Gaming Journalism is Obsolete...

[thublihnk]

Except The Escapist. This MAY sound like my trying to cover my ass, but with some pretty clear cut exceptions, it's true, though obsolete may be a strong word. Let me explain:

Gaming journalism since the time it began has usually resembled tech magazines in format and in focus, and for a long time that has been what was necessary. Designers were really concerned about making people look like people and just making things f*cking MOVE properly when you hit the damned button. So, properly, the gaming media picked up on the latest story about people looking more like people and not getting stuck behind invisible barriers with their arms randomly falling off. Great!

Here's the rub, folks. Now people look like people. No one's arms are falling off. Save some pretty game-changing advancements like motion control, there's not a lot of new tech out there that's really all that important. So has the focus shifted? Kinda. Not really.

Recently, I picked up a Game Informer that I, for some reason, still have delivered to my house and popped open the reviews. I found it to be more of a 'buyer's guide' than any kind of meaningful criticism. Every review is specifically tailored to the audience. A review for a recent NHL game will go into the crispness of the graphics, go into minor tweaks of gameplay over the last edition, but it rarely comments on the worth of the game as a whole. It rates it for the fans, which is wonderful for subscribers of 'NHL Vidja Gamez Quarterly', but as a discerning fan of video games, spotting that big, tasty '9/10' on the page makes me think (if only for a fleeting moment) that hey, this sucker might be just as worth my dollars as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (9) or God of War 2(9.25). (In case anyone just wants to get on GI's case about this, darling of the Vidja Games world IGN had a similar spread, though GOW 2 had a bit of a spike)

The point I'm roundaboutedly making here is that these publications show a weird slant, not necessarily against the artistic viability of the medium, more that high-tech and sometimes even commercial viability are weighted the same as a game with truly great artistic merits. Let's face it, you can enjoy the crap out of an NHL game and I'm not here to tell you you can't, but it is by no means even aspiring to be high art, but god DAMN that shadow mapping is flawless. Seriously guys I know we folk don't really give them much of a day in court but have you guys looked at sports games recently? GORGEOUS graphics.

Sorry! Tangent! A tangent that is damaging to my argument. A more able and less lazy writer would just cut that right out. Oh well. Anyway, what I'm saying is that while the attitude of 'bigger specs=better' works wonderfully when you're trying to buy a bike, but we're trying to be more than the shiniest toy right now. At least we should be. We're trying to be an art. Think about it: when was the last time you opened up Rotten Tomatoes (or my local favorite Film School Rejects, PLUG http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/ ) you RARELY find them talking about the cameras or the lighting tech, or what kind of film they're using unless it's immediately relevant, because the film industry is past that (CGI is a different story, and if you folks want to get caught up in those semantics, I'll have that discussion, but this post is already running LOOONG).

Point is films can get a sharp picture, have everything move reliably onto a viewable medium, etc and whatnots. What does film criticism ALWAYS have that the games industry seems to only want to point out SOME of the time? They point out the writing, and the acting, (VO acting on our end) how satisfying the story was, and how interesting (note: not accurate) of a picture was being painted before us. You know why? That's what is important, and that is what is going to shut up the Roger Eberts of the world. (You see what I did there?)

Just to make a quick, concise point at the end to wrap everything up and to make things easy for you TL;DR folks: We're not just a technology anymore. We've moved past the ages of the Nickelodeons. Now it's time to start looking for our Citizen Kane.

 

[Racecarlock]

In other words, gameplay should be the focus instead of graphics? Why didn't you use that for your tl;dr? Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything in your post, but please don't type in metaphors. That just confuses and frustrates people.

 

[thublihnk]

In other words, gameplay should be the focus instead of graphics? Why didn't you use that for your tl;dr? Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything in your post, but please don't type in metaphors. That just confuses and frustrates people.

Because my TL;DR isn't for the folks who don't understand what I was trying to say, it's for people who skimmed it. Sorry, I get a little flourishey sometimes. Also I don't like the TL;DR people. They're lazy and I have pretty words.

