The future of the gaming "enthusiast press"

[Image: Gerstmann]As you might be able to tell from the preceding quote, I just finished reading N’Gai’s post at Level Up (which I found through the Buttonmasher), which covers the circumstances and implications of last week’s release of GameSpot editor Jeff Gerstamann.

Word on the street is that he was fired because he gave a bad game a bad review.

I won’t try to repeat what N’Gai says far more eloquently than I ever could. You should go read his post for the full effect. Suffice to say that the problem is fundamentally in two pieces:

2. Gaming review sites like GameSpot draw their revenue almost exclusively from the companies that publish the products they review.

3. The separation between marketing/sales and editorial is apparently not strong, or management is unwilling to back it.

I remember that when Jason Calacanis was running Weblogs, Inc, one of the reasons I like their coverage so much was that I was absolutely convinced of its integrity. Say what you will about Calacanis, he will call you out on your bullshit. Woe is the game publisher who tries to bribe Joystiq, for they will get front page coverage---as a crooked exemplar of a corrupt industry.

The advertisers never talked to the bloggers. There was no schmoozing. There were no free trips to conferences. In short: Calacanis made sure that the content was good and honest. And the infuriating thing for publishers was that the property was so big, you couldn’t ignore it. If you wanted a presence, you bought an ad. End of story.

But Calacanis was running a blog network. And internet company. He’s a high profile tech maven. He can get away with that whereas other publications probably can’t really afford to piss off publishing companies, especially print publications.

I’ve been thinking recently about the way that journalism (including game journalism) will change as the medium changes.

There are a number of very large problems facing the industry from a cash flow standpoint. There is no real acceptable equivalent of a full-page ad online. There are interstitials. Users HATE them. With capital letters. There are no subscription fees to pad the bottom line.

This is, in my mind, the biggest issue. Having a second stream of revenue, even if it is relatively small, gifts a publication with a certain ability to go “up yours.” There’s some monetary loyalty to the end user.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that The Escapist is moving on the right trajectory. They’ve done an excellent job of marrying blog editorial with the integrity of an edited, journalism-style hierarchy.

The trick with game journalism, as with game development itself, is to let your team make a great product. For publishers that means letting the misses miss, and learning from them. For publications that means keeping your writers and editors free from harassment.

Personally, I don’t think Jeff’s firing is really that one-dimensional. I don’t think the problem is as bad as it currently sounds. And I do think that most of the gaming press has its act together. I have read PC Gamer religiously since 1995, and I have tremendous confidence in their review scores.

But the biggest factor here is the internet at large. This blog. Your blog. Evil Avatar. Twitter. As much as I rely on professionally written reviews from gaming sites and magazines, I almost always double check with everyone else.

If Gamespot gives something a 9.2, and it gets roundly thrashed in the forums, who do you think I’m going to trust? If it happens again, who do you think I’m going to stop reading? You think GameSpot doesn’t know this?