Really good post. It's an existential issue as much as anything and does seem to be this way due to their desire to make money through the internet. In all honesty, they rode a wave at a fairly recent point in history where they could do that unchallenged. But now? It's not as easy and their reaction is natural - do whatever they can to get people clicking content.
It's a media problem in general as the internet really fucked things up for traditional journalism.
Very much so, it's indicative of the huge shifts that we're seeing, not only in terms of monetisation, but in terms of the relationship between audience and content producer.
There's a lot to unpack in this entire conversation, but let me throw another log on the fire.
I think one of the other big sources of contention with sites like Giant Bomb, and figures like Ryckert and Russell, is that in some ways, they subvert the traditional warrant that a critic has for the elevation of their opinions. If you said to me 'Optimus Lime, I want you to write a review of your favourite album, and I want it to eclipse the famous Lester Bangs review of Astral Weeks in terms of innovation, quality, and depth',
I couldn't do it. I don't have the technical ability, the uniqueness of thought, the embeddedness in history, and I flat-out lack the kind of imagination required to write like that. I'm a more than competent writer from a technical perspective, but Lester Bangs was
special - and that's why he was famous, and in the employ of Rolling Stone, Creem, etc.
If you said to me, though, 'Optimus Lime, put together a list of your 10 favourite games of the year. Doesn't even have to be the 'best' from any kind of technical or theoretical perspective. It doesn't have to be a demonstration of your extensive knowledge of the technical aspects of video game creation, or your deep connection to the history of the medium, or a profound engagement with one or more theoretical lenses that you can use to expand our understanding of how the medium advanced in 2018. Just throw together ten things that you liked. And, since it's just your opinion, be as glib and inconsistent and baseless as you like' - you betcha, I could do that. So could pretty much every poster here.
What I'm saying is that Giant Bomb's writing is symptomatic of a wider problem plaguing the smoking remains of 'gaming journalism': these people are not experts, and they have earned no warrant for their opinions being worth reading. Does anyone believe that Jim Sterling is
actually some kind of authority on digital media and video game design? Irony, excess, hyperbole, and a relentless amplification of outrage culture are the tools that Sterling et al. rely on. The 'specialness' is not there. Jim Sterling can never, and will never, create anything lasting, profound, or - dare I say it - beautiful in the video game criticism space. It's all empty calories and hot air. As long as the clicks keep coming, that's all that matters. Same as Giant Bomb. Same as Waypoint. Same as Destructoid.
And, I think that breeds resentment. In enthusiast spaces like NeoGAF, Reddit, ResetEra, you have a swarm of people who often
do have the kind of credentials that were traditionally seen in someone like Lester Bangs. In this thread alone, we've seen really sophisticated engagement with the history of the medium, with the history of media and journalism itself, with critical and cultural theory, and with the potential futures for video games and interactive art. And, that's just one thread, on one day. So, when a figure like Abby Russell is given a high profile job with a prominent, traditional publisher, and she
completely demonstrates that she has absolutely no warrant for her views being taken seriously, a kind of professional resentment starts to fester. Sometimes that turns into navel gazing threads like this one, sometimes it emerges as very real, very lethal misogyny. And, for someone like me, it emerges as disengagement with the site itself.
Because, there are a million Abby's and Dan Ryckerts and Jeff Gerstmans on Youtube and Twitch - and many of them
have earned a warrant for their opinions being heard. So, why wouldn't I listen to them? This year's GB GOTY conversations have been the absolute height of self-important, pretentiously delusional nonsense. These idiots believe their own hype - to the point that they think that 20+ hours of their undisciplined, uninteresting, aggressively amateurish conversations are actually worth spending time on. It's quite a galling illustration of just how deeply traditional 'games journalism' has become estranged from the audience, and
why they feel that they have the authority to demand that devs are fired, and to engage in an endless war with their own fanbase.
