NGJ enterprises
New Games Journalism
New Games Journalism (NGJ) is a video game journalism term, coined in 2004 by
journalist Kieron Gillen, in which personal anecdotes, references to other
media, and creative analyses are used to explore game design, play, and culture.
It is a model of New Journalism applied to video game journalism. Gillen's NGJ
manifesto was first published on the now defunct state forum/website, a
community of videogame players often engaged in discussion and analysis of their
hobby, from which an anecdotal piece, Bow Nigger, had appeared. Gillen cites the
work as a major inspiration for and example of what NGJ should achieve and the
piece was later republished in the UK edition of PC Gamer, a magazine with which
Gillen has close professional ties.
Most New Games Journalism articles are not reviews of games in the traditional
sense. They can instead be understood as being analogous to travel journalism,
where the writer responds to subjective experiences presented to them by the
game world, as well as interactions with other players online, real-world events
surrounding gameplay, and other personal experiences and anecdotes which create
a unique story. The story is not necessarily indicative of the experience any
other player will have with the game and will be unlikely to offer any objective
value-judgements regarding the game's merits or failings . Instead attention is
focused on the subjective experience of the person playing the game.
New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which
used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was
codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of
journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included works by
himself, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Robert
Christgau, and others.
Articles in the New Journalism style tended not to be found in newspapers, but
rather in magazines such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Atlantic
Monthly, Rolling Stone, Esquire Magazine, CoEvolution Quarterly, and for a short
while Scanlan's Monthly.
[ Characteristics
Wolfe identified the four main devices New Journalists borrowed from literary
fiction:
* Telling the story using scenes rather than historical narrative as much as
possible
* Dialogue in full (Conversational speech rather than quotations and statements)
* First-person point of view (present every scene through the eyes of a
particular character)
* Recording everyday details such as behavior, possessions, friends and family
(which indicate the "status life" of the character)
Despite these elements, New Journalism is not fiction. It maintains elements of
reporting including strict adherence to factual accuracy and the writer being
the primary source. To get "inside the head" of a character, the journalist asks
the subject what they were thinking or how they felt.
[ History
Wikinews has related news:
Gay Talese on the state of journalism, Iraq and his life
Wolfe unwittingly published his first New Journalism-style article in 1963 after
having trouble writing an assignment about hot rod culture and sending his
editor a letter containing his thoughts on the article. The editor chose simply
to remove the salutation from Wolfe's letter and print it as received. Wolfe's
letter had the original title There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored (Thphhhhhh!)
Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh!) Around the Bend (Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmm)....
The title was later contracted to The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline
Baby and became the title of Wolfe's first book of collected essays, published
in 1965. Wolfe once proclaimed that New Journalism "would wipe out the novel as
literature's main event."
Journalists recognized as using the style include Norman Mailer, Joan Didion,
Darrell Bob Houston, Truman Capote, P. J. O'Rourke, George Plimpton, Terry
Southern, Richard Ben Cramer and Gay Talese. Hunter S. Thompson was a major
practitioner of new journalism and gonzo journalism, his own particular style.
Thompson's first book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the
Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, is a more conventional piece, and shows the beginnings
of a more memoir-based approach to reportage. Gay Talese's 1966 article for
Esquire, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was an influential piece of new journalism
that gave a detailed portrait of Frank Sinatra without ever interviewing him.
New journalism writers brought new approaches to areas already covered by the
mainstream press. The psychedelic movement was something that many of the
writers of the period covered, such as in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test. The Vietnam War was another common topic, as was the political turmoil on
the homefront. Terry Southern's Grooving in Chi documented the 1968 Chicago
National Democratic Convention for Esquire Magazine in new journalism manner.
New journalism's techniques were also applied to less obvious subjects, such as
financial markets (by George Goodman under the pseudonym Adam Smith, in essays
originally published in New York Magazine and later collected in a book called
The Money Game.)
Some authors of conventional fiction switched to writing in the style of new
journalism, such as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and Norman Mailer's Armies of
the Night. However, neither author ever agreed to their style's comparison to
Wolfe's school of narration, nor did many others who have been retrospectively
promoted as being members and therein associated. Much to the contrary, many of
these writers would deny that their work was generically relevant to other new
journalists at the time. This may be because, during such a politically torn
period, these authors were politically across the spectrum, from the New Left to
the Old Right.
Video game journalism is a branch of journalism concerned with the reporting and
discussion of video games. It is typically based on a core reveal/preview/review
cycle. There has been a recent growth in online publications and blogs, and
stylistic revolts in games journalism including New Games Journalism.
[ History of print based video gaming magazines
The credit for first magazine to cover the video game industry which is still in
continuous publication has to go to the subscription only, trade periodical Play
Meter magazine which began publication in 1974 and covered the entire
coin-operated entertainment industry.
