The phrase "New Games Journalism" is almost like a curse in the gaming press. Jeff Gerstmann, formerly of GameSpot and now of Giant Bomb, has totally resisted the phrase, suggesting that the game press shouldn't aim for the example of Edward R. Murrow or Pauline Kael. This is an opinion shared by many writers in the industry, including those at 1up.com, IGN.com and Future US.
While I certainly value Gerstmann's opinion as a long term veteran of the gaming press, I feel that this is extremely shortsighted. He advocates a "consumer reports" type approach to reviews. The facts and just the facts. What's good, what's bad, and why you should or should not buy the game. Unfortunately, I believe that this style of review is essentially impossible - Gerstmann's own Kane and Lynch review and the subsequent controversy would seem to disprove his position on the issue.
Shawn Elliot of the now defunct Games For Windows Magazine once called the press "professional enthusiasts" and recently referred to his occupation as a "game boner stoker", a not so subtle admission that the current state of games journalism is anything but journalism.
Not surprisingly, GFW Magazine and CGW Magazine was one of the few American game enthusiast magazines to print multi-page articles not tied to a new preview of Halo 5 or Final Fantasy 17 EX Crystalis or whatever the hot new game of the moment might be. Yes, they do the previews, but they've also featured articles examining Christian gaming and Islamic gaming, topics that are anathema in the gaming press. Freelancers such Lara Crigger and Evan Shamoon contributed articles to the magazine on peripheral issues related to gaming or on small games that would never make the cover of the magazine. I should stop before this turns into a full blown eulogy.
(I should note that I share the same opinion of Game Informer magazine. While other gaming press outlets were left wondering why Koreans like Starcraft, Game Informer sent someone to Korea to actually try to answer the question. The writer interviewed Koreans, went to PC Bangs, and did what journalists who want to answer a question usually do - investigate. The result was a 10+ page spread in a magazine usually devoted to console games... not on Starcraft 2 itself, but on the role of Starcraft in Korea.)
While the closure of the magazine would seem to indicate that people who play games do not want these types of articles, I believe in the contrary. N'Gai Croal and the MTV Multiplayer Blog prove that you can have more in depth articles that are not game previews or reviews. Indeed, Patrick Klepek's recent investigative article on the 360 remote would indicate that there is space for game journalists to actually be journalists and not be the mouth piece of large game companies.
Should the gaming press aspire to Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert or Edward R. Murrow? It's only games, right? Games aren't as serious as film or the news. But why not try your best? Why not aim to have your name added to that lexicon of journalists? What are games journalists and game players afraid of? It's time to grow up and I, for one, anticipate reading the work of the next Pauline Kael of games journalism.
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2 comments:
Of course there are deeper issues and stories out there in the gaming sphere that aren't being told.
The problem is, there are a lot of old people who treat gaming differently that just about everything else in life. This is not to say that the old people are bringing us down, but even the GFW staff commented on how there will be a different attitude toward gaming once the next generation gets to where they are now.
I do a lot of work writing critical essays over popular games and games that may be below most's intellectual radar in attempt to elevate the discourse around gaming.
I do consider myself a videogame journalist only because I reach out to gaming communities and ask the difficult questions that seek to link us all together.
For me, it's more a case of the tone of the writing than anything else. Gerstmann and other journalists who don't like 'New Games Journalism' have gone further than mere consumer reports before: they're called features.
A lot of what is now being labelled 'New Games Journalism' just tends to be over-inflated, self-important rubbish. Writing a review of a novel written by a reviewer that seems to think he or she is our society's great undiscovered writer is irritating, but when it's a game review, it's ridiculous.
The post-modern trend has corrupted many of the social sciences and all of literary theory since the 1970s. Why would we willingly invite such verbosity into a medium that, at it's best, is defined by innovation? If 'New Games Journalism' is an attempt to introduce introspection into the industry, I'm not interested.
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