The Change Mariner

Are Videogames Ready To Be Taken Seriously By Media Reviewers?

WSJ,

See also GameGirlAdvance:

The U.S. videogame industry today is larger than Hollywood's domestic box-office receipts and is closing in on music sales. Doesn't a sector that size deserve sophisticated mainstream critique, even academic study?

... Some of the academics complain that the videogame industry lacks the sort of critical media eye that has accompanied the development of cinema, and has acted as cheerleader for more creative and important -- if less financially lucrative -- films.

Without such legitimate critique, they argue, the industry will take few chances on things besides violent fare, sports games and half-hearted ripoffs of Hollywood. If the games industry is ever going to get beyond its current fascination with heavy ammunition, high-speed chases and pixelized hot-tub vixens, their argument goes, the public has to hear from reviewers who can call the game makers to task or applaud loftier offerings -- and do it for a new, bigger audience.

Instead, videogame reviews are stuck in the Pac-Man era. Matteo Bittanti, a researcher in Italy, says games are still judged on graphics, sound, longevity and playability. That would be like film critics writing only about a movie's audio track and special effects.

The magazines out now are primarily "magalogs, official catalogs, unofficial promos and buyer's guides masquerading as serious information," Mr. Bittanti says.

The academics want a videogame version of Cahiers du Cinema, the French film review founded in 1951 that assisted the birth of the French New Wave movement and championed the likes of Hitchcock and Truffaut.

... Better videogame criticism is a good idea. But for it to matter, games will have to expand their cultural and social impact to match their economic weight. Game publishers should work harder to attract more gamers outside of their traditional demographic market. They can also offer some more sophisticated fare, games worth writing about.