The Last Word
DANIEL WILKS gets all political
While this magazine was being finished, one of the contributors did something that is apparently unforgivable. He wrote an article for a website that dared to use videogames as a lens through which to talk about Australian politics. I personally found the piece rather good and well written, but online commenters, angry Twitter users and various forumites found it to be an unforgivable affront to journalism, ethics, the English language, and everything else in-between. Whilst I don’t want to go into detail about this particular case, or name names, as it might just inflame something that I hope has died down by this stage, I do think this idea that games cannot be used as a lens for politics or other aspects of life is something that needs to be investigated.
In 2004, then games journalist (current comic book author) Kieron Gillen coined the term “New Games Journalism” and championed this approach to games journalism. It was a style of writing in which personal anecdotes, creative analysis, references to other media or aspects of life, cultural mores and the like are used to explore game design, culture, and experience. Think of it kind of like a more sedate version of Gonzo journalism (as pioneered by Hunter S. Thompson), a style in which the author is often, if not always part of the story and there aren’t any claims of objectivity.
This second part, not claiming objectivity, is, to my mind at least, one of the most important parts of both the NGJ and Gonzo ideas, as, especially when talking about games, the whole thing is experiential. As Gillen put it in his manifesto, “The worth of gaming lies in the gamer not the game”, further expounding, “This makes us travel journalists to imaginary places. Our job is to describe what it’s like to visit a place that doesn’t exist outside of the gamer’s head. Go to a place, report on its cultures, foibles, distractions and bring it back to entertain your readers”.
One of the most influential articles in the New Games Journalism was the rather inflammatory titled “Bow, Nigger” by Ian Shanahan, known at the time by his online moniker, Always Black. In a bit over 2000 words, Shanahan told a story of racial slurs, competition, and overcoming odds and by the end of it the reader was intimately
It is obvious and necessary that games can and should be used as a lens to look at the wider world
aware not only of the moral of the story but of the nature and content of the game around which the piece was written, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. It was, and remains one of the great pieces of game writing. Full disclosure, after reading the piece for the first time I met Shanahan at an event not too long after and begged him to write for me. Unfortunately that did not pan out.
For as long as I’ve worked in the games press I’ve believed that one of the duties of any games magazine is not only to be informative but to be entertaining. If there is no pleasure to be had in reading a review, a feature, preview or interview, where’s the impetus to keep reading? Objective facts are valuable for the transmission of information, but bonds are formed with the reader through style and personality, both of the magazine itself and the various writers that populate its pages with words. When I first read the manifesto it resonated with me for multiple reasons, not the least of them being that I felt much the same way as Gillen at the time. Maybe my language wasn’t quite as flowery with metaphor, but I’ve always thought that reading a review should be as enjoyable as playing a game, or, in the case of a bad game, far more so.
So what does all this have to do with the online furore that started this train of thought? Well, with his essay, Always Black demonstrated that you can look at a game through the lens of the culture and society built around that game, so it seems both obvious and necessary that games can and should be used as a lens to look at the wider world. We can’t keep arguing that games are art if people are unwilling for them to be used and examined in the same manner as other forms of art. Music, writing, film, fine art, dance, sculpture, architecture, and just about anything else you can name has been used time and time again as a window through which to look at a larger issue. There are umpteen books, scholarly papers, articles, websites, and videos detailing how society can influence the art it creates and vice-versa, or how various forms of art can create an unrealistic vision of the society that created it, and there are many other, more specific or nuanced pieces that do the same, like Ian Shanahan’s breakout essay.
While the whole manifesto and movement of New Games Journalism proved to be more aspirational than followable, it remains an important touchstone in the gaming media. Twelve years ago, a group of games journalists saw writing about games as something more than simply talking about games as a combination of mechanics and graphics and instead treated them as an important part of society and culture. They treated games like a respected art form and looked at them in terms of how they make you feel and what the experience was like. They sought to examine games more holistically, looking at them through the lens of the world outside of the game, using the real world as a juxtaposition to the imaginary spaces in which they travelled. They sought to look and talk about games in a different way, elevating the art of games writing in the process. It wasn’t always successful but first steps are always a little rocky. Anyone seeking to do the same should be applauded, not vilified.