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

Can't Wait Until the Boomers Retire

[Slider451]

And let the Gen-Xer's cover games. Generations that didn't grow up on games just don't get them, and don't want to get them.

Re:Can't Wait Until the Boomers Retire

[code_nerd]

Gen Xers are in their 30s now. You don't think there are journalists in their 30s allowed to publish stories? Or were you really referring to editors?

Re:Can't Wait Until the Boomers Retire

[crunch_ca]

Bah, my mom is in her 70s and finished Baldur's Gate (and Baldur's Gate II). She's now trying her hand at slash'em.

There are always exceptions to the rule..., or in other words, all generalizations are false.

Re:Can't Wait Until the Boomers Retire

[0racle]

You might want to give up that teenage angst one day, there's nothing to 'get' about video games. The answer to why games aren't covered the same way as TV or movies is quite simple. They aren't TV shows or movies. Shocking isn't it? There is no big star to know the intimate details of or be called this seconds sexiest man or woman. You don't go out for an evening to sit back and watch a movie, or spend a quiet night at home watching something. You don't have to do anything to enjoy a movie or TV show and the reviewer of them had the same experience that you did. It's not like that with a game, unless the game was so poorly done as to give the player no control over either the characters or the outcome of events.

Re:Can't Wait Until the Boomers Retire

[rholliday]

Bullshit. "Boomers" get video games just fine. They're just like any other non-sports game, just they involve a TV. If you get card games, if you get board games, you get video games. The fact that it is apparently acceptable to spend upwards of $600 and spend hours playing video games, that one is a little harder to stand. I don't play Monopoly because it takes too long to play. I can't imagine spending hours playing the same video game. The whole anti-social aspect of games (no, online doesn't count) is also confusing - half the point behind games is to be sociable with other people.

Way to prove his point. Card game and board games have little to do with most video games, beyond the fact that you need your brain to play.

As for the social aspect, how is playing video games (online or otherwise) any less social than staring at the TV, or going to the movies, or playing cards, for that matter? Four of my friends around the poker table is just as social as those same four around the XBox.

Re:Can't Wait Until the Boomers Retire

[aichpvee]

Here's a hint: when playing card games, you're looking at the other people, and frequently talking about things.

When playing video games, you're just involved directly in the game with little to no social interaction.

Then you're playing the wrong games. Or more likely, not playing the right ones. Or most likely, not playing any at all. There are tons of multiplayer games that are either single screen or split screen that are a blast to play with friends and encourage a lot of social interaction. Some of them even require it.

I don't personally find playing online "social", and definitely not on public servers. But a buddy of mine plays online against his old roommates as a way of hanging out with them when he can't just pop down the street to hang out since they live two states away. Seems a whole lot more social than using the phone if you ask me, and I somehow doubt you'd label using the telephone "anti-social".

Here's a hint: you don't get it, just like most everyone else. Even (especially?) most of the kids who'd claim that they do.

Ummm..

[Dutchmaan]

""Video and PC games are a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. So why don't they get the attention of movies or TV?"

Aren't they making a movie out of World of Warcraft? Perhaps they are getting to the point of popularity that movies and TV ARE starting to take an interest.

One Reason

[Rydia]

The sad and pathetic state of the "games media." Mainstream media likes to deal with a certain level of what they collectively define as professionalism; proper sourcing, investigation past press releases, no rumormongering, staying out of bed with the subject. Now, that sure as heck isn't always adhered to, but in the "games media," it's almost never adhered to. People reprint press releases, rampant speculation, and in almost all cases play favorites. Journalists talk to each other. To whom is a TIME reporter going to talk to about games? Kotaku? IGN? Joystiq? IGN separates their writers based on what company-based bias they have. Joystiq revoked an internet poll they themselves put up for discussion because they disagreed with the results. Kotaku is amusing, but rough around the edges and doesn't exactly reek of credibility. EGM and its ilk share similar problems. The only group I can think of that would qualify would be Magic Box, but I'm still not convinced that the site isn't just a giant spider script (which would explain a great deal about the write-ups that they do print.

