Games Journalism General

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Jason Schreier has left Kotaku. Such a shame, those two belong with each other.

What I’ve always loved about this website is that, thanks to the spirit of Gawker Media, it’s never been afraid to be simultaneously serious and dumb.

He's so close. So, so, so close to an epiphany. You being idiots about how seriously you're taking shit is why people think Kotaku is trash.

Jason Schreier's best articles are his post-mortems - there's nothing to shill for, and everyone already knows the game is trash. The only thing to be at that point is thorough.

By the way, haven't some website trash journos tried to pivot to youtube, and got btfo'd? Who's done it, and what were their videos like?
 
The only worthwhile thing he has done was probably the gamestop scoops due to how stupid GS was to it's workers, other then that the guy sucked corporate dick when it came to loot boxes by saying they are a positive for the industry.
I had a similar opinion but the article I was always linked to was the Destiny article. Earlier in the thread (I'm too lazy to find it) someone linked a few good Kotaku articles. I've not read his book which I heard was good (though the Destiny story is covered again in it).

While I'm tempted to say his body of work is far from great, I'm not confident enough to shit all over it since, as much as I don't like the guy, he's still leagues ahead of the typical game journalist. I know that's not saying much.

By the way, haven't some website trash journos tried to pivot to youtube, and got btfo'd? Who's done it, and what were their videos like?
The ones I know of.
  • Jim Sterling. Was successful at it, though right now he's in decline. Like many lolcows, he seems to be perpetually short on cash despite having lots of money coming in and finding the money to add to his hoard of 90s junk. Currently recycling the same pandering content over and over, and when it's pointed out he complains that he has to pander to pay the bills. The kicker? The topic of that recycled content is the greed of AAA companies and their unwillingness to take creative risks.

  • Colin Moriarty. Covered in the OP. He was the model of a corporate shill, famous for starting the narrative that if you didn't like the end of Mass Effect 3 you were entitled. Got shitcanned after making a "sexist joke". He then started a YouTube career repeating typical anti-game journalist talking points. Don't know how he's getting on.

  • Patrick Klepeck and Austin Walker. Not youtube, but they did break off from GiantBomb to form their own site that itself was a reboot of vice/waypoint. The site was typical progressive garbage such as their post about not covering Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Don't quote me on this, but I think Austin got #metoo'd. I've not checked on it in a long time, but Patrick (along with Schrier) does turn up on ResetEra from time to time.

  • Danny O'Dwyer. I don't know when he left games journalism or why. He now has a YouTube channel doing let's plays/walkthroughs that get 3k-5k viewers, and a Patreon channel where he posts documentaries that get varying amounts of views. He seems to be doing okay.
 

It's a big move, but certainly a risky one. Bloomberg news doesn't seem to have a dedicated "video games" section and it looks like his articles are going to need to be consistently much better than what they were at Kotaku for him to have a good shot at making the move work.

Just look at his former throughput. There's not really much there in the last few months that I would expect Bloomberg News to be interested in.

 
It's a big move, but certainly a risky one. Bloomberg news doesn't seem to have a dedicated "video games" section and it looks like his articles are going to need to be consistently much better than what they were at Kotaku for him to have a good shot at making the move work.

Just look at his former throughput. There's not really much there in the last few months that I would expect Bloomberg News to be interested in.


I assume they hired this piece of shit for a reason. Everything he writes is going to push a hardcore Communist agenda.
 
Just look at his former throughput. There's not really much there in the last few months that I would expect Bloomberg News to be interested in.

Much like with everyone else in NPC circles, it's not the quality of work, it's who you know. Shrill probably has a friend on staff who peddled him as the next Norman Mailer.
 
Putting this in one place.

Resident Evil 3 Remake was censored. Toning down the violence and turning Jill's mini skirt into shorts in an attempt to make the game less sexual.

There were a lot of discussions internally about that direction," RE3 remake Art Director Yonghee Cho told Game Informer. "The original design of Jill Valentine was clearly going for sex appeal, but that was not the right direction. This is a very strong character, and it is a character that's going through a lot of adversity, so we wanted to home in on that and make sure that there's a certain level of believability in what she's wearing, a certain level of practicality.

