Literate Scriveners Unite! (Or: The Problem with Game Journalism Redux)
I wrote some thoughts last week about problems with game journalism in this industry. In that article I pointed you to a great piece Chris Buffa of Gamedaily.com wrote, and I wanted to highlight that he's since then written a second follow-up article with his thoughts on how to fix some of those issues. I wanted to highlight just one quote that I thought was dead on; one can hope management at these gaming publications and sites read Chris' article and take heed.
"The bottom line is it's better to have ten good writers that require very little editing than ten awful ones. Restaurants don't want chefs that don't know how to cook, NBA basketball teams don't want players who can't play the game, and websites and magazines certainly don't want journalists that require an hour or more of hard editing each and every day. We should want to surround ourselves with the best people. Sadly, that means that some of our colleagues have got to go."
A couple of you also sent me another article from Gamedaily on what game developers think of game reviewers. No stated author (which makes sense as it's mostly a collection of quotes from industry folks), it gives an interesting point of view from game creators on game journalism.
Ok - back from the Gamedaily love-in. In my earlier article I also gave you my opinion on some of the better writers out there today. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I missed a few who I should definitely have included, and wanted to take a moment to give them some kudos to them as well. (For the record, a kudos and a buck might get you a cup of coffee here in Seattle… so take it for what it’s worth. 
)
First, let me quickly recap the folks I listed last week (cut and paste):
Penny Arcade - it's impossible to say too many good things about Gabe and Tycho (and the rest of their crew). I've had conversations with them in the past about their attitudes to accepting advertising. Simply put, these guys turn away free money because they don't believe in the product that some people would like to promote on their site. Most importantly, the whole crew are gamers, and when they speak to you it really is just as though it's one of your gaming friends giving you their honest opinion. (Much to our chagrin at times.) They also play a huge role in keeping this industry honest - believe me, a lot more than you might expect.
Evil Avatar - sort of a combination of Slashdot and Digg, but for gamers. I’ve found that the Evil Avatar editors tend to be pretty fair about what they post on their front page, and just as important, readers tend to have reasonably thoughtful comments. You’ll still see fanboy wars, but they’re usually damped down pretty quickly. Also appreciated is that a lot of industry insiders frequent the boards which tends to drive more insightful discussion (albeit with a lot of passion). :)
GameSpot – especially Executive Editor Greg Kasavin’s reviews. Gamespot’s news reporting tends to be slightly more objective than some of the other large sites, but they do fall prey to the PR hype machines almost as much as the rest. (Sony’s infamous PS3 video renders from E3 2005 are a great example.) However, GameSpot does have a few excellent writers, Greg Kasavin being one of the best. He scores fairly, and it’s obvious from the history of his reviews that he’s played the games enough to write about them intelligently. It doesn’t hurt that he can string a decent sentence together, as well.
IGN – specifically Douglass Perry’s reviews. I know a bunch of you are rubbing your eyes in amazement as we speak with my inclusion of IGN. Yes, the site is notorious for rumor-mongering and just bad writing overall, but I have to point out one of the exceptions with Doug. Just as with Greg Kasavin above, Doug’s writing is definitely far above par, and more importantly, his reviews are tightly written and don’t wander off into the strange padded verboseness you often see from other writers on the site. A good example of his writing can be found in his Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II review for Xbox 360. It’s three pages long, but hits all the major areas you care to know about, including the key question of how a RTS controls have made the transition to console.
To that let me add a couple of the folks I missed. I somehow doubt these guys have trouble sleeping at night due to my omission, but I’m hoping some other readers might appreciate knowing who to keep an eye out for.
Gamedaily.com - especially Chris Buffa for writing the series of articles referred to above. Yes, back to the Gamedaily love-in; so sue me. I'll admit I wasn't aware of Chris before the whole video game journalism issue flared up again, but I'm glad I do now. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing some more of his work; the boy can string a mean sentence together and I've really appreciated his insight on the matter.
Next-gen.biz – especially their editor-in-chief, Colin Campbell. It’s great to see a publication stamped with the “Next Generation” imprimatur again as it’s been sorely missed since shutting down in the 90’s. Next Generation was one of the few gaming magazines to take both the business and art of games seriously, and Next-gen.biz has adroitly taken up that mantle so sadly dropped. You’ll generally find tight, to the point reporting on events on the industry and significantly better than average “analysis” than most other sites are capable of. Also highly recommended is their Daily News Bulletin, which you can sign up for here.
Edge-online.co.uk – the online arm of the British Edge magazine. Edge was the only other significant competitor to Next Generation back in the day (this was before Games(tm), now sadly defunct), and thankfully has managed to survive to this day. Both Edge and Edge-online are characterized by thoughtful writing that treat both games and the game industry with a great deal of respect. A great example is Edge’s “Time Extend” retrospective on the original Prince of Persia (at least, the original revitalizing of the series in the last generation). To quote, “Time Extend is a series of retrospectives examining the accomplishments of significant games and assessing their impact. In this Time Extend, we consider Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time and discover how it broke the mould, and why the sequel broke our hearts.” Both the magazine and website are highly recommended, though I’ll warn you the magazine will cost you a pretty penny if you live outside of the UK. And you have to put up with the occasional wonky use of the King’s English.
IGN.com – yes again, this time for Matt Casamassina’s writing. Matt is an unapologetic Nintendo fan and doesn’t hide it (nor should he). However, his reviews are in-depth, well-written, and complete. Also appreciated is that Matt is very thoughtful about his journalism role. A great example is this recent blog entry of his where he ponders reviewing launch titles on the Nintendo Wii, and the challenges that reviewers will face both with the graphical differences between platforms and Wii’s new controller.
As before, I’m sure I’m missing folks, and you guys have been great with suggesting some of the people you really respect and appreciate. Please feel free to send them my way so I might be able to add them as well in the future. And as always, appreciate your thoughts!
[Edit: fixed up some paragraph spacing issues.]
[Edit: added link to Prince of Perisa "Time Extend" article from Edge. Thanks to for reminding me!]