The New Games Journalism

I have a dirty secret.

I’ve only just discovered Kieron Gillen's seminal blog entry. It may not sound like much of an admission but coming from a videogame journalist it’s tantamount to confessing a murder - especially when the article has been kicking around in the public domain since 2005.

As with any good proposal, its simplicity is its greatest strength. Gillen’s whole commentary concludes with two points:

1) The worth of gaming lies in the gamer not the game.
2) Write travel journalism to Imaginary Places.

From this humble ‘manifesto’ the term New Games Journalism was coined. And by golly did it cause a rumpus. There were those that embraced the idea and those that vehemently opposed it. Once such cynic, The Ram Raider, devoted an entire Blog to bashing what he saw as a pretentious, ego-driven form of journalism:

NGJ is little more than an excuse for the writer to talk about themselves first, and let everything and everyone else be damned. There are so many reviewers who talk constantly about their own sad lives, but this is completely the wrong track – you have to be talking about yourself as the reader, who is the potential player of the game. This applies equally to feature pieces and opinion articles – if you write about yourself, you’ll alienate your readers and end up as one of the bunch of self-deluded pricks who waffle on about fuck-all in shite like Edge.

My view?

For what it’s worth I think there’s definitely a place for NGJ. In his article Gillen draws a clear distinction between mediocre hacks and journalists who know their craft:

A bad games journalist would write in imprecise generalities, talking about something’s “gameplay” and urging you to “try before you buy” or similar page-filling rubbish. A good one would look at the game, take it apart, try and understand how it works and inform the reader of their findings.

Gillen argues that good games journalism should do what good travel journalism does:

Our job is to describe what it’s like to visit a place that doesn’t exist outside of the gamer’s head – the gamer, not the game, remember. Go to a place, report on its cultures, foibles, distractions and bring it back to entertain your readers.

Sounds good to me.

I can still remember the review I read - over a decade ago - which inspired me to become a games journalist. It was Jes Bickham’s epic Ocarina Of Time review, and it blew me away. Here’s one of my favourite passage from it:

The sunsets and sunrises, though, simply beggar belief. Shadows lengthen, colours change and you can actually see the sun or moon moving overhead. From east to west, naturally. Watching Lake Hylia slowly turn a deep gold as the sun slips over the horizon is, without a doubt, the most beautiful sight ever seen in a videogame. When morning breaks, it is - we swear - exactly like the real thing, with creeping early morning mist and an almost tangible crispness. Even before the horse, or the Fire Arrows, or the time travel, this is what you’ll show your friends, to convince them that this game renders everything else – absolutely everything – irrelevant.

It’s just a brilliant piece of writing. And you don’t even have to be a fan of videogames to appreciate the passion and enthusiasm evident throughout the review. Bickham visited Hyrule, reported on its cultures, foibles and distractions and brought it back to entertain his readers.

Okay, so there are some truly awful examples of NGJ stinking up the net with their wanky existentialist musings, but then that’s true of any kind of journalism – you’ll find examples of both good and bad writing wherever you look.

Keiron’s article should be essential reading for any aspiring games journalist. They may not agree with it but they’ll certainly come to no harm forming an opinion on it.