What the hell is this crap!?

[SuaveStar]

i have to write an article about gaming going into the mainstream by friday and so far i have written this coinjoined piece of crap, i need help with things like knowing if it make sense and what needs to be expanded, like the title says i need to pass this article to pass my journalism class as college finishes in two weeks, god i hate my college(But thats another story) could someone please read this and say what they think makes sense, what doesnt work and what i should expnad, the article has quotes that i made up and aswell, because for some reason i meant to do an interview but the person fell through.

thanks for any help

suavestar(Austen)

It had been years, it had been years since I had actually heard anything on gaming going mainstream, the last time was when people were talking about Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies, which were terrible and did nothing but to say gaming was a teenage boys thing and all it was, was mindless violence, but now something had changed, something had been changed, but what was it, it was the introduction of a new console, that being the Nintendo Wii. Though the Wii wasn’t the first console to break into the mainstream, it was the most successful, the other two are the PlayStation and the Nintendo DS.

Gaming was known as little as five years ago, as the stereotypical boys toy, it was the type of thing you would do when you were young and a boy, of course when you got older, the belief was you’d grow out of it, and if you didn’t people thought less of you. “It has been weird the past few years for gaming, it’s really gone into mainstream with people more willing to play games now than ever before” Says Graeme Turnbull, assistant manager of gaming superstore GAME. So what changed, what changed people’s perception of gaming, I guess you could put it down to one very weird word-Wii.

The Nintendo Wii debuted in the UK in November of 2006, and started and is one of the fastest selling consoles in gaming history, why is this? Because it doesn’t advertise itself as a gaming console, in the words of Nintendo CEO Saturo Iwata “We’re not thinking about fighting Sony, but how many people we can get to play games” many were angry at Nintendo, believing they were trying to attach themselves to a market that does not exist, would this be the final nail in the Nintendo coffin? Many believed so, were they right, not in the slightest.

At E-3-a gaming conference for journalists to try out new games and consoles Nintendo showed off their new console codenamed the “Revolution” people were sceptical as to what Nintendo meant by “Attempting to reach the masses” what followed was the biggest turnaround in gaming history. The console was now known as the Wii now and it had motion controls, in the same way that Nintendo had revolutionised handhelds a few years before by introducing touch screens, Nintendo now had a new idea, motion controls. What followed was a serious of terrible jokes, and then the biggest launch in gaming history. Graeme remembers when he first heard about the Wii and the E-3 incident “Well everyone had heard of the name the Wii, and laughed at it. I mean we all made jokes like, you wait here I’ll go get my Wii, or where’s your Wii. People got over the name when they saw the console and what it was like, and how fun it could be” How fun it could be was right, now it was the talk of all journalists all across the country and the world, the Nintendo had done something revolutionary they had brought a past time that was meant to be fifteen year old boys in their bedroom, now it was ok to admit that you played games, it now was ok to say you owned a games console and you were some spotty fifteen year old boy, it now was ok to say I have a Wii.

The Wii came out and sold out almost instantaneously worldwide, it was the best selling toy at Christmas,but it wasn’t just kids playing the Wii, it was parents, aunts and uncles, even the grandparents were getting in on the act, people aged 85 were playing games for the first time and enjoying it, and it was all thanks to the Wii. Graeme laughs “We still get people coming into the shop and asking if we have Wii’s in stock, and usually we have to say they need to order one, or try a different shop as we are sold out, and it’s not because we don’t order enough, it’s because people are buying up as soon as they come in, it’s not out of the ordinary for the sign saying “Wii in stock” to go up and come down within a few days” Graeme is not joking, there are still signs up advertising that the console is stil only in short amounts of stock in major retailers. However the Wii is not the first console to make it into the mainstream, though it is the most successful in getting people who have never touched a game in their lives to play games, it is not the best seeling console, yet it is on course to be, that honour is Sony’s, and the console that did break into mainstream first was the PlayStation 2.

