Posts Tagged ‘Journalism’

When I was young words scared me. Suffering from dyslexia the patterns of letters were enigmas. After being diagnosed with my condition I found myself reassured in what I was capable of if I applied myself. After years of being placed in to remedial classes I was suddenly understood why I was struggling so hard and redoubled my effort to express myself on paper as clearly as I could verbally.

Covering games on the Internet my words are often the first thing people see of me. I am constantly aware that, for a new visitor reading my work on this site (or any of the others that I contribute to), expressing myself as clearly as possible is a priority. Dyslexia can make this process hard at times. Even numerous proof readings will see grammatical slips, and I can’t fault those who sometimes can’t make it past these errors. I struggle to believe that my words are indecipherable (as one commenter has suggested) but with so many over avenues for information there is no reason for me to expect anyone to read my work if I present any hurdle to understanding.

It took a long time to find a gaming picture to go with this articles title.

Reading other writers’ work I have started to take issue when it is apparent their primary goal is not to present a massage but to seem intellectually superior. One of the most intelligent people I meet in my life was a one of my university lecturers, Prof. Susan Condor, who supervised me through my undergraduate dissertation. Our meetings about my work were invariably inspiring. She gave me confidence that despite my dyslexia (and with the help of Word) my submissions were among the best she was overseeing that year. With these comforting words she added a piece of advice that has been cemented in my brain ever since, that it doesn’t matter how great your command is of the English language, as long as you possessed sufficient vocabulary to express yourself. The intelligence is in what you say, not how you say it.

Of course writing for an audience does bring with it a need to be entertaining. Repetition of vocabulary and phrases soon becomes boring, and a lack of metaphor and imagery quickly makes any article feel stale. But many of the larger gaming press sites have begun imposing restrictions on the words writers can use. Editors argue that overused phrases (visceral, immersive, interesting, fun to name but a few) demonstrate and authorial laziness. In a desperate drive to set the writing of their own sites apart they eliminate clear and descriptive words from their vocabulary, forcing writers to use five words where one could suffice.

I would never say that overusing a word is good. As I go over my own work one thing that remains paramount for me is ensuring I avoid falling in to repetitive patterns in my language, and that vague terms (such as ‘fun’) are placed in a context that clarifies my meaning. But by completely eradicating such words from a writer’s vocabulary is to force them to convey themselves unnaturally. Some times the literal contortions such a restriction places on authors can prove to be a catalyst for better work, but usually it simply results in strange phrasing, overly verbose prose or the adoption of obscure synonyms.

This one took less time to find.

I cast my mind back to my own experiences at university once again and wonder how differently the meeting with Prof. Condor would have gone if she had said, “Well I like your theories Alex, but if you could just stop using the word ‘participant’ I think your work would stand out more”. It would have been true; eliminating this one word would have set it apart. Changing this single term however would not have improved the quality of the study, is would simply have had readers perplexed by the bizarre language I would have used in order to get my point across.

Certainly I am guilty at times of not being clear. I try to be, and when using words that do not provide enough explanation to convey my point I elaborate. Blacklisting words in an attempt to force creativity and clarity artificially. I would never stifle anything that encourages creativity, but rules that limit expression in its clearest form is a crutch to help poor writers (and tired editors) not the audience. As long as a writer’s work is clear and the thoughts behind it interesting then the language they use to achieve this should have no need to be restricted.

There is something to be said about the way you view an entertainment. Personally I see sport like news, an event that you find out about, to others it is a drama. I know this fact and respect it so, when I find out the results of an event I keep them to myself unless asked. But sometimes I forget, like when I am drunk and watching the Super Bowl with a load of guys from New Orleans sat behind me (spoiler, the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl this year). Drunk at eleven in the morning I take out my phone, and have messages waiting for me from a friend (Dan Feit a regular commenter here) and my boss. I reply and kindly inform them the score. They were not happy, and I can appreciate why.

The Saints won. It's okay to say that now right?

Putting aside the fact it was a dick move on my part, why did I do it? I have tried comprehending what my thinking may have been. It was thanks to my boss jogging my memory of an old psychology lecture I began to form some ideas (or excuses) for my actions, beyond being drunk. People like to share information; we are essentially hard wired to so. In the primal sense we are driven by a need to give others our knowledge to increase our chances of survival by passing on valuable information. My lack of sleep combined with the nine in the morning alcohol binge, would probably have made ‘primal’ an apt description of my behaviour. This doesn’t excuse what I did but it at least provides me some peace of mind for the idiocy of my actions.

Made me reflect on my own entertainment consumption, specifically how I play games. I am driven by narrative, and a desire to be absorbed in to the world presented to me. Sinking in to a digital world fascinates me; discovering what is around the next corner is infinitely more enjoyable to me than the encounter I have once I round it. Looking back on my actions during the Super Bowl started to consciously consider how others might consume their games differently. In a similar fashion to my view that sport qualifies as news, I have to acknowledge that many gamers consider games to be simply play, without consideration of their drama or story. From these players there must be some who have encountered similar situations to my Super Bowl blunder. Surely some of them have thoughtlessly blurted out unwanted information to friends in the process of describing other elements of the game, because they truly thought their friend would want to know.

