Now I have no idea who this guy is, but he wrote an interesting little column. Basically, it is a reply to IGN haters who always email him. It is pretty good. I don't agree with everything he says, but it is a good read. http://ps2.ign.com/letters.html
I like IGN ok. It isn't as good as some other sites I have liked in the past, but it is not bad. Hell, it's an opinion other than my own and I always wonder what other people think besides me.
Yeah, I stopped reading when he started bringing up Marxism and Stalin. The forebearers of Communism usually don't belong within fifty feet of a video game article, and it was just further proof that most IGNers are only concerned with fluffing their articles with "looky-smart" words. Unfortunately, there's a great deal of videogame writers that have a terminal case of DMS--Dennis Miller Syndrome.
I look forward to his review of Virtua Fighter 4--I sure hope he's able to bring up Sophocles' model of uber-tragedy, Antigone, when discussing the intricacies of the relationship between Lau and Pai. I really believed it's a rich mine that should be explored for the benefit of all.
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(However, I should be fair in mentioning that when I wrote for GF, I caught myself doling out the fifty-cent words on a couple of reviews. Thankfully, ol' Kevo pulled me back from the brink.)
[This message has been edited by lbuchanan (edited January 24, 2002).]
Hahaha...ahh, the thankless task of the copy editor. Of course, it's pretty obvious to everyone that IGN HAS no copy editors, and that most of their writers don't even proofread their own articles. I've gotta agree with Levi, some of these guys actually think they're turning out gold by peppering their articles with what he so appropriately called "looky-smart" words. Except Dennis Miller's writers actually go to the work of making sure they're not misusing the droll witticisms and obscure references he bombards his viewers with, every week. IGN writers like to just sorta spit out crap they've heard and hope they're using it in the right context. My favorite, though, is when they type a phrase that they've clearly only SPOKEN their entire lives, and use the wrong words to spell it out.
But I have to admit, Dave's point is still valid (even if his skill at conveying it was somewhat lacking) - I think the perception of value is something people don't give a lot of thought to. I remember hawking used games years ago, and parents would flip out when they discovered how much I'd give them for their used games. They were thinking about how much they PAID for them--about forty bucks--and here I was offering them $10. Some kids would bring in a game they LOVED and couldn't bear to part with...and when I offered them $5 for it (because it was a piece of crap that wouldn't sell to anyone but them), they got tears in their eyes.
And then you've got the infamous Conan sword I was going to buy before Express laid me off...which I'm sure Levi remembers all too well. It was being crafted by the same man that created the movie props, based on his same original molds, ground with his same tools...shipping in a bound wooden, engraved box with a signed certificate of authenticity. It was BEAUTIFUL - worth every penny of the asking price (then $5,000 - it's gone WAY up since then). But to everyone else, I was out of my friggin' mind.
Every time I "waste" money on a sweet-looking action figure, friends question it. I perceive more value in these things than they do. Heck, look at Beanie Babies - there was virtually NO inherent value in those things, and yet demand skyrocketed and prices went through the roof. When people percieve value in something, no matter how ridiculous, you can't tell them any differently.
So yeah, I agree with that...but personally, I think the vast majority of people who're talking about IGN's value as a subscriber service perceive that value to be very low. I can't say I blame them. But again, when you're dealing with guys who think their increasingly verbose articles are a license to print money, it should come as no surprise that they'd balk when confronted with readers who say "I don't THINK so!"
I'm knackered..spent 12 hours at screening various girls for the co-host job on the games show we are working on...girls just dont know about games
Oh yeah...I havent read David Smiths mailbag yet but I've met the guy on a few occasions and while he's scarily skinny and a bit eccentric, he's a cool and mellow kid in real-life just so you know.
12 hours is a long time to be evaluating girls. Were there any that stuck out? Hate to think it was a total loss (get any digits?)
I think people should just shut the hell up about IGN now. I mean how long has this been going on? People keep ssaying "there are other place to get the same stuff for free", then by all means use them! Quit bitching. You don't like IGN anymore, then don't go to IGN anymore. (Most) People are just upset that they don't have the means to pay for Insider, so they get all worked up over the *special* content being locked up. Bah. That's all I have to say. BAH!
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--Life is full of tasks to be completed, but right now I am so far behind I will never die
I think honestly, people are more angry about the "dot com" crash that killed off all the competition than they are at IGN's relative lack of quality...they see IGN as the last remnant of what USED to be a positively bustling community of game sites a couple years ago, and people aren't understanding that IGN is simply the last one with money left...they didn't survive because their sites were of higher editorial quality than everyone else, they just had more money to burn through than any other publisher.
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