Before I was given this blog task to write about Game Journalism, I can’t say I’d spent a lot of time being involved with it; mostly because I find regular Journalism to be twisted and uninteresting at the best of times, why should I expect Game Journalism to be any better?
After a few hours reading articles on-line by several writers, arguing back and forth about New Games Journalism and whether or not it’s even still viable anymore (already!) I discovered that my enthusiasm for such things remains very much in the indifferent category.
The only ‘game reviewer/journalist’ I have followed religiously for a few years now is ‘Ben Croshaw’ and it’s purely to listen to him say amusing things at lightning speed, mostly negative things. I’m not really all that interested in whether he even likes or dislikes the game. Is that bad? I guess that will depend on whether you think Games Journalism is good or bad.
Personally I’m in the ‘bad’ camp…I think (or would be if I really cared enough) but for the sake of this blog post I’ll say, bad.
NGJ is a term coined by Kieron Gillen, it’s supposed to encourage reviewers to be subjective in their writing to make the reader feel like their living the experience with the journalist or something, however, it’s argued that this ‘writing movement’ is
dead by writer Chris Lepine of ‘
The Artful Gamer’ and that 'New
New Games Journalism' is the path to salvation. This is said to be what Kieron Gillen was originally elbowing writers towards and not the the snooty, pretentious, self-indulgent stuff that it did spawn.
I'm taking a step back because I enjoy reading long-winded, rambling about nothing in particular when I'm idling at my PC, half dead from a super caffeine overdose and 2 hours sleep a week (which I get on my commute). Sarcasm and snide remarks amuse me; it's entertainment, I don't take it seriously and have issues with being easily influenced, so I don't really get much out of it either way.
When I set out to buy a game, I rarely buy a new release unless it's an Indie title that strikes my fancy and any big name games I wait for the inevitable price drop in a few months or one of Steam's many sales before I buy. It’s not reviews I read that influence what and when I buy stuff either. I watch trailers and generally give things a go because I like to be open minded and I tend to know what types of game I’ll enjoy and those which I won’t.
As the years go on I’ve definitely found myself shifting away from mainstream games like “Grand Theft Auto”, “Call of Duty”, “Final Fantasy” etc and slipped into the warm embrace of upbeat little indie titles which are full of good fun, quirky characters and difficulties to master old skool gaming.
In my opinion, reviewers struggle to be objective when talking about a game’s qualities and this is because it’s very difficult to do. As I mentioned previously, for entertainment value it’s great, but if you’re using it as a sole basis for whether or not you buy a game? No wonder publishers are afraid to let development houses be creative! Then you end up with a bunch of clones (much like the market today) and THEN reviews just become wars about which Realistic War FPS is more realistic and blah, blah, blah. Comparisons.
My idea of what a 9/10 game is, is almost certainly going to be different from yours, therefor that method of game critique is useless and will result in MANY disgruntled consumers who expect their ideal game for that score, but that’s obviously going to be quite different from yours or my ideal game.
I think we should all be able to get a little demo of every release…oh wait, we can: At least on a good portion of titles. We should decide for ourselves whether the games are worth buying by playing a snippet, you never know, having the opportunity to download something in a genre you've never played before may just open up a whole new gaming experience for you.
