they have to manipulate people’s wants, then gaming becomes less about feeling and interaction and more of a soulless median used by people simply because other people are using it.