Has the Internet Ruined Gaming?
September 19th, 2006 -
Posted by: Jeff Rivera in Editorials and Rants
Note: This is a topic I addressed in one of my weekly podcasts that I host for Advanced Media Network, but I figured the issue was interesting enough for another look. It’s pretty long-winded and it wanders around a bit, but I feel that I get my point across well enough.
I grew up with gaming. I started out on an Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 and have been heavily involved in gaming up until this day. I’ve seen a lot of changes in the industry, the games themselves, and how the information regarding the hobby is delivered to its fans. There was a time when the only way to get information was through word of mouth or advertisements. Often you’d find yourself buying a game simply because the screenshots on the back of the box made the game look fun. This was a highly hit and miss way to purchase games, but it was all we really had. Basically you had to buy a game on blind faith and just hope for the best.
Eventually the industry expanded and print publications that were devoted to gaming began to show up. There were some niche publications that appeared as early as 1974, but it really wasn’t until Nintendo Power released in 1988 that any gaming magazines enjoyed a large circulation. Coming a year later, GamePro and EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly) offered gamers a monthly look at what was going on from a multiconsole perspective. These magazines became wildly successful and gamers were happy to know that they had an unbiased source they could look forward to each month for gaming information.
Every Last Word
Since these magazines only came around once a month, fans were forced to endure periods of time when no new information was available. Typically a gamer would read every single preview, review, editorial, and news item found within the magazine; regardless of what systems they owned. Even after reading the magazine a few times, we often found ourselves going back to the pages to look over the screenshots again or re-read some parts that we found particularly enjoyable or interesting. Instead of having to rely on television advertisements or back-of-the-box screenshots to base our buying choices on, we the gamers could find professional reviews that discussed in detail the positive and negative aspects of a game before its release. Since we heard from the same people month to month, it felt like someone was looking out for us; and we trusted those journalists.
Rise of the Internet Gaming Media
In the mid-90’s the Internet began to grow and expand rapidly in the homes of the general public and within a few years there were websites popping up that were devoted to videogame coverage. Early on these webistes were notorious for regurgitating information that already available in the print magazines, but eventually some of the more popular sites began to score their own exclusive scoops and media. Sites like IGN and Gamespot recruited industry professionals that had previously been a part of other publications and really focused on giving readers a place to go for trusted and original content. These websites became massively popular and inspired literally hundreds of thousands of people to create their own gaming-related websites; and they continue to do so even now.
With the rapid increase in the number of videogame information outlets and message boards, the overall quality of information began to degrade. Videogame websites weren’t held to the same sort of journalistic integrity standards as the print media, and false information was commonly invented to increase traffic on many websites. For a time it was hard to trust anything that you found online unless it came one of the major gaming websites that could cite an official source. Over time, however, it became clear what kind of site could be trusted and gamers began to rely more fully on websites for gaming information as opposed to any other source. New and fresh information was being delivered on a daily basis as opposed to a monthly one and there were several authorities instead of a small handful. Today, gamers congregate on a constant basis in message boards and forums to discuss daily releases of gaming-related news, announcements, and media. So has this constant and easier to access flow of information helped or hurt gaming?
More Information Leads to Ignorance?
With publishers and developers realizing that gaming websites were an effective and powerful medium for delivering information quickly to their fans, information began to flow daily to major and minor websites. The deluge of information, screenshots, and videos come from both Eastern and Western developers and now we’re to a point where you expect to see new screens or videos of some game daily; or even several times a day. There really isn’t anybody out there with a 9-5 job, school, sports, or other obligations that can keep up with this news, so we learn to be picky and selective with what he read over or spend the time checking out. Unfortunately, this practice has led to many of us gamers choosing to do nothing more than to skim any and all articles, including game reviews. Instead of carefully looking over each article, we tend to find tidbits of info in message boards or read summaries of reviews and focus almost entirely on the score a game receives rather than the reasons for the score. In the end we’re left with gamers that feel like they know what’s going on around the industry, but they’re actually less informed than when information was released between long intervals.
The constant barrage of information forces us to receive, digest momentarily, and to move on. Not everybody falls under this generalization, but it’s pretty shocking how uninformed the gaming audience has become in spite of all the information that’s available to them 24/7. This is an issue in itself that most likely deserves a deeper investigation, but that’s best left to a separate editorial.
56k Warning (time to upgrade LOL)
With the speed of data transfer increasing all the time, a culture of impatience has been cultivated in the gaming community. We’re less willing to wait for things to load, for information to come out, for media to be posted, and for games and hardware to be released. Despite not being able to possibly read all that there is out there, we still want more; and we want it faster. This impatience has crossed over into our enjoyment of the hobby itself and seems to have forced a certain level of cynicism and a jaded attitude into our gaming tastes. Instead of focusing on what a game does well, we far too often notice only where the game falters.
A game that is fun, but flawed to any degree, will receive more criticism for its shortcomings than praise for its merits. Common examples of this include games like Super Mario Sunshine where a game that sported wonderful gameplay, beautiful graphics, and admirable level design gets blasted because Mario spends the majority of the game in areas that share a similar environmental theme. The game wasn’t perfect by any means, but it’s much better than it’s made out to be in just about any gaming forum. The magnification power of the internet is ruthless when it’s aimed at a flaw.
It Can Get Better
The internet hasn’t ruined gaming, it has just caused us to change the way we look at it. In the end it’s not the internet’s fault, it’s our own for taking things too seriously and by being overly demanding. I know that the passionate nature of gamers will always fuel strong reactions, both positive and negative, so I’ve found that it’s easier to enjoy gaming more when I distance myself a bit from sensationalist message boards and summarized reviews. I try to go into each gaming experience free from web-born biased feelings and give every game a fair shot to impress or disappoint me. When I find that I dislike a game, at least it’s because I found it out for myself. It’s too bad that even though I know spending more time online in message boards has a direct effect on my enjoyment of games that I end up crawling back to them despite my best intentions.
I’m not saying that news sites, forums, message boards, and online reviews are all bad, we need them to make good buying decisions; but in the end only you can tell yourself whether or not a game is worth your time. When reading a review, it’s almost best to just read the text and skip the score. That way you can compare the description of the gameplay, music, graphics, and presentation and decide if it’s in line with what you want in a game. Remember, the score attached to the end of a review is the most meaningless thing that the reviewer writes in the entire article.
I’m not all Sour on the Internet
I’m not ungrateful for the huge resource that the internet has become; I just loathe the growing culture of impatience in the gaming community. I love seeing videos and screenshots of games; it’s just that a large part of me longs for the days when I had the time to digest it all properly. If I’m going to be totally honest, I can’t even say that I don’t actively participate in the very same culture I disdain; I just love the hobby too much to distance myself fully from it wherever it’s accessible. I wish we could go back to the days of not knowing what an NDA was or when a Megaton announcement wasn’t expected every week. With all that said, it’s time to end this so I can go check out the latest media, news, and message board ranting…
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