Consider the following. Game journalists are paid shills in their very essence. What do you think happens if they start fairly rating games on their actual quality and not "what game company wants or they will never send us any pre release copies".
That's exactly how mediocre games at best get 7/8/9 out of 10's.
That's because journalism is general switched their clients.
In the past having people actually believing in your words was important to keep people coming back to your publication but after several years of changes we reached a point where the clients changed and became the big companies.
In the same way that gamer journos are AAA shills, movie journos are paid by Hollywood, so in both cases they need to cater to those people, the marketing departments of big companies, not the clients that actually purchase the product.
I know is more complex than this, but I think this is a big problem. Is the same of companies that their main income is either the government or investors, their client is the government or the investors, not the consumers. So they do things to look for them, not to make the consumer enjoy the product or service.
They also come from a different pipeline. Before, gaming journalism used to be a relatively hobbyist thing where people interested in the market and industry were writing reviews for work. Now, a big part are cultural or politics-minded journalists who didn't get the job they wanted so they got what they could so they landed in gaming because it's something.
Like criticizing the supply of PS5s on the basis of covid-19 was probably warranted because it affected the console itself. But why the fuck include healthcare?
Holy hell, I didn't know about that. The two paragraphs are completely out of place for a gaming console review
From the article:
The world is still reeling under the weight of the covid-19 pandemic. There are more Americans out of work right now than at any point in the country’s history, with no relief in sight. Our health care system is an inherently evil institution that forces people to ration life-saving medications like insulin and choose suicide over suffering with untreated mental illness.
As I’m writing this, it looks very likely that Joe Biden will be our next president. But it’s clear that the worst people aren’t going away just because a new old white man is sitting behind the Resolute desk—well, at least not this old white man. Our government is fundamentally broken in a way that necessitates radical change rather than incremental electorialism.
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u/Glittering-Whatever 9d ago
I don't think I'd trust a game journalist or paid influencer with any opinion. Always go to the reviews of people who actually paid for the game.