EDIT: Also, it's not just gameplay. It's the artistry of the experience, the craftsmanship. Beyond making dudes go where they're supposed to go.

 

[NewYork_Comedian]

In other words, gameplay should be the focus instead of graphics? Why didn't you use that for your tl;dr? Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything in your post, but please don't type in metaphors. That just confuses and frustrates people.

Because my TL;DR isn't for the folks who don't understand what I was trying to say, it's for people who skimmed it. Sorry, I get a little flourishey sometimes. Also I don't like the TL;DR people. They're lazy and I have pretty words.

EDIT: Also, it's not just gameplay. It's the artistry of the experience, the craftsmanship. Beyond making dudes go where they're supposed to go.

You mean the narrative? i.e. story, atmosphere, dialogue, ect.

 

[thublihnk]

In other words, gameplay should be the focus instead of graphics? Why didn't you use that for your tl;dr? Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything in your post, but please don't type in metaphors. That just confuses and frustrates people.

Because my TL;DR isn't for the folks who don't understand what I was trying to say, it's for people who skimmed it. Sorry, I get a little flourishey sometimes. Also I don't like the TL;DR people. They're lazy and I have pretty words.

EDIT: Also, it's not just gameplay. It's the artistry of the experience, the craftsmanship. Beyond making dudes go where they're supposed to go.

You mean the narrative? i.e. story, atmosphere, dialogue, ect.

Exactly! Thanks, sometimes certain words escape me, so I just use a LOT--the machine gun approach to writing.

 

[lucky_bob45]

you enter unsteady ground by using a sports game as your example. the majority of people who buy sporting games are not your hardcore gaming audience and jourlists know this. they talor the review to be welcoming to a niche market who may have only picked up the magazine or gone to the website to see if its worth upgrading to the latest madden. people who play spot games generally have an interest in that sport and are going to know the basics of the gameplay element, they may have been playing versions of it for five or ten years. plus when essentially the same game is brought out every year, what are you going to talk about?

its also pretty harsh to denounce the usefullness of videogame journalism based purely on reviews. while reviews and even previews are the core of videogame journalism the fact is that it is throught video game journalism that gamers have a community and a culture outside of actually playing the games. the escapist being a prime example (even if you did say "except escapist").

anyway i dont wholeheartedly disagree, there are many aspects of Gaming Journalism that should change and some things that changed that should of. thanks for sharing your opinion. but perhaps next time look for words that are more apropos than "pretty"

 

[thublihnk]

you enter unsteady ground by using a sports game as your example. the majority of people who buy sporting games are not your hardcore gaming audience and jourlists know this. they talor the review to be welcoming to a niche market who may have only picked up the magazine or gone to the website to see if its worth upgrading to the latest madden. people who play spot games generally have an interest in that sport and are going to know the basics of the gameplay element, they may have been playing versions of it for five or ten years. plus when essentially the same game is brought out every year, what are you going to talk about?

its also pretty harsh to denounce the usefullness of videogame journalism based purely on reviews. while reviews and even previews are the core of videogame journalism the fact is that it is throught video game journalism that gamers have a community and a culture outside of actually playing the games. the escapist being a prime example (even if you did say "except escapist").

anyway i dont wholeheartedly disagree, there are many aspects of Gaming Journalism that should change and some things that changed that should of. thanks for sharing your opinion. but perhaps next time look for words that are more apropos than "pretty"

I feel the sports games are a perfect symptom of the problem for just that reason. Again, a serious game criticism shouldn't be based on 'what are the fans going to think?', it should be based on whether or not a game is a valid artistic piece.

Also, yeah, the more 'human interestey' stuff in games journalism is pretty nifty, that's why I always devour the front end of my GIs and skim the reviews in the back. This little manifesto was more about the stagnation of an aspect than the entire subindustry. I just needed a catchy title.

Finally, pretty is a wonderful word and I can only dream to bring it back into modern everyday usage.

