This is an important story, and one that every video game news site worth it's hard drive should be covering. I'm just pointing out that there are other, potentially more far-reaching stories out there that many sites seem to be missing.
Anyway, the press release has a lot of PR-speak, but very few facts outside of:
- EA will be making games for the N-Gage.
- EA's N-Gage games will be "beginning this year for the holiday season"
- A psuedo-fact: EA will "make use of all the great features of the Nokia N-Gage."
The following stories are ranked in increasing order by that rough metric (and the rest of my own personal opinions), in Big Bold Links Format (as pioneered in that big bold link). Let's do it.
Gamers.com - EA Supports Nokia's N-Gage
It was a close race between Gamers.com and Gamespot here, but Gamers edged out the bottom spot by pulling the following quote directly from the Nokia press release:
"This is a great opportunity for us to extend titles from EA Sports and EA Games onto a new and exciting game platform," said EA Executive Vice President of North American Publishing Nancy Smith. "We plan to make use of all the great features of the Nokia N-Gage."
To the author: How much are you getting paid to write these stories? I bet Nokia will pay you more if you tell them beforehand that you'll be repeating their material verbatim.
The article says that Gamers confirmed with, "various sources at the ongoing ECTS trade show," but fails to mention if any of these sources are, in fact, not press releases. Gamers redeems itself by providing a little analysis about the deal's importance to Nokia, but all in all a dissapointing article.
Spong - EA N-Gage; New mobile platform receives support from the big boys
I'm confused why the plural "big boys" is used in this sub-headline as Electronic Arts is one company, last I checked. Anyway, this article is a little more informative than some that are above it, but loses mega-points for taking another quote straight from the press release:
"This is a great opportunity for us to extend titles from EA SPORTS and EA GAMES"
Not only is this a bad quote, but it's not even the full quote. The press release called it an opportunity to "... extend titles from EA SPORTS and EA GAMES onto a new and exciting game platform." Without this part, the sentence makes little to no sense. Maybe they left it off to avoid sounding like they were being a mouthpiece for a corporate PR man. Well, that obviously failed.
As a sidenote here, let me say that I'm not totally against quoting from press releases in all cases. If it's a really good quote that fits a need your story has, it's ok to do occasionally. But if you're going to have only one quote in your story, try to make it one that is not from the press material that every single outlet has. Either get something that sets you apart or just don't use a quote in that story.
Gamespot - EA committed to N-Gage
You would think a site that already has its own dedicated N-gage section would do a little better job covering what is possibly the biggest partnership in its tiny life. But Gamespot couldn't even muster up more than two sentences for this story. Two sentences! This story is actually less informative than the press release, which is hard to believe given that the press release had almost no information. In fact, the story gives almost no information that wasn't provided in the headline. I just wasted a perfectly good click on you, Gamespot. Thanks for nothing.
GameSpy - Electronic Arts Titles to N-Gage
I haven't figured out a way to link to GameSpy's archived news yet, so here's there story in its entirety:
Electronic Arts will make titles from its EA SPORTS and EA Games brand available on the N-Gage, Nokia announced today. Under the agreement the publisher will deliver its first N-Gage games during the holiday season. Stay with GameSpy N-Gage for the latest details on this deal.
Another big gaming site that doesn't seem to care about this announcement. What good is having a whole section devoted to a system if such big news about the system only gets a cursory glance. This just barely edges out the the Gamespot story by pointing visitors to the N-Gage section and promising more details to come. But just barely
AdrenalineVault - N-Gage Gets Games
Uh, actually the N-Gage had some games before this, so the headline is a little misleading. Nonetheless, this is a nice little summary article culled from the bigger, badder Reuter's article (see below). It is only three sentences, but at least the sentences are fleshed out, and the system's release date and price are mentioned for the uninformed. Considering AVault's PC focus, this is a decent story.
Gamerfeed - Electronic Arts to Develop for N-Gage
The oftentimes king of the one paragraph story, Gamerfeed comes out with a surprisingly meaty look at the EA, N-gage situation. The article starts by noting the widespread criticism of the young system, (context!) and then gives the important fact that the deal will give the N-Gage 20 more titles by Christmas. (Gamerfeed doesn't mention this, but the source for this was probably the superior Reuters article - see below).
The rest of the article is mostly information culled from Reuters, but it still contains important information about the European price point and opinions on the price from both EA and Nokia. Gamerfeed may have gotten most of their information directly from another article, but they managed to give the important points concisely and add some context of their own as well. A good example of link-and-quote journalism done right.
Reuters - Nokia Recruits Electronic Arts for N-Gage Games
Noticing a pattern in these headlines yet? Anyway, Reuters stomps most of the competition with a comprehensive article that goes well beyond the press release lite that most game sites offered.
While good reporting on the European price point and the concerns it is raising are nice, it's the little things that make this article stand out. Mentioning that Nokia is "the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phone handsets," and highlighting some of EA's important franchises are little details that help the mainstream reader. Granted, some of these details are already known by most gamers, but not everyone who reads a video game website is as knowledgable as those who write them. Little details like these make your story richer and increase your audience by providing more information to those who aren't already insiders.
GamesIndustry.biz - EA set to develop for N-Gage
To everyone else on this list: pay attention. This is how to do this story right.
Right of the bat, in the lead sentence, you get the most important fact (EA is developing for N-Gage) and why it's importnat (much needed credibility for Nokia).
The next graph mentions the timeframe for release and notes the use of Nokia's mutliplayer capabilities for these games (I'm not sure where they got this information though. Maybe extrapolating from the press release?)
Then they give what is potentially the most important piece of context in the whole article: What other companies are developing for N-Gage. I'm amazed that no other article I found mentioned any of these companies! How else are we going to gauge the importance of this story without knowing the development landscape that EA has now gotten itself into. I follow video game news pretty regularly, and even I didn't remember what companies were already signed on the for the portable. How is the casual gamer suppsoed to know this? (Not that GI.biz is written for the casual gamer, but you should never assume your audience knows anything that's potentially important)
The article goes on to talk more about EA's importance in the industry and discuss the european price point from the unique angle of mobile phone subsidies (well, not unique really. They cite European trade magazine MCV. But it was new to me, anyway). The only downside to the coverage? The EA deal is not even mentioned in another article discussing the console's roadmap. Oh well, you can't always get what you want, right?
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