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[Alebrije]

24 is a lot for an industry that is covered by tons of you tubers , forums.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Yup. And a lot of this has to do with losing faith in the mainstream/legacy media generally. It's not just in gaming journalism, of course. The whole "fake news" thing has been a death knell for them. They earned that reputation themselves; there's no conspiracy here. They failed over and over at their basic journalistic responsibilities. I won't get into the litany, because it's political. Most of us know it by heart. Mainstream/legacy media has lost credibility across the board. Part of this has been the rise of these alternative voices. They aren't always right, but at least you hear a variety of perspectives, not just a univocal one.

Ya. Traditional news also loses in quantity and coverage. They can only cover so many topics and it'll skew to the biggest splashiest news topics of the day or week. And even if they cover something you like, it'll be a 30 second clip at 6 pm news or a small article on their site. The vast majority of their content is actually short.

The general public and social media have strength in numbers, can cover stuff 24h per day, and will cover any news or entertaining shit big and small.

If you check any news or sports site, they stop updating their site in the evening except for sports which have nightly games (and the late west coast games). But unless it's a really important news bite to do at 9 pm, most news sites stop updating news after dinner. Any random joe at home can still be doing YT content or tweets all day.

 

[Thabass]

It's time to adapt then. Time to build your platform on YouTube and Twitch. Traditional media, while may not be dying, it isn't where people are getting their news and opinions, it's all on Youtube now. I get all of my gaming news on Twitter and YouTube and judging by view counts places like ACG and Skillup (because they treat players with respect) and not villfying people for not buying and/or buying games, then I can understand why gamers are moving on from platforms like IGN, GameSpot, and the like.

Learn to adapt.

 

[laynelane]

It's part of a larger trend that has seen traditional journalism die off in large sectors, replaced by independent outlets. Multiple reasons for this. I have a journalist friend who is quite distressed to see her profession slowly collapse around her. It's been going on for many years. Many traditional outlets have closed, relatively few trad journalists remain (compared to the old days). Tons of people have gotten laid off. Entry salaries are low, so you can't find good people to work there - not for long, anyhow. So lots of job insecurity and working with noobs with low qualifications and few options (because who would want to go into the field, the way it is)**. The AI takeover is the most recent cause for alarm, but the problems are many, and they've been going on a looong time.

You still see "legacy media" hanging on in some spots, but by and large it is being usurped by the little guy, the independent voices, cranking out content on the internet and social media. The quality of those little guys vary, of course, but it's a welcome trend. It's a long overdue rebellion against the monopoly on "approved opinion" that the traditional media held for so long. What's happening with trad journalists in the gaming space is a subset of that overall trend.

Back when I was in my 20s, I thought for a while that I might become a journalist. I'm glad I didn't choose that route.

** That's part of what happened with gaming journalism, btw. Financial decline in the journalism industry generally -> poor compensation, job insecurity -> who's going to be willing to take entry level jobs? You ended up with a lot of "gaming journalists" who had no desire to be gaming journalists, who were stuck with that job because it's all they could get. They had graduated with bachelors degrees in fields like English, sociology, psychology, history, or gender studies. They had little life experience and few options for employment, so they had to take what they could get - in this case, writing about videogames. That wasn't what they wanted to be doing, really. They were poorly paid, disgruntled, working in a low-status role at something they didn't care that much about, and were probably unhappy with their life. And it showed.

I can see that writers at gaming media sites were unhappy - I won't call them journalists because they haven't been that in a long time. The sheer amount of contempt for the audience in some cases made that glaringly obvious. The thing is, there had to have been oversight. That is, people above them who approved the articles they released. To me, it shows larger issues with gaming media and it's across more than one level within various organizations - a lack of knowledge and interest in the subject matter and a negative attitude towards the audience. Certainly there's points of similarity between it and other media's decline, but that attitude towards the audience is particular to gaming media.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's time to adapt then. Time to build your platform on YouTube and Twitch. Traditional media, while may not be dying, it isn't where people are getting their news and opinions, it's all on Youtube now. I get all of my gaming news on Twitter and YouTube and judging by view counts places like ACG and Skillup (because they treat players with respect) and not villfying people for not buying and/or buying games, then I can understand why gamers are moving on from platforms like IGN, GameSpot, and the like.

Learn to adapt.

Yup.

We all have seen newspapers being dwindled down. Many have stopped doing them or they are half the size. Makes sense. By the time you get it tomorrow, it's old news that could be seen the day before.

With the internet, both big corporatey companies and FT people on the payroll can totally do news at the same time as everyday streamers or tweeters. In fact, a big news story can originate first from big companies before the randoms tag off it and do their own spin or commentary off it.

Problem for mainstream corporations is they dont have the manpower, interest, or timeliness to keep talking about content. Nor do they spend their resources on small issues which a normal social media guy will... like a guy who likes focusing on COD maps or Souls boss fights or whatever. The guy can get a following dedicating his channel to some topics which get a following over 10 years. Traditional media people dont do that. They move on to the next hit piece.

 

[ozz ex machina]

24 is a lot for an industry that is covered by tons of you tubers , forums.

I was gonna say - anyone half decent from the "classic" journalism pivoted into patreon/youtube content anyway.

I value long form video essays by youtubers far more than the slop journos churn out these days. The games I care about - there are specialised content creators just for that game who know things inside and out and get the same access as the press do anyway...yes you need to weed out sycophant fan content but it's not hard to find trusted people to follow.

Fuck me even before youtube the best games "journalism" was just the same as youtube now. Following the guys at gamespot into giantbomb with personality driven content.

 

[Griffon]

Not low enough.

 

[KINGMOKU]

Trust in all media is at a 50 year low. I assume the hacks and shills in gaming "journalism" is part of that.

I would ask, and trust, a random person at gamestop on their opinion on anything gaming related, then the gaming media.

There is no need for gaming journalism anyway.

 

[Ammogeddon]

Two dozen too many.

 

[tommyleelynn]

Can’t wait for that chud Grummz to be unemployed.