Have We Forgotten The New Games Journalism?

BioShock Infinite Elizabeth with Book

In March of 2014, Kieron Gillen wrote a blog post called “The New Games Journalism.” In it, he lays out a plan for enhancing gaming press via use of the editorial, a tradition that actually has a strong pedigree in actual journalism. Gillen traces it back to Tom Wolfe’s New Journalism in the 1970s, and he attempts to apply the basic principles of this body of work to games journalism.

All these years later, I find it difficult to agree with 100% of the things Gillen says, but a vast majority it holds up well enough that it’s worth revisiting.

Most importantly is his passion for something that’s both new to games journalism and well-established in other forms of journalism.

I want to add my own observation that there’s also an academic tradition of analyzing various forms of writing, and games journalism is a form of writing that, for the most part, completely lacks a body of analysis. While writing about writing about video games may seem redundant, almost every other type of literary form has an accompanying body of critical analysis. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that great video game editorials are so few and far between. Maybe?

I would implore you to read (or re-read) Gillen’s essay. It’s a piece of work that we absolutely should be digging up and talking about right now.

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