"I am not a journalism" -frost.

For our bit about journalism history and the need for Journalism not to do harm, I thought of Oliver Sipple: a former Marine and Vietnam veteran who saved President Gerald Ford's life during an assassination attempt in 1975. Why is this relevant? Because Ford, supposedly, quietly refused to give Sipple any serious thanks, because Sipple was a gay man, and Sipple *begged* reporters not to out him. They didn't listen, and outed him because they felt like it was more important to call out the president for being a homophobe. Oliver Sipple's family disowned him, he was never allowed to attend his own mother's funeral, his mental state badly deteriorated, and he died alone enough that nobody found the body in his San Francisco apartment for over a week afterward. That is the historical context to bring to bear when you hear that Journalists have heard about something without reporting it. Everything those reporters said was *true* and they *still* did nothing but harm to the man they thought had been done an injustice. Now imagine the chaotic, pointless harm they could do if they reported without actual proof?

Never thought I'd see the day where "Let journalists take their time and do their jobs properly" was a controversial statement.

Why would I prevent games journalists from cooking? Buying take out is too expensive nowadays

Ash’s quote is absolutely true, back in the days of traditional print and television, it was easy to break a story fast, but with the internet and social media now, information spreads much faster and actually one of the first outlets to report some stories are tabloids, therefore journalist that are serious about their job and don’t treat their audience like idiots have shifted focus from being Fast to being Accurate, realising that in a landscape where being fast is no-longer novel, being accurate and trustworthy first is considered more valuable. If people know your news are accurate and trustworthy then they’ll be more than happy to wait and take the less reliable Fast news with a grain of salt

I definitely agree about the "spicy for spicy's sake" trend. Yeah, I'll eat some spicy food and enjoy it, but not because it's spicy, rather because it's tasty. Jalapeno poppers are barely spicy but they're delicious. Similarly, I'll play some more difficult games and enjoy them, but not because they're difficult. Shovel Knight had a bit of difficulty, but it wasn't the difficulty that made it fun.

Most journalists have a huge disadvantage over most influencers : they are just a name at the top or bottom of a bunch of words, without any parasocial relation at all. Humans are easily swayed by confident body language, written arguments just can't compete.

Often what people think of as journalists are really just professional bloggers. We have like 2.5 real journalists in the industry. Our free market has dictated that journalism isn’t to be tolerated, because it can’t be a product at the same time

In my circles, games journalists are ignored outright, due to the reputation of being products of nepotism with no real interest in games. I know there are plenty of competent, dedicated games journalists that got to where they are by hard work and knowing what they're doing, but it only takes one bad apple to spoil the barrel.

My preference is to trust *people* instead of *group/company*. A person has their own stakes in the field whereas a group or company can simply get rid of the "problem", wash their hands of it, and move on. IGN's got some great content and some garbage content, and it's unfair to act as if the next reviewer for Crash Bandicoot is the same person who played Doom Eternal and couldn't find the shoot gun button. That all said, sometimes journalists just don't help themselves, and the impact spreads far and fast. The Doom Eternal and Cuphead footage are easy targets, something a colleague should've seen and said "We can't post this online, it's a mess." But then there's the reviewer who complained the first boss fight in Spyro 3 (Reignited) was way too hard. The reviewer who found Rimworld problematic because of how sexuality's portrayed is one who *could've* made a valid point, but then they doubled down on a hand of two Kings when they also called they showed they didn't play the tutorial and found a certain aspect "deliberately boring", turning the whole thing into a meme-able farce.

I feel like to the average bystander- myself included- it frequently feels like for every publication taking its time and making sure to get it right to minimize undue harm, there's two more trying to maximize clicks by being first, reporting only what anonymous sources have told them both to report as they please without legal consequence ("The news story wasn't that this happened, it was that someone said this happened!") and to report what they like knowing full well Mr Nymous himself isn't going to take to Twitter to say he was misquoted. And all that is even before we get into spicy territory of hit pieces against people in the industry who have unrelated political views that the author disagrees with. Add to this the residual frustration over some high profile cases of an outlet lambasting a smaller title only to come back years later and call it a hidden gem, and I get where the hate is coming from.

If i had a nickel for every time i saw a well written article given an insipid and inflammatory clickbait title that undermines its intentions for views, I could probably start my own news outlet.

