SHARE THIS:

Gaming journalism Vs “real” journalism

It´s kind of funny that “some” people still don´t seem to understand why Gamers are upset with the current state of Gaming journalism and the video game industry. And I’m not “just” talking about ethics and corruption. I’m also talking about professionalism and “real” journalism (double-check facts, do your research and know what you´re talking about). And that just happens to be something which #GamerGate has pointed out for over a year’s time now. Personally, I think that´s pretty obvious stuff, and that no one should even have to bring it up either (as it´s just common sense after all). Nevertheless, time after time again big video game news sites get caught with their pants down when it comes to the basic practices of journalism.

Don´t get me wrong now, everyone makes mistakes, and I’m far from perfect myself (I try my very best though). However, when you write for a big and well-known games news site such as VG247. One would expect you to have the “know how” and the “facts” when you write about games (and that you double-check everything before you publish your articles). For example, none of us (the TGG crew) writes about stuff which we don´t love and know a lot about. And that´s the way it should be. I mean, I would never get the idea to write a really deep article about World of Warcraft. Why? Because I know every little about Wow, and I’m not an active player either (I am not very good at Mmorpg´s either for that matter). In short, Gaming journalists should ONLY write about stuff which they know, love and care about. Just assign the right person to the right job, and everything should work out perfectly fine in the end. Speaking of which, I have noticed another thing. Not only do many of these big news sites assume that their audience is rather stupid, but they also talk down to Gamers as well (you still remember Gamasutra´s “Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over.” article right?).

Anyhow, I still don´t understand who anyone could make the mistake to confuse Naughty Dog´s remastered edition of “Uncharted 2” with “Uncharted 4?” Especially if you have already played “Uncharted 2” in the past. Besides, wouldn´t the Sony´s representatives have stated loud and clear that the game in question was the remastered edition of “Uncharted 2”? (in this case, at the TGS 2015 PlayStation booth). Not only that, but wouldn´t you have seen a lot of logos and ads on site as well? (in-game and at the Uncharted booth area).

I don´t know VG247´s Editor Matt Martin personally, nor his previous works (Martin is the one that accidentally mixed up Uncharted 2 remastered with Uncharted 4). However, according to himself, the mistake took place due to stressy and busy times at the TGS 2015 event (the article itself was published on the 30th of September on VG247.com). Martin also stated that “a majority of signage isn’t in English” as another reason behind the mix up mistake. Those’re at least the official explanation and excuse by Matt Martin and VG247 (as seen in the “Letter from the editor: an apology to Naughty Dog and Uncharted fans” text down below).

“We’d like to apologise to Naughty Dog for a massive mistake we published last month.

On September 30 we published an article titled “Is Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End too formulaic?” based on what we thought was a hands-on session with Uncharted 4 at the Tokyo Game Show.

We didn’t realise it at the time; what we’d played wasn’t Uncharted 4, but the remastered Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, from the recently released Uncharted Collection. We were not aware of this until after the article went live.

As soon as Sony notified us of our mistake we immediately unpublished the article as it was clearly based on one massive error on our part. TGS is busy and obviously the majority of signage isn’t in English, but none of that excuses the fact that we seriously fucked up.

It’s cute to say it’s testament to the skill and beautiful artwork of the Naughty Dog team that we mistook a remastered PS3 game for Uncharted 4. But none of that changes the fact that we have massively misrepresented a game to our readers, fans of the Uncharted series and the industry who read VG247.

The buck stops with the editor of the site, so I’m the one apologising. I should have done it sooner. I am genuinely sorry for this mistake, the misrepresentation of the game and the upset this has caused the development team.” – Matt Martin, Editor, VG247″

To forgive or not to forgive, that’s the question

Even so, It doesn´t seem like everyone is buying into VG247´s excuse though, thus comments such as this:

“uncharted 2 was the best game of the series how can you not recognize it? Even if the graphics were updated.” – Das_Gimps

“Erm, because they probably never fucking played it to begin originally like most video game journalists.” – Hellstorm901

“There’s NO problem with gaming journalism whatsoever, I don’t know WHAT #GamerGate is talking about!” – Randomfox

However, I do think that it´s a perfectly fine practice to apologize for any given mistake (s), and to correct the error (s) as soon as possible. Nevertheless, it´s still up to the audience if they could forgive you for your mistakes or not. And I don´t know about you guys, but I don´t recall Gaming journalism ever being in such a bad state in the early 90s. Then again, back then I read mostly Swedish or UK Gaming magazines.

Anyhow, that was everything that I had to say on the matter for now. So feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comment section down below.

Source:

VG247

***Disclaimer***

This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.





Robin “V-Act” Ek

The Gaming Ground

Twitter: @TheGamingGround

SHARE THIS: Twitter

Facebook

Reddit



More by Robin Ek:

Tags: Gaming, Gaming journalism, Naughty Dog, Uncharted 4, VG247, Video games