Annotated Blogs

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.

Annotated Twitter List

@IGN – One of the biggest gaming websites currently on the net. Does a wide variety of stuff gaming related from reviews to general news.

@gameinformer – Biggest gaming magazine currently out there. Also does a variety of gaming related stuff like reviews and news.

@joystiq – Popular gaming website that does news, reviews, podcasts, and streams.

@majornelson – Basically the public representative for Xbox.

@Polygon – Yet another gaming website that provides news on the gaming industry.

@IGameToWin – A basic twitter handle that provides tweets referring to things happening within the gaming industry. This could include games themselves or their developers.

@VideoGameFacts – Provides gaming news along with other gaming related humor and facts.

Attention Journal

For one of the classes I’m taking right now, I’ve been assigned to do an Attention Journal! One hour where I record what I do for an hour in my free time, and another hour where I’m focusing as much of my attention as I can toward one thing.

First Attention Session: Sept. 9th 9:05pm – 10:05pm

9:05pm – Begin session by opening my browser and going straight to reddit

9:14pm – Gone through the first 4 pages and decided to check other websites like YouTube, various webcomics, and manga/anime

9:32pm – Got stuck on YouTube for a bit before realizing that I forgot all about the release of the game Destiny that I have been anticipating for a while. Now sad

9:34pm – Contemplated getting the game from Walmart or somewhere before giving up and waiting until tomorrow

9:37pm – Go back to reddit after quick bathroom break

9:39pm – Wearing headphones but no music. Go back to YouTube to put on some tunes

9:51pm – Get too invested in watching music videos. Back to reddit

10:05pm – Spent the rest of the time on reddit. Most of the time was on the subreddit /r/thelastairbender reading what other people thought about the recent finale

 

Now for the second session I really wanted to just play a game for an hour and that’ll be easy-peasy lemon-squeezy but instead I decided to focus on finishing my math homework.

Second Attention Session: Sept. 10th 12:30pm – 1:30pm

12:30pm – Begin my Linear Algebra homework

12:34pm – Put on some headphones so I can listen to music while I work

12:45pm – Make it through the first 2 multi-part questions

12:53pm – Question 3 done

12:54pm – Oops, can’t remember how to do Question 4. Onto question 5

12:55pm – Changed the song I’m listening to

1:18pm – Question 5 done. Had to bust open my textbook for this one

1:24pm – Question 6 done

1:30pm – Still on question 7 at the 1 hour-mark

 

Now while I didn’t finish my homework within the hour, I actually got pretty close and I finished it a short while later. Not sure what to think about the results since this is my first ever Attention Journal, but there you go!

About

Welcome to The Player’s Lounge! The Player’s Lounge is a blog about analyzing the video game industry from topics such as influential people and their decisions, or about the contents of certain games and what they mean or how they can change. Instead of many other gaming websites that only post news and reviews of video games, I hope to delve deeper into the industry itself to discuss genres, developers, or perhaps issues within games that could possibly use some changing.

Thank You.