Last Wednesday I attended at the discussion night organized by Xi-Online (the student magazine of Media Studies) and Bashers (a collective of bloggers that aim to write about the cultural aspects of videogames). The discussion panel consisted of Jan Meijroos (freelance game journalist), Jurrie Hobers (vicepresident sales & marketing at Codemasters), David Nieborg (game researcher at the UvA and freelance game journalist) and was moderated by Niels ‘t Hooft (game journalist and writer). The main subject would be in what’s the position the today’s game journalism, how the journalist considered as independent and how revenues are being made.

Througout the debate, the audience frequently provided the needed criticism. The smaller game sites (I can’t even recall them..) as well as the larger ones (i.e Gamekings) were represented. Although it was interesting to hear so many different experiences, there also appeared to be fragmented interests concerning game journalism. Some Web sites of the smaller scale segment have the reputation of proudly admitting that they bluntly copy press articles (sometimes even literally), sites like Bashers tend to look outside (or around) of those PR hypes.

Moreover, the debate sometimes swiftly shifted from several definitions of the game journalist. As Blammo founder, Boris van de Ven, replied on Twitter a ‘reviewer’ is in no way comparable with a ‘journalist’. Although I don’t necessarily agree with that (doesn’t every preview report include some kind of qualifying descriptions?), it is essential to specify these terms in such a debate.

Also one of the repeatedly raised arguments was that in-depth writing should be considered of more cultural relevance than the ‘overdone’ reviews. In general, I think there’s no proper reason to dismiss game reviews (or in that case, any kind of review) as abundant or inferior. As mentioned in the debate, it still remains the starting-point for a lot of consumers, and obviously they’re still popular in most game-magazines. This being said, it should rather be the discussion what proper game critique should consist of (why is a game significant? What kind of authority should the reviewer present?). All these minor aspects of current game journalism were categorized by David as ‘short-term discussions’, being less important than the overall potential of the field. But essentially, I think that these minor aspects altogether show us what is to be considered as quality in these writings, and how to shape the field any further.

Another discussion was if there’s a market for the more extensive writings that focus for instance on smaller parts of gaming culture or software studies that discuss games. According to David, there’s a potential for the current media and journalism scholars, that increasingly move to the field of gaming. Unfortunately, this argument was fought by economical objections (to survive as a blog, you have to conform to a certain publish rate), and lack of ‘proof of concept’.

Lastly, it appeared that succes of game-journalism would be ascribed to different factors, as some Web sites claim that PR determined news items is viable because their public reach and sufficient bannering revenues. This point makes the discussion a bit awkward. First and foremost because the field is clearly scattered in terms of intentions and ambitions, and secondly, because the different platforms were mixed up (magazines, newspaper, blogs) without taking in consideration their fundamental characteristics. For instance, isn’t it so that an extremely active news-site like Kotaku is incommensurable by definition with traditional ways of publishing? Here, the different medium allows different approaches.

In conclusion, the debate left some crucial questions unanswered. According to David, the journalistic field struggles with structural problems (the stereotypical isolement, dependency on game-producers et cetera). However, it would still have a greater potential with, for example, reporting from a broader viewpoint and reaching a more myriad audience. Personally, the most prominent questions are what kind of content journalists should produce and what qualities it should hold? More importantly, what other ambitions can be formulated coming from the writers themselves instead of what has been accepted by (or sold to) older audiences.