CFB if you want.
This. It’s a broken system. The most interesting part of games writing is discussing games post release because you can talk about everything and everyone has had time to digest a game properly after all the hype and fevered reviewing to get-it-out-on-embargo-time has subsided.
It seems ridiculous to me that we spend so long speculating, building up, getting exciting, then blowing all our cumulative loads on a single review then moving on to the next thing with only the slightest of cuddles afterwards. Honestly, we need to fill that grey bit more.
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This problem with games journalism is related to the fact that there’s too many games out there.
Which is a problem I think I can deal with.
You say that, but look at films – the journalism around that is by far a better standard / practice.
Film journalism does some amazing things (Empire) but then churns out some of the most pretentious circle jerking drivel. And then there is music journalism which is just the worst.
Very good point. Personally reading other people’s accounts of games (after they’ve had some more post-review time with them) informs my buying habits just as much as, if not more than, the review itself. I remember not being very fussed with, say, Fallout 3, until Chris Livingston and Tom Francis began posting their experiences. Then it sounded like the most interesting game ever.
The relentless nature of the industry doesn’t give people much choice. Journalism is founded on the now, maybe a better word would be ‘critique’ which would allow for expansion on thoughts post-release.
Yeah, it’s by no means ‘journalism’ but neither is 99% of games ‘journalism’ anyway. It’s regurgitating what PR send you, or tell you, or show you – and then reviewing their game.
I don’t want to get into arguing semantics – I just think we should cover games more post-release because I’d rather read/write a dissection of something interesting 2 months after it’s been out than 10 reviews of mediocre games that I really couldn’t care less about.
Yeah, that’s what PCG tried to do with their Extra Life section, and pretty much what Kieron intended (not necessarily what was actually happened) with NGJ.
Yeah – I’m all for that sort of thing (obviously). Extra Life is the bit I read first of PCG, and the NGJ manifesto changed how I write forever (http://anotherjournalist.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/gillen-but-not-forgotten/)