Jornalismo de games: informação ou publicidade?

Abstract

Videogames are a growing industry around the world, reaching the billion-dollar mark in revenue every year. This industry ended up generating magazines in the early 80's, created by the very brands that owned the games, so that consumers had more information about some product of the brand. These magazines evolved until we got to news sites and editorials specialized in news about videogames and their like. This research aims to analyze how journalistic production on video games can be influenced by advertising, since the object of the news are products of capitalism. For this, we used tools of the methodology of data analysis in two news sites, IGN Brasil and Voxel, in the period of one year that comprises the journalistic production aimed at reporting the launch of the 9th generation of consoles: the Xbox Series X from Microsoft and the PlayStation 5 from Sony, between 2020 and 2021.The result of the analysis pointed out that this journalistic production has a balance relationship with regard to the ways of approach and focus on the theme. While it does not stop adding positive values about the products, game journalism often questions the brands of which it informs and treats the facts with questions for and against. The relationship between journalism and advertising in this editorial is complementary and these two areas of communication merge without being mischaracterized.