THE PROFESSIONAL GAMES BLOGGER IS LOWER THAN THE EUKARYOTE

?

http://joystiq.com/bloggers/vladimir-cole/

URK.

Anyone read Alice Taylor's wonderlandblog.com? That's always a good time, and as a BBC employee she gives some interesting insights into "this TV show is also a game is also a car commercial" convergence case studies.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/10/wii-en-la-casa-de-joystiq/

Really? "touched town"? That's the phrase you want to use there?

Then you go over to Kotaku and Brian Crescente is actually playing a decent amount of show-and-tell and it's like how crap do you have to be to work for weblogs inc? seriously damn

"it feels like I'm holding my own dick! Can I short Nintendo's stock?!"

I DON'T KNOW, BUSINESS DEGREE HOLDER IN BAD SUIT, CAN YOU?

Update 14: The folks over at GayGamer.net have picked up on the improper use of "gay" and "faggy" in the quotes above. We've linked to their post because it's good to raise awareness of the fact that neither term is acceptable as a replacement for "crappy" or "lame," despite the ubiquity of such usage within the group of core gamers. While we wish such language would never be used, it's not our place to cleanse quotes. This is how (too) many in America speak. The New York Times has published the word "faggot" in 133 articles, has used the n-word in 935 articles, and has even used the less common "faggy" in five articles. It's not just the NYT: many other reputable publications also publish these hateful words when they're quoting someone in an article. Writers don't take glee in repeating these things, but most of us do take pride in being careful with our handling of quotes.

also, HOLD UP (nate dogg voice) - they pay dudes to blog? the fuck? i just wasnt made for these times

+ penny arcade.

that's my usual range of fuckaround sites, when there's no good science, no football moves, and no work to do.

Go to the admin page, put in the login name, then select "ask question locked" from the Permissions menu. Then manually lock them out of every thread ("Show All Details," then scroll to bottom) except your designated NEGATIVE ZONE.

NEGATIVE ZONE!

http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/01/hey_you_write_f.html

(haha "talkos")

^ when people from high school attend videogame blog nights and they show up on yr rss reader

dammit, just SAY it's a "japanese rpg", instead of going on about how it's not like Oblivion or Gears of War.

But you get paid by the word, don't you?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A10MM9OMJWEBP3/

BRAVE POTATO believes that Super Tecmo Bowl was the greatest game ever made. One hundred yard passes, unstoppable Jerry Rice cross-routes, and a football the size of a small child make the game better, not worse.

EL GUAPO lives by a few hard and fast rules: 1. Chrono Trigger is the greatest game there ever was. 2. Thou shalt not create furniture in a RPG that can't be opened or searched. 3. No game will surpass Chrono Trigger in greatness.

GARAPHIN always plays as Princess Peach. That's right, Peach. Go ahead and snicker, we'll just see who wins the title of "Party Star"...

Dude, it was great!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you saving these for new flickr funnies?

http://kotaku.com/gaming/night-note/you-ever-run-into-your-ex-292616.php

THANKS GAWKERMEDIA FOR INSTITUTING POST QUOTAS FOR EVERY CONTRIBUTOR

JESUS CHRIST

I didn't notice that you mentioned Vlad Cole in this thread...

'Nobody Likes You, Vladimir Cole'

my friend made that filter to filter out his posts on joystiq a while ago... and now it's the fifth hit when you google dude's name. awesome.

BRILLIANT

I basically don't like anyone who's posting on kotaku anymore at all. joystiq is vaguely readable. 4 color rebellion updates about twice a week with old information, and destructoid, while having one of the best stables of talent, apparently hired fruit fucker web design.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/with-added-jade-action/kojima-not-tired-of-360-questions-favors-unified-platform-292582.php

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/08/148.jpeg

we have new wave/emo frontman, kenan-looking blogger type, insanely rich japanese tech magnate, touring keyboardist for Beach Boys/Jimmy Buffet, and PA/marketing chick.

is that Summa guy still writing for destructoid? i stopped going there cos his posts made my eyes bleed.

Dear Crecente:

I've found four glaring errors in your Spore article and I don't think I'm halfway yet, you asshole. It's called proof-reading. Also, it's called sentence fragments.

ew. ew. ew.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/industry/perrin-makes-dean-takahashi-stiff-310104.php
so icky. so very icky.

I just read n'gai croal and game|life now. apparently print publications can afford to hire writers.

kotaku is so dreadful these days. any more recommendations for gaming news sites? preferably ones that just report the news rather than the ego of the writers? (will check out gamelife)

btw i'd recommend zero punctuation not for the journalism but for the high lolz ratio.

seconded, but I like dude's attitude and approach.

I think you'll have a hard time telling the difference between game|life and kotaku or joystiq except that game|life posts slightly less

more like UNPROFESSIONAL GAMES BLOGGER right guys

the vid posted by the guy at kotaku where he tries to play the Brutal Legend promo 45 backwards just makes me wanna throttle him even more.

i stopped reading kotaku and joystiq and mostly only read (aside form croal, anyway, who doesn't count imo) destructoid, which is similar to the other two but somehow slightly more lovable. i think it's the mascot.

who's your arch-gameblogging-nemesis now, tombot, since vlad cole and florian got fired (or moved elsewhere or something)?

LOL WAIT ECKHARDT IS ON DTOID NOW POSSIBLY? WHAT MADNESS IS THIS

wait no he isn't wtf

lol I only read the wired games blog regularly anymore. the rest are hopeless.

