Comments on: Barnett On: Games Journalism

By: myname

myname — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:55:59 +0000

FCK! This is an amazing article!! We’re touching teh fundamental core of why we DO things: because we burn for something and want to make an impact… later we may allow to dim ourselves down. I say may because it is often seen, but it’s not soem law of nature.
I recall beginning to read Gamespot’s reviews 3 years ago, and being thrilled that someone took games so serious. Today, my respect for their reviews and previews are gone – i now look to RPS (which ive just found) or from computerandvideogames (will porters fallout preview is the best ive ever read)

It’s so wonderful to hear Paul Barnett explain the enthusiasm that i adore him for, hear where he found his and how we all in the end are mere human beings.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:20:14 +0000

I think it’s difficult to look at journalists turning into developers. Both are very wide terms at the moment – game designers barely exist nowadays, and most journalists are still entering games journalism via hugely oblique routes. There’s a whole muddle of skills out there, so naturally some will go into programming, say, and do fine because they previously were programmers. Others, and Penny Arcade probably springs to mind here but that’s a bad example because they weren’t developers per se, may get involved out of a sense of experience rather than skill.

That was excellent, though. His comments about journalists and pubs were touching, really. I like to think that games journalism – and gaming itself – hasn’t had the last of its romantic eras.

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:13:31 +0000

@Xander77

…could care less…

AND NOW YOU MUST DIE.

http://verboten.org.uk

By: Xander77

Xander77 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:12:33 +0000

“What would the world be like religion”
Without?

I’m always somewhat concerned about interviews where the interviewer has 3 times the text of the interviewee. However, in this case I could care less about what the latter has to say, while the former was semi-interesting, so that’s ok.

By: Dinger

Dinger — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:29:52 +0000

two asides:
The Oblivion example (I suppose you could use WoW, but who plays that?) shows what’s going on: games are at the point where not only artists, but level designers are needed in huge numbers. It used to be that three blokes who met at the pub could put out a top-notch game, but now much of the revenue is captured by titles with a solid code base and tons of content. Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood quests are good, but whoever did the Daedric quest where you have to go into a peaceful village run by two families and start a lethal clan war — that person is a genius I’d be happy to burn an anacolouthon on.

Also, I love to remind folks that anti-games-as-art film critic Roger Ebert used to write Hollywood scripts, and every serious student of the art remembers him fondly for his contribution to late-60s, early-70s boobfest exploitation pics.

“not even a Bentley!”

By: Pus Filled Sac

Pus Filled Sac — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:20:38 +0000

Better to bought out than neutered and then skewered for good measure, as happened to the greatest games magazine there ever was: Digitiser. It taught me everything I need to know about games, and I can’t remember ever reading an article about games on its pages.

Strange that you didn’t mention it, since Biffo was miles ahead of everything else.

By: brog

brog — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:56:43 +0000

Kieron: Like I said, I’m just raising a contentious position without completely believing it myself. What I actually believe is something like:
- Knowing more is good, but can make it more difficult to be original. Often when I read a novel (or play a game), I get a strong desire to write a novel (game) myself; when I examine the feeling I realise that what I want is to write exactly the novel (game) that I just read (played). It is sometimes difficult to shake off this influence and create something of my own. (I’m writing an RTS, and it has become much better since I shook off the desire to make it just like Starcraft only better. Wait a few months and you’ll see.)
- Great works of art are made by giants standing on the shoulders of other giants. To master a form of expression it is necessary to critically examine the works of others and learn from them. So journalists do have an advantage here.
- Things made by people who are on the fringes and not heavily influenced by the mainstream are often quite interesting but can have serious flaws (for example, the horrible horrible UI in dwarf fortress and armaggeddon empires). If these people paid more attention to the mainstream they would fix these problems but they might lose the unique perspective which makes their creations so interesting.

