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Does Games Writing Need To Be More Accessible?

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Writer Leigh Alexander put together a great piece for Kotaku reminding us that many of the shelf-scanning customers at GameStop are not like you or I. The average gamer doesn't pay attention to reviews. They don't know a Miyamoto from an Igarashi. And they drink blood, but they're capable of walking in the daylight.

It's easy to assume that everyone within the walls of your local game retailer is a kindred spirit who will fire back with "It's-a-me!" as soon as you say, "Mario." Alexander's column reminded me that for every fruitful conversation about games I've had with an EB Games clerk, there have been ten instances of broken eye contact and embarrassed mumblings. "The World Ends With You? N-nah. Not into anime. I like Call of Duty."

Alexander talks about game reviewers' tendency to keep the different tiers of gamers distanced from one another. There's not an intentional push to scare newcomers away from game publications and websites, but Alexander likens the typical video game review to a music review in Pitchfork Magazine. Someone who says, "I dig music and I want to read about music" is going to be scared away by Pitchfork's jargon-heavy breakdown of the album of the moment. Similarly, game reviews tend to reference past titles, past developers and use words and terms that a newcomer (and there are more and more of these lately) isn't going to understand.

Should sites, blogs and magazines be making a conscious effort to be accessible to all gamers? It'd be no easy task, obviously. For experienced gamers, it'd be like sitting in class, trying to read Macbeth while other students are called on to recite the ABCs. Even so, I appreciate features and reviews that try to bring me up to speed on a topic that might interest me, even if I have no previous experience with it. There's a heck of a lot I don't know about Metal Gear Solid, for instance, but it's natural to assume that everyone else would recognise names and locations if they're flung around in a relevant feature article without context. That's not always the case, and it'd be nice if game writers kept that in mind.

Myself included, even though it's not my fault none of you punks know the name of Mega Man X's city or anything else useful.

Related Links:

Bringing Sexy Back: Susan O'Connor
Along Came a Gamer: James Patterson and Authors in Games
Mega Man 9 Review: Pay No Attention to the Numbers. For My Sanity and Yours

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Posted Nov 25 2008, 05:10 PM

Filed under: kotaku, feature, writing, retail, nadia oxford, gamestop, leigh alexander games journalism, casual gamers, hardcore gamers

Comments

AlexB said:

I would say that comparing it to Pitchfork is okay to some extent. Game reviews do tend to have a lot of referencing to other games.

However, I think the thing to consider when comparing it to Pitchfork is this... Pitchfork Media doesn't write reviews for music listeners as a whole. It writes reviews for uptight hipster no-it-alls. Sorry. I guess I should say it writes it for a small group of people who listen to an even smaller group of underground musicians. Ahem. I hold a lot of bitterness towards Pitchfork.

That said, game reviewers write for gamers, just like Pitchfork knows its audience and writes for them. If a truly accessible (to the non-gamer) publication existed, I don't think the non-gamer would even be aware of it. Some kid's grandma isn't going to check the internet for a game review to find out if Elf Bowling 2 is good or not.

That said, I think it is becoming increasingly easy to find out if a game is good or not thanks to places like Metacritic and GameRankings. It's the RottenTomatoes philosophy of reviews--averaging them into a number makes for quick and easy decisions, and it's something my relatives can judge from if they feel like it.

November 25, 2008 6:46 PM

AlexB said:

I think I had 40 typos right there. :|

November 25, 2008 7:10 PM

Peter Smith said:

Always happy to see a panel from the single comic strip that got me through college. (Not Calvin and Hobbes in general--that specific strip.)

November 25, 2008 8:21 PM

Bob Mackey said:

As with any kind of writing, this depends entirely on the audience. For the most part, I don't think the average, casual gamer is hitting up major sites. And trying to be all-inclusive may alienate a ton of the readers.

November 25, 2008 8:23 PM

Roto13 said:

I wonder just how many gamers who read gaming news and blogs would even know the difference.

November 25, 2008 9:55 PM

Roto13 said:

Also, Abel City. ;P

November 25, 2008 10:05 PM

Adam R said:

"Should sites, blogs and magazines be making a conscious effort to be accessible to all gamers?"

No, definitely not. I think that the writing of any outlet, print or online, should reflect its audience. As soon as we start pushing for a blanket set of standards, we're missing the point of criticism. Leigh's Kotaku write-up is an interesting anecdote, but she's been exploring the topic in much greater detail lately on her Sexy Videogameland blog. I highly recommend checking out her three or four most recent entries, all of which relate to this question of catering criticism to a specific audience.

November 26, 2008 8:31 AM

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