This is something myself and Dave - being journalists ourselves - have talked about on many occasions over beers in the courtyard at our local: what is, and what should be, game journalism? And I'm glad the topic is getting some air again because I think the answer remains at large.
Like Dave, I think Kieron Gillen's New Games Journalism is an interesting starting point. It sent up a flare, warning us that lack of vigilance had let games journalism fall slack (or slacker). It had found a comfortable rut of complacent writing aimed more at satisfying the commercial imperatives of the 'money-men' than the desires of gamers.
New Games Journalism was an interesting alternate path - one that espoused gonzo journalism rather than the impartiality of traditional games journalism. Games journalism was to be more about the experience and less a buyer's guide for games.
The Review
I'm all for 'experience' - to a point. For the fact remains that much games journalism is, and should be, a buyers guide for games. While there is no direct analogue of games in other fields of journalism, such as film, music, travel or motoring magazines, there are similarities. And I think games journalism bares far more in common with motoring mags than travel mags.
Many of us read the game media, whether it be online or in print, to hear about new and upcoming games, and whether we should spend our hard earned cash (or download caps) on them. As such, that demand needs to be served by the game media.
Now this doesn't mean we should be satisfied with badly written reviews - or even worse, gushing previews. Reviewing things isn't easy: many do it poorly; some do it well. So what we should be demanding is not an end to impartial games reviews, but better game reviews.
A good game review should give the reader a visceral sensation of what it is like to play the game - a taste of the game's qualia, as it were. And through that, it should also give the reader an impression of whether they would enjoy the game. From there, it's left to the reader to decide whether they should buy it or not (which is why I dislike Editor's Picks - because the editor doesn't necessarily share my tastes in games).
A good game review doesn't necessarily need scores. However, I'm not opposed to scores - at least not as much as Dave - because I think there is an element of objectivity to a game. Once you account for genre and personal tastes, there are left other factors that contribute to the enjoyment of a game.
Consider film. A horror film could get full stars from every critic in the world, but I still won't go and see it. It's not my bag. But a film about politics, or sci-fi or something from the Cohen brothers could get four stars across the board, and I'll make sure I don't miss it. That's me placing my subjective filter over the reviews. But I still know that a horror film with five stars will, in some way, be better than a horror film with two stars. That's execution (if you'll excuse the pun).
And execution is objective. A rating that covers execution won't make someone who doesn't like RTSes or MMOs buy one. But it will help those who do like RTSes or MMOs pick between them. It's like when Jeremy Clarkson gets stuck in to MG. There's vitriol, there's outrage, there's subjectivity - but it rests on a foundation of objectivity: the MG doesn't compare to other cars in its class and price range.
Games reviews can do this. They can map the terrain of the game - to co-opt Gillen's travel analogy - and they can do so through the lens of the writer, but that writer needs to be good enough to ensure their lens acknowledges the underlying objective elements. They can give a score.
The Writers
Sadly, not many games journalists are good enough writers to pull this off. Heck, few motoring writers can pull off what Clarkson finds so easy. And this, above all other theoretical factors, is the single biggest problem games journalism faces. This is what Dave's talking about when he says New Games Journalism isn't flawed, it's just been poorly written to date.
I've seen it first hand. There are many people who are deluded into thinking that being a games journalist is the best job in the world short of being a professional beer taster or super model dresser. It's just not true. It's not an onerous job. But it's a job. And a hard job at that. One that requires intelligence, dedication and skill.
But publishers take full advantage of this phenomenon to recruit legions of young, enthusiastic and thoroughly inexperienced writers to handle their games publications. And on the whole, they're garbage. They're into playing games, not thinking about them.
It's easy enough to say that all we have to do is pay more and we'll get better writers, but it doesn't work that way. Gillen's money-men are still in charge, and while they're calling the shots, they'll hire the cheapest writers they can get away with.
And I think, on the whole, that won't change. There'll always be cheap games journalism that appeals to the masses - and the advertisers. It's up to us who want superior games journalism to fork out our cash to support the publications that deliver it. Which brings me to my third point.
Diversity
I find the manifesto for New Games Journalism appealing. But that's not all that I want. And it's certainly not what the majority of the general public want. They want this even less:
A New New Games Journalism is concerned with our very being-as-gamers, in light of the specific games we play. It is concerned with how games are both the expression of our societies and selves, and how they come to shape our personal lives in how we play them. It is not based on our opinions of whether a particular game is good or bad or boring or fun, but rather whether we should be playing these games at all or doing other kinds of things.
This comes from Chris at the Artful Gamer. It's his New New Games Journalism. And it's monumental guff.
Gamers don't want to hear about whether we should be doing something else. And car enthusiasts don't want to read about gardening. Chris's statement is just one of those lovely twists of reasoning that crop up from time to time that is just utterly and entirely wrong.
But that's not to say we should ignore this sentiment from Gillen's original manifesto:
It’s somewhat ironic – or rather, impressively dumb - that in my particular corner of publishing that the second the readers have a chance to play a game is the exact point where a games magazine has stopped talking about them in anything but the most cursory manner.
This I see as a second major stream of games journalism after reviews. It's simply writing about the joy of gaming. Not all motoring journalism concerns reviews either. There are pieces on great driving roads, new technological developments under the hood, future trends, great drivers, retrospectives, driving tips and tricks etc.
And this kind of writing allows more freedom for the journalist to inject some of their own perspective into things. It doesn't need to be opinion, but it can be intimate. There's just not enough of this kind of stuff. Heck, I remember reading strategy guides about games I didn't even play just because I wanted to read about gaming but couldn't stomach another review.
However, I can't see this kind of writing being anything more than a complementary stream to the main business of games buyer's guides. That's where the money is, so that's where journalism will go - at least in print. Online, however, is a different matter. Unfortunately, the low intellectual requirements for publishing online mean a majority of online-only journalism and blogs are appalling. Still, I maintain hope.
New Games Journalism is a noble endeavour, although one that will only ever be appreciated by a minority of gamers. But that's fine. Where there's a market, there's room for a product to fill it. And by the discussions presently going on about the future of games journalism, there certainly seems to me there's a market just waiting to be served. Just don't expect it from the mainstream press or kid bloggers.
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