I was checking in on dtoid once in a while but realized I don't play first person shooters

for some reason i do :( even though they jsut remind me how much i'd rather be playing a nice turn-based strategy

lol my own article is on the dtoid front page NOW I AM THE ENEMY

look at you mr. guy!!

dude wtf you forgot front mission

don't even get me started about how i forgot front mission as it is one of my fave games ever!

see also: that is some of the WORSTTTTT writing i've ever done, reading it kinda embarrasses me!!!! :/ :/ :/

haw you are still head and shoulders above the eukaryotes, don't sweat it

speaking of which I tried to read 4 Color Rebellion again a week ago or so and jesus christ that guy

I think about 1/6th of his posts are actually about games? he's a completely unfunny stateside nintendo weenie janus face to ukresistance

Ha, I am more ashamed with every blogging job I apply for.

it really is kind of embarrassing how far Eurogamer stands above every other gaming site on the net

I assume what you mean by this is that every other gaming site is crap, and Eurogamer is... kinda decent, right? Then I would agree, somewhat.

I JUST APPLIED TO BE AN INTERNET GAMES BLOGGER LOL

Well, a paid one. ...lol.

ick: http://www.gametrailers.com/screwattack.php

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com is pretty good, but PC only.

haha i think that's the entire staff of pc gamer ten years ago

http://www.onnetworks.com/videos/play-value
watch one episode and see if you can work out which presenter is the more loathsome. hell, try watch the opening credits without exploding with bile.

Earnest Cavalli is on notice

wha'fer?

Nothing really, just the "PC Strikes Again!" comment re RE5, who cares?

"Reverend Anthony" is my new enemy though
http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?a=1334

"I hate the disneyfied Vegas of today!" << CHALLENGING OPINION

http://www.destructoid.com/e3-08-bionic-commando-hands-on-95407.phtml

god help us all

"So, anyway, a miniboss."

bob mackey is on notice:
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3168894

MGS2 and SMB2 are 2 of the best sequels ever WTF

Ah, I'll give that guy a pass. I love MGS 2, but it is hard to defend. The rest of his choices are pretty reasonable. Not quite up to the inanity of "WHOA EXPLODING HEADS YAH" or "DAMN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, all up in my Resident Evil".

yeah, I think you're right, was being a little harsh there

that "whoa exploding granny" post is a cut above

"What's wrong?"
I think she asked twice before I noticed.
"Nothing."
She leans in, concerned "No, something's wrong, I've never seen you this angry before."
"You're right, you haven't."
"You don't get angry."
"You're right, I don't."

I stride up to Kato, my rusting '94 Cavalier, and for the first time in the seven months since we started dating, I don't walk around and open her door. We head to my house and watch The Cosby Show as I cool down, and she lists the things she may have done to upset me.

"I made you mad didn't I?"
"Don't worry about it."
"If I shouldn't worry, it isn't so important that you can't tell me."
"Bad logic."
"Please?"
"Your brother was cheating at his computer game."

The guy doing games for EW in the magazine now is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD... and timely! They just reviewed Rock Band and GH III.

Dude, that Slayer song is HARD.

I'm too old to care about anything on that list

The guy doing games for EW in the magazine now is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD... and timely! They just reviewed Rock Band and GH III.

I think that wasn't any of their regular game reviewers, but Jeff Jensen, writing about something other than Lost for maybe the third time ever. Might've been Ken Tucker, too, now that I think about it. Tucker's a fine writer, but, y'know, older.

http://is.gd/2KR3 eukaryoting it up again

i wrote this and didn't even re-read it before posting, for their "monthly musings" topic. they frontpaged my article, third one of mine in nine months, all of which have been fucking drivel. Their standards are not so lofty (people people like tombot have already found)

nicely turned, eukaryotkesan

I don't think I understand how dtoid works - you have a blog there but is it edited? and this current post, you submitted that for the front page or was it run on your blog and then they picked it up?

haha I just skipped to the commandments but that's fucking great

YOU ARE NOT IN A GANG WITH ROCKSTAR GAMES. DON'T ACT LIKE IT.

lol!!

czn,

Basically, there's the front page and the community blog section. The blogs are unedited (unless deleted for spam/utter irrelevance), but often pieces from the community section are "frontpaged;" that is, put up on actual Destructoid. There's a monthly topic where users have a better chance of hitting the frontpage. There are very few exceptions of people getting frontpaged when it's not on the MM topic (usually something to do with them making a post about how much they love the site). Anyway it seems pretty fucking easy to write something that gets up there-- I wrote a thing on turn-based strategy that didnt even make fucking sense and they popped it up.

funny article, will. i like it a lot.

Thanks s1ocki! That means a lot!

(and let me know if they ever need a game guy at mirror)

(just kidding)

(not kidding)

i will!

DibbityDan at 09/10/2008 20:15

The only one of these rules I refuse to follow is the novelty T-shirts rule. Because I really like Beck and Monty Python and I would feel like I'd be pretending if I wore anything else.

Hahaha THEY GET BETTER

I am thinknig of responding to the ones that call me elitist but I can't think of anything to say other than "yeah, true"

how shocking, an elitist gamer!

maybe my response will just be "i'm a POST-GAMER get with it!"

did you do all the pics or are they added by dtoid when they frontpage stuff?

I did them all in about 45 seconds when I realized nobody would read that wall of text. They are a bit pandering. The only one they added was the top one of the purepwnage dude, replacing the one I had posted because the quality of the image I used was really really low.

Brilliam, did you write that from inside my brain?

Hahaha. I thought of I Love Games so many times while writing it as a paragon of games discussion that wasn't twice-shat-upon nonsense-word.

