Games Journalism General

There are quite literally gigantic piles of revenue, clicks, and audience. Streamers are getting piles of cash, review copies, and thousands of viewers for basically every single video game release forever. Youtubers who make guides are thriving, and detailed reviewers are doing extremely well.

The medium has changed and there is now more effort required then "play 20% of a review copy, throw together a written review including the specific guidepoints the publisher sent over, then goof off for 30 hours" and it's sending them into a rage.
While the revenue that is there may as well be an entirely different industry than the one these game journos were in. Game journos aren't getting paid by ubisoft $3,000-$30,000 depending on their popularity for a 2 hour sponsored assassin's creed stream. Hell, Hasan got 5 figures for a 2 hour sponsored assassin's creed stream, played less than 20% of the game, went over some specific guidepoints the publisher went over, then went back to talking about praising terrorists so it doesn't even require staying on a side of any issue like @4chanJanitorDefenseForce mentioned. What you can't do is post a half dozen screenshots in an article that could have been written by chatgpt, call it a 9/10, post it on a website no one visits and expect the salaries of a dozen people to get paid for it.
 
The only effort streamers have to put in is how to fake outrage and fake a personality, while staying on the safe side of any issue.
That only makes the current gamejournos more pathetic. You don't have to be a decent person, just pretend to like your audience. You don't have to be a non-leftist, you just don't constantly push your bullshit every waking hour.
 
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The only effort streamers have to put in is how to fake outrage and fake a personality, while staying on the safe side of any issue.
Which is a skill anyone in the public eye needs to foster. A lot of writers and actors were utter pieces of crap, but they were self-aware enough to act decently in public.
The present generation seems to insult their audience, and then be absolutely baffled when nobody watches their content. What the hell do they think would happen when they announce they don't want our views?
 
They have already gone full e-beg crisis mode. It’s only been a couple days and they are already curating lists of game journos who NEED your money. So they are basically DSP, except DSP can still draw people.
 
Which is a skill anyone in the public eye needs to foster. A lot of writers and actors were utter pieces of crap, but they were self-aware enough to act decently in public.
The present generation seems to insult their audience, and then be absolutely baffled when nobody watches their content. What the hell do they think would happen when they announce they don't want our views?
Happened with comic books, hollywood, authors, it's fucking ridiculous.

Imagine you like sports, and turn on ESPN and instead of getting highlights from a baseball game you're told by the host that you're a piece of shit for liking baseball, lectured about baseball related deaths, told that you're trash because a player you liked once out of hundreds in the MLB might have voted wrong a decade ago, and then get fed 2-4 minutes of commercials before getting back to the show and being told the same thing about hockey or whatever. Then 6 months later you get called a piece of shit for not watching the channel that hated you for consuming the entertainment that the channel was supposed to be about.

It would be fucking insane, no one at ESPN would have a job. The advertisers would immediately pull their money out of it and the network producing the shit would drop the entire thing. Except for whatever reason because "nerd hobby" I guess, g4tv did exactly that for their reboot and then got axed just like any other pointless expenditure would with the staff who supported the shit acting surprised(and even the ones that didn't support it... shouldn't be shocked that the dumbshits who made the decision cost them all their jobs). At least with Hollywood and movies, it's dumbass actors running their mouths on their press tours after the movie has already been made rather than it being a continuous production like a TV show/magazine/website/etc. that winds up getting cancelled.

Even with the political shit, where people can assume(at least for US politics) that the news channels could capture at least 50% of the total population as a target audience it still doesn't work. With MSNBC, CNN, etc having to at least ease up(not entirely cut the crap of course, but they're nowhere near as bad as they were during trumps first term) on some of the bullshit and fire hosts because they've gotten so insane that even people who might agree with them aren't interested in watching their shit.
 
Okay, so r/giantbomb users were posting clips, and this is a definitive Dan Ryckert moment.
Dan: Pirates just stole shit from other people?
(Vinny turns his head towards Dan)
(Ben realizes Dan is serious and laughs a bit)
Alex: I don't know if dollars were the preferred currency back then.
Vinny: Wait, what?

The other one I'm remembering is Dan saying he didn't know Kojima put politics in Metal Gear games. No video for that one, but there's audio. Hell, just typing Dan Ryckert led to youtube suggesting "metal gear political" :lol:
Alex Navarro doesn't get a funny youtube suggestion even though he had a gamer moment.
Thinkin' about those WOPS...
I guess, g4tv did exactly that for their reboot and then got axed just like any other pointless expenditure would with the staff who supported the shit acting surprised
Speaking of G4:
There's that X-Play segment introducing Giant Bomb. Crazy that G4 died, then came back and died again, all before Giant Bomb found itself in its current status.
 
Okay, so r/giantbomb users were posting clips, and this is a definitive Dan Ryckert moment.

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The other one I'm remembering is Dan saying he didn't know Kojima put politics in Metal Gear games. No video for that one, but there's audio. Hell, just typing Dan Ryckert led to youtube suggesting "metal gear political" :lol:
Alex Navarro doesn't get a funny youtube suggestion even though he had a gamer moment.


