this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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More than 1,200 games journalists have left the media in the last two years | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com)
submitted 3 days ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
116 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

“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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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That's because a lot of the reviews weren't been read because they weren't trustworthy, if you reviewed a game poorly (even if it deserved the poor review) the journalist wouldn't be invited back to review the next game that studio put out or were still the publisher could blacklist you blocking you from potentially dozens of games every year. Nintendo do this all the time.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Nobody is stopping them from buying their own copy, and reviewing at release with an honest review.

[–] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Yeah but by then there would already be hundreds of reviews out.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

Tradition, their egos, money and entitlement seems to be doing a fine job. (but yeah the access journalism model has to go)

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Those same outlets still review Nintendo games. They just review them late.

[–] frankiehollywood@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Probably make more money making YouTube videos on gameplay strategies…

[–] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

It's so bad now that nearly all the articles are mainly clickbait or written to favor a particular game (no matter how mediocre), and someone had to create what's called Saved You A Click.

[–] Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Back in like 2012, a gaming journalist would write an honest review of a game they tried or they would give an update on the industry or they would share interesting tips and info about certain games and franchises. The sites would clean, maybe a couple of ads here and there, but the overall atmosphere is driven by genuine passion.

Today, you don't get any of that. Instead you get an advertisement masquerading as an article. The reviews aren't authentic, the updates are basically a part of marketing campaigns, and the info they give is to push readers to buy something. The sites are all completely cluttered with ads, a lot of the articles are just AI slop, and the industry is driven by greed. Why would anybody go there anymore? Might as well just go see a youtube review or get the game and try it out yourself.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You have a much more optimistic memory of gaming review platforms than I do.

I remember getting several different magazines in the 90's and they were always the same thing. Any "professional" journalist knows that their livelihood is based on selling games. Journalists have to strike a balance between their audience and publishers, which makes negative reviews incredibly rare.

It's not just videogames. Music, movies, TV shows, books, comics, consumer products. Unkess you're paying out the nose, reviews almost always have some sort of bias towards trying to sell things. I find the best opinions come from other sources: people I know personally, organic community discussions on the internet (though those are not immune to corporate influence), or when products are only mentioned in contexts where the author clearly will not benefit. For example, a journalist making a list of the top-10 games of all time putting Ocarina of Time on it is probably not incentives to do so... Unless Nintendo is trying to promote a re-release.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, review have always had a slant and people forget just how bad they where in the past. I would rather watch someone play the game and skip the reviews, however it must be said the old slanted review model has largely died off. We don't buy magazines with advertorials anymore, and the appetite to pay for such content is at a low point by both consumers and advertisers.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

And I know the likes of IGN have been a mess for far longer than 2012.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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

Yes, although I am not the first dood, but 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 a few other comments from the very founder of the program used in house 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:

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?).

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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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[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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 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).

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.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (6 children)

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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[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 18 points 2 days ago

Yeah, it turns out people don't like advertising pretending to be reviews.

[–] Aielman15@lemmy.world 100 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Journalism at large is dangerously close to dying. People favour free click- and rage-bait headlines on Facebook over quality journalism. The latter can't compete because quality costs money, while cheap quality articles oversaturate the market. AI only exacerbated the issue.

[–] turdcollector69@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Journalism at large died a while ago, gaming journalism has been an absolute joke for over a decade.

I have no respect for 99% of modern journalists, they just push 1%er propaganda and post mugshots while jerking themselves off as being self appointed "guardians of democracy."

There are some who are trying to do some good and they have my utmost respect but they're needles in haystacks.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Which is why the free democratic world has to keep subsiding quality journalism that sticks to the facts. Sadly that‘s dying along with private newspapers because governments believe people just don‘t want it and it‘s not worth keeping. They treat it as entertainment and that‘s a huge problem because it‘s a pillar of democracy. Defunding it is dangerous.

As for games… well, there‘s plenty of ways and different mediums to consume games nowadays so it makes sense magazines are vanishing along with game events despite the medium being bigger than ever. Most of the older game news outlets have overstayed their welcome.

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[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Getting my news from reddit or Lemmy led to the same problems, and neither actually gave me the news, so in the past couple of years, I have definitely budgeted for a news subscription as well.

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[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I miss Total Biscuit 😭

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

They're really aren't any other good game reviewers. They used to be Nerd Cubed but he doesn't seem to do game reviews anymore. There's Sid Alpha, but if he feels particularly frisky he'll put out a whole two videos a year, so that's not very helpful.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

Feel like you get enough information from steam reviews and watching literally anybody posting the gameplay.

I'm not sure how much more info you need to decide.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

Legendary Drops seems to have some solid takes. I find I get more of watching people play the games though these days.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 6 points 2 days ago

They don’t need humans to write the engagement slop articles anymore.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

And nothing of value was lost...

[–] slumberlust@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Shout-out to Nextlander and Giantbomb for keeping gaming journalism alive.

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 3 points 1 day ago

And sites like Aftermath.site

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 7 points 2 days ago

Giantbomb is legit the fucking goat.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 42 points 3 days ago (9 children)

I mean I'd like to be upset but honestly video game journalism has always been the lowest form of Journalism. Mostly it's just pure propaganda and press releases from major game companies. 90 to 95% of Articles written by these game journalists were just useless fluff.

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[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

The entire industry was flooded with mouthpieces for developer statements, and opinion piece hottakes. How many of those people does an industry really need? (Or more importantly: How many of those people can it financially support?)

As for reviews, they are for the most part similarly worthless and hard to trust. There's about five YouTubers who I actually trust the opinions of, and I haven't felt left out at all with that as the extent of my gaming journalism intake.

I can't be certain, but I suspect a lot of gamers are completely burnt out on the professional gaming journalism industry.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Go to Steam page. Scroll to bottom. Filter out negative reviews. Read 5-10. Update filers to only show negative reviews. Read 5-10.

That’s never let me down when it comes to determining whether or not a game is one I’ll enjoy.

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Anecdotal, but I have never read a game review in my life that was from a journalist. It's always been in forums, and lately some small youtubers. I want to hear from normal gamers, not people getting a paycheck for it.

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[–] Auth@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I hate games journalists. I'm sure there are some good ones but most of them are corporate trash and their reviews are thinly veiled ads. They dont care about the games they write about. They dont take the time to learn the games and are just generally bad at games. Basically the entire industry is just shitting out the most dogshit video game opinions 24/7. I'd rather go to Lemmy or Reddit and read what actual players have to say about games.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Special interest journalism is usually overrun by corporate interests and inflated reviews. Find someone who knows the history of the industry and was fired or left an organization for something like reporting a low review to search out integrity for individuals.

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[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

I tried contributing to game8. They only accept payment through paypal. I've closed my paypal account.

An effort was made.

[–] Rei13@piefed.social 6 points 2 days ago

Personally haven't really read gaming journalism even before. If I want to see what score a game has, I'm much more likely to check How Long To Beat or Backloggd, where users rate games.

Or, as has been mentioned in this thread, Youtubers, if I want a singular subjective opinion as opposed to a "out of 5" or "out of 10" score which, admittedly can be tricky when different people have a different view on what each number should mean. For instance, a 5 (on a 10 scale), is average for me when I rate anime. But most of the anime community uses 7 as the average, so a 6.2 show on MyAnimeList, which you would think is above average, is actually below.

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I blame AI

[–] Quique@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They were long gone before AI

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I blame time-traveling AI

[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Damn Roko's basilisk, ruining games journalism.

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