Fox Force Five

Is this anything more grating than a journalist who has just “discovered” something and decided they should be the first person to write Real Objective Journalism about it? Ugh.

I’ve just been reading Patrick Brosnan’s guest post on Margaret Simons’ Content Makers blog. Apparently there was never a real games journalist until Mr Brosnan came along. I hope he’s going to let the readers down gently. Or, you know, he could take some time to actually read up on games journalism.

It may be a shock to Mr Brosnan that in addition to the cheap and nasty sold-at-the-supermarket-checkout games mags that rely on teen gamers to write reviews in return for free games, there are also games sites and publications which value quality writing.

Take a look at Atomic MPC – a PC hardware and gaming magazine which was so well respected internationally that the Heseltine-owned Haymarket Media acquired its small Australian publisher, AJB Publishing, largely to get their mitts on it. I haven’t read Atomic in a while, but at the time I was working for AJB, Atomic had a fanatical audience, and a number of award winning journalists who wrote for it, myself included.

Or Mr Brosnan could take a look at Edge, a UK games publication which also had an international reputation because it did a great job of writing up not just games news, but also covering the technical innovations and business dealings of the games industry. (Let us not speak of the horrible, watered down Australian version. That was just a massive disappointment.)

These publications employed Real Writers – both journalists and reviewers. I’d be surprised if any of them weren’t also gamers. Yes, Virginia, there can be Real Journalists who also play computer games. The notion of the detached, objective journalist was always a lie. People don’t get to know an industry intimately in the way that journalists must, without forming opinions on what’s going on around them. It’s just that they’re meant to write objectively, give both sides of the story, and look cagey when you accuse them of being biased. I’m sorry, but bloggers have taught us that disclosure is a far more powerful means of earning credibility than hiding behind “objectivity”. I don’t want to read games journalism written by non gamers.

It’s not just about whether you’re a qualified journalist, either. Mr Brosnan, sadly, seems allergic to opinion. And snark. Apparently you can’t express opinions, or employ sarcasm and be a good writer, or reviewer (That’s me gone then. That’s ok, Patrick. I just want you to know that we can still be friends). He’d better not watch Zero Punctuation then. Shame, because Yahtzee raised the bar for other reviewers by presenting his reviews as hilarious, fast paced animated movies. I’ll happily watch Zero Punctuation reviews for games I’ve never heard of, because they’re entertaining in their own right. Until Yahtzee came along, I hadn’t enjoyed reviews so much since legendary British music mag Select went down the gurgler.

Mr Brosnan proposes a new journalism (sorry, Journalism!), which will be showcased on his website, Player Three. It has at its foundation, Real Journalists. “These journalists don’t necessarily need a vast general knowledge on the gaming industry”. Yes, I can see how that’s a great start for a niche journalism publication. Tell your journalists they aren’t expected to really know their beat. The truth serum will be applied by the editors, who are the games experts. Because people who play games aren’t qualified to write about them. Only Journalists can do the writing, got that?

I haven’t been a tech or games journalist for a couple of years now, which is why my examples are a few years old. There are plenty of examples of rubbish games magazines and websites, granted. And I’ve been highly critical of sycophantic games writers who are in it for the free stuff and don’t think twice about being gladhanded by PR folk in return for breathless  ”10/10!…” reviews. The Pollyanna grin was wiped from my face pretty early on when it came to games journalism. PlayStation 2 was launched in 2000 when I was working on a tech news magazine in London. A game reviewer we knew was given a weekend to review 30 games. 30. How many minutes did he get to spend playing each game then, even assuming he didn’t sleep? As a punter who always consulted games reviews before dropping 90 quid on a game, I was horrified.

So no,  I don’t expect “objectivity” as Mr Brosnan describes it, because I want my games writers to *be* gamers. But I do expect knowledgeable and fair reviews, and journalism. And you can get it, when you look around. What a shame Mr Brosnan didn’t actually do that, before jumping on his white horse and riding in to save us.