I've noticed this problem for a while, and I'm going to use the latest offender of this action as an example in this blog.
Too many sites rely upon N4G to get the hits they desire. They rely upon it so much that they post irrelevant news articles that contain nothing new but are written as if it should be treated as an opinion piece when the news we read the day before contains all of the same information. They create inane and 'Who Gives a Frak' top ten lists and spam them on N4G. They use boobs in an image to get their posts on the front page. Sites are driven to ensure that they get recognized on N4G so that people will click through to their site.
The problem is that when they do this, the news suffers and we increase our chances on missing on out quality news. It's not fair to those who put their heart and effort into quality news stories and get drowned out by drivel or have their content exploited so that another site can make the front page.
Today, an example of one of these methods to get in first without regard to the quality of their news happened, and it's resulted in a reporting issue for the site itself.
The story in question is: http://n4g.com/news/661686/...
You look at it and you can't but help to want to click through to see more info on Uncharted 3. It's the hot topic of the day after all. Now, if you're lucky, you might actually get to see that content, but many only get what was originally posted in the news article and not the later edited news article that contains everything it says it does.
What cyber, who I don't know is tied to GamersMint.com or not, did is post quickly while the original article contained just the logo of Uncharted 3 and the following text:
***
Here’s the official logo of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.
Drake’s heading to the desert in his latest adventure and is tasked with discovering a lost city steeped in history.
You can get the first details over here.
The game’s going to get its debut trailer over at Spike’s VGA 2010 awards which airs on Dec 11.
The game’s exclusive to PS3 and will be releasing in fall 2010.
***
Now, I know this is what it originally contained because I'm one of the many people who are only able to see the original article. I've reported the article, of course, because based on what I see, it doesn't support the title at all, which should include boxart and screenshots. None of that is present.
The problem is that GamersMint.com posted a quick news article of insignificant worth and quickly posted it to N4G.com with the title mentioning a lot more than it actually contained. They then went back and edited their news article -- I assume at least, I still can't see any of the new info on my end -- to show the extra content.
GamersMint.com's goal wasn't to provide news to the user, their goal was to be the first to post a title reflective of the content and a link to their site. But, the Web servers out there already began caching the original copy of their article and they haven't been notified that they need to update what is shown. So, for many of us, while the article may be true now, we don't see it.
The other problem is that this got approved by people here even though it originally had none of the content it mentioned other than the logo. People didn't actually read the article to see if it had the content it said it did, instead they approved it because of the title.
As a site, we shouldn't promote sites that put their need to be first on N4G over people who actually post the full news articles on their site and then post a link on N4G. Much like the guys at http://arkhamcity.co.uk/ who did just that, and yet while everyone can view the content on their site their news sits in pending status and likely will get failed for doing the right thing, writing news first and then sharing it with us rather than trying to beat others to the punch.
As a site, shouldn't we care about the content first and those sites that share that desire? Shouldn't we be approving the sites that don't just post news for hits, but post news with a goal of sharing it with us because they know we'll enjoy it?
In the future, please recognize these sort of tactics and use your approval power accordingly. If we want the quality of news to improve, we need to be vigilant and send a message to those who use methods that aren't intended to serve our needs but their own that we don't like it.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
I think you are right but, the competition between webs is good because we (the users, the readers) have the info seconds after it's published on the official web.
I actually agree that some top lists (especially Gamesradar's lists) can have provide serious points and ironic comments to the industry, but that's rare. Most lists are "Top 5/10 over/underrated games" and has absolutely no value apart from that of generating hits and flame wars.