“The PlayStation 2 was the first console to be, a gaming console but at the same time, it was the first console to be multi-functional, it played DVD’s which was big as DVD’s were only just coming out and being the next big thing in entertainment” The PlayStation 2 was as close to mainstream as gaming would get as you would have a machine that would take two different things, that being a DVD player and a gaming console, so in essence the consumer was getting two different entertainments, only taking up the space of one, the only problem with this was you could not say you played games like “Okami, ”

[Guest]

Well, you made up quotes, so that alone is going to kill you pretty dead right off the bat.

[SuaveStar]

..........shit.

[Guest]

If you need actual quotes, you still have two whole days to do research. Not the end of the world, but your sentence structure and grammar need A LOT of work.

[James D.]

I see lots of grammatical problems here--most notably run-on sentences. Those will kill an essay or article before it even gets legs.

[SuaveStar]

Yeah, my grammar and sentence structure is terrible, i'll be the first to admit it.

is there anything you'd recommend to fix sentence structure?

like books or anything?

i bet this is bloody horrible to read, i say my work is like a car breaking down it just stops and starts repeatedly, getting nowhere.

[James D.]

It had been years, it had been years since I had actually heard anything on gaming going mainstream, the last time was when people were talking about Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies, which were terrible and did nothing but to say gaming was a teenage boys thing and all it was, was mindless violence, but now something had changed, something had been changed, but what was it, it was the introduction of a new console, that being the Nintendo Wii. Though the Wii wasn’t the first console to break into the mainstream, it was the most successful, the other two are the PlayStation and the Nintendo DS.

This is roughly six sentences disguised as two. You have to break this thing up because it looks really, really bad. The worst is here:

...which were terrible and did nothing but to say gaming was a teenage boys thing and all it was, was mindless violence, but now something had changed, something had been changed, but what was it, it was the introduction of a new console, that being the Nintendo Wii

Sloppy, redundant sentence structure that a professor will kill you for. Never, ever use the same word back to back in an essay except for the word "that" because it is a multifaceted word. And again, this is a huge run-on sentence with no breather and a lot of commas where periods should be. Though short sentences back to back to back are rarely a good thing, it's better to have that than one big nonsensical one with no point to it.

Also, I don't really think your first line is a good opening sentence for a paper. Professors HATE it when papers begin with:

"There are..."

"It is..."

"It had..."

"There have..."

...and the like. But also you repeat the first four words of your paper, which is easily fixed. Just erase the second occurence.

But my main non-grammatical problem is I have no clue what your thesis is. What is your argument here? What are you trying to persuade people to understand? You speak about "mainstream", but I have no idea what that is supposed to encompass because you start talking about video game movies and then shift to video game consoles. It's extremely disjointed.

I'm not ripping you or anything. I am just telling you what a professor is going to absolutely grill you for. Constructive criticism and all that.

[SuaveStar]

well it's meant to be like a proffesional article, so thats the s**t hit the fan there.

it was meant to be gaming getting into the mainstream with people who've never actually played games before, now actually playing them for the first time in there lives. and then i have to talk about how things have changed and it's not just the stereotype of boys playing games in there bedrooms anymore.

does that make more sense?(i'm not meaning in an insulting tone, or a "if you dont get it, you dont know what i'm talking about tone" i mean it like does it make sense why it's layed out like that? or does that just make it even worse?)

i'm all for constructive criticism as long as the outcome is a positive and not just someone being a dick for the sake of being a dic, then i'm all for it.

thanks for your help, i know this is taking up your time from doing something a lot better than reading this piece of crap work.(my work, not what your writing)

[James D.]

It's cool. I like to think that having an English teacher for a mother has taught me a few things about proofreading over the years. :smile:

[SuaveStar]

:laugh:

yeah, i wish i had actually paid more attention during english now.

[Dread]

Can the English teacher jump in? I may be too late but it's always good advice: read everything outloud and, in general, if you pause naturally more than twice when reading it will be a run-on. One idea per sentence or two conjoined/contrasted ideas only. Don't overthink. If you don't have the chops, faking a sophisticated sentence will out you in a second. But everyone enjoys an easy to read essay (he says, head in hands, two days before all of the marks for English 12 have to be in to the ministry).