I'm not trying to be an ass, here, but - if you acknowledge your stuff is badly written, why are you doing it? Just to prove that D-toid has no standards? Because that's already pretty obvious...

I'm not trying to prove anything, I just acknowledge that I'm not the best writer (but I enjoy doing it, and it's an easy way to get it read I suppose). Or, rather, I don't think I'm an awful writer as I'm just bemoaning the fact that I haven't, like, edited something in ages. I hit "submit" then go "oh, that wasn't very good." Impulsive blabbermouth I guess is my major malfunction.

I misexplained the definition of 'prokaryote' on another thread a few months ago and I still feel embarrassed about this.

Good piece, and an appropriate venue. Hopefully some of them Destructoids will take those words to heart.

I don't wanna talk about me anymore, instead I wanna talk about my new fucking "Games blogger" fatwa: chr1s furni5s. i do this because i am CONVINCED this kid spends his days blogging himself.

an article by him, just one of many reasons i dislike him, PERSONALLY:
http://is.gd/2LNI

also, go to the "braid" review on actionbutton.net and read his comments in their comments section. oh god. HE IS WORSE THAN VLAD, FLORIAN, ANTHONY, AND WHOEVER ELSE YOU HAVE like honestly my dislike of him transcends mere games, check out his boring-ass music shit too

why are you googleproofing him

I started a dtoid blog! let's see how long this lasts. first comment:

"welcome. don't suck."

friendly!!

no url, no credibility

http://img.skitch.com/20080917-bqrjemywi6wq4cirt6gkgs3q4q.jpg

^from the sidebar of CHRIS FURNISS' blog; she looks a wee bit like a side-on abbott

are you moonlighting, abbott?

eukaryoteoke

Oh my gosh that lady cloned me and then somehow got cheek implant surgery & chin implants.

Bud Cort - games blogger!

http://img.skitch.com/20080918-bqbn6ssbbx6bneii64bbu9hu7e.jpg

Wait, why did you add an "oke" at the end?

dude

haha i said "spends days blogging himself" but i actually meant googling himself. google proofed him because he bugs me and he'll somehow find it and fucking run mouth.

I absolutely do not understand Cozen's last several posts

1. I started a blog
2. on destructoid
3. called eukaryoteoke
4. I posted the url to the blog, and a pic of the banner
5. last post was a slight non-sequitir but ties into will m's worry that chris furniss' self-googles: I was saying bring him on via the method of youtube video
6. I apologise

what IS with the "oke" though?

eukaryoteoke

I am mad that I had to write that btw

haha I actually watched the youtube cozen posted not all that long ago, trying to find LETBSY AVENUE

dan I am also mad about it
you guys really do need to remuneration get

what's what i thought but i was so not sure

what what (in the butt)

I quit destructoid

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Chad+Concelmo/gay-punctuation-is-gay-103051.phtml

does it make it better if the author is way supergay himself?

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5976

that guy otm
http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/images/smilies/enemykd-tomato.gif

<a href="http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/author/gmartin/";>is it professional if you still have a dayjob?</a>

here is one thing of many I shall most likely regret

so prophetic

really not a fan of how the gaming community treat stories about Soulja Boy the Gamer...

http://kotaku.com/5062310/soulja-boy-now-offering-ass+whoopins-for-free

I get what Cankles sees in this guy.
http://www.thejhohcableshow.com/pix/1184719345764.png

Kind of interesting/amusing, especially on the calling of bad editing mistakes.

http://www.magicalwasteland.com/

nice find

“There aren't many different buildings to destroy, either, so you end up seeing the same thing explosions and over again.”

^^^^content brought

if nobody else is gonna step up over the course of two years then it falls to my sorry pedant ass to say that a eukaryote is any multi-cellular organism, i.e. a plant or an animal including humans - it's not a syn for "low form of life"

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/12/video-the-trail.html#more

Luckily for you we've assembled the best ones, including trailers for Grand Theft Auto IV's "Lost And Damned" DLC pack (above), God of War III, Mafia II, Gears of War II's "Combustible" map pack, the Terminator: Salvation movie tie-in game, Fight Night Round 4, Dante's Inferno, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Watchmen: The End is Nigh.

I'm making no secret of my distaste for the Spike's effort, but the sheer number of important debut trailers impressed even my jaded sensibilities.

...

add-on to sequel, sequel, sequel, map pack, movie tie-in game, sequel, lol, wtf, fuck you

Cavalli. *shrug*

is sequel such a bad word in video games? super mario 3? fuck you!

s1ocki OTM. Games aren't movies, and CAN objectively be BETTER hence why taking a good game, making a sequel, and iterating on the game's engine/controls/game/play/whateverthefuckword is TOTES AWES. I mean come on. One of the best games ever is the third iteration of the "third" game in a series (Street Fighter III Third Strike). Actualy less like thirs in the series, more like fifth if you count the Alpha series and that The Movie game, and maybe even sixth if you count the RIDICULOUS number of II iterations as split into two parts (regs and SUPER).

I just think "debut game trailer" is such a laughable commodity. That shit was all on the internet the next day (hour?) and I'm hardly feeling compelled to watch any of it. "Free downloadable game demo", now you've got my attention.

