Op Ed [Nov 13, 2014, 6:09 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Forbes - The Catch 22 Of Video Game Journalism [Updated].
"Hype. It’s all about the hype. Many critics of game journalism have complained that reviews are skewed by pressure from publishers or from relationships between press and developers. I’ve been told off the record that this pressure very much exists at many of the video game publications out there, but each tries very diligently to maintain a barrier between editorial and marketing. The larger the outlet, the less this sort of pressure matters. The smaller, and the more specialized, the more this pressure has an impact."
Beamer wrote on Nov 13, 2014, 19:40:
Journalists let you know games are in the works, tell you release dates, serve you trailers, write you previews, and ultimately tell you whether or not to buy the game.
What percentage of gamers do you think hang out on messageboards like this? GTAV sold, what, 22 million copies? Kotaku, a standard games journalist, has 17 million unique visitors per month. Blues has, what, a few hundred regular posters?
We're the minority.
I actually agree with you, Beamer, about the importance of games media.
From announcement to release, how much influence does the hype train have on games -- from indies to AAA -- that turn into pre-orders and day-one buys?
The games journalism debate always keeps going back to "but teh reviews", but it's so much more than just the pre/post-release review; it's everything that leads up to it.
The question is: would a game like No Man's Sky be able to sell without any coverage from the media at all? And would a game like Payday 2 been able to manage a million or so sales without all the positive press leading up to release?
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