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Post by gamingdave on Oct 16, 2024 9:05:44 GMT
.... And it's not just games, but the absolute state of the entire internet. ... For every straight forward Good Food recipe, there are 20 "These cookies remind me of a story my grandfather told me. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Ah, there's an interesting story behind that nickel. In 1957, I remember it was, I got up in the morning and made myself a piece of toast. I set the toaster to three: medium brown. Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time." It's similar in games journalism. Clicks mean ads. Ads means revenue. The internet today might be responsive, and accessible on more devices than ever, but the usefulness of the information is arguably worse than it was 10 years ago. AI can help there, filtering out only to find the information you need - but as as mentioned, where will the AI get content from if the sites don't exist? Content production is quickly becoming a thing done more by hobbyists - a few of which will break out and make money, but most won't. That's not to say hobbyists can't produce good content (this place keeps me engaged after all) and there are other communities I have been involved in which have had wonderful online resources built just for the love of it. But whilst forums provide a certain form of information, well written articles which are informative as well as sometimes thought provoking or entertaining have there place, and it would be a shame if we lost that sort of content. And unlike vinyl (and now tapes) I don't really see print making a big comeback. |
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Post by zisssou on Oct 16, 2024 9:07:57 GMT
To me game guides were dead in the water when YouTube was introduced. Timestamps. Easy to follow.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Oct 16, 2024 9:18:59 GMT
It's for all the streamers. They will happily pay a bit more to be early with their content. But in my opinion, it removes potential later customers that might have bought it if they hadn't already seen a complete playthrough two weeks ago. The irony is that a good portion of them.(the popular ones) won't even have paid for it either. |
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Post by Jambowayoh on Oct 16, 2024 9:23:25 GMT
To me game guides were dead in the water when YouTube was introduced. Timestamps. Easy to follow. I think you'd be surprised at how many people prefer reading the guide as opposed to seeing a video on YT. Ads straight away before you get to the content gets in the way of something you want to see quickly, factor in most people are using their phone then having to pause at the moment you want, especially if it's a map. I believe the guides on Kotaku that the staff had been forced to write to keep their jobs were doing silly numbers. |
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Post by skalpadda on Oct 16, 2024 10:12:04 GMT
Not an issue at all for PC gamers and even on a phone you can use a browser and block the ads. Even sponsored segments can be automatically skipped with SponsorBlock, though that's rarely a problem for short guide videos. I'm fully aware that most people use the YouTube app, don't block ads in their browser and are married to Chrome for some unfathomable reason, but that's user error at this point.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Oct 16, 2024 10:19:45 GMT
Obviously yes, but not everyone is a pc gamer and your average person isn't doing the stuff you mention so it kinda marries as to why most people are still using text based guides on a games website. To further that point most people watching Digital Foundry, a tech focused organisation, are using a phone. At the end of the day it's more about what's more convenient and quick rather than best practice.
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Post by Duffking on Oct 16, 2024 10:21:12 GMT
Most game guides already have a tendency to feel like they were written by AI, with a template that mandates 2-3 paragraphs of fluff before conveying any actual information. And everything is of course split up into a bajillion pages (likely with no index) for more ad impressions and search engine hits, so nothing is searchable on site. If that's what games journalism is banking on I won't mourn them. Old GameFAQs .txt files are more useful and usable than what actual professional journalists write these days, and you'll usually find information faster by adding "reddit" or looking on YouTube and hoping for the best. Even a lot of dedicated game wikis are unnavigable hellscapes. And it's not just games, but the absolute state of the entire internet. Edit: It's like the way RPS suddenly started doing all these 'guides' and ended up with almost as many 'guide writers' on staff as actual writers. I very much doubt they wanted to do that, but it was a desperate attempt to get people to come to their site... and it sounds like even that has been cut out from under them. John Walker has said (I forget where) that RPS was profitable when they sold it. Not hugely proftable, but they weren't struggling. There's no way of saying whether that would be the case today if they just continued in the same vein, but at least back when changes started to happen it wasn't a matter of survival. I think it's allllll SEO. The flowery wording is so annoying, and the way they extend every sentence with shit like "next, fans of game xyz will want to". It's the same as with recipes online where for SEO they preload it with the author's life story.
I'm fairly sure most of the guide writers are overworked and don't even have time to play the game they're writing a guide for - you'll notice many different guides on the sites that come up on a search are near identical and if one has inaccurate information, they pretty much all will. Wouldn't be surprised if they're all just cribbing from one another.