The bottom line is that you'd have to basically be insane to think that Home Alone 3 (which Roger Ebert gave three stars) is a better experience than something like Fallout 3.

not so much sequels=bad, because yeah, games are software and software tends to improve by iterations. it's that the only thing that isn't a sequel or DLC for a sequel on his list is "Dante's Inferno" which ugh

and that's just a cheapie adaptation of the book

...which is just a poor novelization of the movie

http://www.massively.com/2009/01/02/the-death-of-lively-and-some-lessons-about-complexity/#continued

So, ideally the interaction interface needs to be of an order of complexity that is coupled to the order of complexity of the number and type of possible tasks. If it rises above that or falls below that, performing tasks becomes harder. Performing tasks with an oversimplified interaction-interface is like trying to make coffee with one hand tied behind your back. Overcomplicating it, is like trying to instruct five people to build a shed, when none of you have any language in common. Both tasks can be done, but you'd rather that the circumstances weren't nearly so hard. (In both cases, you will note, we use the prefix over- to indicate 'in an excessive manner', just in case you were in any doubt)

Writing about it, is like composing a metaphor on a tight deadline, when instead of a brain that has read a book or a magazine, you instead possess only a putrescent fish that lied about having an acceptable level of written communication skills on its resume. Everything is possible, nothing is permitted. (In both cases, I have chosen to include a clarification of my shit as a postscript, just in case the reader wasn't sure if I was completely out of my fucking league here).

GAAAAAAHHHHHH

This isn't really exactly the right topic for this, but... damn. This is kind of depressing - I think 1up was probably the best mainstream site we had in the US. A ton of people were fired, and it is going to be owned by UGO - bad, bad things.

woah so who is left?!

tiny sanchez kept on: UGO are pervvvvvvvvvvvs

Yeah, total bummer. Hope everybody lands on their feet.

Obviously that staff was too huge to be supported simply by the website, but I'm bummed that they had to or decided to cut all the podcasts and video shows. Especially Retronauts & 1up Yours - which made the time spent at my boring job slightly less boring most weeks for the last couple of years. A lot of the features were pretty great on the 1up Show too, or at least it didn't feel so much like they were trying to sell you games, but just talk about 'em a bit and provide a variety of opinions. Must have been quite expensive to produce though (like the shows in Japan & Europe).

Ryan O'Donnell, Jayfresh, definitely fired; Bettenhausen was already lined up for a job elsewhere, this was just coincidental to his leaving; Garnett Lee out; Matt Chandronait out, i'm pretty sure; Milky out; David Ellis, Sam Kennedy still employed; Skip Pfister out; I tihnk Sharky's out too. Jeremy Parish is staying.

The biggest hits are to anyone whose job was the 1UP Show or the podcasts, as they're discontinued immediately.

err xpost yeah, the podcasts and the 1up show were of the highest quality-- which is why it blows my damn mind that they failed so miserably to monetize. I'd have paid 1.99 a month for all of those podcasts, or .99 an episode of the 1up show, easily.

Word is that EGM's print division is gonna be shut down?

http://jeff-greenspeak.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-youre-not-same-1up.html

not just word, forks, it's hella fact. last issue = jan09. no news on what they're doing about the existing subscriptions.

did they actually still have any paying subscribers? for a while you could sign up for a free one online

I've heard a lot of people bitch about how they just bought a 3-year sub.

IGN RSS feed clusterfuck

"Former IGN Journalist Dead in Apparent Murder / Suicide"
"House of the Dead : Overkill Screenshots"

I am lower than an amateur eukaryote:

http://www.nwordclord.com

Bookmarked!

Uh it may be uncool to ask, but what does that domain name mean, exactly?

HOW DARE YOU BE SO UNCOOL

no but srsly it's just a Tim Rogers reference

DISQUALIFIED

i kid, i kid

I'm torn - I liked Stephen Totilo's work at MTV Multiplayer, but now he's moving over to... sigh... Kotaku. Is it worth putting up with the general level of material and plugging it into my RSS reader for this?

brian ashcraft at kotaku is one of the worst writers i have ever read.

eg, http://kotaku.com/5225222/japanese-singers-naked-drunk-rampagein-saints-row-2

Kotaku is completely unworthy of being read by anyone ever. bunch of unfunny, rarely-informative, clickthrough-begging-ass bitches.

Use pipes.yahoo.com to make a filter. you can generate a custom rss feed that only spits out certain things, like one writer for example. i have a filter for destructoid where i only read samit, chad, and anything with "contest" in the title.

gaming journalism at its finest
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=185060

damn that's pretty cold of eurogamer

Darkfall Online doesn't do itself any favors by unleashing the hordes of unwashed fanboys onto Eurogamer. But it does make for an awesome train-wreck.

they're reviewing it again (kieron gillen)

I expect it'll get 1/10

awesome. kieron is ace.

http://kotaku.com/5598501/what-if-the-next-metroid-is-a-bad-game

Games blogger delves into the serious issue of 'what if the next metroid game sucks'.

I dont know dude. You pee your pants? Can't sleep at night? Earth collapses in upon itself?

anyone who thinks Other M is going to be anything other than dire is lower than the eukaryote

ah, it'll probably be ok. if you can skip the cutscenes, that is.

how come fucking nicholson baker can't write any better about video games than a eukaryote?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/09/100809fa_fact_baker

idk i can't read the full thing. abstract is kinda compelling tho.

abstract is not much different from full article tbh
it has moments, but it's a little like somebody saying "I've never read a book so i asked my grandpa to recommend some books. Leon Uris writes really long and complicated stuff and these Mike Hammer things are violent and Danielle Steele is kind of poorly done. Maybe I should read something by Martin Amis but maybe I'll just go outside instead."

like, dude, if you haven't played a video game in decades, don't START with Modern Warfare 2 any more than you would make Moby Dick a first novel or Seventh Seal your first movie. You need to get a better grounding in the field do u c

neogaffers having at it on this one just now too:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=402842

wouldn't expect much more from a new yorker piece by nicholson tho - it's obviously intended as a 'letters from the interior' kinda piece for people who don't want a more detailed analysis. at least it's more sympathetic than ebert.

also yr book piece sounds otm :)

Then came Heavy Rain by Quantic Dream, the most self-consciously artistic game on the list. David Cage, Quantic Dream’s founder, calls the game an interactive drama. Cage said that he feels close to Orson Welles, advancing an art form.

hahahahahahahahahahaha! the sheer fuckin hubris of this.

