I hadn’t considered the narrative aspects – you’re absolutely right about that. “Storytelling” seems to be pretty darned central to NGJ. I’m a little less strict about what constitutes a “narrative” exactly, since personal narratives are often different than other forms of narratives (short stories, stories told through gameplay, novels, etc) — but your distinction that narrative != opinion is spot on. I’m glad to be wrong about that, since you’re articulating something that I only had a glimpse of when I first wrote this article.

I like your point regarding the ubiquity of (game)blogging. One of the unfortunate outcomes has indeed been voicelessness — there are so many blogs out there that I can’t tell which ones matter anymore. In the end, I end up reading ones that I “trust” because I trust their writers, either because they’re personal acquaintances or because they’re great writers. I suspect that the constitution of online micro-communities will be the only solution to the ubiquity of gameblogging. The swath of people I now follow on Twitter (and have gaming conversations with) are a great example of that.

Your protoreview of BioShock highlights exactly the problem we face now: how the hell do we actually write this stuff? The categorical approach won’t work, as you’ve said; the subjectivist approach falls flat after one sentence. But what then? That’s where, in my not-so-humble opinion, we’ve been stuck for years. I’m sure there are examples of people doing great things reviewing games – but I’ve seen SO FEW writers taking this seriously since I wrote this article that the situation is more dismal than it was 1 year ago. In fact, a handful of the writers whom I refer to in this article have ironically become part of the mainstream review institutions and no longer are independent and creative voices.

I’d like to enshrine one of your last comments somewhere: “Thinking about why we play games – not to mention the merits of playing – is going to be an incredibly important topic in the coming years of video game theory.” No one – to my knowledge – has come up with a sensible and meaningful answer to your first question. And to the second part, people only seem to come up with (moralistic) opinions that don’t get us very far. Including me!

Thanks again for your inspired response David! I’m so glad to have the chance to think about this issue again, especially as I’ve become even more disillusioned with the prospect of writing for games over the last year.

- Chris

1) Your artcile was fantastic.
2) It made me think of things.
3) Those things are down there.

One of the most important things to remember when discussing New Games Journalism is that Wolfe’s New Journalism was not merely immersive and subjective, but also quite narrative-driven. New Journalism was, in many ways, an attempt to fuse novel and report. While being subjective – on the “I” – it was also quite focused on style and flow.

In other words, New Journalism is not subjective journalism. As I’m writing this, I feel like this distinction was already touched on in one of the replies to your article, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I press on. New Journalism has subjective elements, but I think what most people are talking about when they discuss New Games Journalism is not a personal narrative but a personal opinion. You touch on this in your article, complaining that “we write about our individual opinions” instead of “becoming deeper and more insightful.” Please correct me if I’m wrong, but subjective journalism has everything to do with individual opinions. Heck, all journalism has to do with individual opinion; subjective journalism just has the balls to admit it.

In other words, I think you might be a bit wrong in your interpretation of what subjective journalism – New Games Journalism – was supposed to be about. It’s not necessarily about becoming deeper, but becoming aware that the experience of a game will be different for every player.

New Games Journalism was a push against cold and distant institutional reviews that attempted to numerically judge an experience for a collective group of people. Most of the time, a review is written by one person. That person becomes infinitely more reliable when s/he is willing to admit subjectivity.

That stated, I think you are completely correct in your assessment of the perverse subjectivity possessing the gaming industry at this point in time: “We ignore hundreds of years of thought on the review of art and aesthetics, and instead feed off of the blogs and inane personal judgements of game developers who are themselves part of the mess.” Our internet culture is too subjective. Quantity has overwhelmed quality.

If everyone can blog, every voice gets heard. This isn’t necessarily bad; in an idyllic world, every voice is heard. But if every voice is heard by the entire population, the great voices get lost.

By taking New Games Journalism too far, we run the risk of becoming part of the mess. Just because we have an opinion about a game does not necessarily mean that the world needs to know about it. Your friends might like to know about it. Perhaps even the game developers would appreciate some feedback. But there need to be avenues for expression, so that the reader / consumer isn’t bombarded by a sea of meritless opinion.

As far as New New Games Journalism is concerned, I’m in. I love it. Writers / reviewers need to think about games in terms of meaning – societal and person – not simply as products to be evaluated within a gaming vacuum. At this point in time, games are only being reviewed in comparison to other games. While this is obviously necessary, we need to approach games with a larger lens. While inevitably – and helpfully – comparing games to one another, we must also be able to see games within the larger scope of society, attempting to evaluate them as valuable experiences.

As alluded to by Chris in the previous posts and responses, much of this will be theory regarding the nature of video games and how they relate to culture. Not that you haven’t though of this, but there are certainly specific examples that can be helpful. For example, let’s look at Bioshock.

