this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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'There Are So Few Of Us Left': Even Full-Time Games Journalists At Big Websites Are Feeling It In 2025 (aftermath.site)
submitted 3 days ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.10-001341/https://aftermath.site/video-games-journalism-2025

We’ve (sadly) covered a lot of games media stories thatinvolve writers being laid off, sites being shuffled around and sometimes even whole companies shutting down. For Inside Baseball week, I figured it might be a good time to check in with some of the few people left still making a living in video games journalism.

I spoke with a number of writers and voices who are a) drawing a full-time salary writing or talking about video games, and b) are working at what I’d call a “major” site, the big ones with historical brands that are still in a position to be paying people decent wages. These folks are the lucky few survivors, those in jobs that a decade ago were relatively common but which today–thanks to the aforementioned layoffs and closures, not to mention other contractions like a growing reliance on freelance and guides– are increasingly scarce.

I asked a number of questions about their past, present and, perhaps most pressing, their immediate future, with their answers to each below. To protect their identities and jobs their names have been changed, and outlets omitted where requested. By way of introduction, I spoke with:

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[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I mean what is games journalism? How many full time, major publication, food-packaging-industry journalists are there? Where's our aluminum can reporters? Who's covering the waxed cardboard beat? Where's the lifers on butcher paper?

I mean food packaging is a $500 Billion dollar a year industry, roughly double the size of the video games industry, why are there zero full time journalists focused on them?

I grew up reading a ton of early video game blogs like Joystiq, but games journalism has always been a breath away from celebrity chasing, drama stirring, tabloid filler.

There's one end of it that analyzes the in depth technical details of engines which is interesting to some, and there's one end that is reviewing and discussing games as art, but otherwise there's very little journalism to do full time on any given industry. Journalists should follow the story, not insist on finding one in the industry where they want to look.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 10 points 3 days ago (2 children)

There have been magazines and newspapers with dedicated news reporting on TV, movies, cars and sports for longer than I've been alive.

I don't even disagree on the quality of a lot of the material, necessarily, but I'd argue the replacement, which is hyperfocused influencer coverage, is not better, and a good chunk of it is demonstrably worse.

At least old games journalism did actual critique. These days it's all either unbridled hype or ragebaiting, culture wars stuff.

Also, having grown measuring time by the monthly interval between paper magazine releases "I grew up reading a ton of early videogame blogs like Joystiq" reduced me to ashes.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Also, tabloid journalism predates magazines.

Some of the replacement stuff is bad, but some is good. I personally get more out of my favourite podcasters going in depth on their feelings on a game than I get out of whoever is running reviews at IGN right now.

Like even in movies, pre-youtube, pre-social media, people flocked to individual reviewers they liked, more so than publications. It's why Roger and Ebert / Siskel got so huge, people agreed with their tastes, trusted them, and sought them out specifically. That's not that different from today's world of following your preferred YouTuber or podcaster, but rather than everyone following the few individual who can publish, you end up with a giant web of individuals following and influencing each other's opinions.

And to be clear, I think games reviewing has merit and value, it's just that outside of reviewing and technical analysis, there's not much in the way of stories to cover on a regular basis. So you end up with dedicated games journalists having to write about tripe half the time just to fill word / article counts.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 2 days ago

I am screaming into a pillow of art critique frustrations right now.

Okay, look , first of all, that's the point of magazines, they had more than one person in them. There was both some editorial oversight keeping an editorial line AND multiple voices working together, so you were never railroaded into just the one guy. We called those newsletters and the understanding was they were supposed to be obnoxious.

I don't disagree that there is good game critique right now. For every ragebaiting, hyperfocused, the-end-is-nigh culture warrior there is someone who actually knows what they're talking about going "alright, ya chucklefucks, here's the deal". But the point is you don't HAVE to get through one of those to get to the trash. The trash is now algorithmically selected and pushed into your eyeballs, and it's your job to sift through the recommendation engine to personally decide what level of that you want in your life.

You want more than you should. On average, anyway.

With no gatekeepers outside the corpobot gatekeepers there are no concerns but engagement. Hard to get that job done like that, and there's more unexpected damage downstream from that change.

Am I saying that a heavily gatekept media landscape where the reputation of publications drives attention more than specificity and focus? Eh, I'm not NOT saying that. It's hard to argue that the societal outcomes have not been great. And while there's good critique out there it's dense, and dull and itself heavily specialized. Even after we went digital there used to be approachable, good critique, -not "reviews", but critique- in loose, ugly blogs written in good humor with sharp observations and constructive approaches. Newsletters, but good newsletters.

Look, I don't mean it as an insult, but your post is a good example of why there were some positives to having people come for the guides and the "technical reviews" and the personalities and have the rest of the package literally stapled to those. I don't think much of the print world delivered on that potential before the Internet took over. The website-based world had a better go at it, some people did great work. A bunch moved on to make great games from there.

The pivot-to-video, content-as-a-service social media landscape we have today? Nah. Not by itself.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

I mean I also grew up in the 90s reading video game magazines, I'm just still growing up.

[–] misk@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is a weird comparison. I don’t think we’ve ever had journalism focused on PC big box or DVD jewel cases, even though LGR is trying. There is definitely journalism around consumer media.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

There is definitely journalism around consumer media.

Yes, see my comment about tabloid filler