Thanks.
Thanks again! See you guys in World At War! (I'll be the one blowing up my teammates with grenades on accident)
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The Changing Face of Game Journalism
The following a response to the article, No Cheering In the Press Box, by AJ Glasser of Gamepro. I felt I should respond a bit more in detail, besides what I put in the comments there. As someone who has been doing this whole "gaming coverage" thing for 7 or 8 years - I obviously have an opinion. Give the original article a read before moving on.
If you look at sports journalism there's actually two kinds of writers - there's hometown writers and national writers. The national guys need to be a bit less unbiased, and they may not cheer or whatever in their coverage. These are the folks you'd find on ESPN, but watching any coverage on the station it's actually quite easy to see what team a commentator is rooting for. They may not be "actively cheering" - but there's certainly bias.
When you look at hometown writers & broadcasters - they most definitely cheer. In fact, it's there's JOB to cheer when broadcasting an event or to get excited when giving color commentating. Just watch any of the Fox Sports Networks regional channels for NHL or MLB coverage and you'll understand immediately. But the same goes for the local "beat" writers. It's their job to praise the heck out of the rookie that had a hat trick the night before and claim him as the second coming and then scathe him as a worthless investment when he goes scoreless for two weeks.
Gaming "journalism" is similar. Most of us got into this because we are fans, and we are gamers - much like sports journalists are in some way emotionally attached to the material they cover - whether it's by having played the sport professionally or just as a passive fan. We have a vested interest in the medium at multiple levels, so when something excites us - of course we are going to show emotion.
AJ suggests we just sit back and observe. Can you not observe while actively participating. If the audience is compelled to clap at an introduction and you clap - are you not still observing a positive reaction? Why do do we have to be robots at these events?
I'll agree - there's no reason to force it. When Skittles and the little girl were up on stage at E3 2010 at the Microsoft Press Conference? I sat in disbelief. The river rafting using Kinect? I said outloud I wouldn't be caught playing that crap. I did not clap at either. Gears 3, Halo Reach and Metal Gear? Damn right I clapped. That stuff excited me.
I think in general there's this problem with the gaming coverage industry right now. Bloggers are being bloggers while still filling the role of journalists. Journalists are getting lumped in with bloggers so they are having this identity crisis. They, being the professionally trained journalists, are trying to stand out above the crowd - with some of sense of entitlement may I add- so we are constantly seeing the J word thrown around and how everyone should be doing it "this way." Frankly there's room for both ways.
Just like the PR industry is evolving, becoming more community/crowd oriented - so is the industry that covers it. I got my "break" in games thanks to a community focused PR team at Edelman. They were launching the Xbox 360 - and instead of just inviting "journalists" they expanded their coverage to include blogs and even community forums. It's changed and evolved, and you can read about the whole spectacle in a blog post I had from August of 2008 - but it still holds mostly true.
I'll wrap this up by saying I think the original article raises a few good points. But I disagree that anyone covering a product should have a passive role in that coverage - they need to be active and engaged. Gaming is a physical and tactile medium. It overloads our senses and hopefully gives us an adrenaline rush. It takes us to different worlds, lets us be sports superstars, and helps us save the princess over and over again. And for that - I applaud.
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