My friend Matt introduced me to this site a couple weeks back and at first I thought nothing of it. Sure, it's another gaming site, what's so special about this one? For one, the writers are really good. They don't act like 13-year-olds like Kotaku but they aren't as uptight or serious as Gamespot. When they write reviews or features, it feels though a peer is writing it, both informatively and casually.
This site probably will not be short-lived either. They have $8.25 million in funding from advertising groups NOT related to gaming. The New York Times highlighted this site for its unique advertising plan.
"They’re using their community’s coveted demographics (males ages 18-49 with average household incomes of $60,000-plus) to attract non-game advertisers, like movies and fast food. By refusing publisher ads and fostering a stable of opinionated writers, their reasoning goes, they’ll build up gamer trust — and eyeballs."
While one could argue that no journalistic site can ever be completely unbiased, it is nice to know that this particular site won't have gaming companies watching over them feeding them money for a more favorable review. I lost faith in Gamespot's validity when writer Jeff Gerstmann was fired for not writing a good review from a company that financially supported Gamespot.
In fact, I started reading reviews far less when it hit me that all of review sites I have gone to have gaming ads all about them. An article on Gigaom said it best: "From this point forward, gamers will doubt the word of any reviewer on a site heavy with publisher ads, and reviewers will begin self-censoring, fearful of being too forthright and potentially suffering Gerstmann’s fate."
Crispy Gamer heard these pleas for decent journalism and is dedicated to making a site that can at least make a strong case for being unbiased. So if you want unbiased gaming news despite my site at Table Salt Games, then I suggest you go there.
New site: Crispy Gamer
Unbiased journalism
This gamer reads it.
This posted tagged as: video games
Recent posts tagged as video games:
