Comments on: Gaming Media: The Suits March On

by: Cyrris

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:18:06 +0000

A few years ago IGN offered to host this site. In fact, the manager in question was really quite enthusiastic at getting us on board, saying the increased exposure would be fantastic.

I wasn’t prepared to deal with their ugly-ass banners on every single page though. In any case, I am not so much concerned with traffic quantity as quality. 5000 visitors without one of them leaving a comment just doesn’t mean much to me. All that excessive traffic does is open up the possibility of making more money off a site, but that’s not something I care too much for. As long as it makes enough to cover the hosting bill, I am content. And we are doing that now without massive banners.

by: Troopa

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:35:59 +0000

I agree with Cyrris. I’ve only been here since 2004 or so, but I’ve witnessed much of the same. The Planet sites are a joke of what they once were. When Halo 3 was close to release, I visited PlanetHalo to see if there was anything good, and the site didn’t really have anything worthwhile to show.

A couple years ago, I wanted to try running my own ads on my hosted Mario Kart site, but since Gamespy’s policy only let me run their ads, I quit my relationship with them and went to my own hosting. Being hosted by them gave me a great start though, and it was the reason I joined Forumplanet.

by: Jason Preston

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:17:40 +0000

I haven’t thought about Planet[game] sites in years. I stepped off of that train, and for that matter, stopped visiting Gamespy & Gamespot, years ago.

For me though it was never as much about the forums as it was about the news/blog style coverage. I’m not that surprised that my beat seems to be Kotaku for news and blogs like this one for opinion.

I loved PlanetHalfLife way back when because that front page was a mishmash of all the cool mod ideas cropping up in the community combined with links to essential patches, screenshots, and of course, a funny screenshot every day.

I don’t think we’ve really found the next way of gaming media yet. I don’t think that even straight blogging is the right answer. Be interested to see what it is when it gets here though, and it will almost certainly come from people like you and me, not from the suits at IGN.

by: Thornhillboy

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:04:04 +0000

I have to agree that the standard of Eurogamer doesn’t seem as high as it used to be, but in general I still feel I prefer them to the others.

It might just be a loyalty thing now, as I don’t even buy that many games any more.

by: Droniac

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:53:41 +0000

Until recently I, much like Thornhillboy, had sworn off all general gaming websites aside from Eurogamer for anything but in-depth specials and interviews. But in recent months, that site also has dropped from my radar entirely due to poor/inaccurate reviews (and reviewers). After scoring The Witcher (RPG of the Year, easy) a measly 7/10 for minor flaws and Unreal Tournament 3 an 8/10 while including dozens of inaccurate and plainly false statements… well, that understandably threw me off from the site alltogether.

As for IGN… their recent CoD 4 and Crysis reviews once again proved their incompetence: scoring Crysis low in an all-negative review focusing on the 3-4 minor flaws it had, while scoring CoD 4 extremely high in an all-positive review completly ignoring the dozens of major gameplay-destroying flaws it has. Yeah… sure.

Personally I just read reviews to correct/laugh-at them nowadays - and then write a more accurate one myself. As for what I use to gauge whether I want to buy a game? I look at previews, interviews, videos, play demos and betas… and then decide on my own. The few times I’ve tried purchasing games based on reviews alone have turned out so miserably that I simply refuse to do so now. I’m not buying another Civilization: Call to Power (9/10? More like 3/10), Doom 3 (84/100? More like 5/10) or Star Wars: Battlefront (8/10? More like 2/10).

It’s also interesting how many of these ‘professional’ reviewers have plainly obvious double standards. First they go and review Hellgate London, give it a 7 or even an 8 (neither being grades this ‘game’ deserves), stating the reason for scoring it high is that patches will sort out the hundreds of bugs and issues.
Then they go and review Unreal Tournament 3 and rate it 2 full points lower for having a couple of minor ‘issues’, which have already been fully resolved in beta patches and are so minor that even modders had temporary fixes out in a matter of days. Why not brush over these tiny issues, stating it will be patched (as they have been by now), like you brushed over the thousands of bugs and issues plagueing Helltrash London?

Granted, the whole mass-market approach of just about ANY reviewer nowadays is part of what puts me off. They’re all fawning over vehicles in shooters like Unreal Tournament 3… when it’s TDM and CTF that interest me. They call games like Call of Duty 2 and Battlefield 2 “tactical shooters”, but far more tactically challenging games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Unreal Tournament 3 CTF are classified “arcade” and “brainless”. They take off points from games for being “complex”, “challenging” and “too difficult online”, like X3: Reunion, EVE Online and Unreal Tournament 3. They follow the hype, scoring a hyped up but disappointing game like Hellgate London or Doom 3 high, and an underpromoted but awesome game like The Witcher or UT3 low. Or they plainly state their ignorance of an entire genre or game series, by making false comparisons… like saying UT2003 is almost identical to UT in terms of gameplay (in exactly this respect there’s not even a remote resemblance) or stating that World of Warcraft takes up 80-90% of the mmorpg market (in reality, it’s not even 30% and quite likely to be less than 10%).