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Ronny I haven’t had a chance to read through the reviews yet, I will soon, but I think it is interesting to compare different reviewing styles operated in different magazines. Are these styles laid down by the magazine or can the individual sell their own style.. Many reviews I read tell me nothing useful about a game at all.. or at least nothing that I would use to evaluate a game..which is why most people, and I, rely on word of mouth …
Aphra.
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Well the way I ran it when I was running IrishPlayer meant that all the reviews had a minimun length of 1200 words, and a very strong structure, to ensure that as many angles as were possible were covered. Because we weren’t a print magazine, we could go on as long as was needed in some occasions.
As for how people wrote, as long as they covered this structure, they were free enough to phrase it whatever way they wanted. There were usually the first few whenever I took any new reviews on, and that was usually a case of that they were just going on about a particular, not very important, and sometimes it took a few re-writes to get it sounding right and covering everything. I would usually also just make sure that they weren’t too technical, because that puts a lot of people off and as my main audience wasn’t the hardcore gaming market who watch the web for every aspect of information, and just wanted to read reviews, we catered for that.
I also came to the decision early on not to cover news, because you simply can’t keep up unless you have someone full-time, looking into it and researching every shred of information. That is my main criticism of the remaining Irish Games websites, they should focus on just getting their review quality up and focus on other areas, instead of having the odd story up which ages very quickly. There’s nothing worse then going to a website and seeing information you saw last week.
If anything I feel that the likes of PlayerOfGames caters very well for it’s audience, the FPS and PC players, but the other sides like GamIre/WirelessToaster or GamersEurope should just focus on games that people can play, because I tried it damn hard for four years to get it going and gave up in the end. If you don’t have a massive exposure rate, no Irish site will do well because there isn’t any money to fund it, and therefore games companies won’t see you that differently then anyone else. The only reason I felt that IrishPlayer got to the size it was, which was 60,000 people (not including bots/searchs etc) a month was through also having loads of work done in magazines over the country, and on other websites.
I know this is a devs forum so I won’t bore you, but I feel there should really be a proper attempt at a decent Irish games mag, with support behind it, and it’s been across my mind to try something maybe when I finish college because there are a lot of interested and good writers, as well as a fair few not so good ones who could make it work.
Anyway, it’s been a while since I properly sat down and read through the forums so I’m not letting this one slip.
Ronny, all the advice I can say to you is keep up the good work. Keep at it and get your friends to read them, and you’ll eventually be able just to sit down and write, and the style will show. I should be at the next shindig so if you want to chat about it, i’d be more than happy to.
Jamie
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well you know there was an Official PlayStation Ireland magazine a couple of years ago. It closed but my understanding is that it was closed because it was badly run rather than not profitable, and Sony were talking about relaunching it with another publishing house…
so there is probably scope for an Irish games magazine of good quality – but we’d still like you to write for us too!
Ronny, after your exams you might consider writing for us too…
Aphra.
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There have been a number of magazines, most of which failed. The Player evolved into the Irish Playstation Magazine (as in the same company TP Media), but I think their problem was that they had two magazines running at the same time, and they had a fairly successful Playstation magazine, but when they also launched the Playstation 2 magazine, it was when the PS2 launched, and there were massive shortages for ages, and this seems to be what burdened them.
The other magazine, if any of you remember it knocking around for a few issues was G4, a multiformat magazine that came out around the same time as The Player, but again only lasted a few issues.
The problem with magazines in Ireland is that there is just simply too much competition from the huge range of UK and even US magazines that are published, and you would have to do a big deal with the distributers to get any sort of prominent shelf space. Without that, it’s simply a case of your magazine will get lost in the swamp of magazines.
Both sets of magazines also didn’t get the tone right, I found that G4 was a little too much on the slangy side, more a tabloid that I personally don’t find too attractive, and then there was the OIPM which was trying to be serious but was too dry. This is through no fault of the writers, the problem was that the magazine was just basically rebranding the UK magazine, with the same reviews, the same demo disc etc. It gave the writers no chance to do anything other than cover the odd story, or the odd game, and because of this the writers were unable to bring out an Irish feel to the magazine.
Maybe I’m being spiteful, but I’ve just been so pissed off seeing how Irish journalists trying to get into the games industry, and it’s very hard to get to any sort of position where you can do something out of it. Firstly, we are barely recognisable in many cases to many companies. Sony are grand, as they have a base here in Dublin and know the market, hence the ability to exploit the country as successfully as they have, and you can have no doubt about it.
Microsoft were great at the start, and the lady in charge of looking after the journalists in Ireland did a damn good job getting us stuff when we needed it, and after Ireland was un-attached from Xbox UK and put under the mandate of Xbox Scandanavia things were even better. EA also have a base and a person in the structure of the company who is head of EA Ireland, which is mainly a promotion and distribution outlet, as I am unaware of any development in Ireland by them.
