Gaming News Burnout and the Importance of Bloggers
Posted on May 24, 2024 by Aywren
Lately, I’ve been dealing with a general feeling of burnout with bigger gaming news sites. This has given me a stronger appreciation for bloggers and the role they fill when it comes to community and connecting with other gamers.
Let me explain.
News Vibe Check
When I was young, I quickly came to terms with the idea that, unlike my parents, I could not sit there and be a sponge for all the bad news happening in the world every day. Call me sensitive. Call me whatever – I am not business nor politically minded. And it does my own health no good to marinate in negativity.
This is why you don’t usually hear me discuss my opinions when it comes to certain topics. Do I have thoughts on these things? Of course. Do you need to hear those thoughts for me to be fulfilled? Nah, not really. You hear enough of it everywhere else, I figure!
My online spaces, including this blog, are generally very filtered so that I am not immersed, nor am I immersing anyone else, with vibes I’d rather not experience. I do follow news, but it’s carefully curated, and in small, focused amounts – enough to keep me up-to-date with what I need to know, and nothing more.
Modern Gaming News/Drama
The one kind of news that I haven’t – up until recently – kept curated is my gaming news. I’m still big on my RSS feed reader, keeping it full with the newest articles from various gaming news sites across the Web.
Lately, I’ve been feeling what I can only describe as burnout when it comes to gaming news. I realized that what used to be communities for folks who enjoyed playing games have begun to turn into platforms for business/industry woes or politics/agendas that I never asked to hear.
Whatever happened to game sites that just… you know… talked about games? And shared the excitement about the newest game releases, gaming tips, and what we can look forward to with the new games on the horizon?
Instead, we hear about how XYZ game or XYZ company is BAD because of XYZ reason. Or how there’s tons awful business choices being made that affect both customers and the teams working on the games…
Every time I turn around, there’s something the community is getting riled up about, and it’s simply exhausting.
Note: I want to state (before I get pushback on this) that I do think it’s important to stay informed with what’s going on with the gaming business and how companies use your dollars. But I also think there’s a case where there can be too much of that – so much that you simply can’t be allowed to enjoy anything, should you hyper-focus on this (truth is, no business out there is a perfect saint). There just needs to be a balance.
This especially dawned on me after I watched this particular video:
In this video, Josh Strife Hayes says (time stamp) - please go listen to him say this as it's much more impactful:
What’s very important to remember is the average gamer is not reading gaming news. The average gamer – you know, the person who goes to work to do a 9-to-5 job – comes home, turns on whatever video game console they’ve managed to scrounge up the money to buy, and then enjoys the game.
…Some people come home and say, “You know, I just want to turn on Playstation/Xbox/PC/Wii/Switch” – whatever they’ve got – enjoy a game for a bit, and then go to bed. Because that’s their fun time. That’s what they do.
What they don’t want to do is come home from work, turn on the game, and get told by a crowd of people why the game they’re playing is problematic. Why the money they’ve spent is wasted. Why they shouldn’t be enjoying that because there’s stuff going on behind the scenes that you should be invested in, and that should affect your gaming experience.
The average video game player does not care about anything outside of their experience with the game.
And the invested, enfranchised, angry gamer gets upset when everyone else isn’t as invested and enfranchised and as angry as they are.
That, in particular resounded with me. I remember being that person – someone who could just sit down and enjoy a game after school or work – without worrying if it was “acceptable” to do based on some sort of social view.
And you know what?
After watching that, I went through and purged a number of YouTube channels and gaming news sites from my RSS feed. Because I realized that all those “bad news vibes” I try to avoid in the current world news, have come to infect many of the gaming news sources, as well.
Note: I don't say ALL gaming news sites are like this! I'm not going to list these sites here, because this isn't about pointing fingers at who is "good" or "bad" - you'll note I've not named any site names. I still follow a handful of gaming sites that mostly focus on the games rather than the excess drama. If you know of sites I should look at that fit this description and allow for RSS feeds, let me know!
The Importance of Gaming Bloggers
This is where I started to think about the role bloggers play in the online gaming community and why it’s so important they exist. I know we’ve been hearing for years that blogging is on the way out, and that written media is in decline. Yet, I think that’s all the more important of a reason that bloggers hold the fort in today’s online world.
I’m not saying that there aren’t opinionated or drama-minded bloggers out there. I’m aware there are. In that case, you just choose not to follow that individual, and move on.
What I am saying that bloggers are still an important part of the gaming community because they give voice to the individual. Our blogs and sites aren’t beholden to anything but what we choose to make it – we don’t have to write specific content to make quotas or to meet someone else’s agenda. We are free to express ourselves and our gaming thoughts, uniquely and individually.
In fact, some of the best gaming news/reviews comes from fellow bloggers – or at least fellow gamers. How many of us at least read over gaming reviews left by other players on a Steam game before we decide if the game is something we’ll enjoy? That might not be the same as a blog, but it’s still an individual writing about their experience with a game.
While there are some bad apples in the community review sections, I’m more likely to take into consideration other gamers’ thoughts on a game rather than a big news site now days. Because who knows what money was exchanged for words on some of those big game news sites…
Anyhow. Just a jumble of my recent thoughts on this topic. This doesn’t fully encompass everything I’m thinking/feeling. But I can tell you that I’m backing off on what I follow when it comes to large gaming news sites because I’m just burned out on all the drama and bad news.