MAKING SPACE FOR CRITICS AND EQUAL COVERAGE FOR ALL GAMES
ryan o'donnellPhil Fish was kind enough to ask me to participate in the Indie Gamemaker Rant at GDC 2010. I was delighted to be invited, especially considering I'm not an indie game developer. At first I planned to talk about how small development studios should document their process, and essentially, do their own press. But Phil told me that the audience would've heard that before.
I decided to speak about my feelings concerning the gaming press instead. A few weeks ago, I sat down to write some notes on the subject. Two hours later, I had written a full speech. I tried -- and failed -- to memorize it in time for the session. The entire text, almost exactly as I read it from my phone in front of the live audience, follows below:
Photo courtesy of Official GDC on Flickr.
I know many of you here are indie game creators. I am not one of you. I've been a member of the gaming press for the past ten years, first as a freelancer, then on the editorial and video teams at GameSpy.com, IGN.com, and 1UP.com where I co-created the 1UP Show. I'm now a part of the independent company AREA 5, where I make videos about games.
In general, the gaming press drives me nuts. So much of the writing is garbage, isn't it? When I read a piece that uses proper grammar and punctuation, it's surprising; isn't that sad? Quality, process and copy editors have been set aside in the name of immediacy and 24-hour-a-day coverage. It's no surprise. It's the same shift that's happened to media at large. It's sad.
The worst part is that I still care. Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe it's crazy to think that the most interactive and modern art form on the planet needs to be picked at and pulled apart by writers, radio and video producers, and fellow game creators with a vast knowledge of the medium. Maybe I'm crazy to think we need to pay these termites talk about their insights from a late night online gaming session or how No More Heroes relates to French New Wave cinema. Maybe I'm nuts to think we should give them open access to studios to let them dissect the game design process and write about it. Would it be insane to let them burrow through the craft, peek at its insides, focus on its intricacies and help us all see how it works? I know. I'm crazy. I want people to dig through it all so that we can learn from their findings and have a document of the triumphs, the growing pangs, and mundanity of our medium in its infancy. I won't apologize for it, though. That's what I want: an industry with space for real critics.
But since I started working as part of the gaming press ten years ago, the number of quality gaming outlets with a budget has gone down, not up. The number of writers I respect has increased, but the vast majority of them have moved from editorial teams into game development. And it makes sense: games benefit from great stories. Publishers need tastemakers to build their communities. And most importantly, these writers have families and need to be paid an honest wage to survive. But when the potential subject of these former critics' work is a single game rather than all of them, the number of checks and balances in our system decreases. Even if what they write is only subtlety influenced by the corporation calling the shots, it still is. Not only are we losing all this potentially great, moving, and insightful game criticism, we're losing the ability to keep our industry honest.
The largest of the editorial outlets will continue to survive based on the quality of their SEO, the number of users on their messageboards, and the quickness with which they can post the latest media assets from the biggest AAA games. They don't want or need to enable the best of us to act as curators of the medium while also aiding us in paying our rent. Their dot-com-boom-esque staff sizes, huge tech and production teams, and arcane, flash-driven front pages define them. What they pay for all that could be focused into quality editorial work and clean, simple, modern web design. But it's not. Because nobody wants to upheave their own operation if it already pays; and pay it does.
I'm just one disenchanted guy with five minutes to talk. I can't change the way things are. But if I could make a humble request of the gaming press -- one that would cost nothing but a little time and effort on the part of the writers to implement -- it would be this: treat games equally. AAA games. Indie games. iPhone games. There are thousands of great games out there waiting to be discussed. They're all competing against each other for the same thing: our time. Despite their budgets or the number of people involved in their creation, these games are influenced by each other, our culture and and the people who play them. They're all important to the future of the medium. And a lot of them are even fun to play.
