Slashdot Mirror
NYT On New Games Journalism
The New York Times has a quick blurb up discussing some New Game Journalism pieces. While I think a look from a major newspaper at the actual writing style would have been interesting, it is more a simple linking story than anything else. From the article: "Over the last year, however, a handful of gaming writers have been bringing a more personal touch to their work, using a narrative, experiential approach that acknowledges the effect of the game on the player. Their young genre even has a name: New Games Journalism, after the New Journalism of the 1960's and 70's."
I read "Kneel Nigger," back when Slashdot covered it last year. I thought it was OK, but not very well written. I like the theory of New Gaming Journalism, but I think its writers need to spend a little more time polishing their craft before its ready for prime time.
:p
Gaming is definitely different from other medias. Its not like a book or a movie that remains the same for everyone. It's more like architecture, where everyone is interacting with the same structure, but in different ways and at their own pace.
It would be nice if there were more to gaming journalism than the old: Graphics X/10 Story Y/10 Gaming Z/10 Overall ([X+Y+Z]/3)/10. That style is definitely limited in what it can relate.
Still, a first person narrative is also limited in how much it can relate. Or do you wish all the stories about the death of the pope read, "I looked down at my computer screen. 'The pope is dead.' I thought back to all the other times I had reported about the pope over the years, but I knew today would be different. Today, I would be reporting his death."
I think the real need is for gaming journalists to find a way to do more than just tell us about the story and the graphics. What we most want to know about is how the game plays, and play is a much more complex thing to describe than just the story and graphics. Lots of luck to anyone who wants to try.
Am I the only person bothered by the inability of the New York Times -- the "Paper of Record" -- to accurately report the name of a written piece on which they are reporting?
I could consider it merely being (overly) sensitive if they quoted it as "Bow, N*gg*r", as is a common practice for "bad" words. You would at least know what word they were referring to.
But to completely leave out the second word of a two-word title, and say only "a racial epithet" is not only journalistic cowardice, it is downright unhelpful. If I didn't already know the title of the article referred to, I could think of a dozen "racial epithet"s, and there is no context with which to guess which is correct.
All of which completely ignores the fact that the title is *supposed* to be inflammatory.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I'd prefer a system which uses a deviation from 0 to rate a game:
0 means "par", i.e. the game is good enough to warrant a purchase.
+1 means "great", the game really stands head and shoulders above the rest.
+2 applies only to games that are so great people will talk about them for years to come (think Zelda, Soul Calibur, GTA3, etc).
-1 is a game that's bad, at least bad enough so you wouldn't want to buy it. Some call that "mediocre" but these days you don't realy want to shell out 50 bucks (or more, depending on where you live) for a mediocre game.
-2 equals ValuSoft. The game is so awful it will be remembered for years to come. Games like E.T. and really most of Something Awful's game reviews.
To translate today's ratings to that, 75-89% are 0, 90% and above is +1, GOTY is +2, 30-75% is -1 and less than 30% -2.
I wouldn't rate games any finer because there's always subjectivity involved. Pretending you can rate a game down to 1% accuracy is stupid and with such broad ratings you can both tell people whether a game is worth their money and fend off criticism that you underrated or overrated a game by half a star or something like that.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.