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Burying the Lede

Burying the Lede is a (hopefully) daily collection of interesting, mostly game-journalism-related links I've come across that don't require a full post but that I still wanted to share.

• I know other journalists (and even outlet mascots) have been in games before, and it hasn't been the end of the world, but this kind of thing still makes me feel we're getting uncomfortably close to our subjects.
• If someone ever tells you something along the lines of "any random commenter could review games as well as you," show them this hilarious video.
• Show me a journalist that refuses $700 for their E3 badge and I'll show you a professional.
• MySpace's loss is IGN UK's gain, apparently.
• Damn, a lot of stuff happened last year. And this is just the half of it!
• A cliche you should watch out for.
• Keep chasing that scheduling rainbow, Lou.
• For no apparent reason: Shigeru Miyamoto doing an unintentional Koopa Troopa impression (from here)

Give a shout if you want me to keep doing these.

Burying the Lede

• Well lookie who has the sixth biggest magazine in America. Circulation has more than doubled since 2005, when it was 26th. Amazing what prominent placement in 5,000 game stores can do.
• As a briefly-visiting Yank, I feel unqualified to comment on the British Game Media Award nominations. Instead, I'll just link to a piece I did on the first GMAs in 2007.
• Haven't seen Issue 1 (really the second issue) of Kill Screen yet, but it's getting some nice reviews. That said, it is still expensive.
• Ebert may have made his peace, but the rhetorical war between movie reviews and gamers continues.
• It takes guts for a game journalist to admit something like this. I wrote a column on the topic over three years ago.
• I find it kind of amazing that ESPN, and not some enthusiast gaming outlet, published this great look at the history of the Madden franchise.
• Can't wait to get back to the U.S. so I can watch Moral Kombat on Hulu. Supposed to be one of the better game documentaries.
• Speaking of the U.S., we need a PC game downloads chart like this in the U.S. Heck, we need one for consoles too.
• Well I'll be... I guess you can't, at that.
• "But every year, we also face the same annual dilemma: how do we effectively 'review' a game experience that, like an MMO or an epic 50-hour RPG, changes and evolves as you play it?" Check out GamePro's innovative answer.
• "Arguments have raged for centuries over whether books can really be art. But with its hypnotic elbow jerking and heavily chorused guitar solos, Chevy Brayne puts that issue definitively to rest."
• "It’s rare as a games journalist that you find yourself sitting in a hall, knowing you’re there for an announcement, without a single clue what the game actually is."
• "It's very much about not repeating oneself." I love you sometimes, @GameJournos.

Burying the Lede

Emphasis on the "(hopefully)"

• Rock Paper Shotgun saw fit to take down this review of the Official WoW Magazine (explanation for why here), but I still found it interesting. So will you, perhaps?
• I'll have more on Game Theory soon, I hope, but for now just read their generalize take on what game journalism can do better.
• I am such a fan of this idea for travel journalism through the lens of game design. Kind of like a new spin on This Gaming Life.
• A lot of the thoughts in this piece about game testers could be applied to game reviewers as well.
• IGN changes from a 100-point scale to a 20-point scale. Here's betting most of the review still cluster around "7"
• The "glamorous" life of a freelancer, written by a Kill Screen contributor, apparently.
• I wish journalists could analyze sales data at this granular a level in the US.
• Even Tim Rogers thinks he needs an editor.
• Something to keep in mind, critics.
• "Game Reviews in One Sentence! Actually, they are pithy expressions of the core experience... but review is easier to say!"
• "I want to let everyone in on a little secret: Joystiq knew the name of the Kinect five days before it was announced to the public."
• "I went to the Canadian Arctic once to write. I was hardly attacked at all by night monsters, though."

Burying the Lede

• I'm so pissed I missed the screening text adventure documentary GET LAMP at PAX East, but luckily now I can buy it. And so can you!
• I don't know if it's a good sign or a bad sign for games' widespread acceptance that WCG Ultimate Gamer is starting a second season on SyFy soon. But it's definitely a sign.
• Dan Amrich talks about how he battled feelings of burnout during his GamePro days.
• Game journalism can be confusing.
• G4 knows how to label stuff.
• "When I first started writing professionally, having a gender-neutral name as I do, I wouldn't even disclose that I was female unless asked directly, not just because I feared backlash, but because I didn't want to make it relevant."
• "The problem with judging the value of [classic gaming] mags isn't that there's a vast oversupply. It's more a case of under-demand."

Burying the Lede

Dumping out my bookmarks folder before heading off to a weekend in York.

