Platformers.net

Hi, I’m EPI and welcome to my wonderful article. Today we will be discussing why you are here reading this website today: videogames. But, I suppose it would seem to many that it is quite a broad topic. And with that I suppose I would agree. And I would imagine some of you would say it is a vast universe of topics. Okay, starting to agree less. Anyways, I just did an image seach for “video games” and this was the result.

As you can see here, what I assume is a Muslim woman finally got her Dell laptop and is playing a videogame. Neckbeard stands by, carefully observing and taking notes of the phenomena.

In any case, many would call videogames as “the latest entertainment media.” Which, in turn, churned out an almost new type of media altogether. That being People Who Are Extremely Opinionated About Video Games™. Now this, of course, runs a very deep canyon of genres as well! There are, of course, your dime a dozen gaming review sites. There are your gaming blogs. And those that fall under the “other” catagory. This is not even scratching the surface.

Of course, I’m not here to discuss anything “gaming politics” related or anything resembling something found on that site. And I will concede that this kind of media-observing-media is by no means anything absolutly new. Except, of course, it is happening on the internet. And, I suppose in a way, this IS new. How? Well, I guess i’ll explain.

Once upon a time, before my time and likely yours, if you wanted to know if a movie/book/restaurant/hotel/ escort service/brand of pickle/drug dealer/ketsup/hitman/bag of charcoal/waterfall/mayonaise was worth the money, chances you could open a newspaper and there would be something there to give you an opinion by someone who is very opinionated on the subject matter. Or, if that failed, there would be a magazine devoted entirely to telling you to buy/not to buy this thing or service.

But, how is this different than the internet? How is some person in a magazine or newspaper going to have a more valid opinion than asking random people on my buddy list if I should have a sandwich or do a bunch of meth?

I’ll be very honest with you. It isn’t. A videogame magazine probably couldn’t tell you any better than a respectable review site. But, therein lies the problem (and a previous point)…

There sure are a whole fucking lot of videogame review sites.

In a newspaper, if your column sucked chances are you got axed. If your magazine isn’t selling you go under and you’re off the shelves. This is not the case on the internet, apparently. As there are legions upon legions of these sites. Some are more reputable than others. But, it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart. Because, holy shit, all of them, come hell or high water, are going to continue to write their opinions about videogames on their very own videogame review site. A site that will continue going on taking the same news from other sites, refrying it and reposting it until the absolute end of the world. Sense be damned.

I suppose the next logical step would be to review these review sites. But, I’ll say right now that I am not the person to do this. But, there’s a chance that someone out there either is doing this or has already done it. And there’s a chance that his site got a 7.8/10 on another site.

And this concludes this wonderful amazing article.

Thanks for reading!