Crispin Boyer (former EGM editor) doesn’t seem to like crap writing. In his most recent post, he offers up a few of his pet peeves of modern videogame journalism. It seems that now he is on the outside looking in, the poor quality of a lot of writing is becoming ever more apparent.

My worry is that you folks breaking into the media today grew up reading so much bad stuff that you think, ‘œWell, I guess this is how you’re supposed to write in the games biz.’ [...] Now that I’m out of the games media and get my features/previews/reviews from the web and magazines just like everyone else, I fear a nightmare future of the same ol’, same ol’ utterances. It’s up to you newbies to break the vicious cycle.

As somebody trying to improve their writing skills, his post doesn’t tell me what to do, more what not to do. Essentially; be better.

If I can get philosophical for a second, writing is the closest thing to ESP you’ll find outside of Art Bell. It’s your brain transmitting words to someone else’s brain. Don’t clutter the conversation with a bunch of useless crap.

His point about the length of the article I completely agree with is a point I have seen echoed around a lot in recent times.

As far as I can tell, the majority of verbose articles exist because either a) more money is made form multiple page long reviews, or b) the author isn’t quite skilled enough as a writer to condense what they are trying to say. The latter is something we should expect and live with, but the former is just reinforcing bad habits.

I know we here at Negative Gamer have discussed Dan “Shoe” Hsu and Crispin Boyer’s Sore Thumbs Blog before. However. it is mainly because it is very reaffirming of the dream that this site was founded on. The whole idea behind Negative Gamer is to take a highly critical look at the games industry and not just be another site that gives developers a digital pat on the back (whether they deserve it or not). Negative Gamer is a place to go when you’re tired of hearing nothing but praise and over inflated scores; a place to make sure that you’re not getting screwed over by a company who cares more about how many units are sold than the quality of the product. Plus, we are the only site where you can get previews of upcoming games in the traditional form of Japanese haiku.

The exposure of what happens in gaming journalism is a real eye opener, both to the average gamer and to a hopeful game blogger like myself. The idea that things can get a bit crooked isn’t terribly surprising to be honest–most American institutions are corrupted in some fashion. We live in a capitalist nation where people are constantly looking out for their own interests. Who’s to say any normal person put in the same situation wouldn’t accept the expensive favors of a company for the cheap price of lower moral standards? We’d all like to think we’d stick to our guns, but unlike the world inside of games there is no clear line between “good” and “evil.”

What is most important about the Sore Thumbs blog is that in some ways, it is encouraging the average gamer to be critical of what they read. No one publication is going to to give you an unbiased view of anything. There are plenty of places to get news on the internet, and a smart gamer will use these resources to find out the real story. By checking out multiple sources and then comparing them to your own, independently formed opinion, you can easily figure out which site offers the most honest views vs the attitude of “giving the people what they want.” In the age where the internet is a primary source for information, gamers no longer have an excuse for standing by while this corruption happens. On the contrary, they should be calling out dishonesty at every possible opportunity.

In some ways it was almost inspiring. I know as a woman writer, I’ll have a somewhat different experience, with different advantages and disadvantages. I take some comfort knowing that while you might need to make some concessions for the sake of business, for the most part you can skim over many of the shady parts of the job and still be successful. I fully intend on protecting my integrity as both a writer and a woman (despite the number of romantic “OMG pic plz” requests on Xbox Live) as I progress into my career. Reading this blog has reminded me that I will always need to be wary of what’s happening around me if I plan on continuing in this industry.

Even without being any sort of famous writer, I’ve had people call my integrity into question with the Guitar Hero: World Tour piece I did a while back. I got some wonderful responses, one in which someone told me I should kill myself. Call me strange but the widely varied feedback made me quite happy. If only people who agree with me comment, then I’m not really changing anything am I? People who understood the point of the site–again, taking a critical look at even the best games–understood what I was saying and responded to it in a generally intelligent way. It made me happy to see that I was causing people to think critically about an aspect of the product that other sites had glossed over and dismissed, even if it was only a minor detail of the game. Plus, I got to hear someone use the phrase “butt trumpet” for the first time.

I think it’s safe to assume and Shoe and Crispin are getting some sense of personal satisfaction out of their blog. They should feel good; they’re asking people to actively think and question the world around them. What they’re doing on their blog is real journalism: giving people facts with minimal bias so that the reader can make the final judgment. In a world where media is constantly trying to tell you what to think, I want to be part of a different breed of writers.

I want to be Benjamin Franklin.

WHAT A TWIST!

By M. Night Shyamalan

A lot is being said at current about the state of games journalism. With the internet both increasing the number, and decreasing the experience levels of people writing about videogames coughMecough, now more than ever the cracks are showing.

In an interview with Crispy Gamer, Dan Hsu, ex EGM Editor and author of the (excellent) Sore Thumbs blog, talks about his departure from EGM as well as his opinion on the gaming press.

When asked about his reasoning for leaving EGM, Hsu cited the frustration felt towards the internet from the perspective of print media.

I guess you can also say the business itself burned me out. Working on a print magazine is hard, hard work. And a typical work scenario could look like this: I bust my ass trying to score a triple-A exclusive, I go and see the game, do interviews, spend hours writing up and polishing a story, work with the art team to design the cover and layout. Finally, I’m all beaming and proud of what we’ve done, and bam, people scan the contents and deliver that scoop to everywhere for free.

He also talked quite openly, as he does on Sore Thumbs, about the problems within the press world.

It could be the relationship the press has with the people and companies it’s covering. Everyone likes to play so nice that they forget what they’re supposed to be doing in the first place. So some writers are afraid to ask the tough questions, or to criticize what should be criticized, because they’re afraid of backlash from the companies from a support standpoint, from an advertising standpoint or worse, from their own editors who don’t want to piss anyone off. This may not be a blatant problem, but it’s there, unspoken, hanging over everything in the industry.

Make sure to give the full interview a read.

Via: Game Politics

Once you start to get into the industry of videogame ‘œjournalism’ you soon find out it is less of a free ride and more of a complex balancing act. Simply put; writers want to write the truth, publication owners want to get readers, game publishers want high scores and coverage and game developers want fair treatment.

The whole system begins to break when a PR company meets a publication owner. If the publication owner gets an early copy of a game, chances are they get a lot of extra readers. If they are likely to give the game a higher score than other publications, they are also likely to get the ‘œexclusive review’.

On the flip side, if a sire or magazine prints negative things about a game, the game’s developer and publisher will likely take their ball and go play elsewhere. It’s not fair, and it’s not right (from some perspectives), but that is how this industry has built itself.

Sore Thumbs, the blog started by Dan Hsu, ex Editor in Chief for EGM, has a very interesting post written by an anonymous source who Dan confirms works in marketing and PR for large game publishers.

Anonymous Guy comes right out and says all the things (s)he has done:

I have pulled ad buys in protest of what I felt were unfair review scores. I have spoken to the ‘œboss’ of publications before, and complained about certain journalists. I have ‘œbanned’ certain media outlets from getting pre-release access to games, because of previous unfavorable coverage.

We all know this happens, but to hear somebody come right out and say it isn’t frequently done. Why would somebody do this? Try to bend the truth and manipulate people to fit their needs? AG makes the point that it is all but impossible to avoid things like this and blames bad journalism as the main culprit.

Lets say you have a game that takes 30 hours to complete, and reviewer plays 2 hours of it and gives it mediocre review based on the first few levels, just because he has 10 other games to review and can’t put in 20 hours. Or when seeing a game pre-release, the journalist complains about things in the game that are obviously work in progress. Or when an editor of a big games website gives his FPS guy a sim racing game to review. Or when someone looks at all the other reviews online for a game, and just follows the crowd by posting a similar review (look at what’s happening to Too Human right now’¦ does that game deserve scores that bad?). These things happen all the time.

AG then continues something which I agree with to an extent, the feeling that reviewers approach game publishers as if the reviewer is the more important one in the deal, and that they deserve a copy of the game

A great unspoken truth is that those involved in games development and publishing feel that many journalists feel a sense of entitlement ‘“ that they deserve to have their asses kissed because of the power they wield over the sell-in (convincing retail buyer to take a game) and the final sell through of games to gamers.

In his final point, AG calls for more ‘œreal’ journalism, ‘œWhat this means to me is not harsher reviews, but thoughtful analysis about games, real knowledge of game development, and a deep history of playing games’.

Essentially the same thing I heard a year or so ago when I went to a talk by Ernest Adams who called for ‘œgame critics not reviewers’. Right now we are at the point in time where videogames are coming of age and reaching a truly mature stage. We need to make sure the publications, online or offline, are doing the same.

If you care about videogames and the industry surrounding them, and also on the corruption which acts as the oil to keep things moving, I highly suggest giving the post a read. For that matter give their entire blog a read, it’s all good stuff. Ars Technica also have a very good article on the topics raised.

We may be calling for less crap from publishers using underhanded tactics when it comes to pushing their game, but we also need to call for equal effort on the part of the videogame journalists sat on the other side of the fence.

As AG writes:

The fact is game journalists ‘“ of which there are hundreds at the moment ‘“ are living off the blood sweat and tears of creative people who love games and regularly work 100 hours weeks. The fact they casually rip on a game gives others involved in the development and marketing process good reason to pissed.