The N'Gai Croal Thread

[icycalm]

Continued from another thread:

Icy, since you are done with this guy, I was wondering what you think of N'Gai Croal's work? He's supposed to be a big deal in a gaming journalism as he writes for Newsweek. He also once admitted that he didn't start gaming seriously until 1999. Was it all the PS2 tech demos? As such, you'll find him regularly being wowed by concepts he thinks are innovative when they really aren't, like in this example. Usually he seems to post in similar manner to Chris Koller, the silly sort of non-news and rehashes that should probably be handled by small fan-blogs and forums, not full time journalists. And he doesn't even do reviews!

I will admit that I did find this article of his interesting. But I'm not sure if it's just common knowledge I was ignorant of, or actual journalism. edit: To clarify, I meant I was ignorant of the stats selling being done by IGN and Gamespot.

It seems he likes going around telling everyone that he only got into games in 1999. I've seen him bring this up on at least two or three separate occasions. He must be proud of it or something. Makes him different from all the mouth-breathing game fans who staff the specialist websites.

But that's not the worst thing about him. The worst is that the ONLY REASON he even got into games at all, is because he somehow got paid to do it. So not only has he had very little experience with games, but he doesn't even fucking LIKE THEM. And I mean you said it yourself:

And he doesn't even do reviews!

Does he even play games at all? I bet he just watches trailers and youtube videos, and cooks up random articles by plagiarising random blogs. I can easily see him doing that.

So this is how I think he compares to the other journalists mentioned so far:

Tim Rogers>David Sirlin>Stephen Poole>hobags>N'Gai Croal

I am placing him even lower than the hobags, because at least the hobags seem to be geniunely enjoying some games from time to time.

As for his articles you linked... I'll check them and comment later.

[new_pornographer]

Well it was a matter of time until this man was brought up. He is also sometimes included on bullshit 'roundtables' to comment on gaming. He is possibly the most talented person I have come across, despite his talent being writing boring articles. Not just any old boring articles, but the most boring articles known to gamedom. It absolutely confounds me that anyone would want to employ this man to write text, whether it be educated or not, when reading anything written by him is akin to Chinese water torture.

[Jon R.]

I do. It's the same reason Leigh's Alexander's quote "I don't like flOw (as a player, while I like it as a journalist, if that makes sense)" makes perfect sense: writing bullshit to fill space in order to look good to their equally useless peers is the gig.

It's what happens when something depends more on contacts than ability, and why the very people making up the bulk of the problem in the field are the ones on the "symposium" that was assembled to talk about the major problems in the field. Which, coincidentally, includes Croal. And is hosted by a reviewer who inexplicably lept from that position to being an Associate Producer at 2k Boston.

[BlackerOmegalon]

And is hosted by a reviewer who inexplicably lept from that position to being an Associate Producer at 2k Boston.

It's not so inexplicable if you work for Ziff Davis' EGM or Games for Windows Magazine, where the job seems to be gateway into the game industry. Why wouldn't they want to work for game companies anyways? Heck, if you work at EGM, you practically work for the big game companies, so they might as well hire to work for them directly. It's also made all the more sweet by the fact that you're working for a sinking ship. Although the fact that he now works for 2K Boston, a large game developer, didn't register with his symposium buddies, or maybe they don't see any problem with it, and Gerstmann was fired because of game company! Game companies should just start writing their own reviews at this point.

Notorious Halo fanboy Lucas Smith worked at Kotaku before going to EGM/1UP, where he must have caught the eye of Bungie with all his hard work, as they later hired him. And to think that people used to joke about him being on Microsoft's payroll. Does this BS actually happen in other types of trade journalism? Apparently, nobody bats an eye at this stuff happening in the "gaming community". I wonder, is it also like this, for example, with automobile journalism?

This is the reality of corporate games journalism, you work for the big game companies one way or another. You would think with Croal working for Newsweek and not depending on the money of the games industry that he'd be better than the current crop of journalists, but he really isn't, and he happily joins these pretentious journalists (who seem to look up to him for some reason) from Kotaku/EGM/1UP/Gamasutra etc. in the same exclusive club where they buddy up with each other and act like they're better than the rest, when they are probably worse.

[mees]

They probably respect him because his name is "N'Gai Croal."

It even sounds like he was born straight out of a top-loading famicom.

[MjFrancis]

Video game journalism is probably forever ruined, since N'Gai Croal believes he has accomplished what he set out to do:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/ ... -long.aspx

[Magnum Apex]

Video game journalism is probably forever ruined

And videogame development is next, apparently. I've never understood what videogame design consultants do other than provide meaningless feedback on an existing design. Next to being a producer with no game development experience at a game publisher, I can't imagine a more common "job" for ex-videogame journalists to transition to in the industry.

[BlackerOmegalon]

They always call it development, but it's usually more like PR or marketing, and their consulting work doesn't seem to have any significant effect on actual game development. I remember hearing on a podcast one of the former EGM/1up guys describing the consulting work he does, he says that he gives PR firms who work with game companies predictions on what each gaming news outlet will rate a certain game.

My favorite part of this whole phenomenon of journos leaving to work with game companies is how it doesn't seem to affect much their credibility within most gaming communities.