"I thought I'd drop you a line about the diversity issue. Our editorial team is entirely white, male, aged from between 23 to nearly 40. We share an office with Edge, Xbox World and OPSM2 - mostly white, same age range, mostly men. There are two female staffers in the office: so, it's about 1 in 10 boy/girl ratio."
-Tim Edwards,
Staff Writer, PC Gamer UK
(BTW, they're looking for writers)
Work and family issues prevented many updates last week. Look for more substantial content soon.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Dr. King's Gaming Legacy
Sorry for missing the update yesterday. I was busy celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by playing a whole lot of Dance Dance Revolution and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. The holiday did get me thinking about videogame journalism, though (as frighteningly many things do these days).
Look over the smiling headshots that adorn a lot of videogame magazines these days, and you'll see a lot of young, white, male faces. You might see the occasional female editor and there are a fair share of prominent Asian faces, but generally minorities seem of all types seem under-represented in the video game press.
This is a bit surprising, given that "African Americans are the most avid players of video games" according to a recent Electronic Gaming Business article, that "female gamers outnumber boys" according to a 2003 Reuters article, and gamers are playing into their 50s, according to a 2002 State article. Heck, there are even whole web sites devoted to gay video game players. The voices I read and hear most in video game journalism, though, tend to overwhlemingly fit none of these descriptions.
Why should gaming publications be more diverse? Well, there's the same issues of fairness, equality and justice that affect all fields, but in journalism there's actually a tangible benefit. The more diverse a video game publication is, the more diverse the writing tends to be. It's almost impossible for one writer to be experienced enough -- both in terms of games and life experience -- to write equally intelligently about any game. From NASCAR to Mario, from Katamari Damacy to Bloodrayne, from Bombastic to Grand Theft Auto, the space of video gaming is so varied that it almost demands an equally varied writing crew. And I mean varied not just in a federally-protected discrimination sense, but also varied in personality, in upbringing and especially in gaming tastes.
I realize my evidence on this matter is largely circumstantial -- for every gaming journalist I know isn't a minority, there could be five that I don't that aren't young white males. So, instead of commissioning a broad-based cross-sectional study of video game writers (would that I could), I'm looking to benefit from the experience of my readers.
If you're a game journalist, what kind of experience have you had with diversity in the workplace? How varied was the staff at your publication, not just racially, but also by gender, age and lifestyle (no need to mention the publication name if you don't want to)? If you're a game journalism reader, do you feel the voices presented in the video game press are diverse enough? Base your comments on what you know of the authors and on the tone of the articles.
I'm eager to learn on this one, so hit me with an e-mail or use the comments link below and let's get some dialogue going.
Look over the smiling headshots that adorn a lot of videogame magazines these days, and you'll see a lot of young, white, male faces. You might see the occasional female editor and there are a fair share of prominent Asian faces, but generally minorities seem of all types seem under-represented in the video game press.
This is a bit surprising, given that "African Americans are the most avid players of video games" according to a recent Electronic Gaming Business article, that "female gamers outnumber boys" according to a 2003 Reuters article, and gamers are playing into their 50s, according to a 2002 State article. Heck, there are even whole web sites devoted to gay video game players. The voices I read and hear most in video game journalism, though, tend to overwhlemingly fit none of these descriptions.
Why should gaming publications be more diverse? Well, there's the same issues of fairness, equality and justice that affect all fields, but in journalism there's actually a tangible benefit. The more diverse a video game publication is, the more diverse the writing tends to be. It's almost impossible for one writer to be experienced enough -- both in terms of games and life experience -- to write equally intelligently about any game. From NASCAR to Mario, from Katamari Damacy to Bloodrayne, from Bombastic to Grand Theft Auto, the space of video gaming is so varied that it almost demands an equally varied writing crew. And I mean varied not just in a federally-protected discrimination sense, but also varied in personality, in upbringing and especially in gaming tastes.
I realize my evidence on this matter is largely circumstantial -- for every gaming journalist I know isn't a minority, there could be five that I don't that aren't young white males. So, instead of commissioning a broad-based cross-sectional study of video game writers (would that I could), I'm looking to benefit from the experience of my readers.
If you're a game journalist, what kind of experience have you had with diversity in the workplace? How varied was the staff at your publication, not just racially, but also by gender, age and lifestyle (no need to mention the publication name if you don't want to)? If you're a game journalism reader, do you feel the voices presented in the video game press are diverse enough? Base your comments on what you know of the authors and on the tone of the articles.
I'm eager to learn on this one, so hit me with an e-mail or use the comments link below and let's get some dialogue going.
Quote of the Moment
"I always feel strange when I see the Evil Avatar has picked up something we said and is posting it as 'news.' I don't think of the stuff we post here as newsworthy."
