week five task

Review some of these links on Game Writing write your blog entry, and consider the following questions: What issues face reviewers? Who pays their wages? Is an objective ranking system for games necessary for sales is it even feasible? What are your feelings about the NGJ? What are the particular qualities of NGJ? What other forms of games writing can you find? How do you feel about your own writing, do you value objectivity or subjectivity?

Reviewing is one person’s thoughts and opinion of a game so when one person makes an opinion, so does another but that does not make either one right. One person may have a total different opinion to another and if that opinions creator is more credible than the other then the judging of the game will become bias. This rouses a point in which reviewing a game cannot be taken as fact or used to determine a games quality it can merely be used as a starting point. If I made a review on a game saying it was amazing and the graphics were superb but a well know games journalist says it was the worst game he has ever experienced, who’s opinion will be right. So the major issue facing reviewers are other reviewers.

Reviewers wages can be paid by a newspaper they work for or magazine company but there are reviewers out there who are not paid they are just gamers like me or you and have a little spare time to share there opinions on the latest news or game.

In modern day society this ranking system telling people what’s hot and what’s not on the gaming market is very important as there are many people out there who do not know anything about computer games and need a little help to choose what to buy for a friend or relative. But my opinion is that this ranking system is absurd, all it is, is a companies way of selling a product, through a bit of cash around for advertising and you can get a few more points on your games score. Its meaningless to rank a game as there are so many different aspects to take in. to me I would give project gotham racing a very low score due to the fact I hate racing games but as it shows in the review, some people like it and rate it one of the best games for 360. Rating is another way of giving an opinion, people like games for different things like graphics and game play or storyline it cannot be entirely accurate and for people to use ranking systems to decide what to buy is stupid as all your doing is buying the most popular game not necessarily the best.

Games are not just for intellectuals so when a new games journalist spews out this kind of stuff young gamers or even not so bright gamers will be thrown, to write in this way is to segregate game lovers, I think games journalism should stick to the points at hand and keep it factual, stay away from the imagination for a while games have that fantasy area covered.

New games journalism does have some good points, like it keeps in with a story feel and flows allot better due to its narrative. It is a fun way of reviewing a game and it gives a bit of excitement to an all-round boring factual look at a game. It also show that the writer has had a detailed look at the game instead of just playing it for five seconds then writing a load of dripple contesting its brilliance. NGJ can go a bit deeper into a game which cannot be found in standard games journalism. It gives a games review in a games way.

Games writing can be found in many places due to its massive world wide market, its in places like blogs discussion boards, websites build especially for it or it can be found in game online from person to person reviewing the game as they play or in a magazine devoted to the games world. Games writing is not just devoted to the games world either it also lends its ear to the world of movies and books, as we all know many books have become games and many games have become movies these all have been reviewed and written about.

I believe both opinions and facts are useful in most writings as they help give a better picture of what’s going on. Instead of focusing on one aspect of writing we must consider all points of view and all facts thrown at us in order to produce a worthwhile piece of writing. Both types of writing should be used to understand the factual point of view and the opinionated point of view.