I find Neoseeker and Game8 are pretty decent.
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Post by zisssou on Oct 16, 2024 10:49:37 GMT
To me game guides were dead in the water when YouTube was introduced. Timestamps. Easy to follow. I think you'd be surprised at how many people prefer to reading the guide opposed to seeing a video on YT. Ads straight away before you get to the content gets in the way of something you want to see quickly, factor in most people are using their phone then having to pause at the moment you want, especially if it's a map. I believe the guides on Kotaku that the staff had been forced to write to keep their jobs were doing silly numbers. I mean I only use a guide if I'm struggling to find collectibles. I recently went through Psychonauts 2 and I was missing some real obscure ones, which a video for 5 seconds just told me exactly where it was. |
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Post by JuniorFE on Oct 16, 2024 11:12:55 GMT
FWIW I'm also usually pro-readable guide, unless I'm looking for something very specific (and even then a text guide or map will get me there more often than not).
With a video guide I either have to constantly look between two screens (not as bad when, say, the game is on my Switch or phone and the video is on my tablet, but disorienting at best otherwise) or constantly pause and unpause the video, to make sure I do things "the right way". With a text guide or a map it's easier to go in chunks and less disorienting to switch what I'm looking at when it's just a map, plus it's easier to read ahead if I feel like it.
Of course this assumes that both a decent text guide and a decent video guide are present, when it's only one or the other there's not much I can do, but given the choice...
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Post by Duffking on Oct 16, 2024 11:24:37 GMT
I like video guides for "where the hell do I go" etc. Text guides are for "how does this mechanic work" etc or "how do I unlock a thing". Sadly those are the ones that are always SEOd to hell and back and often flat out wrong and plagiarised from another wrong guide.
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Post by Vandelay on Oct 16, 2024 11:26:02 GMT
Interesting. I pretty much only use a guide for some very specific thing (normally when I'm missing some hidden area and I'm trying to find out how do I get to that bottom right area on this section of the map in Elden Ring, for example). In theory, a video should be great for that, but I find written instructions a lot easier to work from.
With a video, I find I end up having to scrub back and forth to get to the very specific bit I'm looking for. In a text guide, even if I don't have the visual, it is normally quicker to get to the information I need. It is much easier to find what I'm after when I'm looking for one or two sentences in text then to find a few seconds in a 20+ minute long video, even if the video is split into sections (they often aren't).
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Ulythium
Full Member
Lily-livered
Posts: 7,106
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Post by Ulythium on Oct 16, 2024 11:26:26 GMT
For me, it's written guides all the way...
... except for boss fights, as I'd rather have those in video form.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Oct 16, 2024 11:27:44 GMT
Interesting. I pretty much only use a guide for some very specific thing (normally when I'm missing some hidden area and I'm trying to find out how do I get to that bottom right area on this section of the map in Elden Ring, for example). In theory, a video should be great for that, but I find written instructions a lot easier to work from. With a video, I find I end up having to scrub back and forth to get to the very specific bit I'm looking for. In a text guide, even if I don't have the visual, it is normally quicker to get to the information I need. It is much easier to find what I'm after when I'm looking for one or two sentences in text then to find a few seconds in a 20+ minute long video, even if the video is split into sections (they often aren't). Pretty much this for me. |
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Aunty Treats
Junior Member
Delivering tasty treats to the townsfolk
Posts: 1,039
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Post by Aunty Treats on Oct 16, 2024 11:30:29 GMT
I just ask JuniorFE
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deez
New Member
Posts: 716
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Post by deez on Oct 16, 2024 11:33:27 GMT
Video guides are a total turn off for me. It's always a very niche bit I need and it's virtually impossible to find, especially if a game can be tackled in different orders.
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Post by rhaegyr on Oct 16, 2024 11:41:02 GMT
Written all the way. Same with reviews, articles etc.
Just can't adapt to video content in general.
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Post by Dougs on Oct 16, 2024 11:41:08 GMT
Another one for written guides here.
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Post by rhaegyr on Oct 16, 2024 11:42:05 GMT
I miss the amazing ASCII art people used to include in their guides on GameFAQS and other places.
