your consistent use of "churnalists" as some form of derogative is silly.
also, how is a reviewer supposed to capture all the problems with a game like Oblivion within a week of its release? it's a BIG [censored] GAME, and if you're going into it completely blind (as they all did) the level scaling only rears its ugly head far later into the game than would be acceptable for most media outlets to spend on it before reviewing.
It's not derogative (well yes it is but I'll tell you why it isn't). Churnalism is what is used to describe PR driven 'journalism' in the real actual world of journalism - you know the stuff on TV and in newspapers. Since video game journalism is
almost entirely driven by PR everything the people who call themselves video game journalists produce is essentially churnalism. Any reporting upon the content of a game must by definition come from the PR arm of a game developer. It's like a government putting out a media release and then holding a press conference and then the journalists not having anything to do but to dutifully report every single thing the government said as 100% factual as opposed to the digging, questioning, and reporting of reactions from others that real journalists do. Until such time as they are able to get developers from outside the PR arm or extreme upper management (who work on the PR strategy anyway) then all they are doing is passing along PR and are therefore entirely churnalists.
There is of course a caveat for those who report about the actual working of the companies themselves, in this case they are in fact performing journalism since the story was not prompted by the deliberate release of information that the company wants passed along.
Wouldn't it be like absolutely revolutionary if all the game media outlets came back two or three months later and updated what amounts to their 'initial impressions'. They're obviously able to realise it eventually. If Tom Francis from PC Gamer hadn't realised that there were serious design defects with Oblivion then he wouldn't have written and article outline 15 things they would like changed from Oblivion to Skyrim. One of the most prominent of course was levelled combat. Why did we need to wait until December 2010 for PC Gamer to let us know that Oblivion's combat is actually ruined by the level scaling. Why didn't they post something about this on their website three months after the date. Why is it that all the churnalists suddenly discover that they are all masters of the Rybicki maneuver as soon as the next sequal comes along. It's kinda sickening.
To illustrate I'll quote a couple of lines from Francis' Oblivion review and his 'update' 5 years after the fact.
Then:
When your resourcefulness does triumph, ragdoll corpse-physis makes the killing blow hilariously brutal. Whether it's a mace batting them into the wall, an arrow nailing them in mid-air as they pounce, or an electric touch spell blasting them across the room in spasms, the sight is so wonderfully unpleasant that you have to stifle a cry of appalled delight every time.
Now:
At level 1, hitting someone with a warhammer feels great. They just crumple. In the late game, though, you and your enemies have such a vast pool of hitpoints that every fight is a war of attrition, which makes each blow feel meaningless. It needs to be quick, vicious and deadly, whatever level you’re at.
Then:
Your objective is always to find a Sigil Stone, the magical artefact that holds together the plan of Oblivion you're in. Snatch it and you're spat back out into reality, portal closed. As a bonus, you can use the Sigil Stone to enchant your weapon with an unpleasant effect. These excursions build to intense climixes as the demons come thicker and faster closer to the stone.
Now:
The Oblivion gates themselves were the least interesting thing in Oblivion, reducing a freeform game to straight combat.
Then:
One other "journalist" (ed-quote marks added by me) was playing Oblivion alongside me, and in the first 30 hours of play
Now:
We need to feel like leveling up makes us more powerful. If the whole world levels up with us, that sense is lost. It also makes the game world too even: nowhere is particularly dangerous in Oblivion because everything is so politely level-appropriate.
Right. So 30 hours of play and he didn't think it was worthwhile putting in that little detail that everything in Oblivion is level scaled. Guess which review I won't be trusting when Skyrim is released? Yep, Tom Francis' PC Gamer review.
» Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:57 pm 
