Incensed By Incentives

So, over at GameSetWatch, Simon Carless (disclosure, I work for him) took notice of a recent trend in game journalism: rewarding writers with bonuses if their stories earn the most comments, get linked in significant places, or otherwise bring in traffic spikes for the site. Large gaming blogs, like Kotaku, Joystiq and Destructoid, tend to work this way, for example. [*CORRECTION: Joystiq does not, actually.] Simon admits to being nosy, as it's a bit "cheeky," as he'd say, to talk about what people in the same industry as him are making -- but there was a valid point to the discussion.

People are always quite interested in the motives of the press in any industry, not just gaming, aren't they? And the biggest traffic spikes tend to happen when something's controversial or sensationalized: rumors, humor, and boobs, not necessarily in that order. It's right to ask whether it's constructive for the industry for writers to be incentivized this way. Rewarded, in other words, for causing a big fuss.

But on the other hand, there are writers out there who are inclined to see high levels of community attention from the 12-17 set as reward enough, regardless of whether they're being paid for those hits. It's a side effect in writing in a somewhat saturated industry. Lots of people want to become game writers. Sometimes, I even wonder if there aren't more people who want to write about games than want to become game developers. And it tends to be unusually tough to get established, and many people even start out working for "credit" -- i.e, free.

Having name recognition is considered a constructive achievement, as it can directly support employability. And doing something different -- addressing a new niche, presenting new ideas or simply having something especially skillful about your tone and style -- is a good way, if you're persistent and prolific, to introduce yourself to the industry and build a readership who is familiar with you. Unfortunately, being hyperbolic, attention-grabbing and controversial is a much faster, much easier way.

Yesterday I talked about sometimes feeling pressured to adopt the de-facto "blogger tone" -- cynicism, exaggeration and theatrics -- which I hate. I can never be entirely objective on how what I write is perceived by its audience, but I do know what my hopes are, and what motivates me. I want to speak to and about the people who think critically about games; I want to elevate the medium, and I want to contribute to and support it. Most of my articles aren't really the kind that earn big traffic bonuses. But I write the way I want to write. Sometimes one of my articles is popular, and some of you are kind enough to write me emails with your thoughts even months after I wrote the piece, and that kind of stuff is close to my heart. On the other hand, I have in the past worked per post with traffic bonuses, and I can't for the life of me remember what stories I wrote that earned those bonuses.

But enough about me. The audience criticizes game journalism -- as they should -- as often, sometimes, as game journalists criticize the game industry. In that way, I think we're a very healthy community. Checks and balances, and all. The audience wants to make sure that journalists aren't prioritizing the best interests of the industry. But, regardless of money, I think it's a dangerous direction when writers feel that causing a reaction for its own sake is in their best interest. I like to think the audience and the industry both know the difference between journalists and people who are blogging for some kind of "fame" and attention -- and there are definitely some writers who should learn, too.

But on the other hand, it's a tough industry to write in successfully. And even when successful, you don't make the kind of money you would covering almost any other industry. Not by a long shot. As Simon points out in his post, it's difficult for people to get paid for constructive, thought-provoking and creative material. And yet there are so many sites that offer up-to-the-minute game news that you really won't get anywhere by just reporting and resynthesizing it. So it's a fine line.

The solution, perhaps, would be for editors and managers to reward writers when they put in the extra effort to produce the kind of content that's consistent with the level and direction needed to individualize and raise the quality of the site. But then again, most of those managers make money from advertisers, and advertisers pay for hits.

And if the number of hits an article received was proportionate to the quality and constructiveness of its content, then it'd be problem solved. But now we're getting into a whole subjective area, especially given that the game audience is broadening so much. And we're not going to stop 14-year-old boys from clicking on Ivy's boobs (or 26 year old women, cough) just to balance the integrity of game journalism. Hey, the changes in Ivy's boobs since the original Soul Calibur are very important and useful to some people.

I'm sometimes called a snob because I distinguish "blogs" from "journalism." I don't think that blogs aren't useful or important to the audience. I'm writing on a blog right now, obviously. Plenty of the people who post on these large-sized blogs are accomplished journalists, who have done interesting interviews with significant people and investigated and editorialized complex issues. Then again, plenty of 'em aren't. And I wish we could pay people for being constructive writers, rather than attention whores.

Simon's post caused some of the Destructoid people to get defensive, as if we shouldn't be talking about this. But Gerstmann-gate proved people really do care about why writers publish the things that they do, and I think (as I said in the comments of that post) that these are questions we should be asking one another.