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FAT SOW: All Game News is Boring

18/2/2015

10 Comments

 
Picture
Well strap my face to a lathe and grind me to bacon bits: I'm so grasped with irritation I could milk my own eyes.

Good God in a sex pod. Most game news is dull, isn't it? I mean, when you look at the bland, unsweetened oatmeal that passes for most game news these days, it's little wonder that everyone's plucking at the carcass of the Peter Molyneux/Godus story like a pack of musical sewer rats. If you're a games fan, that's literally the only thing going on that's actually interesting. Why do we pretend to care about stuff that is so spine-compactingly dull?


THE ORDER OF BUSINESS
I have it on good authority that one of Digitiser 2000's wretched overlords attempted to write a story this morning about the length of The Order: 1886 (apparently it's only five-and-a-half-hours long, boo-hoo). Unfortunately, while writing the piece, he apparently so bored himself that he slit his own throat with the edge of a DVD. It's the single greatest tragedy of all time.

Seriously though, is it just me, or did things seem more exciting back in the day? It's like we've become so gripped with this notion that games are a grown-up medium that the stories we report on are trying too hard to be grown-up. 

Y'know, we all get to a certain age, and end up at dinner parties where everyone's sitting around talking about laminate flooring, or wine, or their poxy new watch... and I bet you everyone is secretly wishing the conversation would stop being so dull, so they could start jumping on the furniture, throwing Wotsits at one another. Some days, that's where it feels like we are with video games.

"I say, Tarquin - did you hear that Monster Hunter 4 has shipped three million copies worldwide?"

"Goodness me, Hemflap. That truly is a development. What fascinating news. They must be so pleased. Mm. This Malbec has quite the bouquet, incidentally. What vintage is it?"

SHUT-UP.

Face it, most video game news stories are nothing but the PR bugle calls of a corporate agenda anyway. I look at what passes for news and most of it washes across my vision like a scientific formula. You know: the sort that a socially inadequate boffin would scrawl on a blackboard in a film. 


It's all press release-massaged numbers and statistics. Oh, such-and-such-a-thing is selling better than some other thing. This thing has more things in it than that other thing. Last year's thing done a thing and here are some numbers to show you just how much of a thing it thinged: £143,000, 98,000,000, and 2.4g.

STOP IMMEDIATELY
Do we really care?! How can we? How dull must we be to care about how long The Order: 1886 takes to complete? Or how well Mario Amiibos are selling? Or how much faster Evolve runs on the Xbox One compared to PC? Can you actually imagine sitting around having a conversation about any of these things?! If you do - please, with the greatest respect, pour wet concrete down your own throat, and lock yourself in a trunk. 

I've had enough. I've reached twanging point. I don't care about any of the items that seem to be considered interesting enough to beat into the rough shape of a news story. I don't want to know how well something has sold. Or how much a thing cost. Or hear your bleating whinge about a game being too short. Or even read your review of yet another landfill action game; we already know what it's going to be like. Save yourself the effort. 

Nobody remotely cares anymore. 

It's just guff. 

Your audience has left the building, and you're performing your tired soliloquy to a theatre that's empty, save for a few dirty, diseased pigeons, grounded because of the half-sucked boiled sweets stuck to their wings.

FAT SOW'S OPINIONS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF DIGITISER 2000.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
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  • GOSSI THE DOG - Gaming Gossip
10 Comments
Pevin
18/2/2015 04:35:17 am

I agree, pig. The evolution of games journalism is running parallel to that of games development. And I don't believe it's just us 'not getting it' – I find most games horrible these days; the life, the love, the colour is being sucked out of gaming.

Reply
Antony Adler
18/2/2015 04:58:00 am

Couldn't agree more. I think it's also true on a wider level, whether it's football, international politics, gaming, anything.

It's the internet's fault and I think we're starting to reach a saturation point with information in general.

What's it they say, a person now gets as much information in a week as someone did in their lifetime a hundred years ago? Or something like that.

It's all too much and it's sucked the magic out of everything.

I feel drawn to gaming out of habit more than anything nowadays. There's an inverse relationship between the amount of money i now spend (more than ever) and the amount of time i put into games (less than ever). It's all such a business now. I was really looking forward to The Order : 1886 as perhaps the time when I'd finally (what 18 months on?) be really excited about my PS4, but between all the negativity and the muttering of the last few months (culminating in this stupid 5 hour thing) plus the fact it'll still be just another generic bang bang shoot shoot thing ultimately means another letdown is coming.

The spec war (ooh 1080p on ps4 v 900p on xbone and the poxy PC master race comments on both).

Metscores and the backlash. pff.

Freemium gaming and the App Store focus on pay once games. Yeah great. But meh.

Once upon a time, I had an Atari and about twice a year we'd get a new game and I'd be totally utterly hooked for weeks. Seems a long time ago now.

Reply
Mr Smith
18/2/2015 06:48:33 am

Well said.

However, just because the news sucks doesn't mean interesting things are not happening. I've always visited fringe websites for my news, covering obscure topics. InsertCredit back in the day was good for unexpected news. Gamasutra also sometimes has developers discussing odd stuff on private blogs, which never hits the mainstream news.

The difficulty is the effort required to dig up this news. It can be extremely laborious visiting smaller forums or places to investigate what smaller groups have been up to (fan translators, indies, North Korean commercial developers, high-brow Uni academics and their projects, art festivals). You need contacts. A guy on my FB list was involved in something you won't believe, but there's no website documenting it - it's only circulated among his friends list.

I think some of it is also to do with the reaction of the audience. Safe news, or news that doesn't challenge the audience's expectations seems to be the order of the day.

Reply
Mr Biffo
18/2/2015 12:28:37 pm

You're right - there is definitely decent stuff happening out there. Sadly, being not the biggest outfit, it's a case of finding the time to dig for it. We're almost through the backlog of sponsor/donor rewards and whatnot now at least, so we should be able to invest a bit of time in broadening the sort of coverage and stuff that we feature on the site. Hopefully.

Reply
Mr Smith
19/2/2015 01:41:40 am

Increasing one's broadness? Steady on...

I was not hinting that Digi need expand its coverage to go after niche news. I'm happy with whatever direction the overlords take, as long as it's true to their own, greasy, inner vision.

There's a lot of examples of sites chasing demographics' desires and whims (or indeed chasing corporate desires). Pay my post no heed!

Tarquin
18/2/2015 08:41:41 am

The Malbec was most pleasant I concur. Though I do wish Mrs McNaughton would stop erotically caressing my marrows quite so disturbingly.

Reply
Bo
18/2/2015 08:55:24 am

Funny coincidence. All it took earlier today was someone retweeted a Polygon article that was nothing more than a reprint of Sony's blog advertising a store sale, and I was reet furious. They even copied over the stupid little table with its list of games and prices.

Must have taken all of 10 seconds to churn that one out. Top marks.

Reply
Bulbuschinwart
19/2/2015 09:22:42 am

This is why it's all the more wonderful that Digi has come back in full force. I'm actually laughing out loud numerous times a day thanks to it's fantabulous return. You also somehow manage to get the actual news in along with all the silliness, quite a feat.

Reply
Deexan
19/2/2015 12:25:22 pm

Fat Sow for PM


That's Prime Minister, not Pig Meat. I do not wish to eat Fat Sow.

Though I daresay she'd taste delicious in a really angry way.

Reply
PssSffF
19/2/2015 03:49:28 pm

I disagree, the greatest single Tragedy was by Steps.

Reply



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