The Gaming Press: The Positives

Since I lashed out at the incompetence of the gaming press in my last post, I thought I should balance things out a bit with something nice to say. After all, duality is healthy.

The good news is that the situation is improving. Although hobbyist sites still tend to be the best overall, several mainstream sites like 1UP, Eurogamer, and Gamasutra are actually quite good. Not even sites like Kotaku are completely bad, they just aren't as consistently good as I think they should be. I believe some of the improvement is a result of hobbyists transitioning into professional jobs after gaining some recognition. Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield, who started insertcredit.com and so I assume falls into my hobbyist category, conducts the best interviews in the business. I'm sure there are others like him.

The biggest problem is that some of the most visible media sources are some of the worst. IGN really is terrible. Most of the print magazines aside from Edge are primarily PR mouthpieces, as are pretty much all TV programs about video games. The gaming press as a whole is probably at about the same level as your average small town newspaper. But there are some really bright lights here and there, and that gives me hope.