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Post by zisssou on Oct 16, 2024 11:42:06 GMT
I wish I could still ask the Games Guru
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Post by skalpadda on Oct 16, 2024 11:51:27 GMT
Obviously yes, but not everyone is a pc gamer and your average person isn't doing the stuff you mention so it kinda marries as to why most people are still using text based guides on a games website. To further that point most people watching Digital Foundry, a tech focused organisation, are using a phone. At the end of the day it's more about what's more convenient and quick rather than best practice. Yeah, as I already acknowledged I'm not disagreeing that's the reality, just noting that the problems you mentioned are self-inflicted.
To be clear I also - in principle - prefer written information in most cases. I'm whinging about how finding information has become more difficult, annoying and impractical due to the road the internet giants (both tech and media) are forcing us down.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Oct 16, 2024 12:16:07 GMT
I still use gamefaqs most of the time. Content production is quickly becoming a thing done more by hobbyists - a few of which will break out and make money, but most won't. That's not to say hobbyists can't produce good content (this place keeps me engaged after all) and there are other communities I have been involved in which have had wonderful online resources built just for the love of it. But whilst forums provide a certain form of information, well written articles which are informative as well as sometimes thought provoking or entertaining have there place, and it would be a shame if we lost that sort of content. And unlike vinyl (and now tapes) I don't really see print making a big comeback. I don't actually see that being too much of a bad thing. I always preferred the internet when it was made by hobbyists, before everything became commercialized. Stuff like Gamefaqs, PcGamingWiki etc.. is all hobbyists anyway.
Though I guess in reality it's going to be steam reviews / metacritic user reviews, etc.. as most people aren't going to put in the time or effort to make full-size content. Then the AI aggregates all that.
Which isn't going to be too bad for fun stuff like games, but is going to suck for more important journalism etc..
Though the fact that it's going to make whole professions nonviable is another matter.
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Post by JuniorFE on Oct 16, 2024 12:29:42 GMT
Glol  (Happy to help if I can of course  ) |
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Post by gamingdave on Oct 16, 2024 12:43:42 GMT
... I always preferred the internet when it was made by hobbyists, before everything became commercialized. Stuff like Gamefaqs, PcGamingWiki etc.. is all hobbyists anyway....
Though the fact that it's going to make whole professions nonviable is another matter.
That's the crux of what I was thinking - I like the internet (at least partially) made by hobbyists, but I also like proper journalism. Print is dying as content has moved online. But if the real journalism online is crowded out by AI scouring hobbyist content, then that's all we will be left with. Add in the rise in bite-size content and it looks even bleaker. Of course things always change, you could be a long form written content creator monetising your work on Substack or Patreon, you can create video essays and publish them on YouTube - but I'm not sure I see a future for the magazine or magazine-like websites for much longer which have been the traditional home of this content. |
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zagibu
Junior Member
Posts: 1,953
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Post by zagibu on Oct 16, 2024 12:45:54 GMT
Look at all these old people needing guides to play their games.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Oct 17, 2024 5:39:11 GMT
For me it usually just comes down to availability and what my problem is. Even when games are fairly obscure there usually still is some kind of LP or walkthrough for it on youtube. Written guides are often simply no help when it comes to being stuck at a particular spot.
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Cappy
New Member
This is my message.
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Post by Cappy on Oct 17, 2024 13:49:25 GMT
A game doesn't really offer a fixed 'value', if you play for twenty minutes, lose interest and never play again, how much is that worth?
Sure, if the stars align it could work out that you got entertained for the price of £1 per hour if you spend 60-70 hours playing. Overall video games are already massively overpriced, £30 should be the top end for physical and digital should always be significantly less.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Oct 17, 2024 14:30:49 GMT
Cappy with another hot take.
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Post by andytheaverage on Oct 17, 2024 15:00:59 GMT
If they don't offer a fixed value then why should there be a £30 cap?
To be fair I've only spent more than that a few times in the last 10 years, and generally regretted it, so maybe you're right...
I'm generally happy to wait for a game to come on sale so don't worry too much about the RRP of a game. I do have a particular aversion to spending any money on in-game cosmetics though. I don't mind the concept of it in a free to play game, but I can't ever imagine choosing to spend real money them.
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Tuffty
Junior Member
Posts: 3,618
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Post by Tuffty on Oct 17, 2024 15:44:31 GMT
So to add to this, my fiancee did get that version because she loves the first game and felt like she would get spoilers. She's on chapter 2 now on PC version and when she selects a prompt that will progress, it crashes. Consistently. Pay more to be a bloody tester |
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Post by Jambowayoh on Oct 17, 2024 15:48:49 GMT
Eeesh. Classic.
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