Slate's Chris Suellentrop is wrangling me along with Mitch Krpata and Jamin Brophy-Warren for what we hope will be a good discussion. We're not even done yet, and I'm already so excited by all the differing perspectives. Please, please check it out now and in the week to come.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Gaming Club 2009!
I have not blogged much here about some of my over-arching thoughts (and questions) about the year we're about to leave behind, because I am lucky enough to have the singular opportunity to join Slate's Gaming Club discussion this year -- a feature I've admired from afar since it began in 2007!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Nice. Are you doing the podcast too? You should suggest bringing Julia Turner on. I suspect she secretly plays v games
Ahh! I love those year's end gaming club discussion. They are very thought provoking.
I must also add that you seem very pessimistic in your gaming club's first intervention: "This year, though, felt like such a flat line that I'm no longer certain about the glorious future of gaming."
Do you really think that things were so bad this year that gaming may take another dive before (hopefully) rise up again? It's just that I'm seeing a pessimistic trend about gaming and the gaming community in most of your blog posts for the last few weeks or even months. Then again, maybe I'm just projecting.
Way to go, Leigh. Knock 'em dead!
1: Don't you think that, by 2009, industry writers shouldn't define a year by its blockbusters? I know everyone didn't play many games this year, but everyone also made sweeping pronouncements based on what little they've played. It's hard to take a discussion seriously when From, Naughty Dog, and Nintendo are the common ground.
2: I think everyone involved would admit that they play relatively few, safe games compared to your average message board addict. I don't think I've seen something discussed since it doesn't happen in other mediums (except literature, where the reviewers are often eminent literary figures themselves). That is: "Do games writers have a special obligation given that they know less about games than a moderate but significant portion of their audience?" I'm not talking about me, really, but the person who really does search for Japanese obscura, European strategy games, the major graphic adventure releases for the year, and a Cave game or 2. I'd much rather read a roundtable about that than one that brings a general audience up to speed on Modern Warfare 2 lameness. Good Kotaku article, though!
Ghaleon -- interesting points, but you leave out something important:
The discussion is designed for the Slate reader, and intended to be accessible to the lay reader or more mainstream gamer, which means we serve our audience best by focusing on the largest stories of the year -- your Nintendos and your Naughty Dogs and so forth.
I certainly don't "know less about games," but as a writer I have to consider the larger audiences, who aren't necessarily aware of Cave or European strategy games, and write for them.
Since your average message board addict plays so many games -- and has the forum in which to discuss them -- what do you need game critics for anyway? You very well know already what you like and what you're interested in. What need has a Cave game for "criticism?"
That being said, I think more elevated writing on niche titles is important. Which is why I did a column for a whole year only about old H-games. Sadly there are only so many hours in the day -- if I spent any more writing I wouldn't have the time to play all of the small, weird titles that inform my writing about the bigger ones.
Post a Comment