So, I imagine everyone here used GameSpy as at least one of their main sources of gaming news and/or reviews at some point in their lives. Back in 2001/2002 I think I mostly used GameSpy Daily for news, and GameSpy and GameSpot for reviews. I used 3DGamers.com for files and downloads back when that sort of thing mattered, as my ISP mirrored their stuff.

GameSpy has obviously changed a lot -they have just 7 staff now. To be honest I don't really use them for anything anymore. I remember when 1up.com launched to much fanfare, but it seems to have been given the usual IGN-buy-to-destroy treatment and looks like a husk of it's former self now as well. 3DGamers also got bought by IGN and no longer exists - which pissed me off at the time, but now seems quite irrelevant with Steam and ISP changes in Oz resulting in decent download limits.

I also used FiringSquad.com for a good many years but it is now pretty much dead - not bought or anything, it just seems to have run out of steam. It did pretty good hardware and game reviews so it was a good single source.

These days I don't use much of anything aside from my old ISP's gaming website which has been running in some form or another for many years alongside their various game servers, but has only recently become quite professional. I haven't really felt the need for more since I don't game as much as I used to, but also if I do get a game, I tend to get info on it from either metacritic (for user impressions), or game-specific sites like CivFanatics.com.

The latest newcomer I have seen appears to be Vox Media's Polygon. So far I am liking the long-form and I'll probably start using it for reviews. It's Homefront feature was pretty good. Early days, as it only launched a bit over a week ago. It's forums are that lightweight Web 2.0 format that I hate, so I'll likely just stick to the content.

What have you guys used in the past, and what are you using now?

I've always read IGN reviews (Yes, I'm a heathen). I've found that I tend to agree with their point of view.

I used the Escapist for a while, but the quality of their writing dropped off massively all of a sudden, and this also coincided with a sharp increase in the "articles harvested from elsewhere and rebranded as theirs" style of journalism, which I've always fucking despised.

Especially if the only content of your own is your extra spelling mistakes and factual errors.

So I've rather gone off them.

I've read some stuff on RPS that I like, but can't say I go there regularly. Similarly, I check out metacritic now and again (usually if Steam flags up a game I have never heard of).

-

For actual, up to date, finger on the pulse gaming news, well I've got a 17 year old son, so I really just wait for him to tell me what he's excited about (and then I tell him it's probably going to be shit, and shouldn't he be doing his homework, while I look up all the videos and put in a pre-order for myself, because that's my job, dammit).

Ironically I never actually used Gamespy for news, except 3DAP of course :P.

Usually I visit Joystick.com or The Escapist. Pretty much all the news gets cycled between all the sites anyways. For more industry related stuff I visit Gamasutra.com. Totalbiscuit has started a new series to replace The Mailbox called Content Patch that goes through the news. Unfortunately since he wants to give some decent commentary on it each item is generally a day old.

For more specific stuff I check out RPGamer.com and Massively(yes I know it's just Joystick). Also I go to MMOBomb.com for f2p stuff. I used to go to MMORPG.com but their site design, color scheme and now their writing has gone to shyt.

I have the ShackNews, RockPaperShotgun and CoOptimus(PC) feeds in my browser folder quickbar thingamabob. The rest I grab from combining all gaming subreddits excluding all pokemans bullshit subreddits (like /r/gaming).

I find that games journalism ends to have a sort of cyclical nature. Someone out there is doing really great work and then for business reasons it doesn't work and someone else starts doing that great work.

The Past

Gamespy: The Gamespy of 2000 or so was a really cool and progressive site. They were doing a lot of weird stuff, the Gaming gourmet, The Friday Frag, a weekly radio show, a predecessor to gaming podcasts in a lot of ways. The daily victim, the week showdown, etc. All of this led to the site having a personality all it's own that was frankly a lot more interesting to me than the latest preview of Return to Castle Wolfenstein or something.


Gamespot: On the tail end of that stuff were the glory days of Gamespot and the birth of personality led games journalism. They really pushed a bunch of cool media stuff out there. They had really great opinion pages that ran on the weekend, and Greg Kasavin became sort of a cult figure. Also Jeff Gerstman who I didn't agree with as much about games, but he was very funny on podcasts and video shows. Though it was a bit in the waning days by then this came to a halt with the much discussed Gerstman gate. This year when Giantbomb got purchased by CBS interactive parent company of Gamespot it came to light that yes, he was fired over a review score that a publisher didn't like. It wasn't just about Kane and Lynch but it was a lot about Kane and Lynch.

1up: After Gerstman-gate it was the era of 1up. They really were doing some amazing stuff with podcasts. The 1up Show, 1up Yours, EGM & GFW Radio, Retronauts. They really had a whole network of shows out there for people to listen to and watch. They also really had an interesting vision for magazines that I got sold on from the site. Instead of just duplicating the function of magazines on the web they would use them for a different kind of purpose. They would be different kinds of production. Sadly this wasn't making them much money and almost everyone involved was sacked.


Present
Giant Bomb: This is really the best and brightest star in terms of doing interesting content around games right now. They do a ton of video content that's very entertaining. I watch their quicklooks on a regular basis on my Roku box and the Giant Bombcast is hysterical and is a regular part of my weekly commute.

Polygon: This is a brand new site formed by the parent company of The verge and they do some pretty good text stories. Giant Bomb is a bit of a media focused site, this is a text focused site. It's also one of the most modern beautiful layouts you can find in gaming.

Kotaku: For news and I love the Kotaku East bit they have in the morning of weird bits of Asian gaming and culture.

Twitter& Blogs: Actually these are probably my favorite place for gaming discussion. There are tons of great people out there on Twitter and Blogs who produce great content.

In Reply To #6

Oh, I remember Gerstmangate. That was a sad affair indeed.

I did use Kotaku from time to time, usually because it would break news sooner than other destinations around the web - so they were linked to from other sites pretty often. Maybe it was easier for them because of the blog format, or maybe they just had their finger moreso on the pulse, I don't know. Can't say I frequent it anymore though.

In Reply To #7
If speed is a going concern for you then I honestly think there's no other source but Twitter. My morning news consumption usually amounts to scrolling through twitter and adding stuff to instapaper then reading the news.

I think Kotaku was largely able to push ahead of sites like Gamespot and 1up because they weren't trying to adapt print-style traditions to their site they were just building out a Gawker blog; a brand built on being first and rapidly iterating on a story.

Nowadays though as good as Joystiq and Kotaku are they're slow and also kind of unpleasant to try to navigate on an iPhone or iPad.

In Reply To #8

The Flipboard App is quite helpful when it comes to following lists and RSS feed groups.

In Reply To #9

Flipboard, along with Tweetbot & Instapaper are among my favorite apps.

I enjoy reading Kill Screen from time to time. More of an opinion site.

http://www.killscreendaily.com/

Giantbomb is all the gaming website you will ever need. Their weekly Bombcast is pretty much my favourite podcast.

I'm also fond of Eurogamer.