State of play: is there a role for the New Games Journalism?

The week that Hunter S Thompson committed suicide seems like an appropriate (or staggeringly inappropriate – I can't decide which) time to talk about the state of videogame journalism. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a link to a Maoist game review site and briefly mentioned the rise of New Games Journalism, a highly subjective approach to videogame writing in which the player's own experiences within the game environment are brought to the fore. Of course, this style has its roots in the gonzo journalism practised by Thompson and his contemporaries, which partly explains my timing.

The other element is a growing States-side frustration with the quality of videogame writing. A fortnight ago, US blog These Damned Machines Are Killing Me ran an article entitled, 'This Is Why Your Game Magazine Sucks', which attacked all the familiar facets of the traditional games publication. Veteran games designer Ron 'Monkey Island' Gilbert picked up on this in his blog, Grumpy Gamer, and added a few of his own criticisms and suggestions. The debate has been developing ever since...

So can articles like the now legendary 'Bow, Nigger' save games journalism, or at least introduce a new era where reflective writing can exist alongside the rigidly structured reviews-based fare we're used to? Should games mags, as Gilbert suggests, snap the ties that bind them to games publishers and start digging for some dirt?

Well, there's going to be a hell of a lot of work involved. For a start, most games magazines are intricately structured to guide the reader through to purchasing a game. Almost universally, the layout goes like this: news, previews, preview features, reviews – a linear, clearly signposted pathway to the shop counter. There's not a lot of room here for retrospective or in-depth analysis. In fact, the only point where most magazines look back at previously released games is in the tips section, which hardly offers much scope for interesting journalism.

There's a very good reason for this set-up. Most readers seem to see magazines as buying guides and little else. They want to know what they'll be able to buy in the future, and what's worth buying now. This is hardly unique to videogame magazine publishing – movie and music magazines, in fact all publications based around consumer activity, work in very much the same way. Partly, then, the challenge is in persuading readers that a six page retrospective on a game released a year ago isn't just space wasted.

Some magazines address this very well. Edge has recently introduced its monthly 'Time Extend' section, which looks back at specific elements of key titles. This accompanies the long-running 'Making of' – another retrospective regular. Elsewhere, GamesTM has its fun and painstakingly authentic 'Retro' section, which obsesses over classic games, game adverts and eighties magazine design. But these publications are targeted at 'hardcore' gamers fascinated by the whole culture and history of the medium. Most people who pick up the latest EA title in Game every month aren't interested in cult arcade machines or obscure Amiga titles – just like a majority of Empire readers aren't really that interested in Truffaut or Fritz Lang. It's little wonder why: when mainstream movie magazines attempt retro-flavoured features, they are usually second-rate slogs through secondary sources (how many 'the seventies were kerrazy' features has Easy Riders, Raging Bulls provided ALL the material for?)

What videogame magazines really should be able to do is exploit the conversational buzz that surrounds really good, mass-market videogames for months after release. People are still talking about the likes of San Andreas, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault and Star Wars Galaxies, and there are many ways that magazines can explore and contribute to this discourse, this sense of gaming as a cultural activity. 'Bow, Nigger' is a brilliant example – this gripping and emotive account of a single encounter in Jedi Knight II brought an older title to life and, heck, may even have spiked sales for a pretty much forgotten product. Nostalgia, if handled correctly, sells.

The problem is, this sort of article couldn't fit into the current structure of most videogame magazines. 'Bow, Nigger' is an intimate account of a game that the writer knows well, and around which a community has grown with it's own emergent rules and traditions. It's very difficult (although not impossible) to capture all this in a review. Magazine writers rarely get more than a couple of days with a game – hardly enough time to get past the first few levels let alone truly explore the parameters of the experience on offer. On top of that, reviews are generally written weeks before a game is released so if the title offers a multiplayer mode, the writer will often have very few people to try it out against. Even if there's a beta server in operation, it can take months before a community really develops around a multiplayer game.

So we're back to that old problem of making space for retrospective writing, and the fundamental question - do the readers actually want it? Maybe not – not yet anyway. But it's in the magazine's interest to show them what they're missing; it's in the magazine's interest to explore and get involved with gaming communities and to revel in gaming experiences that only become accessible after months of play. After all, there is still so much to say about Manhunt, about Project Zero 2, about Animal Crossing. There's a wealth of material out there. It could just be a lazy list feature (say, 'the best endings in Silent Hill 2 and what they mean'). People love lazy list features. It could be a decent one-on-one interview with a game's creators, or a chat with its biggest fans. The rise of the 'Special Edition' DVD, packed with background extras, shows there is a real interest in, and a market for, behind the scenes detail. Videogames themselves don't provide this sort of thing, so magazines can.

There are also practical reasons why running more thoughtful feature content is a good idea. Most videogame magazines publish 13 issues a year, which often leaves less than 20 working days per issue. If everything in the mag is time sensitive this can (and almost always does) give editorial teams a massive headache in the last week and a half of production. Commissioning out a few pieces like 'Bow, Nigger' could certainly relive the pressure and help pace both the production of the magazine and the experience of actually reading it.