Mike "Gabe" Krahulik, commenting on an Evil Avatar thread about his recent retraction of "Game of the Year" for World of Warcraft
Mike "Gabe" Krahulik, commenting on an Evil Avatar thread about his recent retraction of "Game of the Year" for World of Warcraft
Thursday, January 13, 2005
ESA: Gamers are People. Press: Yeah, Right!
The fact that a press release like this has to exist is evidence that the press, both mainstream and specialist, is not doing a good enough job shattering stereotypes about gamers on their own. I can't think of any other medium, or even a major subset of a medium (outside of pornography) that has such a negative connotation associated with simply consuming it.
Some of this stereotyping comes from the generation gap between people who grew up playing games and those who didn't, but much of it comes from a mainstream press obsessed with media violence and a specialist pressed obsessed with niche titles and "gamer culture." (a term which game magazines tend to pigeonhole to mean anime, comics, and technolgical gadgets.)
Ironically, the mainstream press sometimes does a better job of breaking the gamer stereotype than the specialist press does. A quick look at just the New York Times' recent video game coverage reveals articles featuring members of the armed forces using online games to connect with their families and friends, academics setting up a video game conference and families coming together around a video game rec room. In other words, regular people who just happen to do things with games.
These are the kinds of human interest stories the specialist press should embrace. I'd love to see a specialist magazine devote a regular monthly feature focused on gamers. Not "celebrity gamers" or "ultimate gamers" or gamers who spend 80 hours a week playing Ultima Online, but regular people who with intelligent things to say about their life and their gaming hobby. These pieces wouldn't have to be actively defensive of gaming as a hobby; as the ESA's press release shows, simply showing evidence that gamers have outside lives is defense enough. Some "hardcore" gamers might be put off by these human interest pieces, but these features might convince more casual game fans to consider a magazine they used to think was too inaccesible.
Some of this stereotyping comes from the generation gap between people who grew up playing games and those who didn't, but much of it comes from a mainstream press obsessed with media violence and a specialist pressed obsessed with niche titles and "gamer culture." (a term which game magazines tend to pigeonhole to mean anime, comics, and technolgical gadgets.)
Ironically, the mainstream press sometimes does a better job of breaking the gamer stereotype than the specialist press does. A quick look at just the New York Times' recent video game coverage reveals articles featuring members of the armed forces using online games to connect with their families and friends, academics setting up a video game conference and families coming together around a video game rec room. In other words, regular people who just happen to do things with games.
These are the kinds of human interest stories the specialist press should embrace. I'd love to see a specialist magazine devote a regular monthly feature focused on gamers. Not "celebrity gamers" or "ultimate gamers" or gamers who spend 80 hours a week playing Ultima Online, but regular people who with intelligent things to say about their life and their gaming hobby. These pieces wouldn't have to be actively defensive of gaming as a hobby; as the ESA's press release shows, simply showing evidence that gamers have outside lives is defense enough. Some "hardcore" gamers might be put off by these human interest pieces, but these features might convince more casual game fans to consider a magazine they used to think was too inaccesible.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
My G4
This afternoon, my friend (and loyal VGO reader) Michael Fan asked me a good question. In light of my recent posts about the G4 video game network, "what would you do if you were programming director for a videogame network?"
I spent most of my metro ride home thinking about it, and here's what I came up with:
Reviews
First off, I'd start with my favorite show on G4 -- X-Play -- and stretch it to an hour. The half hour format is pretty stifling when it comes to quantity and depth of reviews. I would cut out most of the annoying "welcome back" and "wasn't that a great review" segues to allow more time to focus on the games. Other than that, I would keep the same general personality and style of the X-Play crew, because I feel it adds a lot to what could otherwise be a pretty dry ratings show.
Icons
The other show worth saving on the network would get a bit more of the overhaul. First off, I would split the idea into two separate documentary shows, one focusing on the industry, the other focusing on the players. The game industry half would be much like the few episodes of the show I've seen, covering industry companies, personalities, and history in a quick and interesting format. The gamer-half would focus on real-life game players (by this I mean not the celebrity bling-master regularly featured on Players) doing what they do: playing games. Casual to hardcore, in groups and alone, at events or at home, whatever. The core mission would be to show that there is no "gaming lifestyle" and that the term gamer is not as narrow as its connotation (look for more on this from me in the near future). Both these shows could easily fill an hour for 26 episodes a season.
Game Shows
I've seen about half an episode of Arena, and I swear if I never see it again it will be too soon. A good video game game show would focus more on the games and the competition and less on the carefully crafted "personalities" that Arena seems to want to stick on its host and players. Regular gamers (perhaps teams, drawn from an application pool open to the public) would compete in both online and split-screen multiplayer games in a quick-paced multi-round format that forces them through a variety of different genres in one episode -- Round 1: Doom 2; Round 2: Gran Turismo; Round 3: Dance Dance Revolution. If I really had my way, the final round would always be Super Mario Bros. 3 in homage to the greatest video game movie ever, The Wizard, but I could live without it. A videogame trivia show might be neat, too.
