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New Games Journalism
Kotaku has a piece up today mentioning a style of video game editorializing called The New Games Journalism. This piece links to several others. State Wiki has a piece from early this year on what New Games Journalism is, and an examination of its goals. An example of the style is available on the Eve Online site in the PC Gamer article All About Eve. (large pdf) A seminal work referenced when discussing the style is Bow, Nigger, a sharply written and gripping piece about a duel in Jedi Outcast. From the editorial: "For one thing, my screen name has nothing to do with my ethnicity and for another, it's only a game and the fascist doing the typing is probably hundreds of miles away and far beyond anything you could call an actual influence on my life. But still... It's not very nice is it?"
Money men didn't get to be money men by making stupid decisions.
If they think that "the quality of writers simply doesn't affect a games magazine sales" maybe it's because the quality of writers simply doesn't affect a games magazine sales.
</devil's advocate>
-- should you believe authority without question?
At the bottom is GameSpy, which is now a malware distributor.
"Next Generation" was worth reading, in its day.
Essentially, it seems like the author feels uncomfortable writing traditional game reviews, and rather than fine-tune his approach, he'd rather meander off in a radical direction to feel 'innovative' and 'fresh'.
Sure, some of his thoughts are agreeable -- the games journalism industry is rather stagnant right now. But! It's NOT because of the formula; that has been developed, tweaked and matured over many years. It's absurd to throw it out in favour of a wacky, unproven writing style that -- while entertaining -- doesn't get much 'meat' across.
Here I'll point to some legendary game review writers such as Jonathan Nash and Zy Nicholson. These guys had it spot on -- punchy, funny copy, asides aplenty, but incredible detail, depth and ability to make you 'feel' the game (as this article suggests).
They didn't achieve this through radical changes -- just superb quality writing. Suggesting we discard a profession that has grown steadily and absorbed so many ideas over the years, and replace it with something untested, is crazy. It's much like the push to atonality in early 1900s music; felt good, but where are we now? Not listening to Stockhausen, that's for sure...
(As Slashdot readers we're going to have a totally different perspective to the vast majority of game mag buyers, as we're into tech, computers and geeky stuff, and like our news and reviews up to the minute.)
Well, to continue the tangent...
I agree that programming is absolutely not for dummies. However you make a serious error equating programming with a job in industry. Many people interested in computers, or even computer science, are not interested in programming nor are they cut out for it.
Some time back I went to a company reception that preceded on-campus interviews for a software engineering job. It was amazing to me how many questions directed at the recruiter could be summarized as "how fast can I get out of programming to do something else?".
My university had a very highly rated computer science department. Only a small fraction of my peers really had the talent/interest to become good computer programmers. The rest were wannabe System Administrators, QA/Testers, "Web Designers", etc. Elective courses requiring heavy programming were almost never full.
I remember the day when we would argue that journalism has an inherent responsibility to the public discourse. This is the reason we need objectivity - the press has so much power that to be otherwise would be an abuse of the press' position. It's an old-fashioned position to take, but a good one.
This is the difference, to me. When I read something totally offensive in a blog, something damaging to the subject, something so opinionated as to be fictional, I think, fine. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. But the newspaper represents me, my friends, my family, my neighbors, my city. I have a right to tell the newspaper if they print libel, fiction, or hate speech as news. They also have a duty to listen to me. At least, in theory they do.
Your blog can be impeccably credible, but it doesn't represent anyone but you. Therefore, applying the word "journalism" is a bit of a stretch.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
You have to remember that this guy is writing in the context of the British games magazine market. The style of writing in many of the magazines is a cross between Viz, FHM and the Sun ('Adult' cartoons with fart and dick jokes, Playboy with more articles and tabloid crap for non-Brits).
Given that background, I can see why he would want to spark a revolution in games writing.
Your arrogant condesention is evil; the attitude that they're merely boring people with meaningless lives
You'd call me arrogant for that view? I don't post the details of my daily dietary habits for the world to read.
And I also don't have to read them from others. Another big difference there - I don't consider bloggers a nuissance, since I can readily pretend they don't exist.
But it seems that every single response to my initial comment missed the point. Regardless of the entertainment value of blogs, I merely asserted that they do not, in the vast majority, count as even remotely resembling "news". And so far, not one response to me has done the least to argue an alternative stance - Just personal attacks, irrelevant commentary, and apparently defensive misinterpretations of my words.
It may not be news, but the people at the other end are real people living out lives that may be very important to them and those around them.
You just described my entire point, yet missed it completely! If you blog, good for you. If you read blogs because, for some reason, you find them entertaining, good for you. I don't grudge you either of those points. BUT, if you read a blog by someone who has no more access to information on newsworthy events than you or I do, and take that person's opinion as "news", well, I'll call you on that one. "It may not be news". Nothing more.
the people at the other end are real people living out lives that may be very important to them and those around them.
Well, good for them and their lives and their friends/readers. But do you see that the extent of such "importance" doesn't extend beyond their immediate friends and family? Sure, my mother might want to know that I had a healthy breakfast. Do you care that I had a healthy breakfast? Do you care that I can beat the original Metroid in something that must come close to a time record? Do you care that we got a teensy bit of snow here ("here" not any place of particular interest at the moment) last night, not enough to play in but enough to make going to work a pain? No, you don't. Because it has absolutely no relevance to you or your life, nor does it to the vast majority of people (even my own close friends would find it, at most, a curious diversion to read, certainly not useful information). "Wow, pla had cold pizza for breakfast? Has this gone out over Reuters yet??? Stop the presses!"
And therein lies the difference. My dietary habits do not count as news. Your dietary habits do not count as news. The dietary habits of some poor bastard trapped in Fallujah with no food or running water SITUATIONALLY might count as news. The fact that the Red Crescent has petitioned the US Military to restore running water and start supplying food to those left alive, THAT counts as news (but not my mention of it - See the difference?) - Which you would get that news from a real source, not from an angsty teen in Peoria, not from Me, not even from the person trapped in Fallujah (though he/she may have heard about it, you could get it from a more direct source).
Finally, as for my posting here on Slashdot (which for a reason I do not quite understant, most respondants to me seem to take as some sort of evidence of hypocrisy on this subject)... I post here for the same reason I would chat with someone at the office or in the library or in line at the grocery store - Just something to do, pass the time, "shoot the shit". I don't consider my Slashdot posts as a form of news, nor do I consider them as having some mythical literary merit, nor do I expect most people to even care about them. If someone finds my words informative or entertaining, cool; but I have to expectation of that, and don't really care if people find my words utterly boring.