Grim News

After I got home last night, I decided to try a little experiment.  I brought out my scale, which is a damn liar I might add, and took my weight. 232 pounds.  I want to see how not drinking soda will effect my overall weight.  My thought is that I may drop a few pounds due to the lower calories I'm consuming, but I don't know how many.  I'll report back each week my findings.

For the most part day 2 isn't going that badly.  I figured by now I'd be a puddle on the ground, with a major headache and no energy.  Turns out, I only have a slight headache, and my energy level is surprisingly normal.  But we are still early on. 


Weight = 232lbs
Waist size = 45in

One problem that the game industry has is that game journalists sometimes lack a sense of professionalism. Many journalists are enthusiastic fans who land a "dream job" related to games; journalism might be as close to the ultimate goal of game development as some people will ever get. The dream of getting paid to play games is probably better realized as a typical journalist than as a game developer.

Unfortunately, this lack of professionalism hurts the game industry. We need more real game journalists who do a good job covering the industry and showing what is really going on. Sadly, this is all too rare and most game "journalism" fails spectacularly.

Why journalism matters

Why get all worked up over game journalism? It's my old friend legitimacy again. Without real journalists and critics, we don't move forward as fast as we might otherwise to gain more acceptance as an expressive medium. If we have too many "journalists" that just read press releases and gives unfaltering praise to big games (reserving scorn for smaller games with little advertising budget), then we reinforce the same patterns that already dominate the industry.

This is also the reason why it's not entirely hypocritical for a crass game developer to point at a journalist and ask them to be professional. ;) What I sometimes lack in decorum I make up for by trying to move the industry forward in other ways.

And, I don't believe journalism can be completely replaced by blogging. As much as I love bloggers (being one myself), we just don't have the impetus to do the real work needed. Blogs are often good at lightly covering topics, or being quick to pick up on an interesting story. Real journalism digs deeper into the story and verifies facts.

I think that everyone, especially game developers, need to start appreciating good journalists more in order to move the industry forward. Real journalism takes time and effort, and has a potentially lower return on investment if we don't give them support. It might be nice to have a popular site willing to regurgitate press releases, but it's better to have critical insight. While I don't appreciate Roger Ebert's perspectives on video games, it's not hard to see that critics like him have had a tremendously positive influence on movies.

The culprit

So, let's look at an example of "game journalism" over at Joystiq about NDS closing down. Here are some of the inaccuracies in a two-paragraph blurb:

"We don't blame you if you can't remember Near Death Studios..."
Except that the company is newsworthy enough to get coverage on the front page of a major news site.

"...which today announced..."
Actually, the blog post referenced was dated the 31st of December, while this article was posted on the 5th of January.

"...nine years spent trying (and failing) to make money..."
Actually, we made a fair amount of money. Enough to pay five full-time employees at once time. Not luxurious wages, but about what my blue-collar father made when I was growing up. The problem is that we stopped making money just this last year and I didn't want to put the game in financial risk.

"The now-ironically named developer..."
That's not what "ironic" means. Unless you're talking about dramatic irony, in which case we got the joke because we picked the name in the first place.

"We can't help but wonder if changing the company name might have helped "Near Death" earn more confidence from prospective financial partners."
Let me end your wondering: No. Just like nobody turns away from Blizzard because they're afraid of being buried in snow. Coming from the Midwest, "blizzard" is most definitely a negative term for me.

And this is an article posted on the front page of one of the largest game sites. What's really unfortunate here is that this reflects typical attitude for large sites toward small developers: smaller developers get thinly veiled contempt. A topic that some other sites have handled with some delicacy becomes the target of mockery. It doesn't matter because I'm not likely to make a huge ad buy from a site like Joystiq. (Compare the tone of a story the previous day about EA shutting down multiplayer servers for old sports games. Less mocking there probably because EA will buy a large amount of ads when a new game they want to hype is coming up.)

A bitterly funny interlude

It sure is interesting that NDS is getting all sorts of attention these days now that it's ending. Few people took so much interest when it was still running. Props to the people out there who did pay attention and give it coverage before this announcement.

All is not hopeless

Let me give a counterexample about why we shouldn't give up on game journalists entirely. One journalist from GamePro actually contacted me by email to clarify some of the information for a story being written. Although the email got most of the information right, it was nice to see a journalist actually trying to do a good job. the article posted is pretty accurate and even includes a nice quote at the end from me. I appreciate the extra time it took to send an email before rushing to get a story out. Again, we should take time to appreciate people who do actual work to investigate a story.

