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 With video games becoming more and more mainstream, it’s inevitable that the media is going to take more and more notice. Our society, being as messed up as it is, dictates that the mainstream news is going to cover gaming the same way they do every day events; by showing the worst side possible in an attempt to shock you and hopefully cause panic and fear. It’s bad enough that we have that worry, but video game specific media, in my eyes, is just as bad. Video games and news started out on pretty good terms. The only time the news would say anything about video games is when it was impossible to get a Gameboy for Christmas. As time has gone by, the news has change to what I like to call “slum news†where everything they report on has to make you worry. Topics like “how to protect your kids from Myspace!†are a perfect example. At some point, a very astute investigative journalist (there’s a bit of sarcasm in there) noticed that kids would rather play video games than do homework. They also noticed that kids are fat and lazy and would rather watch T.V. and play video games than go outside. I refer to this as the first attack era. All the sudden video games are bad for you. The second attack era happened when some overly concerned parent showed Joseph Lieberman Mortal Kombat. There was a national outrage towards violent video games that sent overly sensitive people everywhere into a frenzy. “Oh my god! Did he just rip his head off and hold it up with his bloody spine dangling?†Yes. Yes he did.
Honestly, I think the Mortal Kombat debacle was a good thing. Video games are a form of media, no different than movies or music. In my opinion, they should be treated like such. The best thing to come out of those hearings was the ESRB ratings for games. It was needed. It also added a little bit of respect to the industry. Video games were big enough that people were starting to notice. The golden age had arrived. For a few years, video games were left alone. The ratings system had the big wigs happy, the Playstation had launched and was bringing gaming to homes that had never had it before. Then, for reasons I can’t understand for the life of me, kids started bringing guns to school and shooting each other. If that wasn’t bad enough someone noticed that, like all middle class kids their age, they had video games where you shoot things. From here, they news did what it does best; took nothing and tried to turn it into a story. First person shooters on PC’s took the initial brunt, but not long after Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, and all hell broke loose.  When the game first launched, no one but fans of the franchise wanted to play it. My friend Kerv had played them all and was so hyped about it that I ended up buying the game. A year later, the news grabs hold of it and people start flying into stores to buy it. They have to play this game that is so violent that according to people like Jack Thompson, will cause you to run out and kill people. I’m sure if you’re reading this, you’ve played the game. It’s not that bad. But because of the outrage, there are still states trying to ban the sell of violent video games, and Jack is still Jack. He’s taking on any game Take-Two makes and proclaiming it the Anti-Christ because he’s on some ridiculous holy mission to rid America of violent games because we’re all so simple minded that we can’t tell the difference between real life and a cartoon that we’re in control of. But I digress…
That’s where we stand with normal media. Video game written media on the other hand started humbly as platform specific glorified fan pamphlets like Nintendo Power, and is now a protectant cover for video game display areas from dust, stolen so some one has something to read on the crapper, voluntarily subscribed to for whatever reason, or you’re forced to subscribe to shut up the poor kid at Gamestop who just doesn’t want to get fired for not forcing Game Informer subscriptions down your throat. Some are better than others, but I find them all to be irresponsible and just bad for the industry. Here are a group of people who are supposed to let you know what’s going on in the industry, what’s coming out, and how good what’s out is, and they fail you on almost all fronts. They’re supposed to give you insight on a new system coming out. Having never played the system, they can tell you nothing you don’t already know. They give you specs, what games might launch with it, what the controller will look like etc., but they haven’t played it. It’s like High School gossip that we keep buying into. It’s irresponsible journalism at its finest. Lastly, they give Madden a 9+ every year. EVERY YEAR! EA tricks people into paying $50-$60 a year on a patch, and instead of calling EA out on this horse shit they give it a 9+. I will say that aside from the Madden insanity, reviews are the one thing that magazines seem to actually do a good job with (except when they give games like Portal Runner a 97 out of 100), but it’s also obvious when they’ve been paid off to give a good review to a game. After my killing magazines, if you think I’m going to have nothing but nice things to say about the internet aspect of videogame media because it happens to be THEBBPS’s outlet, think again. A good portion of the net is awful. Forums being the worst. It’s like a festering boil for fanboy scum to breed and grow. You can’t go to a PS3 forum without some Xbox360 mongaloid (sorry Mongolians) spouting off about how the PS3 is going to fail and that Sony’s stupid for making the system do 1080p when there’s no standard for it, while in the same breath saying the 360 is Jesus’ balls because Microsoft said that they can release a software update that allows the 360 to output in 1080p. And vice versa. Sony fanboys are just as bad if not worse. It’s so bad I wont even go to them anymore. Video game web mags aren’t much different than their print counterparts, but they can show you things not printed in the magazines that sometimes make a visit worth it. But after seeing an Editor of IGN at E3 two years ago, I’m convinced that the people who run those things aren’t exactly on their A game, and it makes me wonder if I’m getting news, or opinion. Lastly, there are video game blogs. They start out so inoccent. Some guy (or gal) who likes gaming and starts a site. They’re almost always opinion, but they usually have the coolest articles, because they don’t have exclusive anything, so some creativity is necessary in their articles. As they get bigger though, they get bought out and then they’re just as bad as the rest. It’s the nature of the business, and that business is perpetuating rumors and opinions. I honestly feel as though both the regular media, and our own media have failed video games. As a newer media, video games are disrespected by news, and it’s own media has turned its back to advancing it. Really though, it’s like anything…
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Like most forms of media concerning most topics, you need to swim a little bit away from shore to get the real story out there. It's the problem of a free market and a free press, everything from WMD's in Iraw to the real problems with EA's Madden.
I think we run with a good group of sites, and it's like the saying goes.. Whoever gets mad he's probably talking about you.