The uneasy state of games journalism, and how to deal

It's about ethics in video games journalism

Let’s talk about games journalism and PR.

Luke Plunkett, cofounder of Aftermath and former longtime Kotaku editor, posted an article a few weeks ago called ‘There Are So Few Of Us Left.’

It covers the general decline in the games journalism industry, and paints a bleak picture of the state of the job market for traditional journalists covering games. Another choice quote, from the subhead, is: “I give myself 1-3 years before I'm working in PR or Home Depot.”

Then, last week, Dean Takahashi, venerable games business reporter, spun GamesBeat off from VentureBeat, into an independent entity — the news was positioned well, but part of the story is VentureBeat divesting from coverage of consumer categories, and it’s also part of the story of the transformation and erosion of traditional media.

I started my career in games PR nearly two decades ago, at an agency called TriplePoint, one of the leading endemic media relations firms that reps folks like Blizzard. At the time, getting press could rocket games to success in concrete, undeniable ways.

Media were the chief gatekeepers and tastemakers. They created the news and defined which games would be hot. This was for structural, distribution-oriented reasons. The internet and social media platforms, of course, changed everything in irreversible ways.

The internet is in the midst of late-stage enshittification, traffic has fled from websites to platforms, and the ad revenue model has been effectively obliterated, rendering traditional media outlets unable to carry on.

Content has ‘democratized’, atomized, and niche-ified into a cacophonous ecosystem of millions of content creators — who do not have the same training, ethical standards, or incentive structure as traditional media outlets. The gaming media is now just another influencer in a sea of influencers.

This is not a good outcome. The world needs a strong fourth estate to hold public and private power to account, and people deserve unbiased, ethical coverage of the things they love, like games.

But it is the reality on the ground. So how do we, as game makers and marketers, adapt? And what does journalism look like moving forward?

I’m of the opinion that because of their diminished influence on which games break through, the dwindling number of employed journalists, and the incentive structures they are constrained by, the games media now plays more of a follower and commenter role.

Getting a lot of press is a good signal, but it is almost always correlation — not causation. The media will typically cover stories that already have an audience. As Playstack’s comms director Wout van Halderen put it in his fantastic GDC talk about Balatro’s marketing, “to be popular, you have to be popular.”

They still carry some legitimacy that is outsized compared to their reach, and that can be very powerful. A tidal wave of press coverage undoubtedly drives growth and is a critical brand marketing driver.

But in a vacuum, even fantastic media coverage drives surprisingly little action from players. Take Wombo Games’ Raiders of Blackveil, announced last week. They took a relatively traditional announcement strategy, with a polished video (“hello, gamers” — comments are off) featuring members of the team, lots of nice b-roll of their offices, and a TON of press coverage for a completely new IP without existing community traction - GameSpot, Eurogamer, Game Informer, and more.

And checking GameDiscoverCo Plus, it looks like the game has only amassed a couple thousand wishlists.

Their PR team here did an insanely good job. I know from trying that it is supremely hard to generate press coverage for an unknown studio and IP these days, even if the founders have a track record. But the outcome was virtually no signal for the game itself.

PR, like all marketing, is, in my view, a force multiplier. Great media coverage lends legitimacy and, with a critical mass of coverage, can actually drive growth. But most of the time, B2C PR gets you jack diddly in terms of awareness or conversion.

In my view, the most important things for actual awareness and growth for core games are content, creators, and community. Raiders of Blackveil didn’t have a trailer or any influencer coverage I clocked. The CTA from all the impressive press coverage was “check out this game,” and the Steam page doesn’t have a video asset.

I really think a lot of developers and even marketers spend far more time and energy chasing press, especially early on in a game’s promotional life, instead of on the things that actually can lead to the headlines you want.

As for the future of games journalism, I wish I had an answer. Part of it is in paid subscriptions like what Aftermath is built on. Part of it will have to live on the very social platforms that enabled the cambrian explosion of content creators that usurped the media’s traditional role.

I do believe there is a class of content creator that will always have a following because they are trustworthy and ethical, known for unbiased reviews, investigative reporting, or insightful analysis. But they will continue to compete with the broader ecosystem of sponcon self-promo hustle grindset influencers.

I guess it’s about ethics in video games journalism after all.