However, there are the ‘evil’ companies, the ones who don’t consider Ireland part of Europe. I have consistently found that Nintendo don’t care about Ireland, as I used to have to scream down the phone at them asking them does Nintendo Europe consider Ireland as part of the continent because of their lack of interest in here. I also had problems with a number of publishers who basically said that they didn’t care about Ireland, purely because they stick within the strict guidelines of the UK market. This isn’t true, because most of our television and magazines come from the UK, and there is a massive spill.
It’s frustrating trying to get anything done, and I have every ounce of respect for good people trying to do well in pursuing it as a career.
Jamie
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it is interesting that this year sees DCU’s journalism courses turning 21 years and also this year our first crop of undergraduates hit the market so there will be even more competition for the available journo jobs..
I have tried e-mailing the class journalism lists to recruit people to write about games but they don’t seem to think this will necessarily get them a job post-college and you can’t blame them when you scan the national print and broadcast media..the one I did recruit wrote one feature and left for Japan..
Aphra.
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That’s the problem, and there are very few qualified journalists who in turn will write for the industry, and it can be a problem such as joining the union and getting a press-pass if you’re a freelance with proven work behind you.
That’s why the internet is great, because it gives people a chance to actually write about games, but we need to get out of the fansite mode which is very prevailant at the moment. But again, the union looks down on web journalists, and it’s very hard to get work published in paper, and again in turn it’s then harder to get stuff from the companies because people bullsh*t them about visitor hits, uniques etc. and you need to be able to show them paper, printed with circulation figures so they’ll take you seriously.
Jamie
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We’ve met before Ronny, more than once >:)
As for talking about it on this forum, it matter’s because it’s the journo’s who promote products in this industry, so there’s a bit of a love/hate relationship going on.
Anyway, I’m researching into my next GD.ie article at the moment, I’m currently looking into the whole issue of the law, especially as mentioned in another thread to do with the whole patent issue, and I don’t think it would do much harm to explore the legal wranglings that can happen when you’re creating something, so I’m also looking into the area of copyright. If anyone else has had specific problems that they would like me to look into, please stick a post, email or private message and I’ll look into it.
Jamie
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hmm…proposed EU laws allowing the patenting of new graphics, ai, music advances (what if you had to pay to be allowed use bump mapping?), making it illegal to release a product that uses a certain file format (microsoft and maya enter an arrangement where the only model editing tool that can be used to edit their models is maya…)
Dave
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We’ve met before Ronny, more than once >:)[/quote:239e0ca828]
Ah yes, I always find it hard to match the face with the nickname. I have to admit for a second I was thinking “We have?!”, but yeah, I remember now. You had to leave early last time I believe. Looking forward to chatting again next time. :) -
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Ronny, if you’re interested, mail me an attachment of your work and I can give you merciless editorial advice. janto@eircom.net Basically the structure of the review looks good but your prose can get a bit over-written and needs some careful punctuation. If you take care of these you should be able to see an improvement.
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Jamie,
Nintendo in particular are great at taking patent lawsuits…see SHEFF, D. (1993) Nintendo’s Battle to Dominate an Industry, London, Hodder and Stoughton which has a lot of info on their earlier suits…I know the book is in DCU’s library..
Aphra. [/quote:82e6f7d072]
Isn’t the full title:
“Game Over: Nintendo’s Battle to Dominate an Industry” ?
In America the book is called
“Game Over : How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children ”
Might help if you’re looking for it Jamie.
An excellent book, by the way.
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Yeah, that is the best industry book I have read…I found a copy in ‘chapters’ years after I got it online.
Might be worth a look checking chapters again…I wanted ot ge the revised edition with extra content but it was out of print\stock
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slightly off thread…but Kyotokid I still have an award to give you…will you be home sometime soon so we can give it to you?
Aphra. [/quote:935abd20d9]
Very weird I was just hinking of that earlier today – yes I will be over in august around about the 12 for a few days….also for anyone wants to have a pint :)
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Ronny do you have a dreamcast?
if you do you should think about do reviews for DCemu.co.uk. we do reviews for both hombrew and commercial games (well we will do once we get version 2 of the site done)i know your thinking that the DC scene is dead, u should know the dcemu.co.uk has only been around for a month and half, and so far we are getting about 5000 hits a day! in a couple of months it should be around 9000 – 10000( dcemulation.com, the scene, biggest site gets around that sort of traffic)
just a thought if no where else wants your work ;)
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Very weird I was just hinking of that earlier today – yes I will be over in august around about the 12 for a few days….also for anyone wants to have a pint :) [/quote:27e9390a4c]
Maybe the August Shindig could be held around this time??
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Maybe the August Shindig could be held around this time?? [/quote:67491e132b]
Hehe thats the kind of thinking I’m after – The Ivancentric kind :D :D
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Well, by then you’ll have had around 6 months to work on your speech so I reckon its only right we give you the opportunity to deliver it….;)
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Are you a writer too?
Jamie [/quote:01ca1c0791]
Yeah, well not in any professional capacity, VisCom graduate, but I can get by… Spent most of the past year as a lead writer for a developement proposal that’s slowly grinding itself to death…
got 68 in my thesis pretty much on the virtue of my writing – if I’d done some real research I might have made up that 2 % to get a First. -
Actually, any places you recommend I check out for writing?
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