07:21 "So understand that when an outlet goes to bat for something serious like this, it has been looked over thoroughly enough to say, 'this is true, may I be destroyed if I am wrong.'" You definitely make a handful of good points in this video, but I am not sure if I have ever heard you say anything more dead wrong. At least when applied to journalism as a whole. Games journalism included. The sheer number of times throughout history, hell, RECENT MEMORY, that absolutely salacious, life-destroying allegations were made by journalists and news outlets that turned out to be, at best, gross exaggerations, and at worst, completely falsified is staggering. Yes, of course sometimes allegations as serious as those are true, but they are most certainly not always true and they are most CERTAINLY not always vetted as you said. Maybe this is just a, "speaking in absolutes when I meant in general" thing. I hope, anyway. I'm glad you have had communications with some journalists with a good head on their shoulders, but they don't define the profession the same way the bad apples don't either. Also the idea that journalists will always receive serious consequences if their allegation turns out to be false. lol. lmao, even. I appreciate you giving people food for thought. I am always a fan of, 'pump the brakes before immediately spewing hate and judgment.' Also 'feel free to roast if you don't mind being roasted back,' is always a good frame of mind in my view.

I think a lot of the problem bleeds over from the political space. So many reporters and outlets there have become openly not accurate and they are the most famous, best paid, and work for the most storied companies. No one is capable of following all of the work from all of the people across interest areas, so there is no way to know who you can trust to do their job well without prior experience. It requires too much effort to find out if a report or opinion is valid unless you already follow the person. I don't get why people comment about their lack of opinion online, but the distrust and default skepticism make a lot of sense to me.

this is becoming my favourite section of this channel

My hot take was that the DLC wasn't as hard as people felt it was. They forgot what the base game taught them: explore, experiment, get stronger, and take your time. People got too comfortable with the previous content and expected to blow full steam into stuff that was designed to challenge you further. They missed the lesson.

Yea my main issue isn't with the journalists that put time into their craft, but with the ones that pump out inaccurate slop just to farm clicks as quickly as possible.

I'd let them cook, but would be nice of most of it isn't microwaved expired pizza. I agree, we need a cultural reset though

Here is the biggest problem and irony about the situation. The very algorithms that make a content creator into a star for what they do are working AGAINST the outlets pouring effort into old-style news creation. And those sites are now buried under the need to file content that is easily searchable; so they have to work on game guides, how to find rare things, and listicles that draw eyeballs to the sites. I've been a reviewer. I have had opinions. I was lucky, I rarely got pushback or comments that I was wrong (and certainly never had anyone say I wasn't good enough). But controversy breeds attention, and anger draws visitor numbers - more so than competent, well-researched and detailed pieces. The problem isn't the journalists, it's the audience and how things are served to them. And the powers that be want chilli extract powder on everything.

There is a group of journalists in gaming (maybe in other sectors of journalism too) who have poisoned the well. Nobody wants to sidle up to the bar and get a glass of whatever is fresh when some of the bartenders have reputations for slinging sludge. The rare occasion where the bartender knows the truth and gives it to you, double and neat, is overshadowed by the last time you came in and the day shift tender pissed in a mug in front of god and everyone and told you your patronage wasn't even wanted. The ones who are good at their jobs and have the integrity demanded by that career have a duty to gatekeep that career and clean up their own bad actors. I find out about real news days late because I can't be bothered to sift through the overflowing litterbox of trite drivel and petty fights.

The reason we add this point is because we let them cook

That's where two-party journalism and two-party commentary culture get you.

"The crowd has never been more hostile" We're less than two months out from the tenth anniversary of the starting volley of the war between gamers and games journalism.

Remember IGN's 7.0 review for Starfield? All the heat they got for that? And then the gaming community realized every complaint had feet.

Let actual journalists cook and down with bloggers who pretend like they’re journalists for a paycheck.

One thing that reminds me often when it comes to game articles is more or less the same mindset of game developers releasing games now, fix/patch later. In a fight to get articles out before any other website, there's tons of them where while articles go into whatever they're reporting, they were unable to get responses from their sources or confirm certain details etc. and more often than not tells readers "the article will be updated when more info comes through or cleared up". Who would really come back to reading the same article expecting an update? When that happens other sites would make new articles about the new info anyway. No one wins.