On the Xbox 360 controller, which looks like a catamaran

this kills me for some reason

how come fucking nicholson baker can't write any better about video games than a eukaryote?

i thought it was p well written - its not an article for me, but as an article in the newyorker it makes sense. i mean its supposed to be an outsider/grandpa perspective on the artform (lol) & i think its interesting and valid seen from that perspective.

ne way forx the outloud interview with baker is really good - might make you more sympathetic/interested in his take on the medium

i guess to be fair it's not poorly written; I respect Baker's skill and have read most of his stuff. It's the "what is this i don't even" attitude and the lack of intellectual curiosity that gets me. ANy schmo could have written this. Why bother?

I think it is written specifically for the "what is this I don't even" demographic.

that's where the money is i guess

It's the "what is this i don't even" attitude and the lack of intellectual curiosity that gets me

i. sorry to nag but i do think its impt to listen to his outloud intvw. hes definitely both sympathetic and curious
ii. its debatable whether the world needs another 'youve come a long way since pacman, baby' type videogame articles
iii. but i think this is genuinely where baker found himself - he sorta recognizes this as ridiculous but its still where hes starting from

i i'll try the outloud later
ii agreed, i was just hoping it might be him writing about the joy of the experience or the bonding with the son or whatever, not a "VIDEOGAMES WHY ARE THEY SO BAD AND HATED" piece
iii if this was the first chapter of a nonfiction book, i'd buy that but as a nyorker piece it feels like a silly thing to do. He ends the piece by saying he should go outside instead for crissakes!

It is cold outside, f that

He ends the piece by saying he should go outside instead for crissakes!

uuuugh

yah its ~sweltering~ outside atm

idk y im defending this article so much - actually i totally do & its bcuz i started reading the gaf thread on it - but i didnt like it. at all. it just didnt bother me & what really bothers me is the idea the games nerd cant/wont accept as valid that some grandpa could a) not know much abt video games b) try some video games c) find some things to admire about games but, on the whole, not enjoy playing video games

video games are rad but not every1 has to like them panicked & defensive & shrill is nagl bros.

totally agree on all points.
but if you're going to write an article for the new yorker about a badly underserved ta ra ta ta ART FORM ta ra ta ra then fucking have something more to say than that!

didn't realize scott sharkey and ray barnholt were let go from 1up a week ago, bummer. i was a fan of barnholt's The Sound Test podcast

also kieron gillen more or less retired from games writing, which is also a shame, but he's moving onto other things

http://insertcredit.com/2011/06/20/journalism-the-videogame-redux/

I didn't even make it to the Rogers entry. Someone with more patience please tell me if there's anything actually good in there, because frankly it seems like the same kind of navel-gazing stuff that Sheffield apologizes in advance for in the introduction...

I'm glad honestly that IC is back but...

http://animalcrossingtragedy.ytmnd.com/

Nah there's nothing good in there.

Why did you link to that sappy crap, Mordy

in this thread

bc the preceding link told a similar sappy animal crossing story about his ex-girlfriend sending him flowers

I know this is beating a dead horse but seriously?

http://kotaku.com/5816938/what-is-japans-fetish-this-week-giant-breasts

Japan's interest in breasts, especially large ones, is strong.

brian ashcraft's prose is an affront to the english language, and 95% of his output on kotaku, back before his contributions became so annoying i could no longer read the site, are all weird japanese sex fetish stuff.

still goin

What is Japan’s Fetish This Week? S&M
Games of leather and rubber. Not video games, but real games with impossible heels and spankings. Those might be the trappings of S&M, but in Japan, S&M isn't only about trappings or artifice. More »

http://kotaku.com/5825520/what-is-japans-fetish-this-week-sm

he seems a creepy, creepy dude. the shiroibasketshoes of videogames journalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN2KUJgOPBs

y'know, i tend to be okay with seth, but this piece reeks of the worst sort of filler
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/arts/video-games/zork-to-amnesia-the-dark-descent-horror-in-video-games.html

Activision committed a kindness by including the full original Zork as a hidden Easter egg in the top-selling game of 2010, Call of Duty: Black Ops.

I didn't know this. Not the most obvious overlap of fanbase...

(and yes, that read like a phoned-in assignment on a subject of no particular interest)

ahaha that skyrim video

i tend to be okay with seth

Why

at least he's enthusiastic?

His effusive praise of any/everything is a bit much for me but I see your point.