If I take my previous assumptions to be true, then I would have to forgive any such people who consume games solely for ‘play’ if they were to spoil a game for me. What confuses me is when journalists and others within the industry are so eager to engage in podcasts and other dialogues about narrative heavy games when they acknowledge that they find story the driving force behind the experience.

For me it is the narrative and worlds games offer.

I understand peoples desire to talk about such titles; the games themselves almost encourage it with branching paths enticing the typically OCD gamers to search for what they have missed. Issues arise when the coverage is so close to a games release that only a small group of players could possibly have experienced it. It is necessary to recognise the need to be timely it is true, but a thirty odd hour game being discussed at length a week, or even two, after release is somewhat unrealistic for the average person.

It is rare now that any coverage will openly, and without warning, spoil any narrative element without due warning. Indeed the ‘spoiler’ mark has become a main stay of blogs and message boards alike. Some outlets are clearer than others in their labelling of such content, while some have a tendency to spring it, unsignposted, in the middle of their coverage. But even with the allowance that there are dedicated players who will finish a game in a matter of days or even hours, I still feel it preferable to wait a little longer before unleashing opinions in to open debate.

Do not say a bloody word, or I swear I will hunt you down.

As an avid consumer of podcasts I realised that all coverage is archived, and I could revisit it at my leisure. But all to often with the rapid turn over of information such content is all too quickly buried. There is a case for coverage while the game is still fresh in the mind of those discussing it. Yet when often even other members of podcast teams are complaining about others among them revealing unwanted information you have to questions the motivation behind the conversation, as it is all to often a (consciously or not) selfish desire to fulfil the primal instinct to share.

Maybe I am just bitter; jealous that others have had time to play the games I want to. After all if there is an audience for the discussion it is justified. Simply knowing that you have information somebody else wants will drive the flow of conversation. Sadly though in the current gaming climate everything is chewed up and digested so quickly that there is no time to savour, and it would be during this ‘savouring time’ I wish the conversation would take place. But as I said at the beginning I am one to talk, because I am sure Dan and my boss also wished I had respected this ‘savouring time’ when I was revealing the Super Bowl results to them.

Different sites have different mandates on the subject of at what point a review should be written. I used to believe that a reviewer should experience a game in its entirely before they could reasonably pass judgment. It is a view that has slowly eroded recently, leaving me unsure as to my own principles and questioning at what point I am qualified to write a review.

Initially my concept of finishing a game before reviewing was solid, every game on my own site has always been completed before anything was written. But playing Ultimate Band for review on Game People threw all of this in to question. Playing the Disney rhythm game I could be found repeatedly pumping my Wii remote above my crotch with no penalty for my constant, rhythmic ‘strumming’ which didn’t even come close to emulating the onscreen beat. I finished around half the songs offered with a variety of instruments, and concluded that it was fair to say I had seen enough.

The game that changed me.

It was peculiar how divided the decision made me. Maybe I was doing readers an injustice by not experiencing everything the game had to offer. But I knew that the template for the action wasn’t going to chance, and nor was my opinion. I set to writing the review feeling that I had been fair to both my readers and the developers.

I constructed a new internal guideline for my reviews. Based on the time I play and the genre/size of the game I ensure that on sites that do not require I finish a game that I at least give each it a fair amount of my time. I was happy with my new code until recently when the question was again reawakened by the narrative heavy Mass Effect 2 and Silent Hill: Shattered Memoires.

Narrative dependent titles have an implicit expectation that you will experience a story in its entirety. Similar to a movie it would be unfair to review it before it reached its conclusion. If I were to watch the first hour of The Sixth Sense and then review it my opinion would be very different to someone who watched it all. But it is impossible to dissociate a game’s narrative from its interactive elements. Again if The Sixth Sense required all of its audience have their toenails torn off while watching, then I would be justified in saying it doesn’t matter what the pay off is, it can’t be worth it and subsequently leaving after only five minutes.

Almost entirely incredible.

Looking at Silent Hill and Mass Effect 2 both game’s finales sit in contrast to my opinion of the rest of the experience. Mass Effect 2 was for me an incredibly involving forty-hour experience; every moment (bar the mining) was a joy, until my final confrontation. Any ending of a story or game with an expansive and involving plot will always struggle to meet the high expectations established throughout the rest of the experience, and thus they are almost uniformly anticlimactic. In Mass Effect’s case end sequence in its entirety is an emotional sequence of events, but the last tiny fraction was a let down. I couldn’t even say it tarnished the rest of the game, but it did hit something of a bum note when it should have reached its crescendo.

Silent Hill takes the opposite approach. Incorporating two game styles, creepy atmospheric adventure and running in terror my opinion throughout Silent Hill oscillated between amazement at what the developers were trying to achieve, and dismay at the infuriating action sections. Discussion of the emotions that the game’s infuriating controls induce and how intentional they were aside, every moment spent fleeing your enemies during these sections were soul crushingly bad, yet instantly forgive when you get to the end and begin to realize what it was building to.

