Gaming journalism seems to be at an all time high. Thanks to the internet, anyone's able to voice anything from opinions to interviews with game developers. After being a member on n4g, I've noticed a few repeated "hot points" that are made so constantly that they've become cliched. If you'd like to, you may post other "cliches" you've noticed about gaming sites as well. So let us begin:
1. For comparisons sake
Lets face it, one of the most usual ways for people to describe almost anything is by relating it to something else. There comes a point when it's time to make a description in your own words however. When considering the likes of Ebert and Maltin are able to write a 2-ish page review on every movie they've seen WITHOUT ever having to list another movie, there comes a time where gaming journalists/reviewers should do the same. There comes a time when you need to know when to drop the italics and think critically about your piece using only your own words.
2. Top 10 lists (or the number 10 for that matter)
.....Yep. The number 10 is a huge draw to all people, gaming journalists are no exception. Hardly ever do we get to see an awesome "top 37" list, although we do see a few lists that aren't top 10 lists. Instead of veering towards cooler numbers, we see editors make up something random like "Top 10 sissy villians". You want to know what's always the same about these lists? #10
3. A slant towards the Star Wars prequels
With gaming comes nerds. With nerds comes Star Wars nerds. With Star Wars nerds comes Star Wars fanboys who are in a smaller group that dislike the Star Wars prequels. There's always something so tempting about mentioning Episode I when there's a game prequel on the way. The major repeating of this notion leaves me baffled, personally - if you must know I really enjoyed the prequels -. These 3 movies are so downtrodden by the average gaming editor, that it makes me wonder if he's/she's ever seen any other prequel. To all gaming editors, throw in a dumb and dumberer or Exorcist prequel slant to actually be different. Before I go into a rant about defending the SW prequels, I'll leave it there :P.
Like I stated before, feel free to add other gaming site cliches that you've found.
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.
"Sony products are doomed" and "Kinect will sell a lot" seems to be the most popular cliches these days.
Game journalism is in trouble it's a bloodly mess how many 10 boob articles have we seen in the last two weeks then you got site's doing fake review all in the name of hits.
What needs to happen is PR companies need to value quality over hits then a lot of these sites would dissapper
Start of with "Is", "Are" or "Will", insert a game or its developer and follow up with something you know that everyone else knows isn't true and then end with a question mark.
Example: "Is Gran Turismo going multiplat?", "Are Nintendo canning the 3DS?", "Will pigs fly?" etc.
All of the "scientific" reports also deserve a mention. You'll read a headline like "90% of gamers are meth heads" and then further down you see that 9 out of the 10 people they used in their "research" were actually addicted to meth amphetamine...
I'll make a scientific headline of my own, "Gaming journalists are prostitutes". I've conducted this research for 4 years and it's based on 90% of what's being posted on N4G.
here is the biggest cliche "?"
Some very true clichés highlighted here; nice little list.
I think that the general state of games journalism from the larger sites, and those seeking easy hits, is definitely getting gradually lower, and standards are slipping. However, I do believe that there are many smaller independent sites which have big-corporation standards in terms of accuracy, informativeness and proper critical analysis, and I personally think that these sites are those which will make up the major players of games journalism in the coming years.
Games journalism can work as a serious business and industry only when we, as writers, see it in the same way and uphold the very same standards which we've come to expect from, say, current affairs journalists at the BBC or theatre reviewers in the newspapers. If we, as collective, continue with the spate of boob-top-tens then we'll be in a very sorry state indeed - there are only so many times that readers will click through to a boob article or another sensationalist remark from an industry analyst, and the number of people who care about those sort of articles are on a definite decline already.
We need to begin to think about what games journalism is, why we invest our time as writers and editors into games journalism and how we want our industry to be viewed by those outside it. Then, perhaps, we'll see more creativity and quality in games journo.
There's my personal opinion for you, take it as you will. Thanks for the list once again. :D