Comment on More than 1,200 games journalists have left the media in the last two years | VGC

• M0oP0o@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Do you feel that way about the site reporting the linked article?

  Yes, although I am not the first dood posting as someone who did read the linked article it is a barely veiled attempt to support the “writer’s” media and looks more like a lazy filler article to meet a quota. I use quotes around writer as the article in question is 2/3s quotes more in the style of an interview with “Veteran games journalist Alex Donaldson” and a few comments from “Press Engine co-founder Gareth Williams” (nothing wrong with that per say). The other 1/3 is “data supplied to VGC by Press Engine…” (again nothing wrong with this on its own). The issue is when we take the article in its whole this seems more like someone talked to a colleague or two then put a header on it using in house data from a “… popular PR tool used by developers and publishers to distribute codes and press releases to a global database of journalists and content creators.” and adding one other comment to round it out making a very thin and kinda lazy article. This reminds me very much of the stuff written I saw many many years ago when I worked at a newspaper watching that media circle the drain.

  Also on the point of:

  The sites are all completely cluttered with ads, a lot of the articles are just AI slop, and the industry is driven by greed.

  This is not AI slop but good old fashioned 4:30 on a Friday human slop covered in ads, for example I got 2 pop ups with ad block reading it. This is what it looks like without ad blocker:

  Image

  But then again, you get what you pay for and I guess the irony here is that the article (that could be used as a captain obvious joke) pointing out the collapse of games media is in itself an example of a degrading quality of writing leading to the demise of said media. The real joke is that the article does not even touch on the degrading quality of the writing and experience (other then a “…lack of diversification in content…”) but instead putting the blame on every thing else (thanks google, AI, COVID and advertising spending I guess?).

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    What would the “good version” of this article look like in your opinion? VGC doesn’t have quotas, btw.

    The real joke is that the article does not even touch on the degrading quality of the writing and experience

    I’ll say that you state that as fact, but it’s a perception that not everyone shares.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’ll say that you state that as fact, but it’s a perception that not everyone shares.

      I’ve said this in my own top level comment but it’s worth reiterating here to just make the point. Nobody trusts games media anymore and they don’t trust them because they do things like the above screenshot and engage in articles for access, in real journalism stuff like that is supposed to be disclosed. However the only ones that actually ever seem to bother are YouTubers with integrity.

      I think the idea that quality is degrading is not a niche opinion by any stretch of the imagination. It’s basically the majority viewpoint of gamers.

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      • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Is it? How do you know?

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    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I have old some old magazines that are at least readable with ads that don’t move. This is not a radical take, just like all corporate media the quality has declined in general (not suggesting that there was a lack of bad journalism in the past). Also, they may not have hard quotas there but the writers are paid to make articles and content to fill the site (it is like best buy did not do commission vs future shop but where both the same company and fired those that did not make sales regardless).

      As for how to improve this particular article, I would say a good start is to pick a format, is it a op ed or an interview? Or is it a report on events? I would go the op ed direction myself and rely less on the quotes from other journalists and data from the weird internal marketing source. I would have likely incouraged having a message and then sprinkled in actual employment numbers from major publications throughout the article and not done what this one did that was “this program sends out less free codes” as a data point. The data used is too weak for anything other then an opinion piece but the article is too light on the writer’s input to be one.

      There is also a big “citation needed” part that should have set off a editor.

      “If amateur, part-time, or freelance writers are included, the number of departures from the games media swells to more than 4,000 people since October 2023.”

      “If” indeed! They went from 25% down and then if you include free lancers swelling to more then 4,000 people. That’s just sloppy writing. At least give initial numbers and keep the format consistant.

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      • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Also, they may not have hard quotas there but the writers are paid to make articles and content to fill the site (it is like how best buy did not do commission vs future shop but where both the same company and fired those that did not make sales regardless).

        The incentives are very different when the writers own the company and are largely paid by monthly subscribers.

        There is also a big “citation needed” part that should have set off a editor.

        How would you have cited “declining quality of writing” as an inciting factor? How would you measure it? And why did it just become a problem in the past few years rather than any of the problems that are listed in the article?

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