The sad reality is that journalism, gaming or otherwise, is dying because most people don't actually *want* journalism. What they want is one of three things: 1. Media personalities they trust to tell them what to believe. 2. Echo chambers that comfort them in their beliefs by regurgitating their own opinions at them 3. Basic facts and information, in the style of "X did this", "X game was announced today" etc. Generally the first two will be the ones to expand or editorialize on that information. Basic tendencies of human psychology mean that the first one is better served by "content creators", as it's simpler to build that kind of rapport with an individual internet personality than with large, faceless outlets (how many times have you seen a comment saying "You're the only reviewer I trust" under a KZfaq video?). Infotainment shows are much better at doing the second one, as they don't have to abide by the ethical rules of actual journalism, and a perverse effect of never challenging their audience is that as a result, said audience will view them as ironically much less biased and much more "objective" than the alternatives (as what is objectivity but the opinions you consider to be facts?). Finally, for the last one, that job can now be automated by AI-powered content mills that vomit SEO slop they almost always stole from somewhere back at the Internet. What place is there for journalism in such a landscape? Even if your good faith answer is to say "well, just do good journalism", well the problem is that that "good journalism" costs more, is less lucrative AND is less attractive to audiences than the alternatives I described.

There is also bad doctors and bad lawyers. There is accountability for everyone.

I think one possible solution could be to seek out more independent journalists who publish more in depth articles on a semi weekly or even monthly basis. This type of journalism is called Quiet Journalism and there's an excellent TED Talk by Jeremy Klaszus that goes over why it's important and more helpful than contemporary journalism.

considering they've been megacorps' advertising mouthpieces for a while, whatever they're cooking had better be good. I lost my faith in the entire industry years ago. But I'm always interested in a taste of what frost's serving up. I'm inclined to agree with his takes on this one, but I do think it's missing the _reason_ games journos are considered untrustworthy; the fact that they *have* to be paid shills in order to continue operating. I can't trust any reporter who isn't able to speak truth to power. How can they cook if they're obligated to praise their owner company's crappy ingredients?

How do we categorize which ones are the journalists and which ones are the tabloids? When they both have a big name company that's been bought by the same, even bigger company paying them to write articles, the line isn't so much blurred as it is underneath freshly poured concrete. One day, you get a good, reasonable article out of one outlet, then the next day you get some lunatic hot take specifically designed and custom-built to anger people to generate attention. Sure, they were two completely different authors, but they were put up on the same "game journalism" site, within a short time span, and in the same article feed, not separated between "well-researched journalism" and "personal opinion flap." Oh, sure, the bar at the very top organizing the links makes sure to have an "op ed" or "opinion" tag, but they organized the site links with the legitimate news and the opinion piece in the same box like they're equivalent.

misread this as "let James Gournalists cook" and i would like to express my support for james at this time

The problem is for every good journalist out there you have 10 who seem to exist just to feed the trolls. Games Journalism doesn't have a PR problem so much as it has a people problem. If they want credibility they need to earn it and a hand full of people doing good work on major sites full of people doing bad work isn't going to fix anything.

I think a lot of the difference in attitudes between 'content creators' and official games journalists comes down to a difference in the perceived identity of each category. Content creators typically are or appear to be fans who rose to prominence through well-crafted material that was liked by the community they came from. They're thought of as 'one of us' and so their opinions are considered to have more weight. This isn't entirely a false perception since the more similar to you a person is the more their opinions predict how much you will like a thing. Games journalists are instead hired by corporations that are ultimately controlled by people who typically have very little in common with their readers. They're members of a serious profession with an internal code (a good thing), but this again creates more of a difference in background between them and the median gamer. They're more likely to be seen as an artificial elite, undemocratically appointed by people you don't know or like. Again, this is not completely false. It's not an inherently bad thing either. As an American I think I've seen about enough of populist impulses getting directly transmuted into real action for the rest of my life.

