RIP Joystiq. Time to find a new gaming news site or quit following the industry?

[Tek7@Work]

AOL shut down Joystiq on Tuesday.

I'd been reading Joystiq since the days of Nintendo Wii Fanboy, so I was hoping the recent rumors of Joystiq closing were false. Unfortunately, they were true.

Reading the farewell post was surreal and has me wondering if I should just stop following gaming news rather than start reading Kotaku, Polygon, or IGN.

What gaming news sites do you all follow and would recommend?

Or maybe I should quit reading gaming news altogether?

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

My reaction kinda went like this...

1. Expresses empathy because, although I don't read the site, I have fond memories of reading Nintendo Power before it died (I quit long before it did though).

2. Reads farewell address, seems well written, notes the reminisce about the time Nietzsche was quoted but dismisses it as just a quote.

3. Bums around a few pages and notices an article about Shulk who I wondered about since Xenoblade Chronicles was supposed to be popular. Oh so the plot theme is yet another anti-God Japanese RPG and the article writer thinks Shulk is kinda cool... loses more interest in games and any I had in Joystiq. If I wanted to be depressed, and roll my eyes, I could just go read real news and maybe learn something important.

Offtopic: While the article itself spoiled things me saying the above about Xenoblade is about as much a spoiler as saying the sky is blue so I'm not going to /spoiler it. Seriously Japan the horse is dead, buried, turning to paste and you are still beating it. I don't expect you to respect theists but at least get a sliver of originality.

Anyway depends on what you enjoy about video game journalism Tek (video game journalism still seems like a weird concept to me but I can see the demand for it). If it's only finding out about new games a perusal of Steam Greenlight or what is popular on Steam will get you informed about most of the indie titles. For mainsteam gunk I just flip through gametrailers.com and watch any that look interesting. One can pretty much tell if a game is going to be worth researching from that. If I'm still unsure I just wait until someone puts up a let's play on Youtube. For multiplayer games one can pretty much wait to see what your friends are playing and then research if you want to join in because they are no use getting with no one to play with. Of course the above is geared towards PC games but since that's all I play it's all I need to keep informed.

/random thought. Getting a serious Deja Vu vibe from my post. Must have posted something like this before. /shrugs

 

[Tek7@Work]

I think most of us who've been playing Japanese RPGs for years grew tired of anti-God bias so very long ago. Shin Megami Tensei IV was woefully heavy-handed in that regard, which is a shame since the battle system is, in my opinion, one of the best in recent memory (though it gets easier and easier to "cheese" the AI toward the end of the game). During almost every JRPG I play, I end up thinking, "Okay, fine, you can't stand the idea of a sovereign creator who designed things in a way with which you don't agree, we get it, get over it and move on." It seems the alternative is Western RPGs, which seem to shove sex and a "homosexuality is normal and okay and if you don't agree then you're an intolerant bigot" agenda in the player's face at every possible turn.

But hey, we'll always have Super Mario RPG, right?

As for Joystiq closing, it seems that Engadget has taken the Joystiq name for their gaming column and they're running with it: http://www.engadget.com/gaming/

Time will tell if they run it into the ground.

 

[Elader Arkon]

I generally read The Escapist and Techraptor, because I like more 'general' gaming/tech news sites. IGN has, surprisingly, gotten better, but I still don't frequent it quite that much.

But anything under the Gawker and Polygon umbrella I avoid like the plague.

 

[Tek7@Work]

I've made a conscious effort to stay away from tech news because it only makes me want shinier gadgets (especially phones and tablets). You can't know that gadget x is outdated if you never find out about gadget (x + 1).

 

[Niniel]

I use RPGFan, though it goes without saying that it has a fairly narrow focus.