That said, for stories that they can simply go it alone with, such as interviews, overviews of systems or financials, the mainstream media does a servicable job. TIME's article on Nintendo's new direction the day before E3 (in addition to having the first good set of Wii screens) was the best I saw before or during the show. It's just that there's not a whole lot of news to go around, and getting the extra news to fill in the gaps requires either rampant speculation or dealing with "unprofessional" people. To be quite frank, I don't blame them.

Re:One Reason

[cgenman]

Not to point fingers, but when developers that I work at have been interviewed by the press, generally the gaming press gets things right and the mainstream press is the one that doesn't fact check. Gems have included referring to us as "The publisher" (we're the developer), "The guys who made the music" (outsourced), the guys who were just bought by Activision (our publisher did that). We've been accused of making other people's games, of making games for platforms that had died before we were around, or the game not having features that it did, or running on PC hardware that hadn't been released yet, etc.

The frustrating thing about all of the above examples, is that in all but one case the person doing the interview had been told everything correctly, they just completely mis-remembered it and didn't review their notes... at all.

Game journalism isn't professional in that their writing style is frequently juvenile and bass, but at least they generally get the facts straight. "Real" journalists don't seem to think that stories about videogames are worth even the most cursory of fact checks.

Because it needs 5-10 more years

[suv4x4]

Video and PC games are a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. So why don't they get the attention of movies or TV?

First, who the heck concluded it doesn't get enough attention. I'd say it gets enough attention, notice the E3 coverage on Internet... And there we get to the point.

TV and Movies have been here for over 70 years, part of our culture. If something is on TV, "it gets enough attention".. Aparently TV is shown on TV, and movies are shown on TV and cinemas as well.

We're used to considering what's on TV "important". The fact that thousands of online media followed who sneezes at E3, is a lot less important.

Conclusion: we just need some more time so that Internet truly becomes a respected mainstream media to non-techies, where "important" stuff can happen. Gaming is the same. Give it more time, let the gamers grow some more.

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.

Article in a Sentence

[Kesch]

The mainstream media doesn't write much about games because it doesn't appeal much to a mainstream audience.

Re:Article in a Sentence

[edunbar93]

You said: The mainstream media doesn't write much about games because it doesn't appeal much to a mainstream audience.

The article said: Video and PC games are a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.

I see. So how much do they have to make in sales to *become* mainstream, exactly?

Reminds me of a quote by Green Day's lead singer, back around 1998. "People call us an alternative band. Alternative to *what*? We sold 3 million records last year. That's as mainstream as you can get!"

Slashdot

[soft_guy]

Are you trying to tell me that Slashdot isn't the mainstream media??

Should we care?

[vertinox]

Think about it like this...

The video game and computer game industry make more money than TV and movies combined.

But the porn industry makes more money than the TV, Music, and video game industry combined.

Yet we don't hear mainstream media talking about porn all that often other than the "Think of the children!" diatribes by hotair pundits.

Re:Should we care?

[Chainsaw]

But the porn industry makes more money than the TV, Music, and video game industry combined.

Can we please stop the lies about the porn industry, please? All of the porn industry combined doesn't really make that much money. Try to name one company in the porn industry that is within the Fortune 500. You can't, because there is none.

Hate to break it to you, but the porn industry isn't bigger than Haliburton.

Re:Should we care?

[edunbar93]

Two things: There's a big difference between net profits and gross sales. They're talking about gross sales. That's the amount of money that we the public spend on the products they produce. A $7 movie ticket is a wee bit smaller than an $80 game. Thus you need 1/10 the audience to produce the same sales numbers.

