It's not as easy as it looks, being an internationally renowned veteran gaming journalist. AJ, along with Oracle, have been with us since we first decided that the site would be better off with more than just Yug and I contributing. Their skill and industry knowledge (in AJ's case) were a major factor in their selection in the first place, and things that have validated that selection a number of times.

None of us really set out to be journalists. Personally I'd call myself a writer more than a journalist. I have no real drive to get the inside scoop on dark secret happenings inside the gaming industry. And I'll give you a secret little clue…. no one does.

The concept of journalism is that it's an investigative process, like Private Investigators with film noir coats and a camera with a radar dish that makes a poof noise (like Yug) and then a front page newspaper spins into the foreground with dramatic music. Man I need to get me a trenchcoat like that. Though this time I'm...

It's not as easy as it looks, being an internationally renowned veteran gaming journalist. AJ, along with Oracle, have been with us since we first decided that the site would be better off with more than just Yug and I contributing. Their skill and industry knowledge (in AJ's case) were a major factor in their selection in the first place, and things that have validated that selection a number of times.

None of us really set out to be journalists. Personally I'd call myself a writer more than a journalist. I have no real drive to get the inside scoop on dark secret happenings inside the gaming industry. And I'll give you a secret little clue…. no one does.

The concept of journalism is that it's an investigative process, like Private Investigators with film noir coats and a camera with a radar dish that makes a poof noise (like Yug) and then a front page newspaper spins into the foreground with dramatic music. Man I need to get me a trenchcoat like that. Though this time I'm going to stay away from highschools while I'm wearing it.

In any case, there's still places where that brand of "investigative" journalism has its place, but unfortunately it's pretty tabloid most of the time. Your 60 Minutes, Today Tonight, A Current Affair style journalists go for investigation, then sensationalisation. They're not really there for the truth, they're there for the story, which is a subtle but important difference.

In fact, the gaming industry is probably the worst industry for "journalism" a lot of the time. The reasons are pretty simple. We're not journalists. We don't write stories, investigate things, find out the truth. Most of the time our main job is to disseminate (is that the opposite of inseminate?) press releases to our waiting audience. Sometimes we have a "source" within the industry who will tell us things. Most often we can't report them though. Not until the press release comes out. So a lot of the information we get comes from press releases. It's not news, it's really marketing.

That's actually kind of OK. Let's be honest, no one is dying here. There's no great horror, and if the head of EA turned out to be a dirty cheating corrupt Hakkir demon... sorry, I've been watching too much Angel... let's just go with "murderer"... we'd all pull him down in unison. But no one comes to video games sites for hard news, current affairs programs, investigative journalism, or even gossip. Essentially what we want is.. marketing. When is this game coming out? What do the screenshots look like? Any reviews? What sort of technology will be used in it? What new features will they add?

The point is that gaming journalists aren't really being all that journalisty. We're giving you guys what you want. There's a place for that. There's nothing wrong with it, despite my petulant tone.

The problem is a deeper one than that. Games companies provide us the information that we need to have "news". They send us games to review, providing valuable content. They are a major purchaser of advertising. Though not on our site, and I'd like to speak to them about that once I've finished being mean about them. They feed us. They are the hand that feeds us. And the problem comes in when we need to bite.

In case you hadn't noticed, video games makers don't do everything right all the time. Sometimes they have to be bitten. And they don't seem to like it for some reason.

The best recent example of this was the Kotaku and Sony furfy. It might have been a brouhaha. It certainly ended up as a debarkle. The issue in question was some juicy news that Kotaku found out about, namely the coming announcement of the sparkly "Home" system that Sony is preparing to use to steal my soul. (In fairness it's not like I was using it.)

Sony's point of view was that they didn't want this information leaked, as it was important to their announcement. Kotaku's point of view approximated "tough shit". Specifically they said that it really didn't matter what Sony wanted, as they're not just a mouthpiece for Sony PR but a news journalism outfit serving the needs of their readership. Sony threatened to essentially blackball them from all support, including return of review units, loss of review titles, and banning from events and press launches. Kotaku stuck to their guns, in a display of journalistic integrity that should be both an inspiration and a reminder to anyone in this field.

Thankfully the day was saved, when presumably someone at Sony decided to stop being an ass an realised that the PR nightmare of this unfolding was much worse than a day early preview on one blog. Kotaku and Sony are friends again, and it all ends fine.

But it's never really going to end. That's just one battle in a long war. Game publishers want us to talk about their stuff. But they really only want us to say GOOD stuff. They don't want bad reviews. They don't want criticism of their release schedules or their methods. They want to give us information, but they don't want that information launched before they specifically OK it. It has to come out just on time, like Paris Hilton out of prison. Not prematurely… like Paris Hilton out of prison.

This gets me on to this comic, and the subject of the comic. BigPond launched their Project Joystick competition about a month ago (I could look it up) to massive un-fanfare. There is some good coverage of their press event on Atomic, which pretty much fails to use the word "awesome".

To be honest, I barely knew about the thing. I'd heard the word project before. I remember doing projects at school. I've watched movies where people come "from the projects". I've also been interested in project management. Needless to say, I know what a joystick is. I just really hadn't thought to put those two words together and come up with meaning. Thankfully BigPond did!

The fact is I have no problem with BigPonds competition. They can have all the competitions they want. They can do whatever they want to. Yay BigPond.

AJ, on the other hand, disagreed strongly. His attitude was much like they had announced a competition to steal candy from babies. (It's not as much fun as you would think.) I don't mean to be flippant on this, because it's something AJ cares about. In fact, he cares a great deal.

Enough to hassle Craig Middleton about it, and get some answers. And get hassled back. And start an argument.

The fact is, I don't agree with AJ. But I'll support him absolutely, and his right to question anything. I don't mean that in some sort of Voltaire (not Voltron, keep up) libertian sort of way. I mean that as a member of the Australian Gamer team we fully support him. Australian Gamer is intended to be representative of all gamers in… you know… Australia. That means representing different viewpoints and opinions, including ones that inexplicably don't align with mine.

That's one reason we take the process of finding new correspondents so seriously. As well as representing us, they represent you guys.