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BENJAMIN GILBERT
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"ugh so much of the piece above stinks of old media thinking, I have to weigh in on the Photoshop comment specifically as, well, that's my chop you're talking about.
Thing is, you're comparing a hand drawn picture commissioned by a magazine who, at the time at least, had plenty of extra money to throw around (even though it wasn't able to pay for its own trips to press junkets -- woo, journalistic integrity!), versus a website (or "blog," if you will) that runs as lean as possible all the time. AOL/Time Warner (the company that owns Joystiq) didn't buy my copy of Photoshop even, though if we're going to a presser somewhere, we pay. We don't even keep copies of games we review as that might be perceived as lacking integrity (unlike the fabled EGM game library, ahem).
We create an image that makes as much sense for the piece while still being entertaining and doing so in a timely manner. In the piece in question, Cliff Bleszinski was saying the future of shooters is in RPGs -- thus, a raider from Fallout 3 got chopped into Gears of War 2. It makes sense for the piece, grabs your attention and looks pretty decent. Unfortunately, there wasn't someone to waste a whole heap of money paying me to hand-draw a picture of Cliff looking into the future and seeing RPG elements (a shame, I know).
And though I'd love to take the time to concisely eviscerate your thoughts on journalistic integrity in the era of online game writing (which you've conveniently lumped together in one big, messy pile -- just like OXM and Game Informer and EGM were all the same, right?), I'll save that for an email should you wish to contact me (ben@joystiq.com). I do followups and due diligence all the time -- problem is, most places won't call back because we're "just a blog," as opposed to the hard hitting journalism that places like EGM and Game Informer were/are, being [b][u]handed[/u][/b] "exclusives" (that are thankfully going the way of the buffalo). Truth is, I have a degree in MAGAZINE journalism. Too bad I won't be able to use it because rather than adapting, print outlets stuck to their guns and complained about the "stupid, childish blogs" that ran/run leaner and more efficiently.
Worst part: I met you last year at E3 demoing Left 4 Dead and you were really nice. One of my idols in fact. I grew up reading EGM. I've defended you in front of other journalists. Thanks for"
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
