I have always tried to view the release of a game or updates to a game from more than one point of view, because it is not always so black and white as many journalists make it seem to be. Sure, a piece cannot be completely unbiased, but that does not mean that you should decide for a mass of people that a game/update/redesign is bad just because you personally do not like it. There are certain releases that clearly fall under the “poor decisions” umbrella but that does not make it automatically completely bad. At the same time there are things like Blizzard’s “Don’t you guys have phones?” fiasco that are clearly straight up bad.
But I do not want to talk about those. What I want to talk about is this trend of “Opinions” served as actual journalism and the taste of entitlement that leaves in your mouth. I do not really read articles about games anymore, since it feels like it is the same old song and dance. And part of that feeling comes from these “Opinions” bits that seem to be everywhere. One of the more ridiculous ones was from PC Gamer’s Steven Messner and his “article” about the change of WoW’s character creation menu. The most ridiculous quote I can find in that thing is the “The circular character portrait buttons just feel like something I should be pressing with my thumb, not clicking with a mouse, and instead of feeling minimalist, I find the new menu feeling empty.” complain. This feels like the “journalist” got bored on one day and decided to just complain about the fact that Blizzard dared to change his beloved menu to something…different. How could they?
The gaming industry is filled with this kind of “journalists” that complain about everything that they can get their hands on and maybe, just maybe, get a few more clicks to fill what feels like an empty void. We all crave attention to some degree, and we all seek confirmation, but it feels like journalism should not be affected by your needs. Not when you can influence thousands of people just because you had a slightly colder coffee than usual.
Complaining about a menu or a feature just because you do not like it is not journalism. It is just crying about something that you do not like. Sure, people might agree with you and you might have a point. But if that is the case, approach it with integrity and be objective about it. Reasonings like “It’s not good because I don’t like it” are childish and serve no point other than you feel like you are right. Give factual reasons and try and explain how said thing is wrong.
At the end of the day these people will write about whatever they feel like and the websites will take it as long as it gets them more clicks. So, it falls under our duty as readers to try and filter it out as much as possible. People will not write about it if it does not get clicks.