Jump to content

What are the best journalistic video game websites?


gamer.tv

Recommended Posts

It’s early in the morning so please forgive the potentially wrong thread title.

 

I enjoy reading video game features (I get any game related news from here) but it seems few and far between websites dedicate time to allow allow someone to write something worth my time reading.

 

Can anyone make any decent suggestions (the realisation is I tend to look in here, Kotaku, Polygon and IGN all out of habit and then listen to the various Giant Bomb podcasts and that’s it):

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There really isnt any, video game journalism is relegated to news ,advertisement, exposes, and updates . The sites you listed will occasionally have real journalism but not very often. If your looking for something in-depth YouTube channels are your best bet but not what you asked for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ll once again defend gaming journalism in general.

 

Looks like you’re reading most of the sites that will cover the basic news in the gaming world. If you’re looking for more specific features, Vice has some excellent writers with both of their gaming side and then their more general “tech” branch called motherboard. There is tons of good shit out there if you’re willing to look rather than just pretend that most of the gaming sites are SJW activist sites. 
 

And really I’m convinced that’s what most people are doing when they’re posting a lot of the stuff you see in threads like this. Either it’s performative, or they don’t actually ever go to the sites except to hate read a piece they happen to disagree with. Like, go to polygon or ign. It’s just general news or fluff pieces or opinions like “mario sunshine is good, actually.” 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I stopped caring about video game journalism when they all became political activists. 


I love GW2 and a few years ago over the 4th of July weekend one of developers was posting on her twitter account about what its like to work on personal narrative for MMORPG characters. Then a Youtuber/GW2 partner chimed in and she threw a hissy fit called him an asshat and sexist for stating his opinion, then another Dev chimed in. It blew up on reddit and and ArenaNet fired them. Then came polygon ranting about sexism and how dare AranaNet fire a dev after being harassed by a sexist fan.

It was at this point I realized Polygon was full of shit, they later completely revised their article and took out all the bullshit but it was too late for me I never went back there.

 

Here is the Anet Partner's Tweet.

https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1014280605599748096|twgr^|twcon^s1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FDeroirGaming2Fstatus2F1014280605599748096widget%3DTweet

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

The good and bad thing with gaming YouTube channels is that they're all typically really niche. Some will only cover news for JRPGs, or for MMOs, or retro games, or whatever. I haven't found anyone that good that covers video games as a whole.


Niche and though there are certainly many quality accounts, they’re also prone to a ton of paid gigs. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Fizzzzle said:

The good and bad thing with gaming YouTube channels is that they're all typically really niche. Some will only cover news for JRPGs, or for MMOs, or retro games, or whatever. I haven't found anyone that good that covers video games as a whole.

 

Just now, BloodyHell said:

MinnMaxx, Kinda Funny, Easy Allies, Whats Good Games (plus, you get to watch Andrea Rene and Kristine Steimer).

All of those, as well as Spawn Wave, as mentioned above.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Basically Eurogamer is it.  USGamer was awesome, but as already mentioned they are sadly no more.  It actually blows my mind how bad games journalism is on the whole.  Either you have to watch an inexplicably long youtube video that has about 2% of interesting content throughout, or you have to read poorly written short articles that are basically summaries of tweets.  Popular podcasts like Giant Bomb also seem to just boil down to "this was good, this was bad, holy shit this snack is awesome".  There is nothing of any critical substance in most anything game related in my experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I miss the 1up Show.  People talking casually and honestly about games they previewed, in a well edited wrap up of why you should and shouldn't be excited.

 

I feel like there's a huge opportunity lost in the indie games scene for this.  So much of the content is catch-all.  Almost nothing is carefully curated.  Just look at last year's 'E3'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Basically Eurogamer is it.  USGamer was awesome, but as already mentioned they are sadly no more.  It actually blows my mind how bad games journalism is on the whole.  Either you have to watch an inexplicably long youtube video that has about 2% of interesting content throughout, or you have to read poorly written short articles that are basically summaries of tweets.  Popular podcasts like Giant Bomb also seem to just boil down to "this was good, this was bad, holy shit this snack is awesome".  There is nothing of any critical substance in most anything game related in my experience.


Giant Bomb has episodes like that from time to time but for the most part that’s not even close to true. You only have to go back a week to their Game of the Year stuff. That’s 15-20 hours of pretty in depth and critical content on games. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think a lot of the giant bomb critique is pretty shallow in their GOTY discussions. It becomes clear that a majority of the games they’re debating only 1-2 people have typically played them any significant chunk of time, and they do use a lot of general descriptors over and over. I still enjoy listening to them but i rarely hear super interesting insight. 
 

Brad probably puts the most thought into it and can usually discuss his thoughts in the most sophisticated manner. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Giant Bomb is not very journalistic in the slightest at least as far as this thread goes, at least it seems that's what the OP was thinking of.

 

Generally they have no idea what's going on and they read the news on the spot and give an opinion of it. Giving an opinion of a game they like I don't think is the journalistic take the OP was asking for either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...