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• Qutting Time at Edge-Online

  Today it was announced that the staff of Edge-Online, every single one of them, quit that place to move on to other endeavors. In a blog entry that is about as spiky as a blog entry can be when the topic is business matters going cross-eyed, the former editor in chief Colin Campbell explained that the publisher offered him and the site a “a gumbo of old media thinking, rampant cost-cutting and ego-driven control mechanisms” going forward. This was the reason for his resignation. One can’t help but assume that the rest of the gang there felt the same way, because they left shortly thereafter. I used to work at Edge-Online as well. So what do I think about this whole thing? Read More... Posted Apr 14 2009, 09:22 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: journalism, edge online, joe keiser, inside baseball

• Facepalm: Video Game Violence

  I thought we had moved past this particular breed of yellow journalism, with most mainstream news sources covering video games or launching blogs. Even USA today has a new games blog. So I was disappointed to see a large Canadian newspaper publish an article about video game violence. I don't even know where to begin! Some kids get hooked on Guitar Hero, but the vast majority of gamers today spend more money - and time - on shockingly graphic search-and-destroy video games. Turning every violent teen male fantasy into reality, these games have a simple primal theme: kill, and kill again. And then keep killing. Not even close to being true. Just ask Nintendo, Pop Cap, Maxis, or the dozens of casual gaming developers that have hit it big selling nonviolent games. Read More... Posted Mar 06 2009, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: violence, cole stryker, journalism, parenting, stupid kids, maxis, canada, pop cap games, nintendodo

• I Hate the Video Game Industry

  I suppose I've developed a reputation for being something of a curmudgeon. Most of my posts here are accusatory and caustic, and I spend more time writing about things I don't like than things I do. That's why I consider Patrick Alexander over at Eegra to be a kindred spirit.  Like Patrick, I play precious few video games. I guess that would seem odd to readers, considering that game journalists are supposed to be experts. There might be one or two games released each year that capture my heart. Desktop Tower Defense was the last game that really brought me to my knees, and that was released years ago.  Furthermore, I can't relate to those who really get off on game industry stuff. News! Previews! Screenshots and Trailers! All the marketing and wooing and it's all so much fluff and grandstanding.  If I were to quit writing about games, I would only follow a few websites that focus more on game theory and serious criticism. I don't care if Capcom employees are bisexual. I don't care if the Xbox is being released in a special color. I don't care about cosplay or Olivia Munn or Jonathan Coultan or Jack Thompson. And if I see one more gaming-related cake... Read More... Posted Mar 05 2009, 10:30 AM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: patrick alexander, eegra, cole stryker, journalism, industry

• GameSetWatch Lampoons IGN Writing

  GameSetWatch's Alex Litel (always a good read) has crafted an excellent parody of IGN's editorial style. He's posted a fake review of Citizen Kane: The Videogame, a hilarious sendup of this rather stupid editorial. I'll paste my favorite paragraphs: But it turns out the marketing by anti-marketing, was for the best. Gaming grammar may not quite be the same after the cognizant, cogent gameplay of this game. This game has a little of everything, like Grand Theft Auto IV, but on steroids and far more incredible. The game creates a nonpareil kinetic bond, whether you like or not. Quite literally but also metaphorically, Citizen Kane: The Video Game is the Citizen Kane of video games—a marvelously applaudable feat that gallantly contorts with the poise and consistence of a second-year community college dance appreciation professor as she stoutheartedly gallops on the morbidly determined divinity to provide a blitzkrieg of introspection into the most tepid slice of Americana. Bahaha. Yes. Read More... Posted Mar 02 2009, 05:30 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, ign, gamesetwatch, alex litel

• Hasbro spent 81 Million on Virtual Reality in the Mid-90s and other Fun Facts

  So says the linkedin.com profile of one Steve Tice. That's just one juicy tidbit that I've learned from following a certain shadowy figure who runs a blog called Superannuation, dedicated to digging up factoids about the video game industry by scouring trademark databases and linkedin, a career-oriented social networking site. The blogger posts a lot of interesting info. He (or she) is always the first to know when Sony's registered a weird trademark or when a chatty careerist divulges secret info on a linkedin page. Read More... Posted Mar 02 2009, 04:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, rumor, hasbro, tipster, superannuation