The problems I have with "Gaming Journalism" are extremely similar to the issues I have with AAA games right now. Sure, _not every_ AAA game is a crunched rushjob with PR teams that intentionally stoke controversy to increase sales for investors that wanna watch a line go up just like _not every_ game journalist is the kind to literally conspire with each other like what happened with the GameJournoPros mailing list where they all coordinated together to put out "'Gamers' don't have to be your audience, gamers are over" articles, but even on some of their best days they still look really bad in comparison to the indie folks who can put as much time and passion as they need into making sure something's well made. I trust a random youtuber's voice who puts out a video on a game like a year or 5 after it came out over someone who will literally get blacklisted by a publisher if they don't continue positive day one, review embargoed coverage and additionally ask extremely softball questions during interviews. *I have no interest in stopping game journalists from cooking,* you'll just have to forgive me to not wanting to eat what they're serving me after they're done, when I know they're undercooking my food with a pan made with concerning amounts of lead. I'm sure they're great cooks, but first they need to be given better time and fundamentally better kitchenware.

Mmmm, I don't know Frost; I mostly agree with your argument here in that I'm not someone who engages with anyone in a pointless manor like just talking them down on Twitter or something like that. I simply disengage with any source that I do not trust anymore. Most people have however lost so much faith in game journalists over the last few years, and I don't think there are any ~real~ or rather ~honest~ game journalists left. Even Mr. Paul Tassi that you reverenced in this video, openly admitted to not reviewing games in what I consider an honest way. I believe it was with regards to Jedi Survivor; he admitted to reviewing the game as if some bugs and performance issues had already been patched out . . . Now tell me, how does that help ANY consumer? Look at it this way - An example I like to use is to imagine this exact same practice in the motor industry: You came into a bit of money and your mother (whom is retired) is in the market for a car, so you decide to buy her a nice, low-end, but brand new car to save yourself future hassle as she lives in a different state than you. Diving in reading car reviews, you do research, make a decision, go to the dealer buy a brand new Car version 1.0. While driving it out of the dealership you find the indicators, breaks and steering doesn't work at all. The dealer quickly puts your worries at ease by ensuring you; the manufacturer is planning on fixing at least two of the three main issues in Car version 1.1. Even after that, they might keep updating the product for FREE . . . absurd right? No, AAA-gaming standard practice. Now, was any of the reviews you read on Car v1.0 honest, correct or in ANY way accurate? I'd say most game journalists need to be tarred, feather, and chased naked through the streets while we review their bugs and performance issues on Twitch !!

I'm normally running defense for game journalists in my circle, but there was a period (2016ish) where there was just a deluge of content about how journalism was the single, solitary thin black line protecting us from Gamer-Trump-MAGA fascism. Expecting someone to be able to bench 650 just because they keep calling themselves Atlas isn't reasonable, but, like, some of these inflated expectations are partially self-inflicted.

They can cook alright. Doesn't mean I have to eat their meal.

My name is James Gournalist, Im a games journalist

Lemme be real with you for a second. There's only one person on this earth that will care how hard you've worked. Two if you're lucky. You and your mom.

Oh, and do not forget the internet scraping AI bots that some outlets seem to be using. The entire structure of current gaming jounalism needs a reset, as history has shown us.

I like games journalism, not for their opinion but, for how they portray their opinions, and the character they use. Second Wind staff get this. Yahtzee can degrade a game for 10-minutes straight. I am forewarned and entertained and I may even still buy it.

Another issue: Some games are way to lengthy to properly review in time. That's a problem when you have tight deadlines. But it's even worse for the individual when you get paid relatively little money for the time you invest.

Trust, once lost, is hard to regain, if not impossible. To many chefs in the kitchen of Games Journalism have shown themselves to serve absolute poison. You might have shown to make a decent burger, but that is trust that can only be made (and spend) by you, not any other chef in the kitchen. Yeah, some of it is to blame on the quality of the ingredients, a demand to cook fast, bad hours, the low pay. You can cook, just don't expect many new and return customers as long as many of your collogues in the industry have a reputation for serving shit.

Way I see it is, theres a natural incongruity with entertainment and journalism that I can’t really divorce (not just gaming) What can pay for the “real journalism” like interviews, investigations, research etc is SEO farms, click bait articles, guides filled with ads, and spicy takes and reviews. The value is up to the customer, however visit most corporate news sites and you will find the latter is what populates the majority of the site. Can’t really let journalists cook when they’re given frozen food and a microwave

All of this has to be taken into context of how much of a shit job journalists have been doing to earn their reputation. Yes, sometimes people stack the heat on more than they might deserve, but a lot of trust in the institution has been lost, and the journalists have no one to blame but themselves. They need to do better, and do it consistently over time, if they want to people to lay off.