Speaking of G4:
There's that X-Play segment introducing Giant Bomb. Crazy that G4 died, then came back and died again, all before Giant Bomb found itself in its current status.
View attachment 7323184
And then all Jeff wanted to do was report on the business side of video games lol
 
One of the fired people created a gofundme for him to never work again.
Screenshot (2698).webp
 
One of the fired people created a gofundme for him to never work again.
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So lets assume it was only 10 people, and they get their $50,000. Congratulations, you've gained $5,000 before any fees and taxes. You're not just going to be able to live off of that forever, you've just put off needing to get another job for a couple months... while needing to be a laughable e-beggar in the process.
Dan Ryckert moment.
The fact that this man ever had a career, is a testament to how unnecessary "game journalism" ever was.
 
So lets assume it was only 10 people, and they get their $50,000. Congratulations, you've gained $5,000 before any fees and taxes. You're not just going to be able to live off of that forever, you've just put off needing to get another job for a couple months... while needing to be a laughable e-beggar in the process.
Feels more like a petty flex, like telling the conglomerate or whatever that fired them "see, we don't need you!"
 
Feels more like a petty flex, like telling the conglomerate or whatever that fired them "see, we don't need you!"
I guess? But again it's only for a couple months, assuming it doesn't get split even more ways than the 10 I mentioned(I don't know how many of these idiots got laid off this time), Might as well be claiming unemployment income as a flex... although I guess if they're all wannabe communists then that would probably actually be one for them.
 
So lets assume it was only 10 people, and they get their $50,000. Congratulations, you've gained $5,000 before any fees and taxes. You're not just going to be able to live off of that forever, you've just put off needing to get another job for a couple months... while needing to be a laughable e-beggar in the process.
I'm sure the Union will make sure the people that need it will get it and not just grift the entire thing like a union does.
 
Speaking of G4:
https://x.com/GBombOOC/status/1918021023158436055 There's that X-Play segment introducing Giant Bomb. Crazy that G4 died, then came back and died again, all before Giant Bomb found itself in its current status.
I have maintained and continue to maintain that G4 was patient zero for the catalyst that changed games culture and games journalism culture to Gamergate and beyond (it already had been brewing with the more "mature" PS2 and Xbox brands, but it didn't solidify until the mid-2000s). By the time they G4 was retooled in late 2005 to be less video game-focused it had already completely changed the industry.
 
Okay, so r/giantbomb users were posting clips, and this is a definitive Dan Ryckert moment.

View attachment 7323221
I remember that skull and bones E3 stream but I didn't remember Alex bringing up dollars twice. The first time he brought it up was during the trailer where a character said "spanish dollars" and he acted smug because surely there was no such thing.
 
That was FF9. Square really wanted people to sign up to their website they made for FF11.
Was it even a website? I thought it was some sort of MSN Gaming Network style "alternative to the Internet" they were pushing. God, that sucked.

Edit: Playonline. You still have to run that shit to run FF11. And yes for some reason FF11 is still ongoing. Although if you consider how FF14 and WOW turned out, well, I get it.
 
It’s interesting that it has been all doom and gloom for Giant Bomb but I don’t see anyone else resigning other than Grubb, Ryckert, and that annoying fat guy. If they are so bold to shit on Fandom in their stream, how come no one has spoken up yet ?
 
It’s interesting that it has been all doom and gloom for Giant Bomb but I don’t see anyone else resigning other than Grubb, Ryckert, and that annoying fat guy. If they are so bold to shit on Fandom in their stream, how come no one has spoken up yet ?
They may have a non disparagement clause in their contract and don't want to risk any type of severance losses by being morons.

They may also think they still have jobs and are still getting paid, even to do nothing, which is ideal for some people.
 
Is there honestly even still a place where games journalism could exist? Isn't it a dead job like telegraph operator? Nowadays anyone can get a setup to upload their own content with minimal cost. If you want to make video content you can make a youtube page, if you want to write articles you can make a wordpress site. You have minimal overhead and if you're good (and lucky) you can have better working conditions than old gaming journalists had. Production of modern youtubers is as slick as the old vids that only gamespot etc could produce. Exclusive industry access is gone as publishers reach out to streamers, or create their own publisher streams. You're not a special somebody that can go to insider only screenings at E3.
Meanwhile youtube can host many different types of videos. Classic games, some guy that played every game in a series a million times and can compare all of them in autistic detail, newest releases rated by someone that loves the genre, newest releases rated by someone that plays all sorts of games, guy that covers indies, guy that produces a long vid giving commentary as he plays through his favorite games. You can find all of those and of higher quality than polygon or kotaku could ever provide.

And hey, if you want to read/watch some male feminist foam at the mouth how titty jiggles are virtually raping women all across the world and you're a bad person for liking them or even tolerating them, you can probably find that as well.
 
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