You know how we as gamers always say “parent’s should be held responsible for what their children play?”
I totally agree with that statement, but let’s be real for a second. Parents aren’t going to be as knowledgeable about games as we are, so we can’t expect them to understand games like we do. That’s where John Davison comes in.
Davison recently resigned as the boss of the 1up network (my favorite and in my opinion the best gaming site around, more on that in later posts). No one knew what he was up to until today, when it was revealed that he had been helping to create a website called WhatTheyPlay.com
The aim is to be an agenda-free website to better inform parents on the content of games so they can make good decisions when buying presents for their children. I think this site can only lead to good things, and in the mass media should shine a very favorable light on our industry for once.
I just wish I had thought of it first.
2 Comments
November 13, 2007 at 3:29 am
I agree, but I also looove when magazines like Game Informer do several page features about games. I think the latest issue with Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend did a great job. They took a look at what inspired Schafer and they talked about the look of the game. It was very close to an artist critique. I really like that. And as far as game reviews go, I admit that sometimes I’m lazy and I’ll read bullet points first and if it looks like it got a good score, I’ll read the review. Though lately I find it hard to trust a lot of sites’ review scores. They can all be so varied and all that I don’t know what to think. I have better luck just asking fellow gamers what they like, I suppose. I know what really helps is sites like GameTrailers.com. I’ve been visiting that site a lot more than my usual visits to Gamespot, 1up, and IGN. I’d rather take a look at the actual gameplay, interviews, and walkthrough segments, not being I don’t like reading or something, but because I feel like I can make my own opinion of the game. And I do like IGN’s videos of their game reviews b/c I feel like they are usually pretty fair b/c they have to sum up their thoughts and comparisons in a limited amount of time. Yeah, so I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel that videos help me out in deciding what to buy or play more than the unnecessarily long pages of review.
November 13, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Nice. I like the blog and I totally agree with your issues on reviewing games. But I think one of the main problems is that IGN is retarded at best. They often will rail against something, and then in another post explain how something is bad because it can’t meet the standards of the other thing they originally hated. I think instead of pushing for IGN and Gamespot to do better reviews, we should push for the New York Times or even the lowly Demozett to reveiw games. The Times doesn’t even give scores of movies or books, they just talk about whether it was good or not. Anyway, I’m linking to your blog right now from mine, so, keep up the good work.