Don't limit the scope of your coverage to games with titles you've seen in the press releases filling your inbox. Go out and find new stories yourself. You say: we cover indie games now, dude! I say: bravo. But just covering new releases on XBLA and PSN isn't enough. An indie round-up once a year won't cut it either. Don't compartmentalize your coverage. I'd like to see fewer top ten lists and blogs dedicated to the best twenty iPhone games that came out last week. I love Offworld and TinyCartridge as much as anyone else, but I don't feel those sites have that much of an opportunity to expand the minds of the vast majority of Gears of War players, for example. Their audience will always be limited next to that of the big boys; it's the larger outlets that I want to see mention God of War III, Heavy Rain, Spelunky, Colorbind, and Auditorium all in the same breath. You have the power to turn your readers, watchers, and listeners on to so much more than what's new this week on Xbox 360 if you simply talk about both the big and small games with the same level of commitment, care, and enthusiasm. The scale of your operation gives you the unique opportunity to cover more. This "all games are equal" mantra has worked for my team and I. We're constantly getting Twitter followers and commenters telling us how grateful they are about being turned on to some tiny game they would've missed simply because we included it in the conversation. Put simply: our audience comes for Halo: Reach and stays for VVVVVV.
If we can expand the number and type of games that enter the consciousness of the audience, the diversity of the games themselves will inspire more creative criticism. We can invite more people to care about what the creators we critique create if we can show them just how ambiguous the definition of the word videogame is. Hopefully then we can get back to building our side of the industry into what it should be rather than let it grow into a larger version of what it is now: a vast landscape of consumer reports and the same daily headlines copy-and-pasted across thousands of websites without ever being edited by another pair of eyes -- or a spell checker -- all while our best writers are being picked off or burnt out one at a time. Treat games equally. That would be a baby step in the right direction.
Reader Comments (37)
I hope that this message reaches out far and wide. We need more people to stand up and say this sort of thing. You are a hero, man.
Well Said, Sir.
Ryan...one of my early memories regarding the 1UP Show was in the summer of 2007. I was showing it to my friends at this one week journalism camp/workshop for rising high-school seniors put on by the University of Georgia's Grady school of journalism. Needless to say, they thought it was awesome!
But what I also remember about that week was that I spent half of it co-executive producing a half-hour mock news show with packages from around the school, and the other half of that time trying to record and update my little tech podcast with the happenings from WWDC that year (ironically, I think it was a Leopard demo + Steve Jobs trying to quiet complaining devs. by saying "Make web apps for the iPhone! It's a sweet solution!"). Half the week was old-media, half was new.
It's nearly three years later, I'm still producing that tech podcast (now on the radio too), I now go to UGA, and last week, I was officially admitted to that journalism school. New media's gotten even bigger in that time...but this journalism school's curriculum has changed very little from what I hear. Lots of people told me to keep away from J-school, but for a telecom degree, it still seemed the perfect choice for me.
After seeing what's been happening to online news, and after reading your talk, Ryan, I can say that I'm actually now happy I made the choice to attend. The basics still apply. Online, people seem to not think they do, as you said above, but the basics of solid journalism still apply. That's why I'm going to school to be a journalist. They'll teach me how to edit and put together a good piece, but more importantly, they'll teach me the standards and ethics that will hopefully separate me from that other guy in a changing field of blogs, news websites, and other outlets. I just hope that a little common sense and spirit of pro-active journalism isn't just limited to those who go to school in the field.
Your words and your work (and that of everyone else at Area5 and many others from/formerly from 1UP) have inspired that spirit in me again. I don't think the field of journalism is collapsing. There will always be a need for people who do more than just relay what's already out there. There will always be a line between lazy and pro-active. I can only hope there will always be a place in whatever interest someone has (be it gaming, or tech, general news, or even stamp collecting) for people who demonstrate what good journalism can truly be. Hopefully they can all get paid for it too. Thanks again Ryan.
RIGHT ON, BRUTHA!
