Making the Case for Games Journalism

Game journalism is a pretty maligned corner of the journalism world as a whole — sometimes for good reason, but as Gus Mastrapa argues, we're not really deserving of the broad brush we get painted with. Why, he even points to Kotaku as a 'sure sign that we've arrived'! Games journalism doesn't lag behind many other enthusiast presses, he says, despite their advantage of age:

When I browse my RSS reader everyday, I'm consistently impressed by the quality and originality of the reporting being done by the video game press. I say this not only as a member of the gaming press but as a fan. In addition to all the games reporting I read as part of my job (and to sate my love of games as a hobby) I also read tons of news about movies, music and television. I can honestly say that games are covered just as well, if not better, than other forms of entertainment. Don't go thinking that those guys writing about movies are that much more serious about journalism just because their medium has been around fifty years longer. My RSS feed was rife with rumors and speculation about the casting and plot of the next Batman movie, despite the fact that not a single iota of work has been done on the sequel. Rumors that Johnny Depp would play the Riddler were carried by respectable newspapers around the world. Games aren't the only medium that feed this kind of reporting. If anything, the fact that we have an organization as capable and agile as Kotaku to keep tabs on this kind of thing is a sure sign that we've arrived.

Of course, the first comment on the article heartily disagrees (surprise!); I think it's healthy and necessary to do some self-criticism of where we do go wrong, but it's always nice to read well-reasoned pieces on what we do right, as well.

http://kotaku.com/5097115/making-the...mes-journalism