The "treating all journalists as the same bad journalist" is a phenomenon I've noticed in several groups as of late. There's probably a psychological term for it, and if there isn't there should be, but it's when you have separate disparate interactions from otherwise unrelated people but treat them as if coming from the same person. A sort of sub-group of stereotyping, but to me at least stereotyping is "Person possesses (attribute), therefore is more likely to commit (action)", while this is a bit different, being closer to "Person has committed (action), therefore is responsible for prior instances of (action)." For a gaming example, say you're on a losing streak and your temper is getting the better of you, as happens too typically to too many. You probably aren't going to be yelling at your teammates in game 1, but you might be dishing out some strong words come game 8, even though the players in that game did not participate in any of the prior 7 games and so were not responsible in any way for your experience during them. But because they are playing the same roles of opponents/teammates in the same situation, they get the built up amity of previous experiences hoisted onto them. It exists elsewhere too of course. You may have been a part of or witnessed a tweet or comment reply that used the phrase "You people" towards someone sharing their opinion on a matter. That person has it in their head that the person they're replying to is part of some larger group, a cabal that shares the same sentiment everywhere they look. Folks the reply-ee has likely never met or may not even know exist, and simply wanted to express how they don't think Star Wars is that cool or whatever, while the reply-er is taking it as another of a thousand similar comments they've waded through prior to that one and treating it as part of that ongoing conversation they've been having with as many disparate individuals. It makes some sense for it to happen, but it's nonetheless unfortunate with how much negativity it causes.

Forget the cooking, just dont go to the restaurant. They got garbage food

If more game journalists and publications took the tack of consumer advocacy/protection and industry analysis I'd be more amenable to the argument... Or even if they were retired developers/directors providing insight to the average consumer, sure. Like most hobby journalism, that's not the case and games journalists are little more than power consumers getting someone to fund their habit. I respect the hustle, but it IS a hustle.

Its the same balance between speed and accuracy that has existed for a while now, coupled with the vast plains of narrow subcultures, stapled onto a impression of "Journalism" that exists in a cultural mindset. Frankly, a bunch of "games journalism" is bloat, is pointless, just given the space it is in! Its difficult to parse that people saying (for example) elden ring dlc was too hard as a "let them cook" vs all the times they cant finish the game or dont get too or have 2 hours to play it making the entire review effectively pointless. Why should I cherish that? Hell if I wanna know about Elden Ring ill go to the spaces that are purely elden ring. What id like from Journalism on games is factual reporting on the industry, but that apparently doesnt sell, so we get shovelware takes to prop it up. Reviews of games vs analysis of the industry is the core difference, and im too busy rn to write much of substance further on the unique nature of how Second Wind was formed, but it feels like both asking for a higher level of presitige as per the qualifications and ethical standards to uphold, while a vast portion of what is produced from the process are "Game Reviews" that provide less detail or accuracy than what any interested fan could and does regularly make either here or anywhere.

Of course they want Superman as a Journalist. Well the Paragon Version of him at least. At least he tells the truth in many eyes.

Game Thoery actually did a really good video on this a while back (I think it was "Do Video Games Journalists Suck?") where he talked about how becasue video games can vary in difficulty based on the genre and experinece with genre conventions. And also outlets only have so many experts per games of the genre releasing in a certain timeframe. That's why, unless they're Yahtzee and play literally everything under the sun and still doesn't review EVERY game that comes out, there are sometimes reviews that are a little more incompetant than others. Everyone dunks on that one Cuphead video but I literally would have been making the same mistakes because I've finished Bloodborne more times that I can count but I still get bullied by my friends for just how comically bad I am at platformers.

Under paid for playing games.. oh the horror...

