Straight From A Part Time Game Journalist

I was recently made aware that someone with the local version of Electronic Gaming Monthly wrote a little editorial about how game journalists are a sad, lonely, misunderstood lot. There are two ways to take this. Either the writer was being sarcastic (In which case he wasn’t much of a writer since the sarcasm didn’t take too well) or else he was a rather overinflated sense of his own position in life and rails at not being taken seriously by his peers.

I dunno, man, I write reviews and play games too, but I’m not so lofty about it that I think game journalists are somehow supposed to be on the same plateau as Woodward and Bernstein. It’s not like this is “pure journalism” where you report events to keep the public informed, this is opinion pieces about a relatively new art form that is itself still not taken seriously. And it’s a art form that is all about play and enjoyment. We’re talking about fungames, for God’s sake, why SHOULD people who are paid to play them be taken seriously with so many other things going on in the world that are really deserving of respect.

I don’t think that gaming journalists are the dregs of society, but I think that when most people have mind numbingly boring jobs that they can’t really abide and someone is giving you money to try out a game and then wax lyrical about its merits… buddy, you’ve got a pretty sweet deal, and you should appreciate that. You cannot expect an elevated perception or a high level of societal respect when your field of criticism isn’t even regarded that way. Now that might be a might hoity-toity for something that ain’t real serious no-how, but I reckon it’s time people that fancy themselves respectable artist types just be quit with the whining and carrying on about being misunderstood and really show some gumption; if they’re serious, they ougghta’ get out of gaming to begin with and go where they really belong, like writing for a fancy magazine or newspaper.

Uh… Yeah. Been watching too much Firefly. Oh well, back to the commentaries…