The first consumer oriented print magazine dedicated solely to video gaming was
Computer and Video Games which premiered in the U.K. in November of 1981, two
weeks ahead of the U.S. launch of the next oldest video gaming publication
Electronic Games magazine.
The oldest video game publication still in continuous circulation (as of 2005)
was Computer Gaming World, or CGW (now known as Games For Windows), which also
debuted in 1981 but does not get credit for being first all around as it began
publication as a bi-weekly newsletter before becoming a full scale magazine.
[ History of web based video gaming magazines
There are conflicting claims regarding which of the first two electronic video
game magazines was "first to be published regularly" online. Originally starting
as a print fanzine in April of 1992 , Game Zero magazine, claims to have
launched a web page in November of 1994, with the earliest formal announcement
of the page occurring in April of 1995. Game Zero's web site was based upon a
printed bi-monthly magazine based in Central Ohio with a circulation of 1500
that developed into a CD-ROM based magazine with a circulation of 150,000 at its
peak. The website was updated weekly during its active period from 1994-1996.
Another publication, Intelligent Gamer Online ("IG Online") debuted a complete
web site in April of 1995, commencing regular updates to the site on a daily
basis despite its "bi-weekly" name. Intelligent Gamer had been publishing online
for years prior to the popularization of the web, originally having been based
upon a downloadable "Intelligent Gamer" publication developed by Joe Barlow and
Jeremy Horwitz in 1993. This evolved further under Horwitz and Usenet-based
publisher Anthony Shubert into "Intelligent Gamer Online" interactive online
mini-sites for America Online (AOL) and the Los Angeles Times' TimesLink/Prodigy
online services in late 1994 and early 1995. At the time, it was called "the
first national videogame magazine found only online."
Game Zero Magazine ceased active publication at the end of 1996 and is
maintained as an archive site. Efforts by Horwitz and Shubert, backed by a
strong library of built up web content eventually allowed IG Online to be
acquired by Sendai Publishing and Ziff Davis Media, the publishers of
then-leading United States print publication Electronic Gaming Monthly who
transformed the publication into a separate print property in February of 1996.
[ New Media and games journalism
The traditional video games press has suffered the most at the hands of New
Media. Gaming is a technological past-time, thus many gamers, defined here as
those interested enough to consider purchasing printed gaming publications, can
use the Internet for finding relevant information. This, coupled with the fast
pace of the games industry, has eroded the influence of print in computer game
journalism. For contrast a typical print magazine is published monthly, and will
have on average a three month lead time between when any given article or review
is written to when it is finally delivered into the readers hands. This creates
a situation where print media is always a couple of months behind their on-line
counterparts in covering news.
Future Publishing exemplifies the old media's decline in the games sector. In
2003 the group saw multi-million GBP profits and strong growth, but by early
2006 were issuing profit warnings and closing unprofitable magazines (none
related to gaming). Then, in late November 2006, the once-great publisher
reported both a pre-tax loss of ￡49 million ($96 million USD) and the sale - in
order to reduce its level of bank debt - of Italian subsidiary Future Media
Italy.
In mid-2006 Eurogamer's business development manager Pat Garratt wrote a
criticism of those in print games journalism who had not adapted to the web,
drawing on his own prior experience in print to offer an explanation of both the
challenges facing companies like Future Publishing and why he believed they had
not overcome them.
This then combined with the move away from mass media outlets towards niche
experts to create a growing market for bespoke games writing. This gaming
coverage, rather than trying to be objective, acknowledges that it is written
from a certain perspective. Some outlets, Game People's social media for
example, even use this bias as a unique selling point of their content.
[ Independent games journalism
While self-made print fanzines about games have been around since the advent of
the first home consoles, it was the inclusion of the internet in the lives of
most gamers that gave independent writers a real voice in video game journalism.
At first ignored by most major game publishers, it was not until the communities
developed an influential and dedicated readership, and increasingly produced
professional (or near-professional) writing that the sites gained the attention
of these larger companies.
Independent video game websites are generally non-profit, with any revenue going
back towards hosting costs and, occasionally, paying its writers. As their name
suggests, they are not affiliated with any companies or studios, though bias is
inherent in the unregulated model to which the subscribe. While many independent
sites take the form of blogs (the vast majority in fact, depending on how low
down the ladder you look), the 'user-submitted' model, where readers write
stories that are moderated by an editorial team, is also popular.
In recent times some of the larger independent sites have begun to be bought up
by larger media companies, most often Ziff Davis Media, who now own a string of
independent sites. Thirteen1, an online gaming (MMO based) zine is the latest
publication that claims to be independent. Issue 1 & 2 (which available to read
free via the Thirteen1 website) listed vacancies looking for independent game
reviewers in their recruitment section of the magazine.
