I thought the article was strange in that there was so much import placed on the fact that it was being added to steam and so little import placed on the fact that it had been available on gog for years.

I almost thought the guy who wrote the article didn't realise it had been on gog and they guy that reviewed the article before publication stuck in a couple of lines about it.

Yeah, like I said earlier in the topic, their hypocrisy surrounding DRM is quite baffling - there's loads of examples like that.

I quit subscribing to PC Gamer UK for the same reason - back when Ross Atherton was still editor, I made several remarks on their forums about how the magazine was dreadfully biased and he (Ross) denied it completely saying they were simply pandering to the largest games because these had the most people playing it i.e. HL2, TF2 and WoW - and that I was exaggerating massively.

I then took it upon myself to count every reference in a single issue of either Valve/Steam of Blizzard and came to a shocking 100+ references in a magazine of just 130 pages (ads included) with about 15 of those being full articles. I made a topic about it with a long list with the right page number for every reference only for them to not even respond. Then a few months later, Ross Atherton left PC Gamer and .... guess what? He joined Blizzard's PR team. Conflict of interest, much? Then Tim Edwards took over, an even bigger Blizzard fanboy (notoriously so) and it didn't get any better - so I gave up and quit subscribing.
Yeah, a year (or maybe two) or so ago, Steam went down for a whole day I recall, due to danger of flooding or something - and not a single note of criticism from RPS except to report it and mention there's an offline mode too. It's like they're the PR department of Steam going "calm down, dear" - if this happens to Ubisoft due to hackers, they're all "OMG, look look! EVIL! That shouldn't happen with single player games!" only for Steam having done the same with games like Half Life 2 since forever. I did hear they improved offline mode (after a "mere" 7 years) but that still doesn't forgive glossing over how poorly it was in the past.

I just worry about the gaming press on the whole - it's so corrupt it's not funny anymore. There's not a single news source I can trust to be relatively unbiased. And like I said earlier, it's hard to be taken seriously as an industry when the press itself is completely unreliable.

Steam is more popular, hence it's a bigger deal. It's not bias when enthusiast press cover popular things more than less popular things. It's common sense.

That said, I have mostly stopped going to RPS because they're snobs and like things less because they are fun and more because it makes them look smart/different/superior. Also the constant articles on sexism, racism and violence drive me up the wall. Some of it is legitimate but I wouldn't go to CNN if every article there was about someone saying bitch at the office either.

I'm glad it's sold here without all that yucky Steam intergration.

It does make more sense to cover Steam more, but not to the extent that they are doing I believe. I've seen them promoting a game on Steam when it was being sold DRM free for the same price (often on the devs own website) - that's quite baffling to me when a lot of people prefer a DRM free copy. At least mention both! If you read PC Gamer as well, you'd see what I mean more clearly since it's even more obvious there (or used to be at least, I haven't read PCG UK in over a year).

But yeah, besides their bias, their moral crusades are getting old and tired too. Especially John Walker (and Kieron Gillen back when he was still contributing) is pretty bad at that. The hypocrisy is baffling there - going on about sexism and racism and ignoring pretty much every other stereotype in games. It's gotten way better over the years which they should applaud instead of harping on about it.

RPS is a blog in nature. They have certain preferences and it shows. I don't read them often because they're interested in games I'm not but I return there to read their "Feature" articles.

It's certainly a refreshing change after reading Eurogamer.net's fast and furious news.

Ironically, most of RPS used to write for Eurogamer and Eurogamer used to be pretty good until they kicked PC gaming news to the back. A lot of the reviews dumped the PC in with the console review which led to quite a few horrible results like the Risen review which bemoaned the controls and other stuff which only applied to the Xbox release. The PC release had no such issues.

To be honest, if there's one writer I greatly appreciate, it's Richard Cobbett - he's witty, intelligent and always seems to focus on the right parts of a game. Most other ex-PC Gamer writers tend to ignore too many obvious flaws.

I don't get it.

Paper beats rock, rock beats no one, shotgun beats both.

Why doesn't rock beat anyone? It would be obvious that you can use rocks to beat other people. It's a fucking rock, for crying out loud.

If there is console beside PC version, they always review console release :/. But frankly, I dislike more how they rate everything AAA 10/10 and if readers or buyers show a displeasure, they start writing news which nonchalantly diss the very same game.
I used to read Lost Humanity until they fired the writer (I think), now I primarily use it as a tracker of new games.

As for Richard Cobbett - He seems to write a lot for PCGamer which I don't read. Thanks for pointing him out; bookmarked :).

Richard's articles are always worth a read - he's a massive retro PC gaming fan as well - he writes crap shoot articles about crappy old PC games over on the PC Gamer website which you should definitely check out.

EDIT:

http://www.pcgamer.com/tag/crap-shoot/

Here's a link.

Rock beats shotgun. Makes a nice cover when you're getting shot at ;)

On a more serious note, the real game - roshambo originally come from asia.

the funny part though is they attack Origin, GFWL and other services for the same exact stuff Steam does but then praise Steam as the second coming of Christ and always link to Steam when talking about a game. Look at the THQ article someone posted above, taking THQ to task for console online pass systems while never mentioning Steamworks which is the ultimate version of that.

I defended them above for talking about Steam a lot because they like it and it's popular, but Red is right that they also tend to gloss over Steam's issues while hyperfocusing on similar issues from others.

In the end they can like what they like, sure, but journalists should also put everyone on the same playing field.

I don't know about their other articles, but I really love RPS's reviews. Even if I don't always agree with them, the writing is some of the best in the industry and they at least try to look at things from a broader, deeper analytical perspective.

They do seem to have a Steam bias, though. Even if this thread is itself woefully biased.

I don't prove it false. As far as I remember RPS writers often use phrases like "[designer's] god", "I love", "I have fond memories of [game]" which I don't associate with a professional journalism. But reading their "About Us":
t’s written by four of Britain’s top games journalists...
Perhaps I didn't get it and it is supposed to be a serious journalism. I guess I don't have high expectations because I hadn't known these guys exist until I randomly bumped into RPS. And they aren't exactly a website "certifying" games by GOTYs.

Still, it seems to be a personal, well-written project for a couple of gamers IMO. They write emotionally, I read them with that in mind.