Year in swooning:

http://insultswordfighting.blogspot.com/2011/11/quiz-year-in-swooning.html

just bought a sub to killscreen. will report back as first issue just arrived.

if nobody else is gonna step up over the course of two years then it falls to my sorry pedant ass to say that a eukaryote is any multi-cellular organism, i.e. a plant or an animal including humans - it's not a syn for "low form of life"

right. which is why being lower than a eukaryote makes you...pretty low

http://pitchfork.com/killscreen/146-review-fear-is-vigilance/

I don't really read Kill Screen, but I glanced at it this morning and it's basically the worst game writing this side of GameFaqs.

at least they're tryi- oh god i can't say it

some of gamefaqs is great writing

Yeah, most of them don't mention olives, amirite.

i gotta say, the penny arcade report (and esp. the cut aggregator, well-curated) is decent, mostly because of Ben Kuchera jumping ship form Ars Technica

this "Polygon make a navelgazing documentary" thing has been fascinating to follow over the last couple of days
good blog post about it here http://botherer.org/2012/08/23/polygon-and-the-documentary-that-cured-cancer/

omg that is amazingly hilarious

scanning through to decide if my favourite moment was "the best team of editors that's EVER been put together [to do a video games site]" or the oh so subtle guitarsturbating at 1:05, when i heard THE BLOORP... skip to 0:57 to hear "and I think that's part of what blloooOOORP"

part of me wants to not be a cynical asshole and just be cool with these guys who seem like they could be that legitimately enthusiastic about what they're doing.... but yeah, that's probably not the case. SPONSORED BY INTERNET EXPLORER!

also, it was surely a wise move for Walker to post that on his personal blog rather than at RPS

Does Arthur Goose show up in the docu? I still listen to Rebel FM

I'm curious to see whether it ends up on RPS's Sunday roundup of web writing.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/27/dishonoreds-attempt-to-cure-violence-with-revenge-by-vice/#comments

"Vice, founded as a punk zine in 1994, is now a major global brand with a network of television, documentary and digital production studios, an online hub, magazine, record label, publishing house and advertising agency. It's notorious for brash exposition and unapologetic presentation, finding the dark yet honest angle in its productions."

WTF kind of cut and paste job is this

honestly, a little confused here

yeah the article makes little to no sense.
Try reading this and then coming back to it:
http://gapersblock.com/mechanics/2012/09/19/why-is-vice-using-ceasefire-to-sell-a-game-about-revenge-killing/

to think, i was *this* close to working for joystiq

(that's something of a lie, but whenever i see this level of writing on one of their sites i just have to taste my bitter tears)

this Eurogamer/Lauren Wainwright thing has been kinda hilarious, quick recap here http://wosland.podgamer.com/the-wainwright-profile/

damn. crap situation for Rab. I guess he'll be writing more cardboard children entries on RPS

as true as it is that games journalism is in a state of regulatory capture (and it's obv true and has been since i was reading CGW + Nintendo Power in elementary school), how much more 'investigative reporting' can we expect? a little more business reporting might be good (it's a huge industry, but look at how shitty general tech writing is), def could use some better critical theory + academic writing, but none of these issues are life + death. if you're going to write about games, to some extent you have to be okay w/ writing about an industry situated firmly in the bowels of capitalism. you can create a little distance, but you can't be completely divorced from shill-dom.

why should coverage of the video games industry be different from any other? (i suppose you could take the cynical route on that one, too...) i don't see why you can't have some "legitimate" or dare I say "honest" journalism alongside the shill, as with other arts/entertainment industries. There's legit film/music/television criticism and stories out there, after all

And there are legit video game criticism and stories out there, but just like those other industries (film/music/television) most of it is not critical.

i agree with that. and perhaps Rab even went a little too far in singling out this random junket journalist where there are so many out there... but still, it's hard to see this situation as something besides disappointing

perhaps Rab even went a little too far in singling out this random junket journalist

I don't think he went to far, come on! If you write (tweet) about something, it's more than fair for somebody else to write an opinion about what you wrote and name you. In fact, he also mentioned two people as examples in his original article, not just one - wait three people (the pic of guy with doritos & mountain dew). These were concrete examples to back up what he was writing about, not attacks on individuals. The only ones who went too far here are the individual or company who allegedly threatened a libel suit, and Eurogamer for editing the article instead of standing behind it as originally published.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/mcvs-lauren-wainwright-english-libel-law-and-the-gaming-press-why-this-stor

I do feel bad for eurogamer, they always come across as a pretty great bunch and the fact they even published that article in the first place shows they're on the right side. Sure they were maybe a bit weak to fold on it so quickly, but I don't think they deserve the amount of flack they're getting for that. They're not the bad guys here.

This story brings up many uncomfortable questions about the connections the gaming press has to the industry it’s supposed to cover, and it’s unsurprising so few outlets have chosen to report on what’s going on.

“I don’t think it’s a pretty important story. I think it’s the same tired nonsense about games journalism that some folks love to carry on endlessly about,” Kotaku editor in chief Stephen Totilo wrote in a comment on his site after being criticized for not reporting on the issue.

totilo is too busy shoving his face firmly into the publishers asses to be busy with reporting on this issue. no surprise here.

kotaku is like a wretched hive of hacks who can't write, can't think and have REALLY unpleasant, unexamined opinions about women.

Eurogamer's new editorial sounds like a decent summation of a nasty episode - is there anything missing?

kotaku's japanophile daily segments need to be studied by sociologists

their guy out in japan is one of the creepiest fuckers to write on the internet. like shiroibasketshoes levels of creepy.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/game-theory-a-playwright-on-the-art-of-video-games
in which the NYT suggests that the best writing of the year in games was catherine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO0zMYuw3F0

i really should crack that open

and still so true!

This guy is so damn good y'all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgu76ql6FSo

well done.

Well i guess there's no harm in repackaging decades old ideas for people who've never heard of Wittgenstein or John Cage. But FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME LOSE THE GAME.

oh cmon ledge; i'm aware this isn't groundbreaking theory but it's so far ahead of what passes as game writing it ain't even funny

There doesn't seem to be a theory at all though? This guy just seems to want to talk about games, which mcgonigal is much better at.

Also, there's plenty of great game writing! The recent article about the guy who found his dad's source code to an old game in a shoebox was pretty good.

oh man i think he's way better than mcgonigal

in what way? appropriate clip art usage? i don't want to bag on this guy -- he seems like he just wants to talk about games without critical baggage -- isn't that what his video is about?

can you link me to a good McGonigal piece? i haven't really been convinced by any of her stuff i've read

oh no, i don't find her convincing at all, but she has interesting things to say/report on. she did a talk at the computer history museum that is pretty long-ish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIhruoUvf80

The recent article about the guy who found his dad's source code to an old game in a shoebox was pretty good.

Could someone link me to this? Thanks!

i think he's defining what the appropriate critical response to "is this a game" can be.
i did mcgonigal's NY Library "game" and have read enough of her stuff to determine she's not talking to me.

oh it was his dad who found the code:
http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2012/04/source/

re: "is this a game" the sense I got from the video was it was aimed towards gamer doodz, where "is this a game" is shorthand for "is this a game worth talking about"
the dude just wants to talk about games. if he were serious about applying a critical edge to it, then by his own arguments a lot of the things he wants to talk about are strictly speaking not games.

errant signal guy is legit, i've seen enough of his videos; he's eloquent and serious in his criticism. though i'm not sure what you're saying

i only saw the one posted, and i'm sympathetic to his POV, but the argument is flimsy as criticism -- he cites examples of 'this is really not-games, we all agree on this, and i'm not arguing these things are games' at the beginning, then argues for these other things being games which should also apply to the things he's already agreed is 'really not-games'

i like errantsignal but that one was a little strange cuz i mean ok first of all i have zero patience for "is this a game?" as a question because like who cares. you're sitting in front of a screen and you are occasionally providing input of some kind so let's just move on and talk about what's happening. BUT WHAT OF USING A REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE TO CHANGE CHANNELS? CAN YOU NOT SEE WATCHING TELEVISION AS A KIND OF "GAME" OR "LUDIC SPACE" like okay if you want! who cares! my spade is turned.

then the video basically comes to the same conclusion, listing all kinds of different kinds of experience that can arguably be classified as games, and ends urging people to not exclude the sims or iphone casual games from "the conversation" from a misguided belief that they "aren't games", because they are. but i mean the sims is the best-selling pc game in history. books have been written about it. casual games are what everybody on the bus is playing all the time every day. i'm sure there are venerable quake clansmen out there who claim the sims isn't a game and refuse to talk about it, but again who cares? they don't marginalize the sims by doing this; they marginalize themselves. so i guess like philip says that's what the video is: a plea to a few people on the internet to join the conversation everybody else is having. i guess that's useful, but, yknow, of limited appeal. i've enjoyed a bunch of his other stuff tho and yeah obv the bar is hilariously low.

jane mcgonigal on the other hand is the darkness.

"obv the bar is hilariously low" can't really be said enough afaik

why not start a blog then? or a twitter?

Coint and Plick 2013 - The Sixth Annual ILX Video Game Poll

yikes! that's not going to fit on a twitter. you can totally beat this errantsignal guy though.

haha, no not really. I've been working on an essay about TEH STATE OF TEH GAMEZ but it's problematic to get on paper.

That last ES video i really didn't have a problem with it. Sure "What is a game?" has been brought up before, but that doesn't invalidate it. It's a genuinely interesting question, and it's cool how he gives a couple examples of definitions that don't exactly fit.

I don't know if "what's a game" at its most basic and literal level is interesting at all. "Ruleset + Play = Game" seems like a glib but totally sufficient definition, and matches how people use the word 'game' in almost every context.

(xps) ohright, the Mechner thing is cool - thanks for the link - but I was envisaging an article where someone finds some 5.25" floppies of forgotten GWBASIC adventure games by their departed father... oh well

I did see (non-game-relatedly) an article about some encryption tools written by the author's deceased uncle, but what the code actually did was beyond me, needed more kobolds and/or phasers

please excuse me talking completely at cross-purposes to the actual topic of discussion, but I don't tend to watch video-journalism, so I have not yet watched the videos linked

I'd like to see more discussion from people with backgrounds in film or fine art. There is so much to talk about that always gets looked over, and even the fundamental stuff tends to get glossed over.

There's lots of articles here and there about cool things about games. (There was a recent roundup of hidden messages programmers would leave inside the games that often had contact info, so people tried contacting them 10-20 years after the game came out -- stuff like that.)

re: fine art, what's to talk about w/r/t games that gets glossed over? I suspect there's a lot of material on the industry shop talk side that might address what you're looking for.

i'd like to thank forks for turning me onto this gem:
http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/?p=6419

Wtf is up with that article.

Also I can rescue a pug in Spelunky?

yeah, i totally didn't know that or forgot

Yeah, it's in the menu. You can switch between rescuing boys, girls, dogs, or randomized.

damn, rip 1Up, Gamespy, and UGO. Layoffs at IGN. What is Ziff Davis doing?

Realising they've got like five different video games sites for no good reason?

i was surprised they weren't cut down earlier one by one as they got acquired. it's a shame though, i think 1up (and Gamespy earlier in the decade) were much better than most mainstream sites

I paid attn to 1up just because Jeremy Parish was there

1down

why don't we have a rolling kotaku is fucking terrible thread? http://kotaku.com/im-a-game-designer-im-a-gun-owner-its-time-to-end-470868225

because it would be the largest ilx thread of all time and would ultimately destroy all that we love...

why on earth do dudes have photos taken of themselves shooting guns?

that guy's cool, and right, and cool

man even if you think he's right, which he is not, it takes a laser focus of trolling to pretend that some punk bitch internet beard gun nut libertarian is cool.