• Follow Up: Destructoid Reposts Crappy Review

  Yesterday I lambasted Destructoid's Jim Sterling for a lazy review of Halo Wars. I won't pretend that I'm the one who inspired the change of heart, but Sterling has chosen to play through the game to completion and spend some time on multiplayer. I'm not sure how he managed to do this in one day, and amend the review, but I'll take his word for it. Destructoid has updated the review accordingly. Read More... Posted Feb 25 2009, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, reviews, ron workman, destructoid, halo wars, jim sterling

• Ron Workman Calls Out Destructoid for Sloppy Journalism

  A few weeks ago I mistakenly associated Ron Workman with Destructoid, an error that probably made him throw up a little bit in his mouth. He left the site a while ago due to ethical concerns. I never paid much attention to Destructoid because their site is so crammed with user generated nonsense that I've never felt motivated to try to make sense of any of it. Anyway, I've since developed a minor crush on the guy, being that he shares my inability to stomach amateur journalism from soul-crushingly profitable mainstream sites. Yesterday he took Destructoid's Jim Sterling to task for an unforgivably terrible review (Please don't watch the video, it's a terrible Zero Punctuation rip, complete with overwrought metaphor and overused vulgarity). Sterling gives the game a safe 7.0. Problem is, he never really played the game. Read More... Posted Feb 24 2009, 06:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 25 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, drama, ron workman, destructoid

• Tom Chick Gets His Panties in a Bunch over The Lost and the Damned

  So, Tom Chick, of Fidgit and others, won't be playing Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and the Damned.  The reason I won't be playing Lost and Damned is because after a couple of hours with these characters, I have no desire to spend another moment with them. These are unlikable thugs doing reprehensible things. Bikers, who are traditionally the bad guys, are presented with all the usual stereotypes that make them bad guys. They're brutal, vulgar, and cowardly. I can't tell one from the other. The one who I think is supposed to be me is as typical a bald space marine as you'll ever see. What I don't get is that this seems to be par for the course with GTA. Read More... Posted Feb 24 2009, 02:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, grand theft auto, the lost and the damned, tom chick, fidgit

• Destructoid's Ron Workman Punks Gaming Journos

  Today Ron Workman posted a spirited rant on his personal blog, against video game media folks who instantly reblogged a Youtube video he posted under the laughably illegitimate username "puffdaddysucks". The video featured two-year old footage of Alan Wake and an intro claiming that it was ultra-secret video to be released at the upcoming Game Developer's Conference:  When I can come up with an idea in Ventrilo and then shoot a shitty photo camera video of a 2 year old game that nobody remembers, and mutter some BS about GDC in the background, and a fucking journalist thinks it somehow ‘proves’ something is legit, it seems that the gaming industry needs to wake up. Read More... Posted Jan 28 2009, 04:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, alan wake, ron workman, destructoid

• Facepalm: Crispy Gamer Pt. 2

  Crispy Gamer was quickly climbing my personal ranking of most distasteful gaming site, and then I noticed that they are gaming digg. Go figure! Read More... Posted Jan 22 2009, 06:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, diggbait, crispy gamer, digg

• Watch Out, Kids! Video Games Can Hurt You

  San Diego's CBS 8 News ran a story this week about a woman who claims her five year-old Michael's "Nintendo" gave him a panic attack. While I don't doubt that this actually happened, it's hard not to hate on the story's presentation. For one, they never tell you what game freaked the kid out. The game shown in the clip is Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, arguably the most intense, violent, and bloody game released on the DS in the past quarter, but the kid playing that has had no such problems and is clearly there just to show you what a violent DS game looks like (they also never confirm that Michael was playing a DS, only that he "ended up having a panic attack after playing Nintendo for just a half-hour"). Second, their resident expert Dr. Grisolia references an infamous episode of the Pokémon cartoon that induced seizures in hundreds of Japanese children, which would be all well and good if we were dispelling the evils of watching television, but we're supposed to be villifying video games here, right? Read More... Posted Jan 14 2009, 02:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, fear, journalism, books

