They were the Dallas Morning News to our Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Denver Post to our Rocky Mountain News. Joystiq was always there when Kotaku was. It's a tricky line to walk and anyone, any site that can do it for as long as Joystiq, doesn't deserve just accolades, it deserves to survive. And then expecting those same upset people to support them. Game journalism is a profession that at times hinges on telling people bad news, what they don't want to hear, essentially being the messenger that everyone wants to kill. In journalism, independence needs company. When done right, you can take the game out of journalism, but not the journalism out of game in this field.Īnd journalists, to some degree, must stand together, not to create blacklists or a singular face, but to ensure survival. Game journalism, when approached honestly, is always an important thing to stand up for. They didn't do this out of love for Kotaku, but because it was an important thing to stand up for. They all publicly rushed to back up Kotaku's play. When Sony decided to blackball Kotaku after we reported a factual, but anonymously sourced story, I wasn't the one that got the international conglomerate to back down, sites like Joystiq and others were. I quickly corrected the mistake once I realized (and admittedly handled that correction and response to CAG very poorly) and then set about alerting every other site so they wouldn't fall for it too. In 2008, when CheapAssGamer kicked off a contest asking its followers to create fake news for other sites to run as real, I fell for it in a big way. When something became bigger than either site, we stood up for one another. Sure, Kotaku fought to beat Joystiq and I'm sure the opposite was true, but we did so more for the credit of our readers than our own bylines (heck, Kotaku didn't have bylines for years.) The reality is that, as with any profession (and game journalism is exactly that) there is also a sense of camaraderie and respect, even if it is at times begrudgingly given. Viewed from outside, game journalism, all journalism, must at times look like a nest of snakes: A collection of writers and reporters trying to make names for themselves at any cost, whether it's a cost they pay, their friends pay, or their competition pays. Over my tenure with the site I had a front row view of the changing landscape of game journalism and to the work of my and Kotaku's biggest rival: Joystiq. Eventually, I handed that responsibility off to the talented Stephen Totilo, who remains in charge of the site today. I was fortunate enough to help usher Kotaku through its first seven years, helping it grow from a site with a singular voice (mine) to a chorus of opinion, news and features. It was underdog versus underdog and it kept both sites on their toes. The launch of either site would have been a big, important step in the shake-up of gaming coverage that was to come, but launching together they both had to compete with huge, well-established sites and each other. Joystiq was officially launched in June of 2004, Kotaku months later. They did great work, but the lack of diverse competition led to a sort of homogenization of news that was bad for everyone in the long run.Įnter Weblogs' Joystiq and Gawker's Kotaku: two sites that sprang from inspired leadership, an interest in telling the rest of the story and the desire to upend the seemingly singular face of coverage in the space. In 2004, the landscape of gaming websites was mostly monopolized by large, corporate-owned entities.
Important, perhaps if only because it is a good time to reflect on just how far game journalism has come.
Joystiq's closure is by no means the first of its kind news of sites shutting down, downsizing, staff moving have been at a steady beat for years now.īut this particular closure is important. It hurts gamers and, of course, those talented writers who write about games.Įvery time a gaming website downsizes, every time a bean-counter closes a home to gaming journalism, we all lose a little.
It weakens video game journalism in what are still important, formative times.
The death of a gaming news website is a terrible thing.
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