I deleted my kotaku bookmark today. felt good. mostly did it because their new format makes my eyes bleed.

i deleted my kotaku bookmark today oh boy

RIP mayor jingleberries' kotaku bookmark

10,000 moe in otaku blogosphere

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7121-Dark-Souls-and-Dark-Sales
someone might want to explain how shareholders and market projections work to this guy

shit like this, skewed with (i guess) pach attack, suggests how little joe gamer seems to care about the fact that AAA gaming is primarily about business in the same way that AAA cinema is about business.

tomb raider is considered a sales disappointment? huh

i think they were hoping for a little too much for 6 million units? (if my number is correct, I believe they sold a mere 3 million instead)

Jesus Christ almighty what this shit is up with this picture Jim?

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130405222513/podtoid/images/thumb/d/d5/Jimquisition_Banner.jpg/640px-Jimquisition_Banner.jpg

Seriously hoping that's a padded glove.

What's your problem with giant hands?

Traumatic memories of prostate exam from sausage-fingered doctor ;_;

Concerned Jim's ability to dial telephones will be hampered ;_;

I want to discover and then use Harley Quinn’s Joker portrait, Bane’s poison, not-Hawkeye’s arrows, Green Lantern’s constructs, Aquaman turning slippery, Wonder Woman’s lasso, and Robin’s fighting sticks. They all make more sense to me than a chick in a blue kimono who happens to have the world’s most powerful thighs.

wow MTV Multiplayer closed

that seems... sudden?

MTV closed a bunch of stuff like MSN did earlier this month. It's a shame.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/it-was-a-great-two-years-but-now-its-time-to-say-goodbye

Disappointed honestly; hope Kuchera moves on quickly to another site. Wonder what happened here.

dude seemed to have some integrity, actually glad to see him leave these dudes

No surprise, he's @ Polygon now:
http://www.polygon.com/forums/meta/2014/1/2/5266504/ben-kuchera-joining-polygon-as-senior-editor-opinion

http://leighalexander.net/the-unearthing/

i... am not sure what i think about this.

ok, i'll bite: what's the idea?

“I need a fucking real job,” I type to Ian, but he’s offline already.

I need a fucking real job, I hear myself whisper to myself.

“I need a real job,” I tell her for want of something to say, and I laugh.

Basically this entire thing is a cry for help get this guy a service industry job or something where he doesn't sit around all day snarkily telling people he wishes he 'had a real job'.

Correction, sitting around all day IMAGINING that you are snarkily telling people you wish you 'had a real job'.

She's actually an editor herself, so... Has there been a rash of self-pitying, hoary self-actualization writer cliche stories that have been popping up in the game journalist circles lately? Is this a self mockery or passive-aggressive lashing out at fellow colleagues?

This isn't blogs so much as youtube videos about videogames, but there is something maddening to me about the convention of saying "What's up guys" in the same exact tone of voice (like a TV announcer) at the beginning of every single such video ever made.

I should make a "what's up guys" supercut

ugh so true. also: you can read more about this game "after the jump".

I hate that. And the vids of American guys playing GTA together where they've all appropriated Seth MacFarlane's smug jock-of-the-nerds tone and lamely approximate his sense of humour.

for the full effect of this you need to know some irl guys with autism spectrum conditions who endlessly recite chunks of the vids verbatim, accents and all

"smug jock-of-the-nerds tone" sums up nearly every video game podcast I've ever tried listening to

0_0, nv.

the only gamer vids i can stand to watch are these gta5 online vids by a bunch of teenage london toerags who mainly just do races and viciously rag on each other and i find them endlessly watchable, not least because they remind me of warmly wasted nights with housemates playing video games years ago, before domesticity and babbyhood gladly intervened.

WHAT'S UP GUYS

“Are you doing the, uhm,” he types, “the thing, the Atari thing.”

I go, “ya”.

So I guess nobody here knows what the point of that was, huh

“Why would someone write out a transcript of an online chat,” I type, "as if it were a spoken conversation in a novel."

I get the attitude. But why bother? Are people actually doing this?

i think there's a market for game-centric fiction that isn't fandom but i dunno what the hell it would look like
some kind of hardbitten joystiq noir thing that flirts with the ol' lester bangs of video games trope but also throws in some hammett?
guess this is a shot in that direction

Thinkpieces on thinkpieces. It's the literary equivalent of watching a Let's Play instead of playing a game.

truthbomb there

i can't even
http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/14/6000267/ferguson-police-cameras-watch-dogs

on second thoughts don't click that :(

headline is "What Watch Dogs can teach us about the situation in Ferguson"
that's all you need to know

They already changed the headline

so good that it needed 2 authors

read this then try to guess where the second paragraph goes

Last year marked the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It doesn’t sound right. Something so barbaric feels like it should have happened centuries ago, and yet, it’s still recent enough that tens of thousands of survivors still live among us today. Known as “Hibakusha,” these individuals still carry with them the physical and mental scars of an unfathomable tragedy. They are both reminders of the evil mankind is capable of and living proof that, against all odds, good people can still hope to push on in the face of it.

In his own world, Leon S. Kennedy is a survivor too. One of the two heroes at the center of Resident Evil Requiem, the latest chapter of Capcom’s long-running survival horror saga, Kennedy has lived through hell.

full piece here, although it cannot hope to live up to that lede

haaaaaaaaaa =(