 

[archvile93]

you enter unsteady ground by using a sports game as your example. the majority of people who buy sporting games are not your hardcore gaming audience and jourlists know this. they talor the review to be welcoming to a niche market who may have only picked up the magazine or gone to the website to see if its worth upgrading to the latest madden. people who play spot games generally have an interest in that sport and are going to know the basics of the gameplay element, they may have been playing versions of it for five or ten years. plus when essentially the same game is brought out every year, what are you going to talk about?

its also pretty harsh to denounce the usefullness of videogame journalism based purely on reviews. while reviews and even previews are the core of videogame journalism the fact is that it is throught video game journalism that gamers have a community and a culture outside of actually playing the games. the escapist being a prime example (even if you did say "except escapist").

anyway i dont wholeheartedly disagree, there are many aspects of Gaming Journalism that should change and some things that changed that should of. thanks for sharing your opinion. but perhaps next time look for words that are more apropos than "pretty"

I feel the sports games are a perfect symptom of the problem for just that reason. Again, a serious game criticism shouldn't be based on 'what are the fans going to think?', it should be based on whether or not a game is a valid artistic piece.

Also, yeah, the more 'human interestey' stuff in games journalism is pretty nifty, that's why I always devour the front end of my GIs and skim the reviews in the back. This little manifesto was more about the stagnation of an aspect than the entire subindustry. I just needed a catchy title.

Finally, pretty is a wonderful word and I can only dream to bring it back into modern everyday usage.

Shouldn't a review be based on how fun it is rather than artistic integrity? Isn't that what games are about? If not, then I should really stop playing them. Remember arsty does not correlate to fun. That's why I hated Bioshock, artisticly brilliant, but boring and frustrating as fuck.

 

[thublihnk]

you enter unsteady ground by using a sports game as your example. the majority of people who buy sporting games are not your hardcore gaming audience and jourlists know this. they talor the review to be welcoming to a niche market who may have only picked up the magazine or gone to the website to see if its worth upgrading to the latest madden. people who play spot games generally have an interest in that sport and are going to know the basics of the gameplay element, they may have been playing versions of it for five or ten years. plus when essentially the same game is brought out every year, what are you going to talk about?

its also pretty harsh to denounce the usefullness of videogame journalism based purely on reviews. while reviews and even previews are the core of videogame journalism the fact is that it is throught video game journalism that gamers have a community and a culture outside of actually playing the games. the escapist being a prime example (even if you did say "except escapist").

anyway i dont wholeheartedly disagree, there are many aspects of Gaming Journalism that should change and some things that changed that should of. thanks for sharing your opinion. but perhaps next time look for words that are more apropos than "pretty"

I feel the sports games are a perfect symptom of the problem for just that reason. Again, a serious game criticism shouldn't be based on 'what are the fans going to think?', it should be based on whether or not a game is a valid artistic piece.

Also, yeah, the more 'human interestey' stuff in games journalism is pretty nifty, that's why I always devour the front end of my GIs and skim the reviews in the back. This little manifesto was more about the stagnation of an aspect than the entire subindustry. I just needed a catchy title.

Finally, pretty is a wonderful word and I can only dream to bring it back into modern everyday usage.

Shouldn't a review be based on how fun it is rather than artistic integrity? Isn't that what games are about? If not, then I should really stop playing them. Remember arsty does not correlate to fun. That's why I hated Bioshock, artisticly brilliant, but boring and frustrating as fuck.

There's a line. Fun is awesome, and I play a lot of games for fun. Multiplayer is strictly fun, and usually has little to no artistic merit. I myself find I'm most enjoying a game when I'm having a profound emotional experience with it, maybe that's me.

