Here’s something in the not-too-surprising category. Bill Harris from former Gone Gold fame pointed to a story on Kotaku, about how game publishers pay top dollars for “spotlights” on the front page of two prominent gaming websites. Those gaming websites were alluded to being Gamespot and IGN (Gamespy). This goes alongside with many rumors in the past of these game publishers paying for favorable game reviews.
Some people had asked why I didn’t put a Preview section on foogaming and write previews of games. One of the primary reasons was that the only way you can write up a preview is to use material given to you by the publishers. This is akin to copy and pasting a press release, it can be misleading, not give the whole picture, or even be entirely inaccurate. Too many big-name publishers rely on deceiving marketing tactics to manipulate the sales of their products that it makes previews a worthless idea these days. The above just furthers my resolve on the matter.
The sheer level of fuckwittery someone like WJA brings to his editorialism is amazing to read. And the fact that he thinks a bad writer such as himself should help police the state of game journalism? Laughable.
Remember, this is the fuckwit who seriously ascribed to the notion at Salon.com that Black & White was going to “change the world.” He’s something I truly despise: an English major running amok in a mindset of relativism.
John Reynolds on 03 29th, 2006
So John, tell us how you really feel.
Really, the readers should police the state of game journalism, although the notion doesn’t seem too heartening when Gamespot and IGN has the biggest piece of the pie, and it’s mostly people who won’t know or care about matters such as these.
Matt on 03 30th, 2006