I could write a review in which I express my feelings about the experience – I absolutely loved playing Bioshock – alongside my beliefs regarding the importance of the game in terms of fictional studies of human nature. Bioshock is a wonderful science-fiction text that deals with the need for purpose that every human feels, especially the disturbing lengths we will go to in order to achieve that purpose. To study Bioshock as an objective gaming experience – an evaluation of elements, like graphics, sound, immersion level – or even to write about it as a subjective experience – how the game made you feel, personal likes and dislikes – is missing the fact that Bioshock is more than both of those things. It is a game, it is an experience, and it is a text to be analyzed. Actually, it’s probably way more than those three things. But, for this example – since it’s already getting long – even choosing to assess it as only one of those categories is a bit narrow.

Chris, I agree. I – and, of course, many others – believe that it is time for something more meaningful. Thinking about why we play games – not to mention the merits of playing – is going to be an incredibly important topic in the coming years of video game theory. Games aren’t just toys to be reviewed against other toys. They have become a part of our culture, and it’s time we acknowledge them as such.

Also, this is my first encounter with this website. Seems pretty sweet. You don’t necessarily have to respond to this – in fact, I’m not sure you’ll even end up reading it – but I’d love to dialogue about these things. It seems that conversation is the best way to flesh out ideas, and the culture of video games matters greatly to me as a thinking man.

Oh, and thanks for writing. I’m about to go read more of your writing things.

But even more to the fact, I think we need something akin to Film Theory in video games. Film theory brought about a grammar to discuss how film should be talked about and how it should be analyzed. While we have a lot of books about video games, there isn’t one grammar to discuss game theory.

I kind of agree with someone like Henry Jenkins who believes games are like an ecology and landscapes moreso than a linear cut. But I have no idea how we can write that. How do you apply something like postmodern theory or feminist theory to a video game without it sound like a narrative discussion. I’m not a ludologist by any means, but I think that there is value to a discussion of games as games and not just as a narrative like NGJ proposes.

But I have no idea what that would look like. I’m thinking of something along the lines of sports writing, but I’m not sure.

If you think that getting a game recommendation in the form of “play this” is a valuable form of writing, then how do you distinguish Indie Game Developer #1′s recommendation from Indie Game Developer #2? Is it on the basis of their good looks, their cool web site, or the kind of shoes they wear? I’m being a bit facetious here because I’m not convinced that you really believe that “thinky” game writing is useless.

I’m just a gamer too. I want to play games and talk about them. I’m not satisfied with buying $2000 of games a year and consuming them like TV. I push buttons to make things do stuff. But I could also be doing that in a factory, or as a secretary, or in front of my TV. But I want to play games and write about them rather than do all of those forms of button pushing. Ever ask yourself why you play games? Or why would you end up reading and commenting on a site like this if you really thought game writing was just a waste of time?

Not trying to be an ass here, just hoping that your next comment will be a bit more self-reflective.

I don’t think you can take a video game and write philosophically about it. Video games are too functional of a medium. As a gaming culture writer you have the option of waxing philosophical about a game, but don’t expect it to be a huge draw. Thinky writing never is. That’s one of the unfortunate truths of the Human Condition philosophers have been whining about for centuries.

I will say that I played Home the other day, and it was one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had. This profound statement was not made by a games journalist. It was made by an indie game developer. The statement made by the games journalist made was “Play Home. It’s free. It takes five minutes to play and it’s totally worth it. Here’s the link. Home good.”

I’m not sure what more than that you expect a Gaming Journalist to do. I’m not sure what you more than that expect readers to want Gaming Journalists to do.

But then what do I know? I’m just a gamer. I push the buttons what makes the things do stuff to things.

Personally, I’d rather reap the glory and respect from my fellow gamers who are interested in the same writing/games as me, than the off-hand thank you of a million readers.

I’ll get started reading the blogs you’ve suggested. Hopefully this stuff will make me a little more light-hearted. I still loved the article. It’s really inspirational. I just can’t be bothered trying to smile for too long.

When the overwhelming fact is that the lifeblood of your very passion is also what binds you to constant mediocrity, and fleeting success, there’s really nothing to do but cry about it. I can’t relate to anyone talking about a UK magazine, because I’m American, and all our magazines have been pure crap or decently entertaining. I can say, though, that the way things are shaping up it seems like I probably would’ve been better off born across the pond.

But back to my major point. I’d love to write articles about the love of gaming, articles that aren’t one of those corny “Top Ten Reasons The PSP SUCKS!” pieces of crap, but who’s going to read it? Other writers? They barely have time to read over their own stuff. Games Journalism is sadly shaping up to be one of those fields where the only way you can succeed in it is to already be famous.