Perhaps knowing everything is best (so you can see the whole picture, and learn from others), but it is better to know nothing than just a few things (with just a few influences, they show too much). With the MMO example, perhaps designers would produce more interesting games if they’d played Eve as well as WoW, but I think they’d also produce more interesting games if they hadn’t ever played WoW either. I expect I could design a better MMO than pretty much anything out there today, having never played WoW, Eve, or any other graphical MMO (not that I’m going to try to).

By: Mattress

Mattress — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:01:14 +0000

In every artistic medium there’s an interesting disjunction between creators and critics. One is generally always pursuing the other, but this rule practically inverted at varying points of their career – an artist would wish to woo a critic for attention and acclaim early in their career and a critic will always be looking for access to established stars.
Bartlett argues what made Gary Penn’s writing so good was that he engaged with the game, his writings were a critique. I’ve never knowingly read any of Gary Penn’s work, but I do agree that most video-gaming journalism are not critiques. Now I’ve not gone to the bother of looking up the definitions or differences between the two, but most writing about games today (in the press at least) would be most accurately defined as a review, and not a critique.
This I assume is for a multitude of reasons such as reviews are just more informative to the reader, and help formulate their opinion on whether to play or not to play.
Whereas some of the best “critiques” I’ve ever read still leave me wondering whether the game in question is one that I would love or lambast. And therein lies the brilliance of proper critiques; because real critiques take the piece (game, film, book) as it is (though obviously individual elements are deconstructed – they are generally accepted as part of the piece for better or for worse), critiques are thus able to shy away from making the qualitative judgements a review must. In my opinion this leads to a more holistic approach to games writing and engenders far better discussion and debate (in the pub at least).
But it’s not what most readers look for when buying a game and reasonably so, yet most mainstream press is being driven by the bottom line.
That and also a meaningful critique takes time to form. They can’t be written in the wake of a piece’s release.
Which is why I love Edge’s Time Extended section, and this sites Retrospectives. They’re great -and real critiques.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:30:47 +0000

Brog/AbyssUK: You kind of implies you know which game designers were games journalists before swapping sides, man. Penn’s record isn’t bad – he was at DMA. You like the Cradle or Fort Frolic? Jordan Thomas was a journo. Life of a Party in Thief 2 or the Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion? Emil Pagliarulo was a journo. Over in the UK, Jon Smith of Lego Star Wars fame comes to mind.

There’s bigger issues about “being” a game designer – and we actually get to them in a later part, where Paul actually manages to change my opinion on something I previously believed quite strongly.

Terry: I was a YS guy too. Crash had its golden age before I started reading games mags. When I joined, YS was hot as it got.

Strelok: Looking further than Wenders, the whole French New Wave was absolutely preciptated by the critics of Cahiers du cinéma becoming directors.

Tom Camfield: I suspect Paul had stopped following Penn’s writing as closely circa AP. We were mainly talking about Penn’s time on ZZAP.

Brog: Re: “WoW but better”. Most MMO designers we’ve ever talked to have never played Eve Online. If one did seriously, then I suspect more interesting ideas would go into their game too. It’s why I have a little trouble with the “Knowing less is good” position.

Kestrel: This was the first 13 minutes of the interview. It’s lunchtime. I think we’re both doing it on an empty stomach.

By: KingMob

KingMob — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:37:55 +0000

This is already a horror show.
Plus: not enough John Walker.

ps. Don’t you think the success or failure of WAR will have a lot to do with whether Barnett is seen as a visionary figure or another Peter Molyneux? I mean, Peter’s great but no one really takes him seriously now. Will Paul end up in the same boat?

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:51:49 +0000

KG – Are these segments appearing in linear fashion? When can we be confident that you are both speaking through a haze of alcohol?

By: andy

andy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:47:09 +0000

i’ve had this overall realization that the article mentions a few years ago… not going to speal(sp?) about it, as i think everyone sooner or later goes through it, but looking forward to see the next post from this chat as it seems to be a fact that is more or less the shit covered pig in the room that everyone is trying to pretend isn’t there.