Second, there's kind of a fake-out, like how the porn industry can rake in as much in sales as the "mainstream" movie industry. How many movie studios are there left? There's about 3 or 4 big ones left after all the mergers. How many porn producers are there? Thousands. Heck, tens of thousands. Porn is cheap to make, and many thousands of titles are released every year. How many game studios are there that make the biggest hits? Dozens of big players like Sony, Nintendo, and EA, and at least hundreds of smaller ones like Pandemic, ID and Ubisoft.

Blurb

[Mitaphane]

That blurb is misleading; it sounds as if the article is talking about how the video game medium is represented in other media like TV and film. The topic is how the gaming industry is covered by the big news media(e.g. CNN, Wall Street Journal, etc.) compared to other entertainment industries that make just as much money as the video game industry.

The underlying assumption here is that if the gaming industry makes as much money as the movie industry it should be covered in the news as much as that other industry. Of course that's not the whole picture. People in big media report things that are important, but they also have to report things that people want to hear about. There is a huge audience that want to hear what Brad Pitt's new movie is, who's playing in the World Cup today, what Microsoft's business plans for future are, and what is going on in Capital Hill. The audience that wants to hear what John Carmack's new game engine will do is small.

Also, just because the gaming industry makes as much money as the movie industry doesn't mean it reaches as many people. The entry level cost to get into gaming is much higher. The learning curve is much steeper too, especially if you've never grown up with videogames. However, the time that can be spent on game(vs. a book, movie, or tv show) is much higher. In short, gaming has a significantly-sized, time-dedicated audience compared to other entertainment media; however, other media have a much larger audience and probably always will(unless you make video gaming cheaper and easier to learn). Thus, the gaming industry will never be covered in big news media as much as other entertainment industries.

Because it lacks "Drama"?

[PhoenixOne]

I gave up on "mainstream media" a long time ago, but most of the entertainment news I hear is about actor X's marriage to actress Y, which is really a sham, because he loves actress (or actor) Z. Oh, and what are they going to name "the baby".

So, until we get some juicy info on Lara Croft's relationship with Duke Nukem, I don't think the mainstream is going to give us as much love. ;)

About time

[Municipa]

I have become increasingly concerned that mainstream media's opinions on things were not getting enough attention. Thanks, slashdot, for at long last shining a spotlight on the mainstream media's take on gaming.

my quick reply

[British]

Hmm

1. movies based off of Video games. They failed

2. A tv network based on video games(G4). It failed.

3. A sitcom with animated characters from fictional video games(game over). It failed.

The last good video game coverage I saw in mainstream TV were episodes of "That's Incredible!" and "Starcade". That was over 20 years ago. That time has not come back.

Thoughs

[Lifelike]

I would say it has more to do with the movie and TV industry being OVERhyped relative to games rather than the inverse. At the supermarket yesterday every single magazine I could see had Angelena on the cover.

And I think a major rationale behind movies and games being so strongly hyped is that the actor/celebrity is so much more than the role that s/he plays. The mags these days don't talk exclusively about the current star's acting, they talk just as much if not more about said actor's glamorous life. People read the magazines to have a taste of stardom and fantasize what they would do if they were as glorious as the stars. Videogames don't offer that about their characters, their limited to the world of the game. There's no profit to be had hyping the (probably not-tremendously-glamorous) videogame celebs, so they don't.

The duh department.

[crhylove]

This just in! People who play video games are under represented in mediums which they are less interested in! Why doesn't bloomberg cover reggae concerts more often? The medium most gamers prefer is THE INTERNET (or technically, the WWW). So of COURSE there isn't going to be more video game coverage on TV and the movies. Gamers don't watch as much TV and movies, and they are more than happy to read about games online. In fact, as represented by the huge popularity of "The Office" and "The Daily Show" on torrent sites, I'm guessing that TV is more likely to get co-opted onto the computer than vice versa. TV, Movies, and the recording industry are dead. Long live TV, the movies, and the recording industry on bit torrent!

rhY

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.