What Mainstream Media Think of Gaming

John Callaham writes "Video and PC games are a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. So why don't they get the attention of movies or TV? FiringSquad interviews several members of the mainstream media, including reporters from Time, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly and more, to find the answers and see how journalism will cover games in the future." From the article: "I guess all I'd add is that gaming journalism is at a very interesting place right now. There are still a lot of people who are suspicious of games, and who don't understand their appeal, and there's an opportunity for people who write about games, if they do it well enough, to bridge that gap, and make games interesting to people who don't get them yet."

Comments

Re:Because it needs 5-10 more years

[wongn]

Agree with parent.
I was elated to see the main BBC evening news have a lengthy special report on E3 whilst it was on. This would have been unthinkable years ago; but as gaming becomes more and more mainstream, more and more of the media's demographics will want to see gaming news.

Gaming really isn't mainstream.

[Gnostic Ronin]

Gaming isn't really mainstream like movies/TV are. Everyone knows the most popular TV show, the basic plot of said TV show, probably one or two actors on the TV show etc. That isn't true of gaming -- at least not yet. Try it yourself. Go to a mall in the county and stand outside a Sears or Dillard's and ask them who Peter Maleneux or Sakaguichi or Kojima are. As long as you don't cheat and stand outside EB Games or Radio Shack, I'll bet that the number of people who know even what industry those folks are in would be maybe 15-20%. Ask them about Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Angelina Jolie, and Kiefer Sutherland -- you're probably in the 75% range of people who know who they are and what they do. Probably even for actors without much face-time or name recognition would be more likely to be recognized than game designers.

It's just not mainstream. Outside of the hard-core, Johnny Exreme balls-to-the wall type gamers, it just doesn't get name recognition. Besides that, you have a small percentage of the total population buying most of the games. Sci-fi is in the same boat IMO. They have a rabid fanbase loyal to one series or another, having Inet debates about whether Darth Vader could pwn Captain Kirk. The problem is that the same people are buying all the Sci-fi. The same people who watch Star Trek went and camped out in line for "Revenge of the Sith", and are likely the same ones that are actively campaigning for the return of Firefly. If you look at the numbers for any one show, it's pretty small.

IMDB Top 100

If you look at the numbers, Passion of the Christ beats Empire Strikes Back, but if you looked around slashdot, more people were excited for Empire than Passion. I know that more people here saw The Voyage Home (ST4) than little mermaid.

Same with games -- a small portion of the population are the ones argueing about Wii,PS3, and Xbox (and will likely end up with all three). My guess is that less than 20% of the population of the US owns more than 10 games total. They may be vocal, but the number is tiny compared to 100% of the population that owns a TV, and 95% that sees a movie either in theaters or on DVD.