A call to action

So, let's start putting this into action. Post in the comments if you've seen any particularly great or poor examples of game journalism out there. Let's start recognizing and rewarding the good people and sites with positive attention and shunning the poor ones. We may not be able to do much individually, but together we might have an influence, and that influence can spread.

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Game Journalism Fail

Look, you doddering old douche, I get that Alzheimer's robs you of your ability to form a coherent thought, to say nothing of rendering you unable to remember what you said and did 20 minutes ago. But for fuck's sake, don't you at least pay a couple of "old guy handlers" to stop you when you're about to spout something shockingly stupid and completely detached from reality? If you do, you should fire their asses, because they didn't stick a tube sock in your mouth before your appearance on "Fux News Sunday" this morning.

Since you probably don't have the slightest idea what you said, seeing as how it's now several hours after the interview, let me refresh what little is left of your memory: You claimed that Barack Obama has fostered a "more partisan" environment than the one that existed during the Clinton administration. You said:

"At least under 'Hillarycare' they tried seriously to negotiate with Republicans. There's been -- there has been no effort that I know of that -- serious across-the-table negotiations, such as I have engaged in with Democrats and with other administrations. And that was the commitment that the president made."

Wow -- really? Really?

That's interesting there, John, because I could've sworn that just a few months ago I watched Obama give a health care address on national television and speak in nothing but the most conciliatory and respectful tones toward the opposing party -- that would be yours -- only to have some disrespectful asshole from that party shout "YOU LIE!" at him like a drunk at a fucking redneck bar.

And you know something? Obama continues to reach out to Republicans. He continues to try to compromise with them and appease them -- to his own detriment, if we're being honest. This guy is still trying to make nice with the people who, since before he even won the election, have called him a dangerous, terrorist-sympathizing, socialist who wants to kill our grandmothers and who wasn't even born in this country. You fucking lunatics literally paint him as some kind of illegitimate pretender to the office -- you're so beavershit terrified that your precious country is slipping away from the control of white, Christian oligarchs and oligarch-enablers like yourselves. Your True Believers organize hilariously bombastic celebrations of willful ignorance and provincial know-nothingness -- you call them "tea parties" -- where they hold up signs declaring "Obama is a Nazi!" They bring guns to places where the President of the Fucking United States is speaking, tacitly threatening him and his supporters with "violent revolution," irresponsible nonsense that's consistently stoked by Republican lawmakers both on Fox News and, occasionally, in person. All this -- all this -- and you have the fucking gall to say that Obama's the one creating a toxic political climate?

Have you been mixing your anti-depressants with Cindy's Demerol?

Look, I get that after being stomped like a kid at a Cincinnati Who concert last year, you decided that it was time to get on your knees, open wide and start swallowing load after load of the GOP Kool-Aid again -- otherwise you'd have no friends -- but you can't really believe the horseshit you're shoveling. Obama's gone so far out of his way to make a group of people who are never going to like him happy that he's actually losing the support of a lot of people who thought they could like him no matter what he did. Even the spineless twerps across the aisle from you in Congress cede both the floor and their testicles to you every chance they get.

Oh, and by the way, I've got two words for you: Sarah Goddamned Palin.

Yeah -- this morning's little pearl of wisdom comes from the guy who unleashed the Retard Kraken onto the world. Sorry, but I'm not giving credence to one fucking thing you say until you apologize for taking a cynical political gamble that would've put a petty, feckless ex-beauty queen -- Idealogue Barbie; someone with more shameless, naked ambition than brains -- just one of your steadily faltering heartbeats away from the highest office in the free world. You wanna talk about somebody who's really fostered partisan enmity -- even in her current role as, well, a fucking reality TV star? Sarah Palin.

And you shot her into the American political system's veins like so much bad smack.

Thanks for that, John. Oh, and fuck you very much for emphatically embracing your party's current ethic of shitloads of hypocritical psycho-projection. You guys are right: It's everyone else's fault. Do yourself a favor, pal. The next time you think that, instead of announcing it on Fox, just go take a look in the mirror and address that person.

But first eat your oatmeal, then it's good-night for you. 5 o'clock. Way past your bed time.


Because you're old.

In a drastic move to tighten regulations of the Internet, individuals can no longer register domain names in China, and those who already have personal websites could lose them.

According to a statement on The China Internet Network Information Centre, as of this week, the only people who can register new domains will be businessmen or organizations, and all those new registrants will need to have both written application materials as well as copies of their enterprise’s business license or organization code certificate.

The China Internet Network Information Centre, which supervises domain name registration, says that the measure stemmed from concern over widespread pornographic content on personal websites.

Existing individual domains could also be in trouble. Website owners in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Henan, Zhejiang and Jiangxi said their sites were no longer accessible.

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