Culture Clash

(October 2008)

It Might be Fun to Run a Newspaper

As gaming evolves, so must journalism

A few years ago, this space played host to a duo of columns that, across the span of two months, called out the industry press for immaturity and issued a plea for more adult, serious reporting and criticism about the videogame medium. Going back through my email archives, I see that these two columns spawned:

1. 61 messages agreeing and wondering why games magazines are so silly
2. 23 messages from people saying that Edge magazine is really good
3. Two messages from competing publishers loudly insisting that their periodicals were, in fact, very mature and that I should shut it
4. One message from a middle school student asking how he could get a job at EGM

In the time that's passed since, the landscape has changed pretty significantly, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Computer Gaming World and its subsequent rechristening as Games for Windows seemed to be moving toward the sort of serious journalism I'd been hoping for (disclosure: I did some writing for GFW last year), each issue featuring more articles on industry trends, major subjects like piracy and legislation, even cultural dissections of MMO life. And the magazine managed to accomplish this while still retaining the pleasant silliness of Tom vs. Bruce and the light tone of its writing. Then it ceased publication and shut down, putting all its eggs online in the – and I probably won't get more work from them after saying this, but it's true – rather vapid 1UP Network. Sadly, most of the major gaming news sites focus more on top five lists and features on cakes baked in the shape of game characters than on serious reporting. That's unfortunate, because online is the perfect place for it. No printing costs, no subscriber rage – none of the things that force paper magazines to limit words and cater to the masses. But instead of capitalizing on these inherent advantages, many game sites have gone the other way.

Back in the paper kingdom, Edge is still so essential to serious industry watchers that it easily justifies the cost of importing the luscious UK publication. Game Informer, also, tends to surprise me with the quality and depth of its writing, though the magazine is pretty committed to previews and reviews and not much else. Beyond that, though, things get bleaker. Play is amusing to read, for example, but no one takes it seriously. It's mostly T&A and closed-system fanboyism. They recently dropped numeric scores from their reviews, which I normally applaud; but in this case I suspect it was done because the magazine has become something of a joke for giving perfect 10s to… well, everything, and particularly anything featured on its cover.

Meanwhile, online outlets like The Escapist (disclosure: did some work for them too) and The Gamer's Quarter produce the kind of in-depth coverage that the medium needs, stuff that's articulate and thoughtful. The Thursday editorials sent to people on the gamesindustry.biz mailing list are so provocative and eloquent that each time I read one I feel more than a little inferior. And there are highly talented, often independent individuals who offer outstanding work – Tom Chick, Bill Harris, N'Gai Croal, Wagner James Au – people you can always count on for great prose, sapient analysis and solid reporting.

A recent piece by Gus Mastrapa bemoans the role of game journalists as hype shills, printing their previews and building anticipation for the relentless engine of commerce. As with movies, gaming is a business first and an art form second; every facet of the industry is involved, somehow, in the marketing and moving of product. This creates an obvious danger for journalists, since gaming periodicals and websites tend to cover products and companies that also represent their main sources of revenue, as Jeff Gerstmann learned to his sorrow. It doesn't create an atmosphere conducive to critical analysis and reporting. Until that changes, journalism reform is unlikely, and we'll continue to see the best stuff at small, independent outlets or those that are funded by dollars outside the industry.

But that's not all there is to it. Journalists, too, sometimes lose sight of their role, getting carried away with the whole “I get paid to play games” thing. Just because you get paid to play games doesn't mean you don't have a serious job, and a responsibility to behave properly when PR reps come wooing. Beyond that, there's more to be done than previews and reviews – even more than just analysis and trend coverage. One thing I'd personally like to see a lot more of is simple discussion of games. All art forms have one purpose: to evoke an emotional reaction in the consumer. Criticism of art means examining that reaction and coming to a philosophical understanding of the cause and effect relationship. It's not necessarily boring university sludge, either – skilled film critics make every movie they “review” into an act of criticism. A review looks at light in a game and says that the lighting effects are cool, possibly rattling off the requisite technical blather. A critic looking at the same light in the same game would talk about how it is woven into the visual experience to create feelings: exuberance, dread, loneliness, whatever. At the end of the day, both reviews and criticism can tell you whether a game's worth buying. But one threatens to trivialize the medium, while the other reveals its gravity.

As always, though, the pendulum swings the other way. Here I accuse games journalists of failing to show sufficient gravitas as regards their chosen medium, failing to criticize when they can review, and failing to report when they can simply recite PR-speak uttered at press junkets. Then along comes Doug Lowenstein accusing journalists of “creating” games-kryptonite Jack Thompson, oh so recently stripped of dignity, employability, and bar membership (but not lunacy) by the Florida Supreme Court. By covering Thompson, Lowenstein claims, games journalists made him into the threat he was.

To which I say: horseshit. First off, Thompson rebutted every serious request from serious games journalists to have a serious conversation about his views, though such requests were distressingly few and far between. Second, when the medium you cover is attacked, you're damn right journalists are going to write about it. My complaint is that too many games journalists aren't serious about their profession. Lowenstein, former head of the ESA – which represents game publishers, a group that would very much prefer that games journalists do as they're told and say as they're told, complains that journalism created a monster. Look, Jack Thompson isn't Mickey and Mallory Knox; no media made him. He's a spotlight chaser, pure and simple. Had the industry been able to ignore his behavior, it might have been better to do so. But to accuse those whose job it is to cover and comment on this industry of being irresponsible by discussing at length a genuine threat to the medium stinks of that “game journalists are tools not reporters” attitude we've got to get away from.

In the years since I wrote that pair of columns telling the industry press to grow up, things have changed. Some good magazines have regrettably closed up shop. Survivors still run the gamut from serious journalism to boisterous stupidity. And the web's influence has continued to grow. We've now reached a turning point where thematically important games are becoming more prevalent and successful, all but begging for the rise of more serious analysis and responsible journalism. Over the next few years, we will see whether those who cover the industry answer the call.