I feel I have to comment on what seems to be a growing trend in MANY recent video game magazines. In fact, as of this writing I currently feel like this trend is spiraling into a horrible place that began a few years ago with a little magazine called GamePro.
Back then, in the days where there were SO MANY game magazines that I believe they bordered on around 15 or more; and those were just the domestics. The year was 2007, but it might have been 2006. Don't quote me. It doesn't really matter but back then as now. GamePro had a minimum of words and a maximum of screen shots, but that was their MO and everyone knew that if you wanted lots of screens on every game out there, GamePro was the place to go. There was no big mystery and there were plenty of other publications that had both screens and long articles. Including my ALL TIME FAVORITES the dead EGM and the longer dead Games for Windows magazine. Both of which had some very exciting and wordy articles. Both magazines took chances and had incredible stuff; did they lose because of that; I hope not.
Sometime in the recent past, probably around spring of this year a VERY disturbing thing happened. At least disturbing to me. After all the game magazine closures we were really only left with EDGE magazine the old standby UK publication that boasts a crazy $9 and some US but all ways delivers with exceptional back of the book articles and some amazing inside game developer stuff. And we had PC GAMER, the American publication printed by the same publisher, FUTURE. PCGAMER boasted some amazing writing and had some equally incredible back of the book articles. Finally, good old PLAY magazine which used to have a large anime section but this had been sheered down and they had a back of the book editorial and even a couple in the front that were usually pretty amazing. In PLAY's case this seemed to happen right around the time the their other American competitors folded. Which was cool and interesting all on its own.
By the time spring came however, it seemed like PCGAMER had decided to go in a NEW direction and drop their back of the book articles all together. With the insistence that the magazine was doing this to increase the number of pages devoted to previews. Which they have done in one page pieces that really are no different than any other video game magazine. Which to me, turning something unique or somewhat unique into something common; is a VERY BAD MOVE. But hey, maybe it would work. It didn't at least not to me; and said editor called it quits in the latest issue. Maybe they will go back, or maybe not.
The magazine industry seems to be slowly homogenizing itself for some reason. I don't know if this is simply to make money or there is some kind of American Publishing standard that is probably intended to make more money somehow. The reason I'm beginning to believe this is that in the last couple months it seems like there is far more focus on getting screen shots than there is on getting some descent copy out there for everyone to read and enjoy. I can get my screens aplenty on the Internet for free; why am I going to buy your magazine for that? There are also a terrible frequency of magazines that have decided to make their "hard stuff," area's multiple pages. These are the pages that show off things like action figures, new hardware, and ridiculously expensive art pieces. Certainly in the past magazine have done this to fill space during the holidays but there are at least two current issues of magazines that have done this for their September issue. What holiday was this for, Labor Day?
I know that there are people reading this that are saying that I am torpedoing my future career at any one of the above publications over this topic. But the problem I'm bringing up here is more important than just about anything that has happened in video game journalism for years. At least as important as "Gerstman Gate." Mainly because this isn't one or two publications, this is seemingly the WHOLE AMERICAN PUBLISHING industry. How the UK and Japanese publications are missing this I'll never know.
I had originally believed that the contracting of the video game magazine industry would result in a stronger group of magazines. But it now appears the publications have dropped to such a degree that they are flirting with becoming simple advertising for game developers and publishers rather than commentators on video games. This is a side from the spotty review content and odd pessimistic previews that have popped up on a few occasions. I could have handled all this and ignored it as I have in the past if it wasn't for the total lack of insightful commentary in just about any magazine right now with the exception of PLAY magazine and of course Game Developer Magazine.
There was a time around "Gerstman Gate;" where someone(sorry whoever you are, I can't remember your name), that said that he was worried that video game journalism would become nothing more than PR for the video game industry and that the only hope for the industry was the blogosphere which would somehow fill the void that the professionals left behind. While this hasn't yet happened and everything, for the most part, has returned to somewhat normal. There is still an alarming number of publications that seem to be stooping low to pay the bills. Perhaps this is a simple matter of economics where the fewer people you have writing for you the fewer articles you can have. But it seems that the people writing one page to one paragraph previews could spend their time better on writing articles. But perhaps the publications believe that their previews which can be found anywhere online for free are more important than articles that would give their writers a voice rather than just another carefully worded paragraph in a sea of carefully worded paragraphs.
The simple point I am making with this piece is this, please put some words back into your work. Leave the screen shots and previews to the Internet and start giving the readers something they can't get anywhere else. Insightful, well written commentary! I'm not asking for Atlantic Monthly, just something more complicated than the Gamestop flyer with paragraph accompaniment.
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