It's official: I'm part of the staff now over at VideoGameWriters.com! I'll be writing news for the site, which is a newcomer to the video game news scene that I've been following since it launched last year. The challenge, of course, will be making it fit in with that pesky day job...
But enough about why local news is grinding my soul into a fine powder: you didn't come here to see me being emo. This is not Live Journal. Let's talk about why I like VGW, and why you should too.
Platform agnostic, fanboy-free
Good journalists are objective. They rise above the petty e-peen squabbles of others to seek truth and report it. Arguing which platform is superior does not elevate one to the status of higher beings, and instead keeps you mired in the muck with the rest of the groundlings. You want to get on stage and spout profoundly? Then you can't be boxed in by one box or another. Good gaming occurs on every platform imaginable, and good games journalists realize that.
The fanboy-free statement pushes that even further: you can't get so wrapped in a good game that you lose your objectivity. I love Bioware, but my recent experience with Star Wars: The Old Republic was far more disappointing than I was willing to admit at first. It took me 50 levels, but once I got there I realized it was a lot of the same-old MMO standbys with a lot more dialogue. It was a lesson to a) manage by expectations, but also to b) admit that sometimes even your best friends can make mistakes.
They definitely didn't make a mistake with those cinematics, though. Nosiree.
Cutting Through The Noise
Video games are a booming industry, and a growing medium for expression and experience. The people who make and play the games are also growing, and they deserve serious, respectable journalism. There are magazines and websites out there that are simply collections of PR buzzwords and quotes wrapped around lots of shiny screenshots or videos. You can tell pretty quickly which sites those are, because when you get through reading them you realize your stomach's still empty, like you binged on a candy bar. There's no meat, there are no hard questions, there's no insight.
By filtering out the PR noise, good video game writers can tell you honestly what to expect when you go online or to your local game store to make that next purchase. They can temper the sugar rush with objectivity, context and substance. These are the sites worth sticking with, and these are the sites worth writing for.
So if you hadn't heard of VGW, start listening. They're getting ready to make a lot more noise, and it'll definitely be something you want to hear.
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