A strong ending can make up for a lot.

Now I am stuck in a quandary. Mass Effect 2’s slight disappointment did not alter my feelings about the experience. Maybe it is due to the length of the title, or perhaps simple that the mechanics were solid enough to have overlooked weaker narrative elements. Silent Hill’s ending however totally altered my opinion. Lasting only six or eight hours perhaps I was inclined to be more forgiving of the hour or so spent in the games broken action segments; looking back I am even starting to appreciate the real sense of apprehension the scenes created in me. But what it boils down to is that I could have reviewed Mass Effect 2 after ten hours and bar a throw away comment about the ending my conclusion would have been unchanged. Where as if I hadn’t finished Silent Hill my feelings would have been inclined towards the negative, rather than the overwhelmingly positive view I now possess.

So it is back to the drawing board with my guidelines. Currently I am leaning towards the idea that when left to my own discretion I play a game until I just can’t bring myself to play any more, assuming of course that I at least have ensured a solid grasp of the concepts. I arrived at this formula because personally I would not feel ‘cheated’ if any writer supplied their opinion in this manner, providing they clearly indicated what their exposure to the game entailed. It seems many disagree with this methodology however feeling entitled to reviews that encapsulate the complete experience.

I can understand arguing for completion, but it seems that with both the industry and distribution of information changing as rapidly as it is, changes in coverage’s content should adapt also. With game media moving almost exclusively to websites, speed of coverage and personality of the review are becoming increasingly valuable. Following someone with the same tastes, or drawing from hundreds of voices, allows us to choose what suits us personally. As players have more games to play and less time available a review that tells me that one persons experience was so bad it made the player put down the controller and never return is invaluable providing the writer frames what their opinion is based on sufficiently.

It was not really a random remark, but a question so simple that I had somehow never asked it of myself. My friend (and podcast co-host) Darren was visiting me in Japan and we were considering my return to the UK when he asked, ‘Well, what do you really want to do?’

Whenever I had considered my options up until that point I always though about my proven talents and what would make me money while at the same time not driving me mad. I had considered opening a bar, teaching, maybe even trying to earn a PhD. But in all my deliberation one clause had been missing, and Darren asked it, ‘…really want…’

In the third grade of middle school Darren and I had actually tried to write a gaming magazine for our school. I remember that I had no understanding of the bracketed comments from Ed. I knew it referred to the editor, but my idea of what that meant was hazy at best. Believing them to be humorous I inserted random ‘funny’ comments throughout my childish prose. We never finished a single issue of our ‘magazine’ but my passion for gaming never diminished.

My answer came to me faster than I had ever imagined, ‘I want to write about games’. Yes, not the most eloquent of responses, but my point was clear enough. My doubts about any ability I had to actually to achieve this were secondary to the question posed to me, because what I really wanted was to talk about games as a profession.

It was only after moving to Japan that I began to realise there was a new audience for games. While the foreign populous of gamers would be hard to define as ‘average’ their numbers were liberating. I began having adult, and often drunken, conversations about all facets of gaming. Design, story and cultural implications were reoccurring topics in which I found myself consistently and vehemently defending games as more than mindless entertainment.

Edge is top of the line, but GamesTM seemed to take more joy in their writing.

My isolation from English gaming magazines at this time turned me to new sources for my information. Suddenly rather than GameTM and Edge I was reading numerous websites and discovering that while much of their content was reminiscent of magazines I read when I was younger, yet every site hid an undercurrent of mature discussion in some of their posts.

As my western friends slowly returned to their home countries my debates on the merits of gaming abated. I turned to websites for information and dialogues. I found the best of the online receptacles of information could flit within single articles between the serious considered opinions I held, and a jovial humour that ensured the writing never became stale.

I was at this time that I turned to podcasts. I found them an invaluable source of information that didn’t require the same engagement as reading an article. Shows that could last for hours gave voices to writers, and shows like GFW Radio gave me a broader view of current topics in the media and insight into the construction of articles while never ceasing to entertain.

The podcast I aspire to.

All this brings me to the birth of DoFuss.net. Not as a career, but as a learning tool and portfolio. In creating the site, I changed the way I think. Everyday sees the genesis of a new topic for discussion that I may or may never realise in text. I now can’t imagine attending events or following the game industry without the critical eye and focus my writing has given me. It is a change I adore.

I confess my reflections of the decade have been somewhat personal. But I don’t think I am alone in my experience of the last ten years. Blogging has exploded, offering more outlets for opinion and information. It is a trend I am sure will only continue to grow and while I embrace it I do bemoan the fact that the noise sometimes makes it harder to separate the ‘Okami’ from the ‘Imagine Horses’.

Thank you Darren, for inspiring this obsession of mine and letting me discover what I really wanted to do. Also thank you to any and all who read this or my other articles on DoFuss (or the other sites I contribute to) I appreciate your time and input (especially Feitclub and Blokey for their continuing contributions).

Next post will be back to gaming proper, I promise.