Gaming Journalism
I used to think that video games existed in a small vacuum, lacking a community worth acknowledging. It was only when I got older that I realized the content made by fans far outnumbered (and many times outweighed) the original content itself.
Many sites dedicated to video games and its subsequent journalism have risen to fame over the past few years (IGN, Kotaku and Polygon). Articles on the games are very important in understanding and appreciating the context of the game itself. For me, it is important to understand something on a basic level before I throw $60 at it and hours of my time.
Gaming journalists constantly employ the skills a professional writing major would know firsthand. Using the knowledge gained from writing professionally, they are able to inform their audience of things both writer and reader care about.
While some people may think that these websites only feature reviews, most gaming websites include a plethora of different stories. This includes anything from news articles on various hardware sales to advice on certain games (i.e. guides on how to play them). Even the impact of certain games in/on society can be found on these sites.
So What Does this Mean?
Sometimes these sites cover certain games to the point where they are so eagerly anticipated that the public consumes any and all journalism on the subject. This can usually be considered a good thing, but other times, it doesn’t end so well.
A few years ago, I remember a specific example where professional writing caused a game to crash and burn horribly—both in sales and in the eyes of the gamers. This particular game was called No Man’s Sky, and I was one of the people who was super excited to finally get my hands on it. I had read so many different articles on how amazing this game (which promised hours and hours of fun planetary exploration) was going to be.
And then the game came out.
I noticed that the articles started to show up less and less when I first began to play the game. The more time I put into it, the more I found myself disappointed. Not only was this not the game I thought it was going to be, I was lied to by the creators themselves and the websites I had viewed the articles on. All the cool things (you know, the hours and hours of fun planetary exploration) we were showed were false. I haven’t been able to play the game since.
We’re all Gamers Now
Since then, I have come to learn that professional writing is very influential even in the video game market. Without these thousands of articles and their writers, this explosion of positive content (and subsequent backlash) probably wouldn’t have happened at all. The power of creating content on such a professional level gives these games the ability and culture to perform well—or not so well.
