Ben "Squirminator2k" Paddon interview

[Dix-Neuf]

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/06/12/interview-gamejournos/

sheds some light on the life of a Team 17 Community veteran and his recent controversial project.

[Swed Simon]

Interviews.

Heh.

[Dix-Neuf]

http://gamejournos.tumblr.com/post/803370783/gamespy-sony-posts-free-breast-filled-anime

queen's blade ftw

[*Splinter*]

Eurgh, great, encourage his bull**** why dont you

[Dix-Neuf]

Eurgh, great, encourage his bull**** why dont you
Are you kidding? Ben even deserves a Wikipedia page of his own now. I'd say his work has reached enough mainstream acceptance for the "Wikipedia police" :rolleyes: (http://www.bazpedia.com/en/a/r/t/Wikipedia~Articles_for_deletion_Log_2005_October_2 3_b482.html#Squirminator2k) to actually accept it as a relevant article instead of smugly deleting it.

[MtlAngelus]

http://forum.cheatengine.org/files/awesome_smiley_photo_sculpture_photosculpture-p153359710604909267qdjh_400_151.jpg

[Thurbo]

I don't get what's that about anyway, the only games magazine I buy is the German "GameStar" which never does any of that stuff S2K is "whining" about.

[poninja]

I guess it's hak :cool:

[DrMelon]

At the risk of being foolish (and I don't really care), I support what he's saying. There is literally so much bull in game journalism it isn't even funny anymore. I'm not going to jump on the hate-S2K bandwagon for whatever reason, he makes a good point here.

[Shadowmoon]

I guess it's hak :cool:

But HaK died Poninja.

[super_frea]

BIGAL-1992 | 12/06/2010 19:15
Member
2980 TSA Points | Member since: Jan 2009
"Just out of curiousity, why does he say ‘Glod’? Is he have a laugh or what?"

lol

[shadowman]

The point is that it's not something I dislike. It's something I don't care about in the slightest. I don't even buy gaming mags. If I want to see what a game is like, I'll see the Wikipedia page or their own website. Sure quality of writing is important anywhere, but to be honest, as far as video game mags to, I just don't care.

[bonz]

I don't get what's that about anyway, the only games magazine I buy is the German "GameStar" which never does any of that stuff S2K is "whining" about.
That's the point actually.

All these "gaming journalists" that S2K is ranting about, are actually just people like you and me that post random bullshít on their gaming blogs.

The German GameStar is a monthly-released, print magazine, which has been around since 1997.
There are real journalists working in an office, layouting the magazine, etc., not some nerds uploading their crap through some Web 2.0 broadcast application.

Think about it, for a print magazine it takes a whole month to fill up a full issue with worthy news, so it's quite clear that online gaming sites have to fill up the rest in between with a lot of crap, diluted with a lot of hot air to be able to produce on a daily basis and be "up to date" or the "First!!1!1!".


Really, I've seen all that when I took over the maintenance duty for Dream17. That was about the same time when T17 switched over to Facebook.
It showed more and more that it's quite hard (and in the end redundant) to try and post nicely done news articles, when you're getting flooded with "news" on Facebook.
You'll end up in citing most of it anyway.

That's what "gaming sites" like Kotaku are doing basically - citing others.
And very, very badly as S2K illustrates.

[SupSuper]

you mad

[Dix-Neuf]

you mad
4chan memes are cool

[Plasma]

I think the only thing I don't like about the blog is that it keeps lambasting posts and articles that don't stay relevant to what its meant to do... before it goes into a post about Ben's opinions on games he recently got, or something like that. It is rare, but it comes off as really arrogant when he does it.

...that, and he really likes jumping the gun. Aside from the whole "Criticising articles for being a week after whatever it was happened" thing, that he's stopped doing, there's also a good few individual cases. The one that's most prominent in my mind was the one where he complained about a site that said how moving a 360lite while in motion severely damages the disk. Yes, telling your viewers that the 360lite has a major flaw, which they wouldn't know in advance unless someone told them, is apparently bad journalism.
Edit: Oh, and not realising that this is very much a parody (http://kotaku.com/5582099/review-new-super-mario-bros-wiishampoo).

[Xinos]

game journalism is obviously a young medium but paddon seems to treat it as if it's an art. i don't even think it's about art anyway at this point so the idea that he wants it to be something else is stupid. also venting about it in such a hateful manner is just a stupider, more biased and even more simple journalism than the '****witted' one it condemns. nice - that'll really help it develop

seems like he just wants to be a 'take dat society' guy tbh

Well, game journalism has been around since 1974, starting with slot machines, or 1981 for PC and Video Games [wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_journalism#History_of_print_based_video _gaming_magazines)]. So that's at least 29 years, I don't think that's very new. Blogging is pretty new though. Besides, it's not exactly different from any other kind of journalism which has been around for allot longer. It's not like journalists are all going "damn, I'm gonna have to relearn everything I know if I'm going to switch over from writing about music to writing about games!"

But I agree that Ben's method may not be that great. I think the only way to battle bad content is to provide something better. If people have no choice other than reading crappy blogs then it really doesn't matter how much you complain about them.

[bonz]

each type of journalism is fairly unique to itself because for instance i'd find that music journalism is often about dissecting an album and finding out what it's about etc whereas game journalism is generally going to focus on aesthetic and interactive value. that's why it would be younger and have more to learn - it's an interactive medium.
Yes, but when Kotaku is making lists about the 10 hottest babes in computer games with big boobs, it's just f*ckwitted journalism.
Simple as that.

[DrMelon]

Yes, but when Kotaku is making lists about the 10 hottest babes in computer games with big boobs, it's just f*ckwitted journalism.
Simple as that.

Or about what they had for lunch. I'm not kidding.

[Paul.Power]

I'm never quite sure what to make of this. I know it's been a big deal with Ben for a few years now, one of the big driving factors behind the creation of RealVG was he felt that videogame journalism needed more honesty and professionalism*. Some of his articles for RealVG could be called the forerunner of GJaIF. I remember RealVG getting into an awkward spat with ONM at one point thanks to one of his articles. One of their writers pointed out to me in a PM that calling others unprofessional is, in itself, a rather unprofessional thing to do. And honesty is a nebulous thing: is it saying what you feel, or giving a balanced viewpoint?

I think Ben has a point, but I'm concerned about the inflammatory way that he goes about it. Saying that, I will say he's probably one of the best self-publicists I know, which is intended as neither a compliment nor an insult, simply a statement of fact.

____
* Yes, I appreciate the irony of using the word "professionalism" in the context of a site that had Paul "And here's another weird thing about Sonic the Hedgehog" Varley as a regular columnist ;).

Side note: anyone have the non-shortcut link to RealVG now that www.realvg.org doesn't work any more? It's still nice to look over "past glories" every now and then.

[Plasma]

Except it's not just "one example". Kotaku is, as far as I know, the most popular gaming news site by quite a bit, and a full one-third of its articles are utterly rubbish. And that's only one site.

[Dix-Neuf]

isn't mtv the most popular music channel

[philby4000]

90% of everything is trash.

[SupSuper]

90% of everything is trash.90% of your face is trash :cool:

[poninja]

90% of this forum is trash :cool:

[Shadowmoon]

90% of this forum is trash :cool:

THAT I can agree on. :cool:

[MtlAngelus]

90% of this forum is trash :cool:

So's your face. :cool: