CBS also owning Gamespot was a big issue, because it wasn't making money but it had the potential of bringing much more if they could fix it. It got even worse with the last 2 rounds of buyouts, because the buyers never wanted Giantbomb, it was a package deal.
My taste in games tend to lag by at least a few years, so I’d often far rather watch a let’s play or an independent review - especially one created some time after the fact - to get a true impression of the game than an overly curated take whose perspective is often overly skewed and coloured by then-current trends and tastes in gaming.
For anything >10 years I still find myself looking for content from CGR and, particularly, CGR Undertow, for example.
Plus it’s not unknown for mainstream reviewers to overhype new games.
The plethora of content, and view counts, suggest I may not be alone in this point of view.
I've noticed the same thing, and it confuses me. There are massive numbers of gamers in the world, and more every day. These gamers presumably want reviews of what is / isn't worth their time.
Sure, as you mentioned, there are individual YouTubers or Twitch streamers... but one streamer doesn't have nearly enough time to review all the games that come out. Not even just the AAA titles!
So, how are gamers making their decisions about what to play next, if they're not reading reviews on a site like IGN?
I think most people have some specific things they like, and end up following community opinion, like Reddit or Discord for a game genre, and following a different personalities on YouTube or Twitch.
Personally I’m mostly playing mostly (indie) Metroidvania games which are not well covered by IGN, I hear buzz about new releases on Reddit or from Cannot be Tamed on YouTube. Beyond that I sometimes see cool stuff on Twitter, I picked up Clair Obscure after seeing a few tweets mention its great writing and music. I also end up seeing the front page of the Steam store, which has reasonably good recommendation profile for me given 90% of my game purchases are through there and I’m playing on Steam Deck which focuses the recommendations on titles well supported by Linux and the hardware.
They seem to care very little about the opinions and taste of the people producing content for sites like IGN.
> one streamer doesn't have nearly enough time to review all the games that come out. Not even just the AAA titles!
They usually specialize in a genre, and a lot of gamers are interested in a fairly narrow range of genres.
But also, you don't have to know about every game available. "The perfect is the enemy of the good", also with respect to information. The goal is really just to find enough games worth the time/money to keep oneself entertained. Life's too short to worry about whether you might have enjoyed something else more than the game you actually played. (If you can even justify spending time on video games at all....)
> how are gamers making their decisions about what to play next
Metacritic, Steam reviews, the aforementioned streamers, word of mouth in their own communities... probably other ways....
At least big gaming sites are pretty straight up with their sponsorships.
It's probably a good thing that reddit seems to have been too incompetent to enshittify their site completely yet. There's lots of it that has been, but there's still plenty of very good discussion there if you know where to look.
That said I suppose if good moderators filter the rabble out there's bound to be some good communities. I just find that if you love a game it's usually best to steer well clear of the subreddit for it.
This is key and one of the reasons that ignoring r/gaming and subbing to r/games instead has been standard wisdom since like 2010 when reddit actually had a guide to which frontpage subs to unsub from (r/pics, r/funny, etc.) and which ones to replace them with.
Check the TikTok numbers for example, and don't forget they still have the website.
IGN doesn't need YouTube
They want reviews that the can trust to predict their experience, and trust in the games media for that is (for a variety of reasons) very low.
> Sure, as you mentioned, there are individual YouTubers or Twitch streamers... but one streamer doesn't have nearly enough time to review all the games that come out.
So? No one has time to read/watch reviews of every game that comes out, either, or to play all the games that come out; if they can find a stable of trusted streamers that combined give reliable and timely impressions of games so that they can find a sufficient number worth playing and mostly avoid wasting money on duds, they don't need reviews of every game that comes out, and they especially don’t need that at the expense of reliability.
Judging by online reactions, what gamers want is their own opinion reflected back at them. Anything else brings frothing rage and vitriol.
For some extremely-online types who have made “gamer” their identity, the purpose of gaming media is primarily to have that identity confirmed, not to gather information.
So the best, least biased reviews you can find are going to be 2-3 days post release, and not from someone who is large enough to get free review codes. I never trust pre-release reviews.
As a business proposition, video gaming sites seem like a money pit with no guarentee of a return. They may have a chance at survival by serving a niche audience that wants a specific type of content, limiting their scope and ambitions. But at the moment I just dont see a comeback for them.