by Gus Mastrapa on Thursday, October 09, 2008
Gary Hodges at Village Voice Media's Joystick Division blog has been taking games journalism to task over the past couple of weeks. And for good reason. His story "A Slave of Two Masters" revealed a more-than-questionable relationship between website GameCyte and the PR agency TriplePoint PR. The revelations uncovered in Hodges' phone interview are just the kind of perfect storm that the loudest of games journalism's critics have been waiting for. The fact that Richard Kain owns, and for the most part, manages, both organizations fits the narrative perfectly. So it's proven: games journalists and PR firms (at least the few in question here) are in cahoots. But what exactly does this all mean?
Part of me wants to dismiss those most up in arms as tin foil hat wearing loonies. Who cares if some PR firm and its podunk website write glowing pans of the games they represent? You'd be hard pressed to find a human being who has even considered buying Off Road in the first place. If GameCyte's review compelled some consumer to dish out thirty bucks for the game, I'd argue that the sap has bigger problems. Of course, if such a relationship were revealed around a more prominent game or a larger PR firm maybe I'd be more prone to furrow my brow. But then again, my interest in games writing may be different than the average reader. I really don't need convincing one way or another if I'm going to be playing Grand Theft Auto IV. And those who are on the fence are, to me, like the fabled undecided voter – difficult to fathom. How much more data could you possibly need?
"This kind of investigative journalism is what The Village Voice and our country's other great local weeklies do best. It'll be fascinating to see this kind of dogged attention aimed at games."
In a later essay called "A Matter of Trust" Hodges sketches out ways for games journalism to straighten up its act. Full disclosure is at the top of his list. I hate to admit that I find transparency fairly boring. John Keefer at Crispy Gamer is fairly gung ho about mentioning, at the end of articles, where our review copies come from and how we managed to get our hands-on time. But as a writer this smacks to me as a bit desperate – an almost too eager attempt to curry favor with readers and distance ourselves from all those other untrustworthy outlets. There's more than a little self-loathing among the enthusiast press – much of it unwarranted. Sure, a lot our writing could be better. I couldn't agree more with Joystick Division's recent assertion that Play editor Dave Halverson himself needs an editor.
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