These cuts made game journalists happy, right?

Ffffuck sake. This reminds me of the squeamishness surrounding Lara Croft's deaths, but the timid reaction to Isaac Clarke's.

There's an argument about gratuitous gore being necessary, but whimpering and whining about Strong Female Protagonists being subject to the same as their male counterparts is so dumb.

Of course not.
 
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I had a similar opinion but the article I was always linked to was the Destiny article. Earlier in the thread (I'm too lazy to find it) someone linked a few good Kotaku articles. I've not read his book which I heard was good (though the Destiny story is covered again in it).
I thought the book was decent enough (I got an ebook copy as part of a bundle or something), the one thing that differs from his articles like for Star Wars 1313, Destiny and Mass Effect: Andromeda and so on are that more of the games were ultimately successful for the company/studio. So they are less like "everybody either left or got fired and the studio shut down and the IP was buried" at the end. His Kotaku articles were mostly all for failures of one kind or another.

The games in the book are: Destiny (adds onto/updates his Kotaku article), Uncharted 4, Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley, Pillars of Eternity and Star Wars 1313 (same as Destiny)

He initially promised a second book of the same vein on troubled development stories, then it transitioned into book about bad work situations at companies instead, then he stopped really mentioning it. I kinda hope Bloomberg hired him more to get him back onto the development stories beat as that seems of more interest to business types AND gamers, but that's probably optimistic.

One other positive thing about Schreier, compared to many of his peers, is that he can actually write coherently. Even when the content is stupid the article will make sense. He's not a great writer or anything, but for his field...
 
By the way, haven't some website trash journos tried to pivot to youtube, and got btfo'd? Who's done it, and what were their videos like?

In the British journo space, many have failed. But that is due to a few factors.

1. Many within the "British YouTube scene" merely imitate whatever is successful in the country and rarely try to be anything else. It's why the Ukulele is such a meme in the ever prevalent vlogging space. I guess that itself is part of the problem. Vlogging is such a popular format in the UK, that it overshadows most of those within the other mediums and genres.

2. Age. Many within the British vidya space are just much older when compared to the US publications. Which is why they are able to maintain long-form jobs as writers. It also leads us into the third issue

3. Adaptability. Age has made them jaded, it has made them refuse to accept or engage with change. They sat in the same circles for years, not willing to peak beyond safety. They don't have the energy to read Twitch chat, they don't wanna say Poggers for $5.

But since we're on the topic, let's highlight some notable failures shall we:

Matt Lees
Mocked heavily for his comments on "Killer is Dead", ol' Matt decided to cash in on his woke-points and form Cool Ghosts. Now I'll give him some credit, the launch went well. But that was Six, yes SIX years ago. Various problems (including potential cancellation) halted any would be growth. Channel can barely crawl to 10k views on average, with his attention now shifted towards trying to make board games progressive and fun. I shit you not.

Rory Powers, Daniel Krupa & Gav Murphy
Formerly of "Prepare to Try" for IGN, these three have gone on to form RKG. They are so utterly forgettable, it's impressive they even get to be apart of this list. Beyond trying some anti-Brexit bait in a documentary style video about European game publishing in the UK, they've become nothing but another generic streaming channel. I guess once they got enough money via Patreon they just gave up trying.

Laura Kate Dale
I just want to mention how bad they are at streaming and if they ever think they can hack it solo, no amount of editing can hide your masculine traits.

Sam Greer
Wrote for a variety of publications, with their most notable work seeing them give GamesMasters only ever-perfect score. They can barely pull 1000 views on YouTube, whilst trying to prop up a failing podcast format (Glass House Games) with people vastly more successful than them. Instead of trying to find more editorial work, they spend most of the time writing on social media about being depressed. Yes, you already know what path they are going down.

I am sure there are more, but these ones are worth mentioning as they are still trying to make it work
 
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