Video game journalism

Video game journalism is a branch of journalism concerned with the reporting and discussion of video games. It is typically based on a core reveal/preview/review cycle. There has been a recent growth in online publications and blogs.

History

Print-based

The first magazine to cover the arcade game industry which is still in continuous publication is the subscription-only trade periodical, Play Meter magazine, which began publication in 1974 and covered the entire coin-operated entertainment industry (including the video game sector). Consumer-oriented video game journalism began during the golden age of arcade video games, soon after the success of 1978 hit Space Invaders, leading to hundreds of favourable articles and stories about the emerging video game medium being aired on television and printed in newspapers and magazines. In North America, the first regular consumer-oriented column about video games, “Arcade Alley” in Video magazine, began in 1978 and was penned by the late Bill Kunkel along with Arnie Katz and Joyce Worley. Meanwhile, in Japan, video games began receiving coverage in personal computer and manga magazines from the late 1970s. Video game designer Yuji Horii was a writer for one such video games column in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine during the early 1980s. Another early newspaper column dedicated solely to video games was The Vid Kid by Rawson Stovall and syndicated nationally by Universal Press Syndicate. The weekly column ran from 1982 to 1992.

The first consumer-oriented print magazine dedicated solely to video gaming was Computer and Video Games, which premiered in the U.K. in November 1981. This was two weeks ahead of the U.S. launch of the next oldest video gaming publication, Electronic Games magazine, founded by “Arcade Alley” writers Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz. As of 2015, the oldest video game publications still in circulation are Famitsu, founded in 1986, and Electronic Gaming Monthly, founded in 1989.

The video game crash of 1983 badly hurt the market for Western video game magazines. Computer Gaming World, founded in 1981, stated in 1987 that it was the only survivor of 18 color magazines for computer games in 1984. Gamasutra similarly noted that video game journalism had disappeared post-crash quoting Gail Tilden who ran Nintendo of America's PR at the time speaking about the NES's North American launch stating "I don't know that we got any coverage at that time that we didn't pay for" Meanwhile, in Japan, the first magazines entirely dedicated to video games began appearing from 1982, beginning with ASCII's LOGiN, followed by several SoftBank publications and Kadokawa Shoten's Comptiq. The first magazine dedicated to console games, or a specific video game console, was Tokuma Shoten's Family Computer Magazine, which began in 1985 and was focused on Nintendo's Family Computer (also known as Famicom or Nintendo Entertainment System). This magazine later spawned famous imitators such as Famitsu in 1986 and Nintendo Power in 1988.

Web-based

There are conflicting claims regarding which of the first two electronic video game magazines was the "first to be published regularly" online. Originally starting as a print fanzine in April 1992, Game Zero magazine, claims to have launched a web page in November 1994, with the earliest formal announcement of the page occurring in April 1995. Game Zero's web site was based upon a printed bi-monthly magazine based in Central Ohio with a circulation of 1500 that developed into a CD-ROM based magazine with a circulation of 150,000 at its peak. The website was updated weekly during its active period from 1994-1996.

Another publication, Intelligent Gamer Online ("IG Online") debuted a complete web site in April 1995, commencing regular updates to the site on a daily basis despite its "bi-weekly" name. Intelligent Gamer had been publishing online for years prior to the popularization of the web, originally having been based upon a downloadable "Intelligent Gamer" publication developed by Joe Barlow and Jeremy Horwitz in 1993. This evolved further under Horwitz and Usenet-based publisher Anthony Shubert into "Intelligent Gamer Online" interactive online mini-sites for America Online (AOL) and the Los Angeles Times' TimesLink/Prodigy online services in late 1994 and early 1995. At the time, it was called "the first national videogame magazine found only online."

Game Zero Magazine ceased active publication at the end of 1996 and is maintained as an archive site. Efforts by Horwitz and Shubert, backed by a strong library of built up web content eventually allowed IG Online to be acquired by Sendai Publishing and Ziff Davis Media, the publishers of then-leading United States print publication Electronic Gaming Monthly who transformed the publication into a separate print property in February 1996.

New media

Future Publishing exemplifies the old media's decline in the games sector. In 2003 the group saw multi-million GBP profits and strong growth, but by early 2006 were issuing profit warnings and closing unprofitable magazines (none related to gaming). Then, in late November 2006, the publisher reported both a pre-tax loss of £49 million ($96 million USD) and the sale—in order to reduce its level of bank debt—of Italian subsidiary Future Media Italy.

In mid-2006 Eurogamer's business development manager Pat Garratt wrote a criticism of those in print games journalism who had not adapted to the web, drawing on his own prior experience in print to offer an explanation of both the challenges facing companies like Future Publishing and why he believed they had not overcome them.

This then combined with the move away from mass media outlets towards niche experts to create a growing market for bespoke games writing. This gaming coverage, rather than trying to be objective, acknowledges that it is written from a certain perspective. Some outlets, Game People's social media for example, even use this bias as a unique selling point of their content.

Independent

While self-made print fanzines about games have been around since the advent of the first home consoles, it was the inclusion of the internet in the lives of most gamers that gave independent writers a real voice in video game journalism. At first ignored by most major game publishers, it was not until the communities developed an influential and dedicated readership, and increasingly produced professional (or near-professional) writing that the sites gained the attention of these larger companies.

