Um, that's how it always should have been. That's how journalism in general works, going back since pretty much the dawn of newspapers: readers pay for copy, and advertisements subsidize it.

Like the games industry, publications that cover video games have been rocked by a turbulent market since the highs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Media owners like IGN, Fandom, Gamer Network, and Valent have all cut jobs in the past year.

Is it turbulent though? This article goes over video game spending by year, and it has largely plateaued since 2019. There was a pretty big jump in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the market seems to have returned to a normalish trajectory and mobile revenue seems to be plateauing (I guess it's saturated?).

I think what happened is that people are shifting where they get their information from. Instead of relying on game journalists, who seem to be paid by game devs (hence why any big game rarely gets below 7/10), they rely on social media, who theoretically aren't paid by game devs (there's plenty of astroturfing though). The business model where they're not paid by game devs should always have been the case, since when people are deciding what games to buy, they clearly would prefer a less biased source.

IMO, games journalism should have multiple revenue streams, such as:

• fan revenue - either donations or subscriptions should always be primary
• curated game bundles, like Jingle Jam - run a charity event where a large portion is donated (be up-front, and have a slider so donators can decide how much goes where, even 0% to one or the other)
• merch
• game tournaments w/ prizes - would be especially cool to focus on indies
• maybe have paid questions from fans that gets answered in a podcast or a paid video to discuss topics of fans' choosing

They can get very far before needing to run ads. Produce quality journalism and have some additional revenue streams and it'll work out.

I don't consume much gaming journalism because it's largely BS that praises big AAAs and generally ignores indies unless they get viral. I want honest opinions about games, not some balance between sucking up to who pays the bills and mild criticism.

This is why I still pay the NYT for access. They may suck. But I am trying to keep some of the good ones employed.

I've never remembered seeing quality video games journalism.

The tyypes that they're describing as that always seemed hacky and liable to push very subjective opinions as facts.

Their scores almost always seemed wonky and part of that is probably because individual scores for something as complex as a game don't really make sense. They rarely make sense for anything.

Instead what you want are scores in multiple areas with no single amalgamated score.

Anyhow, for the longest while video games journalism has been rife with controversy about pulling negative reviews for ad deals etc.

I think unfortunately written media is pretty much dying due to finances, and for video games, due to never being all that good in the first place.

The details I care about, like monetization, grind, and performance, are the details that most games journalists just completely skim over or they'll glaze game companies while they perform awfully here.

My way of buying games is basically watching video reviews of someone playing and mostly ignoring their commentary to figure out those details for myself.

That and benchmarks of course.... and figuring out whether they're owned by the saudi government....

Anyways, yea, video content for games both makes more sense, and more money.

I can totally get this feeling for PC/consumer electronics hardware related articles and reviews, but for video games? Meh. I won't cry.

Honestly surprised anyone who could claim to be a journalist was left in that advertising front of an industry

Their game reviews are worth shit all, so their only worth is reporting on the game industry itself. And that's a niche area that not many people are interested in.