GDC 09: Game Critics Rant at the Industry

Over the last few years, the rant session at Game Developers Conference has become one of the most memorable events of the whole week. They have been home to some of the most controversial statements and some of the most challenging ideas about videogames. In 2007, Chris Hecker ran afoul of Nintendo fans when he compared the Wii to two GameCube's duct-taped together. In 2008, Jon Mak chose not to rant at all. Instead, he filled the conference room with brightly colored balloons and dance music while encouraging attendees to play with one another.

This year's rant, "Burned by Friendly Fire: Game Critics Rant," turned the mic over to game journalists instead of developers. Heather Chaplin, author of Smartbomb offered tough words for the gaming industry. "I've been covering the games industry for eight years, mainly for mainstream outlets, and I often find myself acting as a translator," Chaplin said.

Chaplin wondered how it is that videogames remain so focused on violence and zombie gore. "The excuse is that the videogame industry is only thirty-five years old," said Chaplin. "But after thirty-five years rock & roll had Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Clash. After thirty-five years film had Fritz Lang, film noire, and was a few years away from Citizen Kane." Chaplin blamed the inability of the medium to move beyond male-centric power fantasies as a direct result of developer heterogeny and immaturity.

"It's not that the medium is in its adolescence, it's that you're a bunch of ****ing adolescents," she said. "It's even worse because you're technically supposed to be adults." Chaplin traced the paucity of more mature content in games to four basic ideas that frighten men the most: responsibility, introspection, intimacy, and intellectual discovery. She described game developers in terms of neoteny, an idea from developmental biology that describes adults of a species who have juvenile traits. This can be seen in mature Chihuahuas, which resemble infant and fetal wolves. Chaplin closed by challenging the audience, "What do you want to be, a Chihuahua or a wolf?"

Others in the panel took aim at their colleagues in the gaming press for a variety of reasons. N'Gai Croal, a newly-minted game consultant and former Newsweek editor, lamented the gaming press for validating distinctions between "hardcore" and "casual." Many writers continue to use these catchall phrases to categorize games rather than doing the more difficult work of discussing style and genre. He encouraged everyone in the audience to Google the phrase "taxonomy of games" to begin unpacking the great array of different play styles and experiences. Croal hoped that one day we'll be able to talk about "tourist" players versus "skill" players or "perfectionists" versus "completionists." When these more specific terms are applied to the medium the idea of hardcore or casual seems opaque and inexpressive.

Croal's Vs. Mode pal and MTV Games editor Stephen Totilo took the dais next. Totilo targeted his complaints against the lack of quality writing in games journalism. "Our reporting is fine. There's no lack of good journalism, though there may be a lack of effort in finding it," Totilo said. "There is a lack of good writing." Totilo cited several examples of his own work over the years that exemplified some bad habits, including the use of the word "compelling" when trying to describe a positive reaction to a game. Totilo also cited IGN's own review of Hail to the Chimp, which contained an unfortunate mistake claiming a squid is "technically not an animal" (an error which has subsequently been corrected).

Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra and Sexy Videogameland spoke about a "three-way ego-system of negativity" between journalists, the games industry, and the audience. She described a scenario where developers are unrealistic about their games while promoting them to journalists. When journalists report what they've been told and then the game comes out and underwhelms, fans then come to mistrust the journalist. Alexander admitted to frustration with some readers who seem impossible to please. "Sometimes we ****ing hate the audience," she said. "I got a letter from a reader threatening to kill my family because they don't like my writing."

"What is it going to take to please these people?"

Chris Hecker made a return appearance as well, springing to the dais from a seat in the audience. Hecker made three basic points to game journalists:

1. Journalism is an important job.
2. Your reporting impacts people, personally and professionally.
3. With great power comes great responsibility.

Hecker illustrated how game journalism has come to affect him directly. He Google-searched his own name and found a story from 1Up that said Hecker was responsible for the simple gameplay in Spore. The strapline claimed their source was an article, but it was really taken from a post on a message board. The article closed by promising to "do our best to get Hecker's side of the story." Hecker said that no one ever contacted him about the story. "I've had the same phone number for twelve years," he said. "I'm not hard to find."

G4's Adam Sessler closed the rant with a vocal screed against Metacritic. He described frustration with G4's 5 star rating scale being mistranslated on Metacritic. Sessler contended that his 2 star rating of a game should not be turned into a 40% ranking on Metacritic, and then used as justification for withholding money from publishers. "Shame on you, publishers, for using Metacritic to determine whether or not a game is good," said Sessler."We have a method for determining whether or not a game is good. It's called the market."

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/967/967310p1.html