This week Polygon, a soon to be launched video game website, released a trailer for their upcoming behind the scenes / origin story "Press Reset". Some loved it, others found it arrogant. I found it so dumb and insulting that I'm actually writing words about it. I never write about this stuff, because games journo in-fighting is so incredibly unimportant. But this touched a nerve, and I talk enough **** on Twitter.
Covering video games is a privilege, one worth sacrificing for. If you were to go around our office you'd find that most of us had unused degrees in other areas (usually better paying areas) to talk about games for a living. I know it's the same story in other publications. I myself moved to a foreign country, away from my friends and family, just so I could have a better chance of getting a job in games. And when I finally did, I had to bite the bullet of living in a different continent from my future wife for two years.
If I was an X-Factor contestant, they'd call that my 'journey' and use it to fuel appreciate and support for my struggle as a middle class white boy trying to get his dream job. But that would make a wanker and would act as an insult to all those who struggled just as hard and never gotten the opportunity.
There are proper ways to do it, How to Build a Bomb was an interesting insight into starting a new website. But it was informal, casually shot and had a much more important role of acting as a communication link between Giant Bomb and their fans.
Videos are stories and editors the writers. So when you create a documentary with the production values on show in this trailer, you send a message that this is somehow important. That wasting all these talented writers and developers time on a vanity project about middle class white boys trying to spend money to create their dream job is important.
It's not. It's insulting and makes you all look like a$$holes. It enforces this new idea that creators are more important than their creations. We're not celebrities, we're just the lucky few who have the jobs all the others want. A lot of us worked hard to get into this industry and are working hard again to make it better. And when you waste the opportunity to contribute to the world of gaming by instead celebrating your bloody good fortune, you insult those trying to get in and make a mockery of the rest of us. In trying to make games coverage better, you're making it so much worse.
It's masturbation.
So until you guys sort this out I'm moving my Polygon bookmark into the porn folder.
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