Videogame journalists have come under fire for misleading the public, taking bribes from publishers, and hiring uneducated morons as writers. Whether or not this is all true is pure speculation, the type of stuff that sours message boards populated by conspiracy theorists and immature fan boys, but the damage has been done. Want to know why the average journo can't get any respect? It's largely because...

Nobody writes exceptionally well

Let's just get right down to it. Most journalists are awful writers, and this is true from top to bottom. Videogame journalism is rife with grammatical errors, historical inaccuracies, plagiarism, run on sentences, clichés, and plenty of bullsh*t that's entirely irrelevant. We often take the reader on bumpy rides through several pages of shoddily written garbage, so it should be no surprise when people call us out by dissecting entire stories and bashing us in forums.

Part of the problem is most of us didn't go to college to study journalism. That's not to say that some didn't, but even they suck. There's just this enormous lack of excellent copy editing in our industry. We've managed to dodge constructive criticism and have been allowed to run amok with the English language. There are just not enough editors telling the writers that what they've done just isn't good enough.

The last part of the conundrum is simply lack of talent. You're either a good/great writer or you're not, and no journalism or English degree is going to grant you immunity from the public's wrath. Much like music, stories are supposed to have a beat. We're supposed to write in such a way that we don't need to hold the reader's hand throughout the journey. We're simply supposed to give them a little nudge and off they go.

Instead of doing this we violently grab them by their wrists and drag them across shards of glass expecting them to "get it". We expect them to get why we needed to write a five to ten page article to prove our point, when we could've just condensed it all into a tight and well-written 2-3 page treatment. To illustrate my point, please digest a portion of this Katamari Damacy review from a well-known site:

Creativity. Everyone talks about it. But how can you define it? Easy, say Katamari Damacy. That's it. You're done. Katamari is all you need. No verbose explanation, no descriptive imagery, no pronunciation guide, no synonym list, and no sentences using it in practical conversation. Just rip the dictionary in half, whip out the fattest Sharpie you can find, clutch the closest person to you by the collar and scream Katamari Damacy at the top of your lungs while etching its happy name into the poor soul's forehead. It's creativity in two words and happens to be some of the most fun the universe can offer for just $20.

Instead of sitting where you are staring through the saturating glow of your monitor to reach this text with your mind, imagine yourself uncomfortably perched at the head of an oblong conference table King Arthur would be proud of. The room was born from mahogany and stuffiness. Around you sit twelve executive level clones, neatly kempt and grim, expressionless suits carved from years of dedicated earnings watching and revenue tallying and franchise bolstering and credibility saving. Bam! Some dude falls through the ceiling, looks around blearily, shakes the dust off his knees, and says, "Hey chumps. I got this idea, see."

Please excuse the language, but WTF is that? Not only do these two paragraphs fail to inform the reader what the game's about, but the higher ups at this website actually thought that it was a good idea to publish them. But this isn't entirely their fault, as everyone (including GameDaily) has posted some despicable articles.

Writers sound exactly the same
Despite years of writing under our belts, none of us have been able to successfully break from the pack and establish a signature style. Actually, allow me to rephrase that. Plenty of writers have attempted to sound different, but they end up failing miserably.

The issue isn't beyond fixing and it's not too big a deal. Most newspapers sound exactly the same and for good reason. We shouldn't be dressing up the news since it's our job to report the facts in a clear and concise manner. But when it comes to features, there's plenty of room for individual voices to shine.

Journalists also suffer from a lack of toughness. It's not uncommon for a writer to bash a really terrible game, but don't expect them to criticize God of War developer David Jaffe for being a pompous loudmouth. And don't even think about seeing an editorial piece calling Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi a one hit wonder. Instead, websites are far more interested in what he thinks of the Nintendo Wii, and would rather discuss his lack of interest in developing for the machine. But Keita Takahashi is a one hit wonder.

Who cares what he thinks?

See, the criticism is easy.

PR dictates content

The biggest problem facing this industry (even worse than the sketchy writing) is the lack of original thought. We're far too obsessed with catering to our PR contacts instead of supplying our readers (who should be our primary focus) with refreshing editorial. The biggest sites aim to cover just about every single videogame in existence, which is fine if these publications intend to create this massive database, but it's just not smart journalism. PR should be submitting games for our consideration, but instead of politely writing back and informing Suzy Q PR that the game she's sent to us isn't top story material, we happily accept our free trinket and give the title a top story slot.

Even at GameDaily, we struggle to get past this matter, but are at times guilty of scheduling this type of content to fill an empty slot. As a result, sometimes a boring RTS that no one's going to buy occupies a prime piece of real estate, when in reality we should send the preview code back to the company with our deepest regrets. After all, does every album get reviewed in Rolling Stone? Does every movie get released on the big screen? Does every short story get published in well-renowned magazines? No, so why should we really give a crap about generic Xbox FPS #573? We may not be expert videogame developers, but most of us know what works and what doesn't work on our respective websites and magazines.