Originally, this was going to be a sophisticated and nuanced opinion piece regarding the ills of the video game journalism industry, and how Kotaku is a reflection of all these things. But then I began thinking that maybe the comparison doesn’t work so well using Kotaku.
After all, by and large, the big time gaming sites get the job done, spreading the latest and greatest in the gaming world. “Kotaku, The Gamer’s Guide” however… well, you’ll see.
What is Kotaku?
Why dear reader, before Kotaku, never have I read a gaming news site where it seems as though the writers think their job is to obfuscate the gaming news under piles of crap, rather than to actually report on it. I can’t be sure what their true intent is, but they seem dead set on filling every waking moment with some kind of news, even if there is none to speak of.
As far as videogame news sites go—if Kotaku can still be called that, Kotaku is the only site where I can read the front page, and learn absolutely nothing about the day’s gaming headlines.
For example, as I am writing this, the current big front page story is a review for a mouse titled “An Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse So Powerful You Can Use It One-Handed.”
Underneath, we have a gripping news story in “Craigslister Offers Spare Dark Knight Ticket In Exchange For Sex.”
But after that, we finally get something legitimately related to gaming in an opinion piece entitled “The Uncertain Musical Fate Of Assassin’s Creed” where the writer waxes nostalgic about a composer of many beloved songs moving on from a big gaming franchise. It’s hardly headline news, but at least it is gaming related.
In stark contrast, if I pay a visit to Joystiq, Gamasutra, 1Up, Destructoid, or IGN, I am immediately greeted with gaming news and content.
For every single piece of legitimate gaming news that actually involves journalism, games and facts, there are three other pieces of absolute junk on Kotaku that aren’t gaming related or even related to anything at all, like such headlines as,”Why Kotaku Commenters don’t suck” or ”32-Year-Old Homeless Man Found Dead Outside Japanese Arcade.”
If the internet were a delicate ecosystem that we were forced to live in, I think we all would be absolutely livid from the sheer volume of useless junk being thrown at us, and Kotaku would be among those dastardly litterbugs mucking everything up.
Kotaku is not just bad. Kotaku is so bad… the junk they qualify as content is the equivalent of internet pollution. Snacktaku and Caketaku deserve to forever burn on the trash fires of the internet.
This is Part 1 of 3 in a series of “blogging” columns. Read Part 2 here. Read Part 3 here.