Many magazines in the past have thrived on building a community feel, and by exploring key games again and again. A great example is Amiga Power, the early nineties Future magazine that far outlived the mass market days of its target machine by being witty, irreverent and passionate about its subject matter and expanding its remit beyond the trudgery of reporting on a dying format. There is a tough balancing act involved though. Many current magazines misinterpret their role in the games community by glorifying their own staff – features in which the writers are photographed getting involved in vaguely game related hi-jinks ('Medal of Honor special: we drive a real tank!', 'Drink driving: we play Gran Turismo after five pints!) were everywhere after the lad mag boom of the mid-nineties, and somehow the legacy of this desperate gonzo-wannabe age is still being felt. Back in the days of Amiga Power, readers really were interested in what the staff got up to, because the games business was more of a fanclub than an industry, and games mag staff were the club presidents. Christ, I remember kids queuing up to meet the writers of Zzap! 64 Magazine during a 1986 computer show. Those days have passed, and embarrassing attempts to turn games writers into gonzo superstars should have passed too.

And this is another problem with New Games Journalism – one referenced by Kieron Gillen in his compelling NGJ manifesto. Most videogame magazine staff just don't have the correct experience or training to pull off this kind of writing. There is a thin line between subjective and self-indulgent and it's one that magazines tend to throw themselves straight over. I know from first hand experience. When I was associate editor on DC-UK magazine we decided to run a feature comparing real life bass fishing with the sun-drenched activity featured in Sega Bass Fishing. So we got in a car, drove down to Padstow and hired a fishing boat. We took some great photos, had a laugh, got seasick and filled six pages with our adventures. Self-indulgent? You bet. But then like Amiga Power, DC-UK was an underdog magazine written for a community of hardcore fans. We got caught up in the need to exploit what little game release info we had to craft compelling feature content.

Subjective journalism does NOT mean glorifying the writer. Notice how, by the end of 'Bow, Nigger' we know everything about the player's experiences, the thoughts, feelings and theories that emerge during the short light saber battle, but we know nothing about the author him/herself. It's subjective, but it isn't self-publicising. It isn't autobiography. Hunter S Thompson's own best work – in my opinion - was his political journalism in which he made monsters out of Richard Nixon, George McGovern et al, rather than himself. The modern videogame consumer doesn't need gonzo heroes acting like Loaded staffers, it needs compassionate, knowledgeable writers. Neither Empire nor Q feel the need to manufacturer a notability around their writers (apart from the famous freelancers of course) yet both manage to foster a feeling of community and ownership among their readers. I think perhaps only PC Gamer achieves this almost subliminal relationship between magazine and readership. But all games magazines should.

As for the sort of investigative journalism Ron Gilbert asks for, I just can't see it working. Videogame magazines have such a close relationship with videogame publishers – both in terms of advertising and editorial content – a Watergate-style demolition just isn't a viable option. This isn't to say that games mags can't explore the hidden process behind creating games – a feature looking into the final days of development on Half-Life 2, or the day-by-day management of World of Warcraft could be compelling and revealing in the right hands. Investigative doesn't have to mean negative. Magazines just have to find the time and space to really get beneath the glistening skin of the industry, to make stars out of the many bizarre and fabulous people that design and develop games. It is possible. There are some fascinating stories out there.

News games journalism? At the moment, it's an interesting idea, perpetrated by a handful of talented writers who have enough clout to be given a free(ish) rein in the games press, or enough passion to do it all for free online. But good ideas tend to spread, and it is time we developed a new way to write about games. Reviews can be bloody tedious, previews can be fawning trailers, news can be little more than regurgitated press releases. Twas ever thus, but it needn't always be the case. Analysis, comment, raw subjective experience – this is the stuff that separates magazines from catalogues, and writers from PR hacks. In the week Hunter S Thompson committed suicide, these are good things to remember.

UPDATE: I just got an email from Mark Donald, editor of PC Gamer, informing me that his magazine now has a section set aside for the kind of retrospective/subjective writing we've been talking about.

"In the current issue is Kieron's 10 page odyssey into The Cradle. That's the showpiece level in Thief Deadly Shadows and reckoned by some to be the most psychologically disturbing level ever created for the PC. In the same issue we have a story on Sims 2 coffee machines that force sims to orgasm every time they drink a cuppa - thanks to a computer virus; there's a piece about the Warez community - the hackers secret society that's responsible for cracking the vast majority of the free games/movies/music that the world downloads; Counter-Strike players who use in-game graffiti modes to create realistic decoy players, WoW players celebrating Christmas in game, it goes on and on."

Alright, this is one long ad for the current issue, but it's important to look at how NGJ is establishing itself in the printed media. Any other editors want to let us know about your NGJ content?