Journalist's Roundtable
This half-hour, weekly or bi-weekly show would be somewhat of a cross between The McLaughlin Group, Slate's Summary judgment, and Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources, if that makes any sense. A group of four-or-so industry journalists (both mainstream and specialists) sit down in a roundtable format to discuss the games and issues of the past week. A strong-willed moderator keeps everything from turning into a Crossfire style screaming match. This show might only appeal to me, but it's my network, dangit!
Indie
"The independent games show" would showcase the games that don't have million-dollar ad budgets or teams of 100 people working on them. Any quirky, original, new games created by individuals or small developers would have their spotlight here. Budget or unrecognized titles that fly under the media radar would be fair game too. This could run the gamut from PC shareware titles, web-based flash or Java games, and odd or amusing console releases, even classic games.
The Essential
Much like Turner Classic Movies series of the same name, this series of thirty minute pieces would focus on the "essential" games -- games that a panel of gaming experts (journalists, analysts, regular gamers, and perhaps people from other fields) think every video game player should experience. The show would talk to this panel, the game's developers and others about what makes the game so special, complete with plenty of footage and historical context. Hmm... maybe this should be an hour...
News
I never got to see Pulse, but the show's description on the G4 page sounds good on the surface. So let's go with that. The news show would "deliver the information that gamers want to hear from personalities they want to hear from... [and] will present the most important headlines in a fast-paced, exciting manner that cuts through the marketing fluff." If a video game news show can fit truly fit that description, I'm there. I think a 50-50 mix of news briefs and features would make for a good half-hour or hour-long weekly program.
Gear
A hardware review show. Pretty straightforward. A half-hour weekly.
I have a few more ideas scribbled down (a music show, a humor show, life in the game industry, previews, etc.) but they don't seem as good now that I'm not on a train. This is a pretty good start, anyway. What would you want to see if you ran a video game network? Use the comments link below.
I spent most of my metro ride home thinking about it, and here's what I came up with:
Reviews
First off, I'd start with my favorite show on G4 -- X-Play -- and stretch it to an hour. The half hour format is pretty stifling when it comes to quantity and depth of reviews. I would cut out most of the annoying "welcome back" and "wasn't that a great review" segues to allow more time to focus on the games. Other than that, I would keep the same general personality and style of the X-Play crew, because I feel it adds a lot to what could otherwise be a pretty dry ratings show.
Icons
The other show worth saving on the network would get a bit more of the overhaul. First off, I would split the idea into two separate documentary shows, one focusing on the industry, the other focusing on the players. The game industry half would be much like the few episodes of the show I've seen, covering industry companies, personalities, and history in a quick and interesting format. The gamer-half would focus on real-life game players (by this I mean not the celebrity bling-master regularly featured on Players) doing what they do: playing games. Casual to hardcore, in groups and alone, at events or at home, whatever. The core mission would be to show that there is no "gaming lifestyle" and that the term gamer is not as narrow as its connotation (look for more on this from me in the near future). Both these shows could easily fill an hour for 26 episodes a season.
Game Shows
I've seen about half an episode of Arena, and I swear if I never see it again it will be too soon. A good video game game show would focus more on the games and the competition and less on the carefully crafted "personalities" that Arena seems to want to stick on its host and players. Regular gamers (perhaps teams, drawn from an application pool open to the public) would compete in both online and split-screen multiplayer games in a quick-paced multi-round format that forces them through a variety of different genres in one episode -- Round 1: Doom 2; Round 2: Gran Turismo; Round 3: Dance Dance Revolution. If I really had my way, the final round would always be Super Mario Bros. 3 in homage to the greatest video game movie ever, The Wizard, but I could live without it. A videogame trivia show might be neat, too.
Journalist's Roundtable
This half-hour, weekly or bi-weekly show would be somewhat of a cross between The McLaughlin Group, Slate's Summary judgment, and Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources, if that makes any sense. A group of four-or-so industry journalists (both mainstream and specialists) sit down in a roundtable format to discuss the games and issues of the past week. A strong-willed moderator keeps everything from turning into a Crossfire style screaming match. This show might only appeal to me, but it's my network, dangit!
Indie
"The independent games show" would showcase the games that don't have million-dollar ad budgets or teams of 100 people working on them. Any quirky, original, new games created by individuals or small developers would have their spotlight here. Budget or unrecognized titles that fly under the media radar would be fair game too. This could run the gamut from PC shareware titles, web-based flash or Java games, and odd or amusing console releases, even classic games.
