joystiq.com

lindsey says: I have to admit, I'm addicted to playing video games. I once skipped my own cousin's wedding because I was playing Halo online with some college buddies. As gamers we are always looking for the latest and greatest, and we have short attention spans, making a blog like Joystiq a necessity. But a big problem of theirs is the site is too busy and sloppy for its own good. Sometimes I can't even find the latest news because of how the lay everything out. It could definitely use a good clean up and reorgonizing. What really gets me though is that they break a lot of news stories and mix it up with good humor :). Now, I think it's been enough time, gotta check if there's anything new!

As far as legitimate news media goes, weblogs are pretty far down on the list. That said, Joystiq is a very good video game blog, despite the fact that--like most other blogs--most of its articles are skimmed from professional news sites. What sets it apart from competing blogs is its degree of professionality, that and the fact that its editors are willing to accept and acknowledge that they make mistakes. The ability to leave and view comments left by others on each of the articles defintely gives the site a sense of community, as well as aids you in accessing bits of information from like-minded gamers from around the globe. Its original material is often very humorous, and occasionally outright comedic. It's a sobering reality check to see editorials from the point of view of an average gamer such as yourself rather than a mainstream journalist getting paid exorbitant sums to tell you what you want to hear. In all, a very worthy site for quickly catching up on everything that's big in the world of video games.

At one time this blog was in my daily rotation but over the months it has started to get tedious. One main issue is that while it does provide many tidbits of news it occasionally missed obvious and popular stories that are found even on pc hardware sites. So this makes it a little bit more of a 'boutique' blog, nothing wrong with that. Another issue is that they couch non-stories as newsbreaking. Leads with "Xbox 360 Unhackable" in the article you find all it says is that it won't be easy to open and has sealed stickers, if broken, will void warranty. Many of headlines are questions. Are they not sure whether they have news or not? The author(s) have a tendency to lapse into editorializing too frequently and have pet causes (game violence laws) and whipping boys (Jack Thompson). Whether these merit attention or not Joystiq tends to over editiorialize ad nauseum. I'm not expecting Wall Street Journal from a blog but some of the entries seem a little lazy in the grammar and prose department. Maybe its the stress of having to provide new content on a daily basis but overall it makes the blog a little 'uncooked'. I'm certain it has many fans but for me it has lost it's relevance and doesn't have enough to keep my attention day to day let alone week to week.