• I'm mentioned briefly in this four-part series on the state of game journalism, written by a guy just getting into the business. He seems very eager to learn, and also very perceptive.
• Rare responds to the MundoRare fansite closing (mentioned here) with an extremely benign statement.
• Am I risking my credibility by saying I largely agree with this defense of Tim Rogers?
• This is why I rarely read comments.
• Britain's Game Media Awards are getting bigger. I first covered the awards three years ago then promptly forgot they existed.
• "Imagine going to a great restaurant and ordering a huge steak, and then being told that you have four minutes to eat the whole steak and get the fuck out. That's pretty much what game reviewers are forced to do much of the time."

Burying the Lede

• IGN takes a page from Giant Bomb's playbook -- and it's a pretty smart page to take!
• Destructoid's Nick Chester discusses why our job inevitably leads to owning a ton of night shirts that you can never wear in public.
• Presenting volume 42,768 in the continuing series: "Press ignores games without big marketing budgets."
• I love this bit of User Review fan fiction way more than I probably should.
• That Rockstar three-volume book I mentioned here a few days ago has been cancelled, but apparently a similar one is in the works.
• Speaking of awesome-sounding books about games, this French book on Nintendo's early history sounds awesome. And and AND it'll soon be available in English!!!!11oneoneelevensies
• The incredible story of a Rare fansite that got snubbed by the object of its fandom.
• "Some 30 years after video games became a popular form of mainstream entertainment, we're still liable to hear less about games' positive impact on kids' lives than sensationalistic accounts of their hidden dangers."
• As if to prove that last quote true, ladies and gentleman, let me present Raoul Mote.

Burying the Lede

• While I wasn't looking, Kill Screen magazine went ahead and printed their second issue, which they maddeningly call "Issue 1." If you can resist it after reading the excerpts, I do not want to be your friend anymore.
• I never got to read the British PC Zone magazine before it got shuttered earlier this month, so I'll let someone who worked there eulogize it instead.
• Being in England for the summer has prevented me from checking out @Gamer's first issue, but Kevin Gifford seems to think it's good for what it is.
• Wikipedia entries on graphic adventures + in-depth interviews with the games' creators + a bit of design work = A freaking book.
• The next time someone complains your reviews are "bias," show them this. If that doesn't work, show them this.
• "I think games today are a great window into certain age groups and types of people, in the same way that music was a great place to find stories about young people in the 70’s."

Burying the Lede

Burying the Lede is a (hopefully) daily collection of interesting game-journalism-related links I've come across that don't require a full post but that I still wanted to share.

Didja miss me? Three weeks worth of links to catch up on, so these will be a little longer than normal for a while.

• Freelancer extraordinaire Chris Dahlen has been discussing his feelings of burnout and how he's coping with them over at his blog.
• Jim Rossignol's excellent This Gaming Life is readable/downloadble in its entirety, for free, online. Read it, ya mook!
• Someone is working on an in-depth documentary about competitive Tetris players (PDF link). Best of luck to 'em.
• Speaking of in-depth looks, Rockstar Games is getting a three-volume coffee table art book and DVD.
• Apparently you aren't successful in this business if you haven't received a death threat or two.
• I didn't attend Activision's E3 party this year (or E3 itself, actually), but this is how I will always remember it.

Burying the Lede

• What a video game blog would have looked like in 1992. Along the same lines, one blogger is recapping classic game mags from a modern perspective.
• Looks like fans of gaming meta-journalism podcasts (that's journalism about journalism, cats and kittens) have something to look forward to.
• Harlan Ellison has some choice words for people who ask professional writers to work for free (via Ben Kuchera)
• "Let April through July 2010 be known as the first true Golden Age of Video Game discourse, when the stooped gamer straightened his back, looked to the heavens and saw the beatific gaze of Roger Ebert beaming down upon his monkeyness."
• Speaking of Ebert, some people still want him to put up even though he's already shut up.

Burying the Lede

• I suppose I should be humbled and impressed by this well worded and carefully reconsidered opinion but part of me just feel like screaming "WE WIN WE WIN WE WIN!" in my most childish voice.
• Am I the only one who didn't realize that IEEE Spectrum magazine, of all places, has some excellent game industry coverage courtesy of Masters of Doom author David Kushner?
• Why has this classic Nintendo Power cover been made into a shirt but this one has not. Because LIFE IS NOT FAIR, that's why.
• "According to Joystiqvia a Destructoid blog post quoted by Shacknews via a Reuters feature summarized by Boing Boing..."
• “I don’t want to open my own fucking restaurant, ... I just want somewhere good to eat.”