Interesting topic, and I think it leads to a related topic of how to make games more appealing and understood by the outside world (non-gamers). If all game press is related to "Check Out teh n3w HALOZ!!" and such, gaming will never reach the same level of respect that media like movies and books garner. But if the gaming press can cover what makes games important, how they make us feel, how they teach us about ourselves and each other, and dig down past the superficial bullet points of frame rates and anti-aliasing and number of online players, it will begin to meld with the current forms of entertainment as a valued format for expression, art, entertainment, and communication. One of the other indie game speakers mentioned how games aren't really new at all, as they are just based on the same games people have played for centuries.
The reality, however, is that gaming is becoming a massive, high profile media, which usually associates with over exposure of 24/7 news cycles. Why else have I heard several podcasts, multiple blogs, and forum posts about two dudes at some game company got fired. Do I really care? Is this any better than YMZ buying photos of the newest celebrity couple's baby and plastering it on the news? Or Paris Hilton? If gaming is going to continue to grow, this sort of news cycle may always exist, as will the game sites that act as the USA Today for games. It's dumbed down for the mainstream masses, but still gives some benefit to the gaming fans who want to follow every tidbit. And I think you were trying to say that we don't have to exclude that from game coverage, but it should be sprinkled in with a varied coverage of different games, including critical analysis of games. I think there are some sites out there that are making this happen, and I love reading more in depth articles.
I know the one thing that I've loved about 1UP show and Co-op is the coverage of a wide variety of material and viewpoints. Sometimes I don't get into some of the games that you guys cover, but I respect that someone out there is digging it, and some times I discover something I would never have tried. I have never gotten into RPGs before hand, but you guys beat Mass Effect into my brain so damn much I had to give it a go and am really enjoying it.
/end rant because nobody is still reading
P.S. I know you guys were all indie game makers/press, but couldn't they have given you guys some fold up chairs? lol.
Ryan, you know how to rant and i salute you.
Due to the internet and society, I agree with your ideas of the main stream media of video games and the need for more independent game developers to be heard.
Good work at GDC and I expect more ranting from you in the future.
Ryan I agree with the point of your rant, the situation you have seen develop is intolerable, and should be impetus for the changes in gaming journalism you mentioned. But it won't. At least, not all by itself, in a vacuum.
I know I'm not going to win friends with this, but the missing link in the equation for indie game developers is marketing. I'm not talking about huge budgets for advertising, or focus groups, or Dante's Inferno style stunt promotion. I'm talking about having someone on your team who is going to get out there and place the message "hey, my game exists" in the inbox of the very journalists you mention. This instinct and action can be done by a person who specializes in it, or just by a person who is good at it. Look at the efforts of Johnathan Blow, and what he did to introduce Braid to everyone's radar, just by publicly promoting his own game.
PR and Marketing get such a bad rap in games journalism. I know it's because of the big companies and the squads of guys in their suits doing the job, with no love for games. I can still remember the interview with the marketing girl on the 1up Show for "24: The Game," who, while spouting buzzwords about the 'product,' vocally marvelled to herself, "wow, it almost sounds like I know what I'm talking about," when you knew without a doubt she hadn't picked up a controller and tried that 'product' herself at all.
There's got to be a new middle ground, a new profession, really, of professional gamer/marketers--who don't expect a six-figure salary and a 20 million dollar ad budget to do their job, but instead want to do it for enough to live, and for the good of the game, and can get it done with Twitter, Facebook, NeoGAF, and good old-fashioned elbow grease. Apple threw this concept of Marketing/PR on its ear years ago, by renaming the role 'evangelist.'
It's not enough for there to be reporters who wish they could evangelize every indie title out there, there jut simply aren't enough of you out there. For indie developers who are really starting to get serious about their game and maybe selling it, paying some bills, making a go of it--it's time to stop the immature resentment of the swaying of public and critical opinion, and time to start taking advantage of it.
Nice rant, and yes please yes treat all games equally. I think it's starting to happen, but it wasn't too long ago that Peggle was the best kept secret of game reviewers. Apparently they had all been addicted to it for months before they started talking or writing about it. Why? Were they ashamed to play a casual game for hours every day and dared not mention it, instead just regurgitating the PR speak they were fed (terms like AAA or Epic) about upcoming big budget games, a lot of them mediocre and now forgotten?
