Wednesday, April 20, 2005
How does AP Style deal with hype?
Today's Top Headline at Gamestop: Capcom teases gamers with countdown clock.
Go ahead, click on the link. You know you want to. You know you're just itching to find out about this clock. What is it counting down to? When does the countdown end? Is this the apocalypse or just another shitty video game that everyone will forget about in a week anyway?
You'll have to forgive me if I sound upset about this whole Capcom Clock business. I know it could be considered unprofessional when I center an entire column on the competition - namely every other video game journalist out there. But today's atrocity is just the latest in a history of reporters blatantly running with the hype companies feed them. Just hours after I sent in my most recent column to The Buzz, an article centered around the gross overuse of hype in this industry and the lack of any effort in trying to curb it by lazy journalists, I see this headline at Gamespot. I think Mrs. White said it best "It, it, the, it, flames, flames, flames . . . on the side of my face. Breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, heaving . . ."
Here is my main problem with this - Gamespot is not merely excited about a certain game. It would be understandable if one of their writers saw footage of a brand new game and though it looked fantastic. I would not be angry if he wrote about why he thought Killer 7 was going to be great fun and could potentially change gaming. He's a gamer and a writer and I expect nothing less than some times blind passion towards games. Passion, I can understand. Being a peddler of company hype I can neither understand nor condone.
This announcement comes on the heels of hype gone overboard stories from last week. First, Microsoft announced the grand unveiling of the Xbox 2 for sometime in May. Obviously, this is important information since it has simply never been done before. But instead of merely reprinting a press release, wouldn't it have been more interesting if a video game journalist was able to investigate and reveal exactly what MS was going to show at this presentation? Isn't that the type of thing a journalist is supposed to do? Follow leads and whatnot? And then EA announced they were going to show a commercial for Madden 360 this Saturday. Websites read the press release and merely regurgitate the information. And everyone accepted this. Shouldn't we have expected someone to try to use their contacts within EA or ESPN to get some early footage of the commercial? Would it be too much to ask a journalist to actually put some work into their stories?
Wouldn't it be nice if journalists did their job instead of merely printing whatever press releases told them to?
Go ahead, click on the link. You know you want to. You know you're just itching to find out about this clock. What is it counting down to? When does the countdown end? Is this the apocalypse or just another shitty video game that everyone will forget about in a week anyway?
You'll have to forgive me if I sound upset about this whole Capcom Clock business. I know it could be considered unprofessional when I center an entire column on the competition - namely every other video game journalist out there. But today's atrocity is just the latest in a history of reporters blatantly running with the hype companies feed them. Just hours after I sent in my most recent column to The Buzz, an article centered around the gross overuse of hype in this industry and the lack of any effort in trying to curb it by lazy journalists, I see this headline at Gamespot. I think Mrs. White said it best "It, it, the, it, flames, flames, flames . . . on the side of my face. Breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, heaving . . ."
Here is my main problem with this - Gamespot is not merely excited about a certain game. It would be understandable if one of their writers saw footage of a brand new game and though it looked fantastic. I would not be angry if he wrote about why he thought Killer 7 was going to be great fun and could potentially change gaming. He's a gamer and a writer and I expect nothing less than some times blind passion towards games. Passion, I can understand. Being a peddler of company hype I can neither understand nor condone.
This announcement comes on the heels of hype gone overboard stories from last week. First, Microsoft announced the grand unveiling of the Xbox 2 for sometime in May. Obviously, this is important information since it has simply never been done before. But instead of merely reprinting a press release, wouldn't it have been more interesting if a video game journalist was able to investigate and reveal exactly what MS was going to show at this presentation? Isn't that the type of thing a journalist is supposed to do? Follow leads and whatnot? And then EA announced they were going to show a commercial for Madden 360 this Saturday. Websites read the press release and merely regurgitate the information. And everyone accepted this. Shouldn't we have expected someone to try to use their contacts within EA or ESPN to get some early footage of the commercial? Would it be too much to ask a journalist to actually put some work into their stories?
Wouldn't it be nice if journalists did their job instead of merely printing whatever press releases told them to?
// posted by Tom @ 8:06 AM 
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