The problem is the best games journalism was back in the 80s to early 00s when you had the magazine "rag" days of a bunch of nerds in a room playing the games together and getting "scoops" on the latest stuff coming out via ACTUAL INTERVIEWS and hands-ons with developers and people. And most publishers werent completely terrible (yet). Ever since gaming hit "mainstream" during the end of the 6th gen and start of 7th gen though EVERYTHING has changed. Its all about "controlling the message", pretty much no hands-on, no "real" interviews by most people. Just show the fake graphics CGI trailer, Show your " :O " face on a KZfaq thumbnail about how great X product is gonna be while telling your viewers to like and subscribe. Or debate it about it in podcast while the rest of your crew try to remain as "corporate friendly" as possible because NO ONE is allowed to have any balls anymore. EVERYBODY just wants to sell you something. Well I ain't buying!! I STILL listen to old episodes of 1up Yours with Garnett Lee and Co. It STILL ****s all over whatever everyone else does TODAY.

A problem I have with games journalist is they aren't/can't sticking to their preference in a very preferential field. JRPG's are known for being niche but we have people who were never the intended customer giving their criticisms about things fans love to death. All because they're being paid to say something, anything about the newest release.

It's been years since I've actually looked up a game review from a journalist most of the people calling themselves games journalists are sadly not really to the standard that I expect a journalist to be at. Someone like Jason Schreier I respect immensely his investigative pieces usually feel well worth it but for reviews I tend to go to steam reviews or forums rather than journalists

Maybe it is also the frustration many feel when searching for some written guide online and getting the first few result be some gamerant (or similar) ones that are filled with ads. And from what i heard about how the working conditions for writers for these platforms are i am not suprised that the articles are most often kinda bad and/or something directly taken from Reddit. Of course there are many outlets that do much better work, but the insane amount of stuff sotes like game rant spew out makes people who look for something real quick not see them that often. And what they then see are the few times that on these better outlets someone did something people find questionable.

Elden Ring DLC Has This Developer Believe Having Kids Is A Disability And DEMANDS More Accessibility

There isn't a lot of demand for video games journalists, so most won't be able to make it on their own. They can change careers, or choose to serve some major publication that has to post flamebait to get clicks. The cost of the latter path is their reputation, that's part of the deal.

To be fair game journalists contributed a big part to the current situation and the toxic climate, farming for hateclicks where ever they could. We have lost the trust in them and most of them don't do shit to EARN the trust back, they just hide in their echochambers and blame gamers for everything bad in the world.

The problem I have with most serious games journalists is the same one I have with film critics. As someone who is more involved with the industry than the average person they have a different opinion about what is an isn't a good video game or film than the average person. This frequently leads to things like The Boondock Saints having a RT score of 26% with critics and 91% with audiences.

Maybe a good way to help this is to have games journalists really push the "this is my opinion of the game" making the reviews opinion pieces would distance the subjective truth of a game review from objective truth of things like corporate shenanigans and lay-offs

Doesn't seem I'm the target of this video. Cus I see someone identifying Kadokawa as "fromsoft's parent" in the headline and I'm not too hot about letting them cook.

It feels like this could be applied to the media as a whole and not just gaming journalism. Too many opinions drown out the facts.

Thanks for the vid, keep it up

I feel like the culture of "the game review must be published on or even before the release date" is doing more harm than people admit. There is certainly a point in setting player expectations or even outright warning people if a game is bad, but those are very rare instances. At best it's just outlets trying to be ahead of the curve and capitalizing on player interest during game launches, with people being interested if a game is worth buying. At worst game reviews end up as marketing tools, generating attention (sometimes even if said game is subpar). Especially when, allegedly, availability of review copies are tied to previous review scores.

One of the greatest cold takes of all time. Truly an all time classic. A masterpiece of content creation. I give it a 7/10.

When the restaurant keeps me serving turd sandwiches I'm going to stop going to the restaurant. They shouldn't be cooking if that's what they keep serving.

Pretty sure the bosses started to cross the tough but fair threshold was a criticism toward the end of the base game as well.

One of my many problems with Games "Journalists" of today, is that many of them either make click-bait or politically cringed garbage. It's hard to have any respect for that. Sadly, this buries the actual decent ones below an algorithm mountain of trash.

Gotta say I think this is my favorite thing to come out of this Second Wind channel. Keep it up, good sir

My problem with gaming journalism is the fact that a lot of times, I know more about the subject than the journalist. If I spend all my waking hours talking, reading and working with finance, I would probably think the same of a lot of the financial news. But I know about video games, not finance. Which is probably a bad financial decision.

