Who Is The Cynical Gamer?

The Cynical Gamer is a voice set amongst many in gaming. It was created out of sheer frustration at gaming industry journalism. Whereby, unbiased and uninfluenced journalism just wasn't and still isn't occurring. The cynical gamer was then created as a reaction to this. It is not meant to provide an unbiased and uninfluenced point of view on the gaming industry, but quite the opposite. It is intentionally providing an opinionated and biased point of view. There is no secret about this. But it is a reaction to gaming journalism and, as such, a creation from it.

The frustration in the gaming industry comes from a number of points. Firstly, with magazine journalism and secondly with online gaming news. Magazine journalism has, in many ways, hit an all time low. The battle lines are clearly drawn between the two forms of information presentation with many people claiming over the last twelve months or so that the print media form is, in fact, dying. This may well be true, and it is not dying because it was presenting gamers with a fresh and unique point of view on the gaming industry. It is dying because it is homogonized and controlled by the industry it is meant to report. Advertising is the scourge of news. Advertising has completely destroyed the notion of honest journalism. The fact of the matter remains that there are not any unbiased voices in news any more. Every time you see a news item it has been presented with a particular point of view. It is just that people are relatively oblivious to this fact because they believe that news reporting is unbiased. This change has taken place over a long period of time. Without any real friction or association that the change has taken place with the mainstream audience. This too occurs with gaming. Reviews are no different.

Gaming news are pieces of information which you can get anywhere on the internet and 99 per cent of the news items are exactly the same. There are very few unique voices amongst these writers who rehash press releases and regurgitate information. You could literally train a monkey to do this and, I am sure, there are many monkeys which already do.

The cynical gamer is not about being a monkey. It is about providing you with a point of view that you know you are getting. The reader knows what the point of view is. That the sarcasm and cynicism is directed at the industry because the industry has become complacent. I do this because gamers have become complacent and accept these predominantly empty voices which fill the gaming wilderness. More than anything I do this because it is fun. The cynical gamer is an interesting character and you will always know what you are going to get.

If you don't get it then that is fine. I don't particularly care. Go get your gaming information from some homogenized news source which gives you the same old same old as everyone else. Live in the world where you believe that you are getting unbiased reporting on your nightly news and from game reviews. I would like to live in this world of denial, but unfortunately can't make it to Egypt.