joystiq – Joystiq is a fairly well known gaming website that does a variety of gaming related stuff like news, reviews, and podcasts. The blog also employs multiple writers and editors, so the website has a constant flow of general news and happenings in the gaming industry. However, the site doesn’t provide a lot of opinion posts (probably to avoid backlash and drama) so I’ll have to look elsewhere for those but a site like Joystiq is nice as it congregates all the gaming news into one place. Joystiq also includes the blogs Massively, which focuses on MMORPGs, and WoW Insider, which focuses on World of Warcraft.
Destructoid – Similar to Joystiq, Destructoid is another well known gaming blog that caters to mainstream audiences. It employs a variety of writers and editors for its articles, as well as other staff for video reviews, podcasts, and other gaming related shows that range from goofy to discussions of more serious topics within the gaming industry. I will probably be using this site and Joystiq as my general news blogs.
Kotaku – While Kotaku is also a fairly large gaming blog, I believe that it is not as good as it once was. Unlike Joystiq and Destructoid, Kotaku mainly focuses on its articles and news. However, over the years the amount of blog posts has increased along with a decrease in overall quality. This doesn’t mean that Kotaku will not be useful, as Kotaku seems to also provide information on more obscure gaming news that often doesn’t appear on more moderated websites like Joystiq. Because of this, I will most likely be visiting Kotaku for gaming news that may not be as big, but may still be interesting enough for me to investigate further.
BlondeNerd – As described by herself, this blog is run by a blonde female named Britt Brombacher. She began her blogging career as a small blogger on gaming website IGN. She eventually gained a following and began her own blogging website Blonde Nerd. Here she basically provides her input and perspective on gaming and the industry. I decided to follow this blog because there are still some stereotypes surrounding female gamers and following a blog led by one would provide a nice outlook from the perspective of the opposite sex.
Keen and Graev – This is another smaller blog, this time run by two brothers (Keen and Graev). While they also do reviews and live-streams, Keen and Graev focus on providing quality posts that are unique and provide discussion opportunities among their readers. This type of blog interests me greatly because more that just gaming news, Keen and Graev discuss issues withing gaming and the gaming industry that doesn’t have a definitive answer or fact. While the other blogs I’ve chosen such as joystiq and Destructoid focus on news, Keen and Graev seem to deviate away from that and focus on issues and theories. As such, I will probably be visiting this blog for discussion ideas.
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