Journalism

I have to say something about the 'Bow, nigger' piece of new games journalism. I was so enthralled in that piece of writing, so 'along for the ride' that at times i actually found myself laughing out loud as i read. I've never laughed out loud reading a piece of writing about games before! I enjoyed the read. It brought a smile to my face. It told a story, and it told it well, it portrayed an opinion and entertained while it did so. All this and i actually feel like i have a fairly good idea what the game is like too. Sod what the game actually does, but i have a picture of how it feels to play it. Infact i actually wouldn't mind playing it right now.

I guess this is the point new games journalism articles are getting at. In an age where magazine sales are down, the writing has to entertain. I mean i used to read Gamesmaster magazine when i actually actively played alot of games and it was quite an entertaining read. It had character and that is why i bought it. These days i read Edge mainly because as a logical progression away from buying the magazines for games, i am more interested in reading them for games journalism in general. Discourse relating to games will always take my fancy. It's such an underappreciated area relating to something that i have a lot of passion for. Thus i have lots of time for it.

At the end of the day, i don't care what a magazine has to say about a game, i will buy a game regardless of it's review. I don't mind previews in magazines and online, mainly because how else would i find out about new games. It's here that the writing counts, does the game sound exciting? Innovative? How does the writer feel about the game. More often than not, if the writer is excited then i will be too. Then again i love to read, i'm a sucker for good writing.

I think it's rather interesting however that lots of journalism in this area is distorted by it's function. I mean the process of creating a magazine often prompts lazy reviews and online reviews have somewhat lax writing. At the end of the day, these things primarily exist to wack a pulsating score on the end of a piece of text which is generally highly indicative of the game is going to do well or not. Games magazines look at other games magazines, and basically learn from their peers so in general it's quite a standardised system. You will not get largerly differing scores amongst reviewers. As far as i am aware a game has never got a 9 in one magazine only to get a 4 in another.

Although it shouldn't count, a bad review is going to deter the greater poplus from buying certain games. That's just the way it is. To criticise it is to crit the media in general which is a whole different beast in and of itself.

In my own writing i value subjectivity but ironically subjectively i value objectivity. If that makes any sense. It probabaly doesn't. If i am writing about something i want to put my myself into it. Otherwise it leaves me feeling dead inside. To inform and entertain is quite skill and one rarely accomplished well. However i don't think subjective writing should be a substitute for objective writing where the writer cannot write objectively very well.

I've kind of confused myself trying to explain the above, however simply put it doesn't have to be as black and white as -
objective writing - boring
subjective writing- entertaining

The best pieces of writing contain elements of both and it's a shame it's not valued more in games journalism!