Streamers and games journalism

[Jiro]

Over the past few days, my Twitter feed has been lighting up with articles and discussions about how written games journalism is dying and that YouTube is becoming the primary target group for publishers trying to gain publicity. I've also seen people who seem like fairly switched on characters straight up labelling PewDiePie as some kind of villain because he makes money off "bad" "content".

I have a multitude of issues with what has been transpiring. It is slightly ironic to me that online journalists are complaining about the death of their industry when less than a decade ago they were being cited as the death of print media. Bloggers et al. are not responsible for the changing news landscape, but nevertheless they were painted as the undoers of the traditional press system which has been dying a slow, painful death ever since. However, I don't recall a single entity being the evil face of this evil crusade though.

PewDiePie is copping all of the hate. I admit bias here: I actually enjoy a lot of his content. I will note that Game Theorists did a video explaining exactly how the YouTube formula basically caters directly to PewDiePie which is why he is the highest subscribed channel, so his success is at least partially not motivated by his "quality", depending on how you rate him. Regardless, there is absolutely no reason for him to cited as the pinnacle of evilness. He makes a lot of money from playing video games. Sure. But, are you sure you're not just jealous? If you're not jealous, then why are you not complaining about every other YouTuber who does the same thing? Why are you not complaining about the absolute abundance of streamers who make cash just... playing video games?

Even as a fan I can see that playing video games is not a hard job. But playing that many and having to be funny or interesting is not something that just anyone can do. It takes dedication to do something like that day-in and day-out. It takes a lot of luck to be successful at something like that, but plenty of others are doing it. I know of a guy in Brisbane who lives off streaming. Is he better quality? I don't know. I thought subjectivity was still existent, but apparently not.

And regardless of whether his content is good or not, PewDiePie is far from deserving from all of the hate simply by virtue of how much smurfing charity he does. He regularly advertises causes important to him on his channel which has a subscription rate larger than some countries and asks them to donate. That's actually really smurfing great. And sure, adopting homeless kittens doesn't give you the right to kick dogs, but I'm yet to see how making a living from playing video games is a bad thing or is actually negatively affecting anyone. He's not a corporation exploiting workers.

Games journalism dying is a ridiculous claim, but if it is true, then it's not solely PewDiePie's fault. There's a simple phrase that might help orient people in the industry: evolve or die. If you can't make your content engaging enough, if you can't find a way to differentiate it and make yourself relevant, then it will die, and it will be your fault. Video might have killed the radio star but it didn't kill radio. Because radio evolved and now people listen to it every smurfing day in their cars.

I am annoyed at people who are being so self-absorbed that they can herald the coming apocalypse and then try to pin it purely on one man who is actually a pretty decent human being simply because of jealousy at his success.

[Colonel Angus]

Spot on analysis.

[Jiro]

It boggles the mind how people can just pick a villain and blame him. It's not like I'm enjoying going into another industry apparently on the fritz. Games journalism was the alternative to mainstream news. But instead of saying woe is me smurf you Pewds, I'm gonna try doing something about it.

[Miss Mae]

You already know I agree with you, but let me say it again: I agree with you. 100%. I'm just glad I don't follow as many games journalists on Twitter as you do, or else I'd be throwing my laptop against a wall.

[*Devore*]

I agree with this as well, but I should say that I don't like Pew because I'm not a fan of people who act like they have mental issues, same reason why I'm not a fan of Simon from Yogcast. And while his content isn't at the same quality as the Yogcast crews, Pew does put out a crazy amount of content all by himself so i do have to respect him for that.

But is streaming and LPs really taking views from journalism? Because if I want to see a review of a game then I'd go to ign or gamestm but if I didn't have time/money to play a game then I'd go to youtube. Also, youtubers rarely go into detail about whats going on in the games industry or what specific developers are doing.

[Bolivar]

Didn't know the slightest thing about any of this until I saw you tweeting about it. Who has been singling him out? A little reference might be good for the OP.

I've seen some journalists go at Angry Joe and Hip Hop Gamer on similar grounds I suppose. Quite frankly, these YouTubers bring opinions more in line with the average gamer (and myself) than the gaming press at large, who are taking themselves way to seriously for something that's inherently supposed to be fun.

I agree games journalism dying is a ridiculous claim, I don't quite think they face the Evolve or Die dilemma you mentioned but they likely are losing some traffic and there's a valid reason for that.

[Old Manus]

I make a point of ignoring the videos I get on the Youtube homepage, but I watched a video by PewDiePie a few weeks ago and holy God, what absolute garbage. Is it supposed to be funny? It's just some guy shouting and squeaking in a mentally disabled voice while playing a video game, thousands and thousands of times over. I don't remember liking this kind of trout when I was 13. I can't imagine such an idiot can be 'killing games journalism' in any capacity.