I'll end this comment with a request for Co-op: could you show more Wiiware games, please? Maybe I'm nuts but I find the games on the service more interesting than most of the ones on PSN, but it's so hard to find impressions or videos about them.
Very well said. It has worked very well for you guys as I am just as excited to see some new Indie game as I am for more Splinter Cell or Halo. I also worry a lot about the games press, places like joystiq are very popular, but I don't think the quality of the average post is that high and I often see sites like those post stuff that wrong.
We still have Shack News, Gamespy and what's left of 1UP for places that you can trust or look for something that's a little different but even they could learn something from your post.
You did a great job giving that speech and I think everyone appreciated hearing your thoughts on bringing a little bit of unity to games coverage
Posts like this are why Area5 is my gaming site of choice. Keep up the good work and continue to tell it like it is. There are people out here that notice your efforts. Thank you!
very nice article indeed
Nicely said Ryan. Your guy's show is exactly what I want from a game journalists and their reviews. People who sat down and played the game and review it by talkin about if it was a fun experience or not. I dont want to hear them rate the story, graphics gameplay etc. I just want to hear if its worth while buying it and fun. Thats exactly what you guys do. I also, like you said, enjoy that you guys take time to review small indie games like super meat boy, pixel junk games. I am aware of them because of your show and always surprise a teacher, Steve Swink, that I know about them. Hes the one at the far right, dazing at his blue water bottle in the pic. He Co-hosted the IGFs.
Great Speech Ryan, and I hoped you and the whole team had a lot of fun at GDC. :D
Wait a minute: back on the 1Up Show, franchises like Halo, GTA, Metal Gear Solid would be featured topics for WEEKS if not MONTHS. Think about the reason for that, because it explains everything. Web-based games and flash games have been around since the 1990s. Like game publishers, game press has to actually make money to justify their existence. I don't have to prove that, 1Up Show proved it for 3.5 years - and that show was produced by Ryan O'Donnell, the author of this speech. Pure journalism is a Utopian luxury that simply isn't realistic. Sometimes it's painfully obvious how much of a bubble the EGM cadre lived in.
@SDF the 1up Show was pioneer for coverage of independent gaming, convention scene, specialty Tokyo gaming shops, underdog titles...
Like game producers themselves, the blatantly commercial stuff is done to pay bills and help finance the soul-work. Nothing new there. Srsly.
My level of respect for you has increased ten-fold, Matt. You sure have a clear, unambiguous plan for this decidedly ambiguous industry.
Thank you for your contributions to the indie gaming scene, you have done wonders for some lesser-known developers by just getting peoples' attention by your work here on Co-Op.
Wherever your career path may lead you, I now recognize that all of us gamers should be profoundly grateful for people like you -- your enthusiasm, your energy, your discussions, your opinions, and most importantly, as you've said yourself, your time.
Thank you once again with the immesest of gratification.
Seriously (that's how it's spelled) Dana, thanks for proving my point. Have a nice day.
Nice speech man, hope everyone got the message.
From the first paragraph:
"Phil Fish was kind enough to ask me to participate Indie Gamemaker Rant at GDC 2010."
"But Phil told me that the audience would've hear that before."
Then a couple paragraphs down:
When I read a piece that uses proper grammar and punctuation, it's surprising; isn't that sad?
@Jade Martin: Yes, I need a copy editor too. I posted it quickly and with errors. I'm ashamed.
This is a perfect example of why I edit video and not text.
I smell trolls...
@Ryan I am available to copy edit for a reasonable rate (I consider good Mission burritos as acceptable currency).
On to a serious note: I love journalism. I've made it my life's work. When I joined Ziff Davis Media's Game Group as its copy chief, I was surprised at how much this group of people cared about proper storytelling, about the craft, and even about commas. It's so sad to see what's happened over the past couple of years since I joined the enthusiast press -- so much schlock's out there. We do have some bastions of good work -- Ryan Scott's brought some much-needed class to GameSpy, and John Davison's revitalization of GamePro is making it a must-read publication. We need to support such efforts.