[ Ethics
Journalism ethics and standards
The computer and video game media industry is criticised for holding lax
journalistic standards. Reviews are the most controversial area, with issues in
the following areas:
Conflicts of interest
A publication reviewing a game when it has received advertising revenue from the
game's publishers or has been invited to lavish 'press day' parties is often
held in suspicion. Reviews by 'official' console magazines such as Nintendo
Power, Official Playstation Magazine or the Official Xbox Magazine, all of which
have direct financial ties to their respective platform holders, usually find
themselves in similar positions. Publishers have been known to withhold material
and/or advertising money from publications that do not adhere to their wishes
(e.g. making the game in question the cover story) or do not show the game in a
positive light.
Time spent on the game
Unlike linear media, getting a complete sense of a game can require far longer
than the time it takes to play it from start to end. Further to this, games such
as RPGs can last for hundreds of hours. Computer and video game reviewers
therefore tread a fine line between producing timely copy and playing enough of
a game to be able to reliably critique it.
A famous expose of underplaying was published by Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik in
September 2006: he dissected a review of Enchanted Arms and among other findings
concluded that the reviewer had barely played three hours of the game's fifty
before forming his opinion.
GameDaily's Chris Buffa produced a series of widely-read articles in July and
August 2006 that criticize computer and video game journalism's standards and
practices and made suggestions for improvement:
* "Why Videogame Journalism Sucks" (12 July 2006).
* "How to Fix Videogame Journalism" (20 July 2006).
* "How to Become a Better Videogame Journalist" (28 July 2006).
* "The Videogame Review: Problems and Solutions" (2 August 2006).
[ New Games Journalism
New Games Journalism (NGJ) is a video game journalism term, coined in 2004 by
journalist Kieron Gillen, in which personal anecdotes, references to other
media, and creative analyses are used to explore game design, play, and culture.
It is a model of New Journalism applied to video game journalism. Gillen's NGJ
manifesto was first published on the now defunct state forum/website, a
community of videogame players often engaged in discussion and analysis of their
hobby, from which an anecdotal piece, Bow Nigger, had appeared. Gillen cites the
work as a major inspiration for and example of what NGJ should achieve and the
piece was later republished in the UK edition of PC Gamer, a magazine with which
Gillen has close professional ties.
Most New Games Journalism articles are not reviews of games in the traditional
sense. They can instead be understood as being analogous to travel journalism,
where the writer responds to subjective experiences presented to them by the
game world, as well as interactions with other players online, real-world events
surrounding gameplay, and other personal experiences and anecdotes which create
a unique story. The story is not necessarily indicative of the experience any
other player will have with the game and will be unlikely to offer any objective
value-judgements regarding the game's merits or failings . Instead attention is
focused on the subjective experience of the person playing the game.
[ Publications of note
[ Consumer
Blogs - Joystiq, Kotaku
Two mass-appeal blogs that rose to prominence at similar times. Often carrying
the latest rumours and hype, they are viewed as being the primary tabloid games
journalism sites.
Online - 1UP, IGN, GameSpot, GameSpy
The four stalwarts of online games journalism. All attempt to cater to a wide
audience, contain enormous amounts of information on all the major platforms,
offer paid subscriptions (with the exception of 1UP) and have extensive
community features.
Online - Eurogamer
A relatively young online site with an unusually lean design. Primarily serves
English-speaking, European gamers. As of April 2007 offers a similar level of
community features as the four other major sites (see above), but still no paid
subscriptions.
Online - Bit-tech.net
A UK based hardware and games website with both UK and USA based writers.
Bit-tech features extremely in-depth reviews for PC games, often involving
graphical analysis as well as gameplay discussion. As such game reviews tend to
be much, much longer than those from other sites and this has bought Bit-tech
considerable attention from hardcore PC gamers.
Video-based - GameZombie.tv
a media-rich game video website with a narrative theme. GameZombie produces
original game videos, including video-based video game reviews, previews, news
reports, round table discussions, and interviews with leading game industry
personalities; emphasizes editing, motion graphics, and sound design.
Video-based - Gametrailers
a media website that specializes in video game related content. It provides free
access to original programming (such as reviews and previews), game trailers and
recorded game play. Many of the video clips are offered in high definition along
with standard definition.
Community-driven - Evil Avatar
A site for which most content is user-generated. An on-staff editorial team
across most time zones moderate submissions and post those that are considered
worthy, leaving the site in a niche between the frenzy of Joystiq and Kotaku and
the slow-moving larger sites. Subsists on a combination of donations and
advertising
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With the rising popularity of
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original server, or by disassembling and analyzing the client which is
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Ultima Online was one of the first
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