Independent video game websites are generally non-profit, with any revenue going back towards hosting costs and, occasionally, paying its writers. As their name suggests, they are not affiliated with any companies or studios, though bias is inherent in the unregulated model to which they subscribe. While many independent sites take the form of blogs (the vast majority in fact, depending on how low down the ladder you look), the 'user-submitted' model, where readers write stories that are moderated by an editorial team, is also popular.

In recent times some of the larger independent sites have begun to be bought up by larger media companies, most often Ziff Davis Media, who now own a string of independent sites.

In 2013-2014, IGN and GameSpot announced significant layoffs.

The rise of reviews on video-oriented sites

According to a 2014 article by Mike Rose in Gamasutra: "The publicity someone like TotalBiscuit ... can bring you compared to mainstay consumer websites like IGN, GameSpot and Game Informer is becoming increasingly significant. A year ago, I would have advised any developer to get in touch with as many press outlets as possible, as soon as possible. I still advise this now, but with the following caveat: You're doing so to get the attention of YouTubers." Rose interviewed several game developers and publishers and concluded that the importance of popular YouTube coverage was most pronounced for indie games, dwarfing that of the dedicated gaming publications.

David Auerbach wrote in Slate that the influence of the video games press is waning. "Game companies and developers are now reaching out directly to quasi-amateur enthusiasts as a better way to build their brands, both because the gamers are more influential than the gaming journalists, and because these enthusiasts have far better relationships with their audiences than gaming journalists do. [...] Nintendo has already been shutting out the video game press for years." He concluded that gaming journalists' audience, gamers, is leaving them for video-oriented review sites.

Ethics

See also: Journalism ethics and standards

Journalism in the computer and video game media industry has been a subject of debate since at least 2002.

Conflicts of interest and pressure from game publishers

Publications reviewing a game often receive advertising revenue and entertainment from the game's publishers, which can lead to perceived conflicts of interest. Reviews by 'official' platform-specific magazines such as Nintendo Power, Official PlayStation Magazine or the Official Xbox Magazine typically have direct financial ties to their respective platform holders.

In 2001, The 3DO Company's president sent an email to GamePro threatening to reduce their advertising spend following a negative review.

In 2007, Jeff Gerstmann was fired from Gamespot after posting a review that was deemed too negative by its publisher, which also advertised heavily on the website. Due to non-disclosure agreements, Gerstmann was not able to talk about the topic publicly until 2012.

In a 2012 article for Eurogamer, Robert Florence criticised the relationship between the video games press and publishers, characterising it as "almost indistinguishable from PR", and questioned the integrity of a games journalist, Lauren Wainwright. In the controversy that followed, dubbed "Doritogate", the threat of legal action—the result of broad libel laws in the UK—caused Eurogamer to self-censor. Florence was forced to amend his article, and he consequently retired from games journalism.

According to a July 2014 survey by Mike Rose in Gamasutra, approximately a quarter of high profile YouTube gaming channels receive pay from the game publishers or developers for their coverage, especially those in the form of Let's Play videos.

Following the Gamergate controversy that started in August 2014, both Destructoid and The Escapist tightened their disclosure and conflict of interest policies. Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo said writers were no longer allowed to donate to Patreon campaigns of developers. Kotaku later disclosed that journalist Patricia Hernandez, who had written for them, was friends with developers Anna Anthropy and Christine Love, as well as being Anthropy's former housemate. Polygon announced that they would disclose previous and future Patreon contributions.

Social issues

Portrayal of women by the industry has been criticized as sexist.

New Games Journalism

New Games Journalism (NGJ) is a video game journalism term, coined by journalist Kieron Gillen in 2004, in which personal anecdotes, references to other media, and creative analyses are used to explore game design, play, and culture. It is a model of New Journalism applied to video game journalism. Gillen's NGJ manifesto was first published on the now defunct state forum/website, a community of videogame players often engaged in discussion and analysis of their hobby, from which an anecdotal piece, Bow Nigger, had appeared. Gillen cites the work as a major inspiration for and example of what NGJ should achieve and the piece was later re-published in the UK edition of PC Gamer, a magazine with which Gillen has close professional ties.

Most NGJ articles are not reviews of games in the traditional sense. They can instead be understood as being analogous to travel journalism, where the writer responds to subjective experiences presented to them by the game world, as well as interactions with other players online, real-world events surrounding gameplay, and other personal experiences and anecdotes which create a unique story. The story is not necessarily indicative of the experience any other player will have with the game and will be unlikely to offer any objective value-judgements regarding the game's merits or failings. Instead, attention is focused on the subjective experience of the person playing the game.

Retro game reviews

As retrogaming grew in popularity, so did reviews and examinations of older video games. This is primarily due to feelings of nostalgia to video games people have grown up with, which, according to professor Clay Routledge, may be more powerful than similar nostalgic emotions caused by other artforms, such as music.

This also includes the remasterization and review of older video games, with such, as reviewing the critical aspects of the game and how it is delivered to a modern aspect.

See also

• List of video game magazines
• List of books about video games

External links

• Ten Unmissable Examples of New Games Journalism