I think a part of the problem we're running into is the corporate news outlets, whether in gaming or in wider spaces, tends to erase the personal opinions of a writer in favor of a Brand viewpoint. While that's generally fine for news that can be discussed objectively, subjective news suffers for it. Bigger outlets have dozens of different writers, all with different opinions on how games should be, so there's this dissonance when they're taken as a whole. Big Media Journalist A thinks that the Elden Ring DLC is too hard, Big Media Journalist B thinks it's too easy, both are published on the same platform, confusion and chaos ensues. Is what they're critiquing a genuine problem, or is it just this individuals opinions rolled into the collective. I think a big part of why many of us are here is because of ZP, and a big part of why ZP gained so much traction is how he handles reviews. He's clear and concise about what he's looking for and what he avoids. A potential buyer can watch his videos and know that he's great for reviews about narrative driven games, but that his stance on strategy games is tainted by his dislike of them. You know exactly what you're getting, and you can take his reviews in that context. Perhaps it might be best to step away from the big monolithic picture of journalism, allow the behind-the-scenes to show through more. The Dr. Disrepect thing probably wouldn't have caused so many problems if bigger news sites were more clear about their process, confusion about game reviews wouldn't be as prevalent if the person behind the story were more front and center, rather than an incidental part of the process.

you're Cold Take series has been just killing it lately. Keep up the good work!

I trust the content creator more than I trust the games journalist because the former will let me see how they're playing throughout, the latter will put words on a website with maybe a couple of highlights that are usually pre-rendered cutscenes with no gameplay that show me where their priorities are. The few times I do see a game journalist play a game it's incidents like Doom 2016 where the reviewer cannot aim shoot and move at the same time, or the Cuphead tutorial where they did so poorly a pigeon solved the puzzle concept faster than they did. How am I supposed to trust someone got better or was better based on not seeing them play a game? Sometimes you get a glimpse beyond the vale as someone writes an article complaining the bombastic music and combo meters in DMC5 were absent unlike in previous releases, revealing that they played the game on easy difficulty and never built a combo during their playtime, informing those in the know the reviewer is not someone who is good at games. It certainly doesn't help that reviewers are hired first and foremost on their ability to write about a topic rather than engage with the topic, not a bad thing as they are being hired to write about things but is it really too much to ask for both? The cards are stacked against games journalists, and they do nothing to help themselves out of the hole they dug themselves into. Game is too hard? Whatever you say Dean Takahashi let the gamers have a look. Show us what you're cooking if you're so convinced we're the ones getting it wrong, transparency would save your image and build a lot of good will if we truly were the problem. Until I see evidence suggesting to the contrary however I'll default to "The journalists got it wrong again."

It's more when journalists use gaming as a medium to say their political pieces. Anyone remember the PS5 review where it talked more about Trump and the economy rather than the PS5 itself?

there is a reason why hour long videos about decade old games are popular

I've gotten so used to Frosts funny stuff during the patreon scroll that Id left after "let them cook" and then panicked and came back to see if there was any funnies

I have a hunch which article inspired this piece, I'll summarize my originally longer feedback like this: How is a reader supposed to take that 1 out of every 100 (if not even less) posts on a modern "news portal" seriously when it's surrounded by AI posts that just summarize reddit threads or are pure (and sometimes paid for) opinion pieces?

I see your point about journalists being held to harsh standards, particularly in regards to timing, regulations from on high, and ethical practices. That's an issue that probably gets overlooked more than is fair. However, it feels like this video sidestepped a lot of the issues many gamers actually have with games journalists, particularly that instead of reporting facts, that they've become ideologues. Examples being having most of their review be about how much negative feedback they've received, flat-out lying, advocating and defending unethical practices, and this is just scratching the surface of complaints. I usually like your stuff as it's informative and often gets me to rethink opinions I've held and consider angles I haven't thought of before, but I feel like this was a very narrow opinion piece and misses the point of why most gamers are actually fed up with games journos.

I'm sorry, the rubber chicken cannon is non-negotiable.

Hi Frost, you make the point that "journalism is a profession in which it is better to try and minimize harm than to try and maximize good in order to best serve society" I would agree with this statement generally. However, we see endless amounts of hit pieces from journalists (usually politically motivated, e.g the Hogwarts legacy debacle). I think journalists need to do better.

