NTSC RePlay 010: News of the World

[Neon Ignition]

Taken from a mixture of threads that occurred around the same time as each other in 2003, a lot of debate and discussion was going on at the time about the editorial content and reviews contained in magazines such as Gamestm and EDGE, as well as sites such as IGN and Gamespot. Of course, at that point in time these were go to sources for gamers but times have changed and that's what we'll be looking at this time because:


This isn't NTSC-UK... it's NTSC-RePlay

Having once been a regular daily reader I can't tell you the last time I visited IGN. There are several shops and stores near me that have magazine sections but it's been a couple of years since they stocked EDGE to the point I can't believe it's still going. We've seen a shift to things like streamers but often these are less sources of news and more faked reactions, forums are like lighthouses flickering out slowly over the years too whilst games websites are no longer prominent with several having vanished.

Do you still frequent or read any and what does the future of gaming news and features look like?

[teddymeow]

I subscribe to Edge and Retro Gamer when there's an offer on - 3 issues for £3 is my current deal on both.

The only gaming website I visit is Eurogamer and that is sporadically. Most of my gaming news is from either here or RLLMUK.

[DeathAdder]

I read Nintendolife. Also look at GameSpot and IGN but only read the reviews.

I look through the thread titles on neogaf and resetera and that gives the games news headlines. There are rarely many threads I bother to open.

Famiboards is quite a pleasant forum, and installbase is a good place to discuss sales.

I've always thought Edge was turd. Wish it had folded instead of GamesTM.

[fuse]

I can't even remember if I have ever had a daily go-to site for gaming news, but I certainly haven't for a long time. In today's world I find websites in general are unpleasant experiences; ad-smothered resource hogs that make it very slow and difficult to find any value from. I still visit them if there's something of interest, but that's usually via a direct link rather than just casually browsing a front page; I find a decently curated follow list on Twitter works much better as an aggregator for me. I lurk at a few other forums, but don't get too much out of them.

I do still sub to Edge and will often have a flick through the mag / digital version, but more for features and reviews than news.

[Neon Ignition]

I only experience EDGE through the occasional time a thread pops up on another site lsiting their features and reviews and the titles of focus always seem massively behind the curve so not much point in searching the issue out. Trouble I guess with being print and massively missing the transition to online like they did

[Tobal]

Not bought a gaming magazine since around 2010, which would have been EDGE at the time, and as far gaming sites i've not visited one since 1up had you go to there website to get GFW podcast so that would have stopped in 2008. I think i blame new games journalism and the rise of podcast and podcast personalities, knowing someone's tastes from years of listening to them makes for interesting takes on videogames.

[wakka]

My go-to for a traditional magazine-like experience these days is Eurogamer, when I want to browse something like that. But that said, the amount of games editorial I read has diminished steadily since the 2000s. There are so many more options now - podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, etc - and to be honest I simply find a lot of games news pretty boring.

Gaming is such a broad church these days that I find myself increasingly uninterested in the minutiae of most of the latest releases, and more interested in either stories about games I'm particularly a fan of, broad strokes industry analysis, or retro curiosities and deep dives.

The great thing is, thanks to the aforementioned wide range of options for gaming content, there's no shortage of any of that stuff, in many different formats.

Also honestly the games website I visit most is here, to bull**** with you guys.

[Asura]

Used to love Eurogamer, but it wrongly interprets my script blocker as an ad blocker and tries to stop me reading it.

[Neon Ignition]

Eurogamer has declined hard, very hard in recent years. It basically is just a parrot piece for a handful of stories they have very clearly picked up off Era. I mean, that's exactly what I often do too except I'm just a poster on a forum whereas they're supposedly a key gaming news site. At this point I feel, whilst probably not in terms of viewer numbers, they'd be better shuttering the site and committing fully to the Digital Foundry side of things.

[Asura]

It basically is just a parrot piece for a handful of stories they have very clearly picked up off Era.

Most of this comes from aggregators like GamesPress.

I use InnoReader, which is an RSS aggregator, to get my gaming news. I rifle through it every day or so. Takes 10 minutes just to scan all the headlines, mark the 4-5 things I actually want to read. But in doing so, you see just how many of the sites run articles and news that are practically copy-pasted from press releases; really transparent when you see basically the same wording about something on 9 different websites.

[phillv85]

I still read Play, Edge and Retro Gamer. Play and Edge are pretty much wasted on me though, I don’t really get into AAA titles. Aside from the mags I regularly use a few forums. I very rarely check game news sites these days, if I do it’s Kotaku. I still get all my best info from forums, but each year that passes they’re getting a little quieter. I listen to a few podcasts, but only when I’m in the gym, and only really retro gaming ones.

I feel like finding new retro games that interest me is getting harder and harder as well now. I’m now scouring game libraries I had little interest in in the past, or going back to ones I thought I was done with trying to squeeze a little more out of them. I spend a good few hours a week watching YouTube videos and reading up on stuff so there’s probably always going to be more stuff to try out.

TL;DR, I basically use all the usual ways except gaming sites in my ongoing quest to get all the games ever that interest me.