• Facepalm: Crispy Gamer

  Crispy Gamer's Scott Jones didn't really like Fallout 3. I tried very hard to convince myself that I was having fun, that I was intrigued, that I was moved in some profound way. I wasn't.  So how did he rate it? Weak fool that I am, I voted for Fallout 3 as GotY, wondering as I did so whether or not I'd be able to look myself in the mirror the next morning. Make no mistake: Fallout 3 is a remarkable game. Yet the question is, do I crown it with laurels and start up the "Chariots of Fire" theme simply because I admire it? Or, do I vote for what might be perceived as a less ambitious game; a game that, regardless of its limitations, sucked me in, and held my attention for weeks on end, at the risk of tarnishing my reputation? The latter, you spineless hack. That's what criticism is. Everyone knows Fallout is a revered series and everyone knows that Bethesda is one of the most acclaimed studios. Your job as a critic is to cut through the marketing morass and tell readers whether or not the game is fun. That's it. Read More... Posted Jan 13 2009, 04:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: fallout 3, cole stryker, journalism, reviews, crispy gamer

• 1UP and the State of Games Journalism

  The news of 1UP's buyout and the end of EGM hit me pretty hard yesterday; thankfully, I had the appropriate amount of whiskey left, and the chance to sleep in this morning.  It wasn't just the fact that I do a lot of freelancing for them that got me down in the booze-soaked dumps--as far as I know, the duties of rogue writers like me have been left untouched. The reason this little turd of an event ripped my heart out--along with a whole helluva lot of other readers-- is that 1UP is a site that basically grew out of the idea of fostering relationships between readers and writers. So when an assload of 1UPpers got thrown out onto the street yesterday, it was sort of like watching a drive-by shooting take down most of your family at a Christmas party. Read More... Posted Jan 07 2009, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: 1up, journalism, bob mackey, jobs, ugo entertainment, economy

• Best Game Writing of 2008

  Simon Parkin at the excellent Chewing Pixels has a roundup of some of the year's best game-related writing. There's some great stuff here, enought to keep me busy for the afternoon. Included is an insightful piece about the oft-reviled Luigi's Mansion, courtesy of Edge Magazine's Time Extend column. David Wong's Cracked article about the coming video game crash is both delightful and chilling. Well, I'll just leave you to it, then. Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 03:30 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, writing, lists, 2008, chewing pixels

• Whose Side are You On?

  Jon Rose over at Insomnia thinks that the gaming media, mainstream and otherwise, has squandered their responsibility to readers to provide investigative journalism.  The thing to remember here is that the people with any sort of position in the media are, or at least were, editors of review mags or long-time reviewers, and as such are nothing but glorified reviewers themselves even when they hold journalism degrees. This is a really convenient place for them to be, too, since when they do something that comes close to being valuable they get to suck up that prestige, but when they fall short of what they could be it's "Hey, man, I didn't claim to be anything more". This is why I'm sick of Dan Hsu in particular: I can't think of anyone who is a bigger exemplar of this. Steve Bauman always came close with his industry-apologist viewpoints, but in any case the majority of those in the media have somehow gotten a loftier reputation than they deserve. And they've gamed it for all it's worth. Read More... Posted Dec 11 2008, 02:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, insomnia, 61fps

• Top 5 Reasons Why 2009 Will Bring the End of Lists

  Top 10 Gaming Panties Top 10 Gaming Mustaches Top 10 Gaming Cakes Top 5 Games You're Better At Drunk Top 7 Mispronounced Game Titles Listicles. It's so easy to trash these lazy features, that generally exist as a quick and dirty way to boost traffic when there isn't much news happening. Hey, we're guilty of it too. The tubes are especially choked with lists this time of year, with everyone and their mom canonizing their picks for year-end. The above lists all received more than a thousand diggs a piece. How can we blame editors when that kind of traffic is on the line?  I might be totally wrong about this, but I hereby predict that we're going to see a lot fewer of these lists in '09. Read More... Posted Dec 10 2008, 06:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, lists, 2009

• Print Isn't Dead, It's Just Resting

  I've always been a regular reader of video game publications, especially in my younger days; when you're living in the late 1980s and stuck in school for 8 hours a day, there's no sweeter escape than cracking open a fresh issue of Nintendo Power and poring over the pages.  But the state of print is much different than it was during my analog-based childhood.  Magazines are folding, newspaper sales are plummeting, and, frankly, the Internet is to blame--although it hasn't really done much aside from making our lives easier.  Print is now competing with the impossible task of remaining relevant in an age where waiting weeks for information is a laughable prospect.  And since the Internet has essentially stolen print's fire, it's going to have to do something drastic to stay afloat. GameSpite: Year One may be the perfect example of where video game publications should be headed.  For those of you not familiar with GameSpite, it's a web site--run by 1UP scribe Jeremy Parish--that features digital "issues" of content written by a staff of hungry writers.  What appeals most to me is that GameSpite's content is stuff you're not going to find in print, or even on major web sites; most articles are in-depth discussions of games well outside of their 2-week release window.  And GameSpite: Year One is a compilation of this content in book form--split into two volumes, what with how many danged words there are. Read More... Posted Dec 02 2008, 05:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: jeremy parish, journalism, bob mackey, magazines, gamespite, print

• Facepalm: Games Radar - Paragons of Journalistic Integrity

  I had originally intended to make "Facepalm" a weekly feature, but the industry has been extra heinous lately, and well...you'll see. Games Radar is responsible for many of the most egregious examples of Diggbait, and this one surely hits the bottom of the barrel. Titled, "Video Games' Most Important Farty Butts", the article showcases flatulance from Boogerman, Beavis and Butthead, Wario and more. I think what most bothers me about this article are the words, "most important", as if any farty butt was worth memorializing. Read More... Posted Oct 02 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, facepalm

• IGN Pwned by Random Dude on a Forum

  Linking to some guy's rant on a forum doesn't exactly fall under journalistic best practices, but Select Button's Broco had me rolling in the aisles with this scathing indictment of IGN's journalistic integrity. Basically, he picked a random review (Rock Band 2) and blotted out all the meaningless cliches and empty verbiage. It's twenty-two paragraphs of tripe, and well, it speaks for itself. Here are the opening two paragraphs: Harmonix launched music games into a whole new arena with the release of Rock Band last year. No longer did music games have to be about just playing the drums or the guitar or singing. All three elements were merged together into a cohesive and thoroughly enjoyable package. But while Rock Band was a breath of fresh air, it did have some issues. With the release of Rock Band 2 less than a year after the original, Harmonix addresses many of the past concerns and adds an awesome new online mode, certain to keep gamers rockin' for another year. The biggest addition isn't a new feature or function, but 84 new songs. All master tracks, these 84 songs represent the single greatest collection of songs in a game to date. Headlining the new tracks is the first Guns N' Roses single in more than a decade, "Shackler's Revenge." Along with these are a slew of incredible songs that span the '60s right up to today. AC/DC, Metallica, The Talking Heads, Pearl Jam, Journey, Megadeath, Modest Mouse, Rage Against the Machine, Bon Jovi, Jane's Addiction -- I could keep going, but you get the point. There are some brilliant songs here. And while there are going to be a few tracks each person will not care for, there's far more good here than bad. Read More... Posted Sep 16 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, journalism, rock band 2, ign, hilary goldstein

• Kotaku Endorses Products Unaware

  Yesterday Kotaku published a post regarding how Figure Prints, a company that creates 3D models of WoW avatars, ran an ad in a comic book with a testimonial from Axel at Kotaku. The compelling testimonial reads, "Wow... I NEED ONE!!!" Problem is, no one who writes for Kotaku goes by the name of Axel. It turns out that the company snagged the gushing prose of one of Kotaku's bleating commenters, attributing the quote to Kotaku.com, where it technically appeared. And the commenters are all slapping Axel on the back with hearty shouts of, "Kotaku commenters FTW!!" Read More... Posted Jun 04 2008, 02:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: kotaku, world of warcraft, advertising, journalism, ethics