Gaming article websites that aren't just news?
I'm re-doing my RSS feeds and noticed all the gaming sites are just regurgitating the same stuff in clickable news links.
I was wondering if anyone follows any sites that cover gaming from a different angle? Whether it's thoughtfull discussion about game mechanics, the future of games etc or whether it's investigative journalism?
Thanks :)
I'll be keeping an eye on this thread because I would also love to know if I'm missing out on some good games journalism out there. Sadly, sites like what you've described are increasingly rare in the modern era. Nevertheless, here are a few that come to mind:
NintendoLife is pretty great for this if you're looking for Nintendo-related news, reviews, interviews, and feature articles.
One of their affiliate sites, Time Extension, is also really good for long-form articles and retrospectives about retro games.
And while it's mostly just news, like you said, Polygon will sometimes surprise you with some really excellent feature articles that have a lot of thought and research put into them.
This one is so interesting... do you know any more sources like this?
Great suggestion thanks!! Hopefully this thread will fill up with some great or even obscure resources.
Another option i've been trialing is trying to get feeds from websites, but only part of their websites. For example of nintendolife, trying to only read pages under "features".
I don't think they do much investigative journalism, but I've found Rock Paper Shotgun to have some more thoughtful pieces among their more traditional reporting.
Too bad they became a giant ad machine. Ads on top of the page, ads on the sides, popup ads, endless "articles" which are just Amazon affiliate links... No, I'm not salty, why do you ask? :/
Eurogamer has a fair share of opinion and personal pieces on their public feed, and they have even more of it in their subscription tier (I cannot comment on the quality of those as I'm not a subscriber, I just see that they post them).
Uppercut, Unwinnable, and Into the Spine sound to me like what you're looking for. Paste has quietly raised up a lot of great games writers, too.
I also recommend reading lots of reviews for games you're interested in. Listen to spoilercasts about them. Pay attention to the bylines, and when a critic says something that gets your mind going, try checking out what else they've written. Most critics are active on social somewhere, and if you like what they have to say, they'll probably share other writing that's similar.