https://aftermath.site/its-exhausting-trying-to-read-video-game-website-headlines
You're not the Riddler, just tell me what this is about
Every day I wake up in the morning, get on the internet and feel increasingly like Batman trapped in an elaborate puzzle room by the Riddler.
This is something I've noticed for a while now, but haven't been able to really describe. This shift away from clickbait headlines towards cryptic headlines that just refuse to tell you what they're talking about. Like The Best Part of Alan Wake Is Now On Youtube or The Best Soulslike Of 2023 Just Got Easier. And those are just a few that I've seen today. Maybe it will fade away like the worst clickbait headlines did or they'll just keep getting so cryptic and opaque that one day the headlines will be: Something Just Happened.
I mean, they are literally clickbait. They want you to wonder what the best part of Alan Wake is or what the best soullike of 2023 is. It's just an evolution of clickbait, but it's still very much clickbait.
I’ve literally taken to pasting the articles into GPT and asking it to summarize the articles. I imagine they will be the next causality in the coming AI wars.
I would honestly be inclined to pay for a non bs news service, no clickbait titles, no SEO bs in the article which makes it 30 times as long for no reason. Just facts
There’s just too many papers and news sources out there to make subscriptions viable.
Someone needs to start a non-profit that works with news organizations to get paid per click for ad free no-BS news.
From the users POV it would be like topping up your cell phone minute or whatever.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that's less likely to click on articles like that! If they're not going to give me an idea of what I'm clicking on, I generally don't read it. It's usually possible to find a few websites that have informative headlines.
You are not the only one but there are enough who actually click those titels so it is worthwhile for them to write in this manner and they don't care about the few of us.
Unfortunately that's not just gaming related news, but all news (and non-news).
It's by design. It leaves you wondering (and ideally click on the article).
What I actually would like to know if journalists, or whoever writes the articles, are picking these headlines consciously or if they're following guidelines. I can imagine both scenarios.
Can't speak for all publications, especially ones as non traditional as game journalism, but what people say over and over again is that the authors don't write the headlines
If you click on the article, spend two seconds on it, and don't actually read it, have you actually fulfilled the marketing goals of the web site?
For one, you haven't actually read anything, so there's nothing to register "this is a good web site with good content and I will read their articles in the future". No reputation bump from it.
And two, you didn't have time to actually see the ads, that is, if you didn't already had an ad-blocker in the first place.
The goals of clickbait don't actually align with the goals of their profitability.
Well, obviously someone did the math and figured out it's better to have these titles than not. So I'd say you're wrong.
If the title makes more people click in the first place and the amount of people who stay to read at least until they know they're not interested, is bigger than the number of visitors if they had a normal title... the stupid title wins.