Very well made points, excellent video dude! My two cents, if I may: when it comes to games journalists there is a major problem of the loudest among them making a point of attacking gamers as a whole for the crimes of the few. Alyssa, Frosk, and their ilk. It's really difficult to pick out the quiet, honest journalists who take pride in being accurate when the most visible and "celebrated" ones insist on alienating the audience the pretend to cater to. Edit: fixed language errors

Games journalists damaged their own reputation by putting a large focus on opinion peaces pushed as "news" coupled with the growing disparity between said opinions of journalists vs audiences. Games journalism should be consumer focused but often descends into defending big corporations against criticism of the consumers.

Games journalism about game journalism! I like it.

The one thing I will not budge on with game journos, is when they review a game that's outside their area of knowledge. It happens a lot less now, but I remember a time when you'd get an RTS game reviewed by someone who just didn't understand RTS games

I always thought that the crew behind Second Wind (previously The Escapist) were game journalists.. >_>

Recently I've had a hard time following these Cold Take videos. I feel like increasingly, they're assuming detailed familiarity with things I don't know about. For a concrete example: the video says that allegations about Dr. Disrespect were claimed to be lies. But I don't know who it was that was claiming this, what their angle was in their understanding of events, or what effect this disbelief had. If some fans of a streamer didn't believe a story and posted comments to that effect, so what? I'm sure there was more to the story than that, but I have no idea what it was because it's not spelled out in the video and I don't feel the urgent need to start researching the topic. This is one example, but I feel like the number of that sort of vague allusions in the Cold Take series have been going up recently, and as a result I've been finding the messages very abstract. It's a shame, because when I understand what you're talking about I find your views interesting and persuasive.

..Game-journalism isn't dead, Sebastian. It hasn't even been born.

I hear you kind sir, but I still refuse to give attention to people who proffessionaly hate me for my harmless hobby.

I respect this position, but I find myself feeling the inverse of it. For every 1 authentic and genuine attempt at proper game journalism, I can bring you at least 5 instances (often from the same outlet) of industry mouthpiece pseudo-marketing, political activism disguised as journalism, rage-bait, factual inaccuracies (which they often hide/delete afterward), hyper-inflated articles that hide small bits of useful information inside walls of pointless text to drive ad revenue, and so on. When you take into account the bulk sum of what this profession actually produces, why should I only judge them for the 10% that is honest and valuable?

Regarding that superman reference, it sounds like a pop culture take on Peter Singer's "Famine Affluence and Morality"

When I look at game critics and journalists, I always carry salt in one hand and sugar in the other. I try giving them each the benefit of the doubt based on the effort put into the review and what sort of knowledge they're the best at analyzing. However, that also comes with where there credibility lies based on reputation, biases, and lack of knowledge in a particular field. I see the finer details and pin point what's accurate and what isn't, regardless of who it is or what game they're reviewing.

I do feel the good journalists are still out there. For example here on second wind but it is increasingly harder to find them in the swamp of content creators that scream the loudest. Read my opinion i matter. And it sometimes feel like the actual subject matter of gaming is lost in the opinion factory that is todays media. With that written i strongly recommend Civvie11, SsethZzentach, Stratedgy, UEG and Noah Caldwell Gervais as far as good genuine gaming creators are concerned.

You are a journalist

9:50 I will not put my rubber chickens down. Svengoolie's coming on soon!

This is a great video and I agree with everything. Unfortunately, for ever good journalist like Jason Schreier, there's a dozen that have never actually studied journalism and think they deserve to be called one because they own a keyboard. They are more interested in being first, going scorched earth on someone they feel deserves it, then only doubles down when they're proven wrong.

You can't say "credibility" without "credit". And I'm all out of credit.

My main pushback here is that the rules journos are supposedly held to seem to be selectively binding in the first place. So it seems to me if we're gonna go the route of poor journos here, it would help if they themselves didn't make such a good counter case.

Kind of a potentially interesting games story in and of itself that the review copy of Shadow of the Erdtree had a much harder version of the final boss, with one attack doing 4x as much damage as the release version, and one attack that was most reliably survived by intentionally tanking the first hit (which would've been impossible for a level 1 run).