[Christmas]

That bloke is getting hated for the sake of getting hated? Kinda reminds me of those years back then when I first turn my back on EoFF and left. God, those haters are really crazy, they just hate you for the sake of you being you.

PS: I googled that bloke and he earned like a few million a year? Just quit that crazy industry and do something with those money earned? Like invest in an indian curry shop or something.

[Leigh]

I think you'd find that most criticism that people level on someone is most usually driven by ego. It's primary driver will be envy and jealousy in most cases. Basically, he is not a part of that elist circle of professional journalists. He is not part of their club, or hasn't achieved success the 'traditional' way, and that will simply make people despondant out of a percieved sense of injustice. So they will make excuses and try and create reasons around an already very subjective and emotional mindset. "He's not a proper journalist!", but what is a proper journalist? Going to Journalist school? Hanging out with other Jounalists from the Journalist Club? People hired by Gamespot?

In psychological nomenclature, I believe they call this a case of sour grapes.

Just for the record, I have never actually seen this PewDiePie or heard of him. But I can imagine that his popularity must add some form of empirical data around whether people like him or not. Even Ghandi had his critics, so it is impossible for someone to appeal to everyone. Let's just say "Good on you, mate!" and avoid the sensationalist bull of journalist-proper.

[Skyblade]

I really don't think of PewDiePie as a reviewer. He's more of a first impressions/Let's Player. That said, I definitely check out independent reviewers on YouTube far more than I look at IGN or, um, any other "professional" reviewers around. My mind has totally blanked on who else is even out there that is in that category because I see them so rarely.

I would probably stop by PewDiePie's channel before going to an "official" review site as well. I don't trust standard gaming media, and PewDiePie would at least show me some unadulterated gameplay. But his videos are mostly not to my taste (with the exception of Prop Hunt, which is just fun no matter who is playing it), so I avoid his channel for the most part.

ProJared, Angry Joe, Yahtzee Croshaw, etcetera... These are the guys who I watch for game reviews. They do a better job of covering more aspects of the game, they don't pull their punches on big name titles, and they review typically do a much better job of knowing what fans want in a game. That said, if "Game Journalism" is dying out, I don't think it's because of independent reviewers, so much as it is because the professional journalists have ruined their own lot. They've destroyed public opinion of their reviews by praising too many games that are junk. They've refused to adapt their style or content to what people want to see.

[Sephiroth]

I have seen only like a part of one PewDiePie video once and couldn't find a reason for this hyped hatred he gets.

I also watch Angry Joe. He is entertaining and is actually trying to cover positive and negative aspects and always is like "this game may be hated but at least give it a chance" and all. Also he is funny as hell. I don't watch it for recommendastions though as I don't use videos or magazines for that. I see a trailer or a screenshot and decide by myself I am interested. Joe is mainly an entertainer for me and a good one.

[Vyk]

I didn't quit checking out IGN simply because PewDiePie showed up on the scene to act like an idiot. I quit giving a crap about IGN's opinion because they made it blatantly obvious that they were being coerced into giving higher scores to higher budget games. Maybe if they didn't play favorites to certain studios and actually tried to be objective, or maybe if they didn't base their score board from 6 - 10 and actually used the other 5 numbers in the score range for a realistic score, or gave up scores completely, then maybe they could be taken seriously. But unfortunately instead of that, every other professional game journalism source started copying them

It's kinda funny actually. They saw IGN as the big dog and wanted to play along with their game, almost exactly the same time as most people were realizing what IGN was and was getting tired of said game. So a few other places took off like GameTrailers and whatnot, and were okay for a while. But now most people don't give a crap about any of them, because of the way they are. It took me years of having to rent or pirate games to get an idea of what they are, before I started finding the good YouTube reviewers I liked. So those reviewers certainly didn't steal me away from professional reviewers. Professional reviewers turned me away from them themselves

[Pumpkin]

People don't like change and also like to blame things on a villain that they choose. Things change, they always have. Sometimes its hard to adjust to those changes but what can you do? Try to adapt I guess

[Sephex]

Whenever any sort of new media or twist to new media comes around there will always be someone or some people who will try to pin the blame on whatever is most popular. It's just how human roll sometimes.

Fun fact: When books were first able to be printed in mass there was a freak out over losing the importance of spoken word. A child who read tons of books from that time would be looked at like a child who plays lots of video games.

Personally, I try not to get caught up in that mindset. I learned how foolish I could look the hard way many years ago when Nintendo Power published letters from email when the internet was first exploding on the public scene. It just rubbed me the wrong way and I wondered what was wrong with just sending a regular letter. I thought people who were doing that were cheating or cutting in line to get their letters published.

Then I used the internet for myself and realized what an asshole I sounded like.

[Jiro]

Relevant. History has a habit of freaking out and rejecting things. Wish I could find the actual quote that goes with this.