New games journalism review

New Games Journalism can be described as a “revolution” against the structure of most video games magazine or website based reviews. A NGJ style view would not be considered a review in the usual sense of the word; instead you will find personal anecdotes and references to pop culture. It could be compared to travel writing, as the author of such a piece will comment on the events and challenges that the gaming environment poses them, in a similar way to how a travel writer may comment on challenges and personal experiences. Crucially then, a NGJ review may not give away too much about a games merits or indeed its failings as it chooses to focus mainly on the players own in-game experience. Can this be considered as a saviour for an ailing business (Sales of video games magazines have fallen over the last few years) or simply as pretentious, non relevant journalism?

Well, certainly the latter can be argued to be true simply by looking at which games sell the most. Look in the games charts and you will probably see familiar franchises such as Fifa, Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Burnout. Regardless of the great reviews a game may get, if it isn’t familiar it probably won’t sell well. Beautifully crafted works of art such as Ico on the Playstation 2 received excellent reviews across the board but Sony hardly shifted any copies of it. Another example of this could be Darwinia, an excellent game sadly pushed to the sides by a stream of franchises people already feel at home with. My point is that games journalism needs to come a long way before people consider it essential to look up a review of a game before they buy it. No matter how many average scores Fifa Soccer gets, it will still sell excellently and usually on the back of boasting a few more kits then last year, or the chance to play in the Bangladesh second division. People like these types of games, they are within a person’s safety zone, they are familiar. New games journalism is not familiar. That being said, it does lend itself well to certain genres, particularly MMO games, such as Planetside. (See Jim Rossignol’s piece Going Planetside) Here the experiences are not guaranteed and everyone will come out of the game with their own individual story to tell.

Casting an eye to the future I honestly am uncertain as to the future of NGJ. I feel that the games industry as a whole would have to change for it to become relevant enough for the majority of gamers to take notice. There will always be a niche for NGJ; of that I can be certain and as I said above, it can lend itself well to certain games.
However, as long as the big franchises rule the charts then a simple review breaking down graphics, sound and gameplay is perfectly adequate, people only want to know what is tacked on this year that they didn’t get in last years version.