Starting up in the August of 1991, Gameinformer was a small magazine published under Funcoland, a video game retailer that was absorbed by the Gamestop corporation in 2000. Subsequently, the magazine is now own by Gamestop and is heavily advertised in their stores, and just like Gamestop, this magazine has grown to be one of the most popular news sources for games and the third best selling magazine in the United States with over 7.8 million magazines in circulation each month as of June 2013.
However, Gameinformer is not only a magazine, but a popular web site as well. Many of the editors are respected and stand out for their different tastes in games and writing styles; they are a very entertaining bunch that constantly pour out meaningful content when it comes to reviews, previews, interviews, and exclusive reveals on the latest games. They also have a strong community that write a plethora of surprisingly good content, which is promoted by the web site on the front page.
IGN (which stands for Imagine Game Network...something many people don't know) started up in September 1996 as several websites under Imagine Media, but consolidated these websites later on under the IGN brand in 1998. However, some of these web sites under this banner dissolved over time, and eventually became one powerhouse web site. They are also partnered with several web sites today (that are "powered" by IGN), but several of these web sites shut down within the last two years, leaving IGN mostly by itself as a video game news web site.
You could say IGN is the mainstream source for video game news, being one of the top 200 visited web sites on the Internet. With a stream of fairly good articles, reviews, and (being so popular) exclusive interviews and premiere game trailers, IGN is the standard place people think of when it comes to video game journalism (for better or for worse).
Polygon is the newest addition to the big leagues of video game journalism and indeed aimed to make this bold venture since its concept was conceived in 2011 and was eventually executed in October 2012. They're owned by Vox Media and have gained a massive amount of traction with a continually growing audience.
The thing that separates Polygon apart from every video game website is its presentation and layout. It's easily the most beautiful and attractive out of any of the web sites on this list and remains eye-popping every time I pull it up (even the videos are incredible). They may have some controversial reviews that are very disagreeable due to the subtle "hipster" mentality around the journalists' writing, opinions, and even the style of their presentation, they have unique articles covering obscure figures in the video game industry or seemingly ordinary people that make for an excellent story. They delve into the lives behind game developers in great detail as well, which reveals the human side of individuals behind the games people love.
When it comes to Playstation, there's no better web site to turn to for everything related to Sony's game systems than Push Square. They started up in 2009 with the help of the people behind another web site called Nintendo Life.
With a practical layout, staff of diverse writers with clever, conversational, humorous writing styles, and niche articles on all things Playstation, no one can go wrong with Push Square.
Kotaku is...unconventional when it comes to its content. It took the internet by storm when it started up in October 2004 under the guidance of Matthew Gallant. The web site is owned by Gawker Media and has since spawned other versions of the web site for the purpose of creating local content in specific regions, resulting in Kotaku Austrailia, Kotaku Brazil, and Kotaku Japan.
Although it's mostly a web site focused on video games, Kotaku's writers have extremely conversational, casual styles. Many would rather compare it to a "professional blog" because the writers even insert their opinions into news articles. Besides getting out typical video game news, they also post video game-related fan art and content by people outside of the video game industry, Japanese anime reviews, links to writers' favorite bands, and more. Kotaku may be the oddball website in video game journalism, but there's no doubt that its an entertaining and excellent source for interesting news.
No comments:
Post a Comment