@Jason Wilson: If video production didn't take so much time, I might have a bit more energy to write. If I do start regularly again, I might just take you up on your offer.
Hear, hear!
Co-op is the only source of game news/reviews that I really trust to tell it like it is without any of the bias or ego that you get elsewhere. You've also helped me discover at least half a dozen games that I probably wouldn't have heard about anywhere else :)
Keep up the good work!
The issues with grammar and copy editing are definitely saddening. I started reading an article at MTV.com about a game recently, and found two major typos within the first paragraph (one of them was the second word). I promptly sopped reading. How can someone expect me to take their opinion seriously if they can't take a second to give it a second glance before hitting the publish button.
@Russel Ihrig: I don't want to be a dick, but your post's misspelling is too ironic to pass up ;) (I'll assume it was intentional, an illustrative faux pas.)
I think we all agree, but when it comes to copy editing / grammar, while some of the onus falls on the writers, I think it's mostly a statement of the publication's editing staff itself. I have a friend who got a degree in creative writing, and one of the classes she took was on copy editing. Her professor essentially gave a test when they first arrived, and you either passed the class or dropped it then and there. She said, and I fully ascribe to this, that copy editing is a gift, and you can either do it or you can't. I, for one, know I can't do it, and I still miss mistakes I've made in my writing (you'll probably find a few in this comment).
I've personally found the best way to improve my writing is to read it out loud. That usually improves the quality of both the grammar and content. That said, I think I struggle with the same problem as many aspiring game/entertainment writers. How do you avoid being an echo chamber and still write about content that people care about?
I haven't figured out the answer to that question yet. Let me know if anyone has ;)
Ryan,
Long time follower, first time commenter. In regards to game reviews, the evaluation of games by the enthusiast media is so surface level that they basically act as mouth pieces for extended PR. It's a joke, and I very much agree with you. All the enthusiast media do is talk about "what's in a game" rather than considering the how and why. Personally, I run a small-time blog in which I always pose the how and why (or at the very least try to say something not covered elsewhere), and yet when I talk to other Australian writers and editors, those who write for the big publications/are part of the "games criticism" blogging crowd, I feel so misunderstood. As though they've been warmed into a train of thought which avoids all critical judgment.
I think that you're on to something Ryan, honestly, you've been refining your eye for this thing for a while, you're certainly much better than I am and am in a pretty significant position to keep things going too. Keep thinking about the how and why when evaluating games, because as you know, the answer lies in the design and construction, it's all just about seeing and making the subconscious visible.
Daniel
PS. Was originally sour on CO-OP Live but you guys have picked up massively, I prefer the new format now. Hope to tweet you some questions sometime.
@Ryan
If you had pre ordered an area5 shirt when do they come in the mail?!!!!!
Well then you have to balance the profitability and creativity with the demand for games. What you are talking is about creating new aesthetic demand which can't be fulfilled unless you really serious in giving the time and effort to many untapped gaming potential markets. The example can be of women who haven't been served with any game that would really be upto the level to compete the games made for men.
Damn, great speech Ryan. Read it three times.
When is the next episode coming out guys ?
The loan are important for people, which would like to start their own career. By the way, that's very comfortable to get a secured loan.
Dude, I love the fact that you guys have always touched on indie games. I've been turned on to quite a few titles I haven't even heard of thanks to your coverage. Without you, I'd have never played Flight Control, Critter Crunch, or a dozen other small market titles. Thank you so much for opening my eyes to these great games!
And then Fox goes and fires Chris Roper from IGN.
Umm, I'd just like to point out for the record, now that the furor has died down, that I fully know how to spell 'seriously,' and merely consider any contraction that is generally accepted on NeoGAF as acceptable for use in pointless debating on other message boards. That is all.
Oh and guys the Acai Berry and Loan spam is creeping up on you... ;)
Well, I am looking forward to whatever you guys are working on; you always produce grade A stuff. I wish you the best of luck on everything you're doing.
Very nice speech! thanks