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More than 1,200 games journalists have left the media in the last two years | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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“For quality games media, I continue to believe that the best form of stability is dedicated reader bases to remove reliance on funds, and a hybrid of direct reader funding and advertisements. If people want to keep reading quality content from full time professionals, they need to support it or lose it. That’s never been more critical than now.”

The games media outlets that have survived, except for Gamespot and IGN, have just about all switched to this model. It seems to be the only way it survives.

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[–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Games media worked under an ad-supported model for about 20 years though. As those in that business will tell you, the payouts from advertisers have fallen dramatically. The ones keeping themselves afloat now have pivoted to your first, third, and fifth bullet points, as well as ads on the free content that subscribers typically get to opt out of.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    But weren't game reviews essentially ads paid by the publisher? Because that's what it looks like from the outside, since the reviews are increasingly poor quality that largely focus on positives and ignore negatives. Some games that completely flopped due to technical issues got glowing reviews by journalists, probably because they were paid handsomely for that review.

    I think game journalists should avoid advertisements as much as possible because once they rely on it, the temptation to allow their content to be colored by whatever attracts advertisers is too much. They should be solely focused on attracting readers, which means they need to be reader supported.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    It's a symbiotic relationship that advances goals for each, but no, they're not paid ads, and it's been debunked over and over again. Some game reviews higher than someone feels it should, and they conclude it only could have been paid off, but it wasn't. Here are a few things that do happen that influence review scores though:

    • Publishers know which outlets review their games well, and they prioritize giving advance copies to those outlets and not others; this is why you'll see the average score drop by a few points after the game's official release.
    • The person on staff who liked the last game in the series, or other games in the same genre, tends to keep reviewing them, because they enjoy the work more, and that review better serves the overall audience. This can explain why a genre-defying game like Death Stranding reviews in the low 80s, but then the sequel is reviewed by people who tended to appreciate the first game, and the sequel reviews higher.
    • Publishers know which version of their game is best, and they'll send review copies of that version. That means they send the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 when the console version is broken, and they send the console version when the PC optimization sucks.
    • When a game is online-only, publishers like to host on-site, curated review sessions with optimal network conditions in a space where all the reviewers definitely have someone to play with. Review outlets have become skeptical of reviewing games this way, and you'll more often see "reviews in progress" of games where they want the servers to "settle" first. I was surprised to see MS Flight Simulator 2024 actually held to account over its broken online infrastructure, as you're correct that, historically, they're not held accountable, but that's because of this change that review outlets have made in how they cover games like this.
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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    This makes a lot of sense.

    It would be nice if multiple people reviewed each game, and then they discuss before publishing a review. That's one thing I really like about Digital Foundry, though they focus way more on technical details than overall gaming experience, but it's very fun to see what each reviewer has to say about a given title.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 months ago

    That's often a matter of resources. Staff sizes are only getting smaller at these outlets, and there are more games released each year than ever before; and they're trending toward being longer on top of that. Being able to get multiple people to review a single game is a luxury, one that Digital Foundry can afford when they just need to benchmark a typical scene in the game.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    In America, they are legally required to disclose paid reviews. If the company pays for the review they legally must disclose it

    If you receive free products or other perks with the expectation that you’ll promote or discuss the advertiser’s products in your blog, the FTC Act applies to you.

    https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking#ftcactapply

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    Is that actually enforced? If so, what's the explanation for reviewers giving suspiciously high reviews to AAA games?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Is that actually enforced?

    Surprisingly so. There's a huge difference in online advertisements pre- and post-Fyre Festival.

    If so, what’s the explanation for reviewers giving suspiciously high reviews to AAA games?

    They liked the game more than you. I promise you it is that simple.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not talking about my personal preference on rating, I'm talking about broad community reviews.

    For example, Cyberpunk 2077 is a notorious example. It got generally favorable reviews from reviewers, and the public release was a completely broken pile of trash on console. Reviews didn't even get the console release, yet still gave it a positive review because the experience on PC was decent. How can we trust reviewers if they don't actually try the game? The terms of the review embargo alone should have pushed reviewers to give it net negative reviews since they're not able to actually try the game.

    For strict review differences, look at Starfield, which got 85% by Metacritic, and Steam reviews are more like 55-60%, and it got hit hard by independent reviewers shortly after launch. That's a pretty big mismatch.

    GTA V was pretty close to a perfect score, but actual reception was a bit lower (80% or so on Steam right now). That's not a huge difference, and it could be due to frustration about not having a sequel for over a decade, but it does seem that some studios get more favorable reviews/more of a pass than others.

    That said, a lot of the time reviews are pretty close to the eventual community response. It just seems that reviewers overhype certain games. I haven't really seen much evidence where critics review a game much below where the community reception is, but I have seen cases where reviewer scores are quite a bit higher than the eventual community response.

    Maybe there's nothing suspicious going on, it just sometimes feels that way.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 9 months ago*

    Reviews will typically mention which version they were, but in general, there are very few differences between them these days, unlike back in the 6th gen or early 7th gen. Games like Cyberpunk are outliers.

    Starfield is not a bad game. In a lot of ways, it's a very good one. My biggest complaints with it, personally, are all the ways that it should have been modernized but refused to, falling back on what worked over a decade before it came out without turning an eye toward its contemporaries and the improvements they've made to the same formula. I find Steam reviews to be a valuable data point among plenty of other data points, but user reviews being that much lower than the critic average doesn't mean the critic score is a problem.

    For an example of a game where critics reviewed it less favorably than the user score, see Mad Max or Days Gone, which might be explained as games where the initial sales weren't strong, and people who found it later, often at a discounted price, were pleasantly surprised compared to its reputation. There's also the likes of SkillUp's review of Ghost of Yotei. That game has largely reviewed very well by other outlets, but he found his review to be out of sync with his audience. If you're a reviewer who plays dozens of games per year, your opinion of a formulaic open world game might be very different from someone who plays 3 games per year and hasn't gotten sick of it. Both are valid points of view.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    As someone who's done this before, let me tell you it'd be much easier for Toby Fox to pay me to give Undertale a good review than it would for Ubisoft to pay me to give Rayman a good review.

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