The Essential
Much like Turner Classic Movies series of the same name, this series of thirty minute pieces would focus on the "essential" games -- games that a panel of gaming experts (journalists, analysts, regular gamers, and perhaps people from other fields) think every video game player should experience. The show would talk to this panel, the game's developers and others about what makes the game so special, complete with plenty of footage and historical context. Hmm... maybe this should be an hour...
News
I never got to see Pulse, but the show's description on the G4 page sounds good on the surface. So let's go with that. The news show would "deliver the information that gamers want to hear from personalities they want to hear from... [and] will present the most important headlines in a fast-paced, exciting manner that cuts through the marketing fluff." If a video game news show can fit truly fit that description, I'm there. I think a 50-50 mix of news briefs and features would make for a good half-hour or hour-long weekly program.
Gear
A hardware review show. Pretty straightforward. A half-hour weekly.
I have a few more ideas scribbled down (a music show, a humor show, life in the game industry, previews, etc.) but they don't seem as good now that I'm not on a train. This is a pretty good start, anyway. What would you want to see if you ran a video game network? Use the comments link below.
TechTV? G4-get It!
Headline parsing assist: "Gee, Forget It!" *insert canned laughter here*
Your probably heard it here fourth, but G4TechTV announced today that they would be dropping the "TechTV" part of their name and becoming "G4 - video game television" on Feb. 15. The move isn't that much of a surprise, given the mash-up network's increasing focus on video game content and marginalization of old Tech TV mainstays like The Screen Savers.
Reading through the press release reveals that the newly named network will be "a well-defined and focused brand" targeted at "males 12-34," which I'd say excludes a good chunk of the current videogame audience but includes some of the most coveted advertiser demographics. It also introduces two new shows: Formula D, "the first-ever series to showcase the world of drift racing" (huh?), and Girls Gone Wired, "a digital beauty pageant featuring the hottest 2D and 3D women on the planet." The Girls Gone Wired description goes on to include this truly cringe-worthy quote:
"Our audience interacts with digital girls as much as real girls and we're tapping into that fantasy."
So I guess the target audience is not gamers in general, but rather anti-social reclusive gamers in particular?
All in all, it looks like Comcast is taking a cue from Spike TV's Video Game Awards in its almost insultingly-narrow definition of what they think appeals to video game players.
Your probably heard it here fourth, but G4TechTV announced today that they would be dropping the "TechTV" part of their name and becoming "G4 - video game television" on Feb. 15. The move isn't that much of a surprise, given the mash-up network's increasing focus on video game content and marginalization of old Tech TV mainstays like The Screen Savers.
Reading through the press release reveals that the newly named network will be "a well-defined and focused brand" targeted at "males 12-34," which I'd say excludes a good chunk of the current videogame audience but includes some of the most coveted advertiser demographics. It also introduces two new shows: Formula D, "the first-ever series to showcase the world of drift racing" (huh?), and Girls Gone Wired, "a digital beauty pageant featuring the hottest 2D and 3D women on the planet." The Girls Gone Wired description goes on to include this truly cringe-worthy quote:
"Our audience interacts with digital girls as much as real girls and we're tapping into that fantasy."
So I guess the target audience is not gamers in general, but rather anti-social reclusive gamers in particular?
All in all, it looks like Comcast is taking a cue from Spike TV's Video Game Awards in its almost insultingly-narrow definition of what they think appeals to video game players.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Would That We Could...
From the final page of the final issue of GMR, which arrived on my doorstep yesterday (click an image for a larger version):
The ad in context, as seen on page 122 of GMR's 25th issue (February 2005):
Calling up the number on the ad (at 10:15 Eastern time) got a me a friendly customer service respresentative who informed me that "GMR magazine will cease publication with the February issue" when I asked about a renewal. She also said that all subscribers will be receiving a postcard with information about what will be happening with the remainder of their subscriptions, but she did not know what was actually on the postcard. (I haven't received mine yet. Any readers who have a faster post office care to send me a scan or a photo?)
Not much more to say than that, so I'll leave off with the words of GMR Editor-in-Chief Tom Byron:
To all GMR readers, thanks for everything. We might have been the ones who put the magazine together each month, but you're the ones who made it special."
The ad in context, as seen on page 122 of GMR's 25th issue (February 2005):
Calling up the number on the ad (at 10:15 Eastern time) got a me a friendly customer service respresentative who informed me that "GMR magazine will cease publication with the February issue" when I asked about a renewal. She also said that all subscribers will be receiving a postcard with information about what will be happening with the remainder of their subscriptions, but she did not know what was actually on the postcard. (I haven't received mine yet. Any readers who have a faster post office care to send me a scan or a photo?)
Not much more to say than that, so I'll leave off with the words of GMR Editor-in-Chief Tom Byron:
To all GMR readers, thanks for everything. We might have been the ones who put the magazine together each month, but you're the ones who made it special."
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