I briefly wrote articles for an oldschool PC hardware outlet (HardOCP if anyone remembers)… And I’m surprised any such sites are still alive. Mine shut down, and not because they wanted to.
Why?
Who reads written text over their favorite YouTube personality, or the SEO garbage that pops up first on their search, or first party articles/recs on steam, and so on? No one, except me apparently, as their journalistic integrity aside, I’m way too impatient for youtube videos, and am apparently the only person on the planet that believes influencers as far as I can throw them.
And that was before Discord, Tiktok, and ChatGPT really started eating everything. And before a whole generation barely knew what a website is.
They cited Eurogamer as an offender here, and thats an outstanding/upstanding site. I’m surprised they can even afford to pay that much as a business.
And I’m not sure what anyone is supposed to do about it.
This article was written by Luke Plunkett, who used to work at Kotaku. Some of his past articles include real whiz-bangers like: “Oh No, There Are Women In Battlefield”, and “There Is No Saving Cyberpunk 2077.” That pretty much tells you everything you need to know.
Sensationalist e-begging for clicks with ragebait articles. Nothing new from a former Kotaku employee.
And our site was like the opposite. Uh… let’s just say many Lemmy users wouldn’t like its editor, but he did not hold back gut punches, and refused to watch his site turn into a clickbait farm.
the only person on the planet that believes influencers as far as I can throw them.
This phrase doesn’t work though. Unless you’re some body builder type, and can throw them really really far.
But even that doesn’t make sense either. Because if you said
“I only trust this guy 18 feet…”
the other person would say
“…18 feet? What? What does THAT mean???”
And you would say “What??? You think you can throw a man 19 feet??? Ok. Go grab him. Go. Go grab that man, and throw him 19 feet. Show me.”
At about this time I think they would just call the cops, assuming you have mental problems, and violent tendancies.
Which to be fair…yeah. You’re over here talking about how far you can pick another man up against their will, and how far you can throw them.
Although, how have we never made that an olympic event? You get a bunch of fat guys in a bar, and some body builder muscleheads, and see who wins. If the fat guy can escape, his time to escape is measured. Fastest fat guy gets the medal. Or, if he gets thrown, farthest throw distance wins the medal.
I’d watch that.
That read exactly as a footnote on a Terry Pratchett book, if you have never read Discworld you should, it has the same sense of humor that you do. For example another popular saying being bastardized:
Give a man a fire and he’ll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life."
So you’d say that the answer to “how far can you throw them” and therefore also to “how much do you trust them” would be… “not at all?”
Maybe they’re tiny and can’t throw them and thus can’t believe them.
From the reader’s experience, sites like IGN became completely unusable without ad blockers; I still remember the X-Men (2? Origins: Wolverine?) ad where Wolverine slashed through the page in a flash animation that prevented you from clicking on the thing you wanted to read underneath it. Then the information that you wanted could have been communicated in a headline, and it just becomes frustrating. That said, I’ll still reviews if they didn’t annoy me too much on my way there. I’ll still read Schreier when it isn’t paywalled. I read NY Times articles like the one they just did on Alexey Pajitnov. Rebekah Valentine and Jordan Middler do great work. In a lot of other cases, opinionated essays on video games benefit greatly from supporting footage in video format, and even without ad blockers, the YouTube experience is far less annoying on average.
The entirety of the internet is unusable without ad blockers.
the YouTube experience is far less annoying on average.
Are you sure about that?
I opened YT links without premium on a new browsers and holy moly! I got 1-3 minute unskippable ads every time.
I immediately clicked them off, of course.
You can tune out and do something passive while the ad plays, and eventually the information you wanted will appear, as opposed to trying desperately to find your article as you scroll and having pop ups and other things interrupt you as you read. Perhaps this is all just a matter of perspective though.
as opposed to trying desperately to find your article as you scroll and having pop ups and other things interrupt you as you read
Joke’s on the websites, as I run Cromite, so no pop ups or anything.
…But also, most of the written web is trash now.
:(
you could repurpose this headline to literally any creative or journalistic industry these days. “x industry is being propped up by underpaid freelancers” is just a fact of life now. it’s just so much cheaper when you don’t owe them any benefits or dignity or anything at all in fact.
Yes, “freelance” and “dog shit pay” are often synonymous.
I did it for fun for a few years, had press credentials for PAX, that was probably the biggest “pay” I got.
Still worth it.
Who would’ve thought that an industry that disregarded and actively attacked and insulted their viewer/reader base, who gained a fame for 10/10ing all games under the sun and folding to the most miniscule of complaints from pressure groups would end up not having viewers/readers at all ? Not to mention hiring people who hate video games, can’t play them and/or plagiarize footage from youtube to showcase the game as journalists.
Let me play the tiniest violin concerto for you guys. Now roll over and let youtubers take your industry.
I have seen a TON of ad postings for the Gamurs group which the article talks about. Every time I browse jobs, I see at least one of the websites they own having a vacancy. The job description is just abysmal, saying things like you’re expected to make ~30 articles a month with around $20 per article. Glad this is being called out.
I’d accept the job, and then write the WORST assballs articles about how Mario isn’t trying to save the princess. He’s hunting her down to get more mushrooms. She’s not being kidnapped. She’s spending quality time with her husband. She’s not a princess. She works at a white castle. Which back in the 80s, still had some of the old royal castle buildings in use.
And Luigi isn’t his frightened little brother who won’t go on adventures because he’s scared. He’s just some guy who cleans and flips houses.
And Princess isn’t surrounded by her toads loyal servicemen. Those are dildos. Yes, ALL of them.
And then when they reject my work, I’d be like “Oh…then you are NOT going to like my article of pacman taking drugs and being racist…”
1 article and $20 per day 💀
As someone who’s never paid attention to the word count, how long would that take to write, edit, and submit?
These parasites man lmfao unreal. Propping up what industry exactly, their own subgenre of niche writing? Pretty sure the game developers, tech companies, and hardware manufacturers are the ones by far and large carrying the actual gaming economy.
No they aren’t.
Great contribution to the conversation. It’s short. It’s direct. It leaves a huge amount of confusion what you’re even saying. Are you saying the industry doesn’t underpay? Are you saying the writers don’t prop up the industry? Who’s to say? Certainly not you! Because you didn’t say…
Yeah, he’s just doing bad faith posts to stirr up discussion. Rebuttals are low quality too, will not feed him again.