It’s like if you didn’t start out back when Gamespot was just an idea in someone’s notebook, there’s no shimmering ghost of a chance to do anything of note, or go anywhere worth mentioning in the field. 90% Of the gamers out there are fanboys with the reading level of the average African seven month old, and the attention span of The Cole Train on Red Bull and Budweiser. Most of the people I know that even buy magazines only do so to look at the fancy pictures and ads. The most reading they do is of the clever little captions. Oh joy.

Oh, and I LOVED EGM. I was a kid, but I loved it. So whoever has beef with THAT, well then… you’re not a nice person. So there.

Take a look at some of the blogs I linked to in the sentence “There are already some writers out there trying…” – those are all small individual attempts at realizing something meaningful about games without becoming pretentious or intellectual about it. None of them master game journalism, but they all contribute something unique, and when taken in sum (and keep in mind many of us are ‘writing to one another’ through our blog posts) create an interesting and vibrant community of game writers.

That being said, I have another article to recommend, recently written by Jamie Love of Toronto Thumbs:
http://www.torontothumbs.com/2009/06/14/being-samus-and-other-metroid-musings/

I consider Jamie’s “BEING SAMUS” article one of the finest examples of game writing to date. Feel free to contradict me on that, but I really think he’s pulled something special off in that article in terms of downright making sense, as well as leaving the writing community in a better state than when he joined it

Again, glad you found something of use here. Many of those who commented on my article have blogs of their own with valuable thoughts on games. And er, don’t worry about showing up late to the party

Everyone who’s commented on this article (or the comments I’ve read so far) seem like it’d be great to talk to. Wish I could somehow get in contact with any of you guys or work with any of you guys or just SEE something you guys have written to get an idea of where the best shit in games journalism is. I don’t know, I’ll have a better comment in about 20 minutes. Assuming anyone will even respond to this old ass article.

@David – good point – absolutely. My take on it is that good game criticism *may* lead to better game development, but is not written with that goal in mind, specifically. If it is written with future game development in mind, then it has the tendency to become marketing/product development fodder.

@Ben – thank you! I’m trying to figure out a way of critiquing games through its own medium. Stay tuned.

@mbp – interesting view you bring. Hidden deep inside somewhere in this article is my opinion that consumption is undermining the prospect of meaningful games. Meaning that I don’t think game criticism should really be the same thing as game reviewing – I don’t think NGJ should be part of the build-market-review-sell cycle. (ie. I don’t think we read art critics in order to decide if we buy a painting or not).

@Paul Barnett – welcome! “Perhaps instead of NGJ you just need to find a voice, stick to your truths and hope you write in a way that sings from your soul to other gamers?” I fully agree with you here. The problem is *how* we do that without becoming opinionated narcissists, and actually offer something new to other gamers, rather than restate what we already know. And yes – we don’t need a new “system” or institution to tell us how to write about games – a few individuals can really put out some amazingly inspired work. But geez, some days it gets lonely at the bottom! Interesting that kids don’t rely on reviews – that tells us something very important I think. Perhaps reviews are no longer going to be in demand in the future.

@Nick Cooper – Wow, I hope I didn’t imply that Kieron’s writing style was narcissistic – I don’t think it is at all. You bring up some interesting points. First, I don’t mind writing for a small audience; in fact, I think writing for a small audience is the best way to ensure that what I’m writing is relevant. This page is a good example of that – it’s not exactly Rock-Paper-Shotgun . You’re absolutely correct that I’m interested in poetics as a way of writing about, and understanding, games. Despite my reliance upon it, I really, really, hate academic language in game writing. It’s not only that it alienates the audience, but it needlessly formalizes an informal tradition. Words like “ludonarrative” give me the chills, to be honest. I think your point highlights exactly what I’d like to see in game writing – insight without the academic nonsense. But again, I really do think “accessibility” is the wrong direction here. The Wii is accessible. Tic-Tac-Toe is accessible. But do we draw our greatest cultural insights from reading accessible stuff? It seems to me that “poetic” does not automatically mean accessible. In my mind it instead means insightful, penetrating, disruptive, and enlightening. There are many people out in the world not interested in poetics, and that’s fine to me. But for those of us who want a richer experience of gaming, and are willing to put the work into reading/playing/writing it, we do need some kind of poetic language to work with. Thanks for the comment.

mbp #2 – I suppose I could have been poking fun at it in retrospect, but at the time I meant what I said Criticism *can* be just as, or more important, than the thing itself. To back up that claim, take Aristotle. He is a great example of a drama/literary critic whose works are so deep and insightful that an entire civilization’s worth of literature grew out of his ideas on greek tragedies. Nobody reads Aristotle to make purchasing decisions. I think that your disagreement with me is on the basis of a completely different idea of what a game is. I’m not interested in games-as-products. I’m interested in them as works of art, big and small.

Thanks again to the amazing responses thus far!