And yeah, there's something to be said for a fun game, just like there's something to be said for a fun movie. Popcorn cinema, as they say, and I feel like 'popcorn games' should be judged as such, but still also be judged on their quality, and be encouraged to still have redeeming value of some kind, be it an engaging but simple story, (Halo, arguably, or a lot of the more AAA titles) or a sense of humor(Portal comes to mind, but it's also a brilliantly crafted game from an artistic standpoint)

 

[lucky_bob45]

sorry i poorly worded that. i meant words that were apropos instead of words that were pretty.

and it seems that reviewers would be waisting their time commenting on weather a sport game was a valid artistic piece as that really isnt their aim, they all but entirely lack narrative and exist largly to emulate something you could go outside and do but not as well as those who do it professionally...plus who wants to get all sweaty am i right?

and i dont disagree that the "what are fans going to think?" approach to reviewing is bad on the whole, but with sport games there really isn't alot to talk about other than passing mechanics, impact physics and why this isnt last years version.

P.S. thanks for actually reading that, my walls of text that count as posts are usually ignored.

 

[thublihnk]

sorry i poorly worded that. i meant words that were apropos instead of words that were pretty.

and it seems that reviewers would be waisting their time commenting on weather a sport game was a valid artistic piece as that really isnt their aim, they all but entirely lack narrative and exist largly to emulate something you could go outside and do but not as well as those who do it professionally...plus who wants to get all sweaty am i right?

and i dont disagree that the "what are fans going to think?" approach to reviewing is bad on the whole, but with sport games there really isn't alot to talk about other than passing mechanics, impact physics and why this isnt last years version.

Well, yeah, which brings us to a larger point of whether or not rendition after rendition of sports games are valid even from an inartistic standpoint, but that's another discussion for another day. And, of course, now I'm starting to see what you're saying in that they're a little bit of unstable ground for this discussion as they really are in a league of their own. Still, I feel like the focus of games journalism, especially from a review standpoint as been-even in non-sports games-on the superficial and unimportant, namely a lot of tech stuff when the narrative gets largely overlooked. I remember reading that GOW2 review in Game Informer where it was given an insanely high score but they bashed it for it's admittedly weaker narrative and lack of gameplay innovation from the first in the text.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I used to read only one rag: EGM for their petty, but hilarious (to a teenager anyway) butcherings of bad/shovelware titles. Of course, they went out of business early last year.

Honestly, it's hard enough to locate journalism without some sort of agenda behind it; let alone anything in the entertainment business.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I think maybe the problem is that game reviews are meant to be a buyers guide it's a force defined by consumerism not artistic merit which in and of itself is not a validation of anything on it's own merits, they are called game reviewers rather than game critics for a reason, Ebert is a movie critic by trade

 

[SimuLord]

I've written game reviews that people who edit gaming publications for a living thought were pretty good. Allow me some insight into the writing process:

First of all, you do write for your audience. When I wrote my Colonization review, I wrote it on the assumption that the people who would click it probably played Civilization 4, like strategy games, and want to know if Civ4Col is worth their time. But since I also acknowledge that some folks read game reviews because they don't know the genre but they're intrigued by a game's buzz, I made sure to disclaim that the game is very good but won't change minds for people who aren't already on board.

Similarly, the audience for my Disgaea review (on the DS) is probably more of the weeaboo set, but here I injected a bit of myself into the review since I usually don't like Japanese games. Disgaea is a genre-converter. It has the chops to make people who like strategy games but don't necessarily like Japanese SRPGs into SRPG fans (me, just for example).

My point is that the NHL review is written for sports game fans and judged against other sports games. God of War is written for action game fans or "mainstream" gamers and judged accordingly. To a sports fan, NHL is a 9/10 by their standards. This does not necessarily mean that someone who doesn't like hockey is going to like the game.

Your argument ultimately boils down on that front to not realizing that scores are apples and oranges across genres.

As for tech chatter? It's industry standard because gamers want to know. If a game's graphics don't catch the eye, a very large segment of the potential customer base won't even try the game. As such, it is the responsibility of the reviewer to devote a paragraph or two to discussing the vital features.

Judging games as art has a place in writing about games (though I'll leave it to someone else---my views on games-as-art are well-documented around here), but a review IS a buyer's guide, and that's why the typical reader is even reading the review in the first place.