Blips: When the Dog Bites, When the Bee Stings

Source: List articles contain a revealing truth about how game journalism works, and why it should change

Author: Leigh Alexander

Site: Edge

I'm as guilty as anyone of making "best of" lists (usually for music), but I think Leigh Alexander has the right idea here: we should be writing not about what's "best," but instead, what our "favorites" are. Now, there's definitely some overlap between the two, as often when I'm saying a game or album is "the best" I'm actually just saying it's my favorite while using the more objective-minded term "best" as a booster to make my preferences seem more definitive. When we're talking about personal lists, I think there's a general assumption that we're looking at a list of favorites, but when a game is touted as The Best by a website or publication, it's taken as a much more objective statement. There's not one person's opinion of the game to justify its placement, there's the opinion of the committee, and the committee has no personality (see Polygon's group review of the PS4, despite the charming page design).

This past December was the first time I voted in year-end lists as part a group of writers, and definitely I lucked out in the blurbs I was assigned. For both this music list for Unwinnable and this games list for Kill Screen, I wrote about my favorite album/game of the year (Random Access Memories and Miasmata, respectively). I wrote about them as if they were ranked #1 on the site, even if they weren't. They were my favorites and I wanted that to show through as much as possible.

Still, best-of lists are a lot like review scores: when readers get bogged down in the numeric minutiae of one game ranked against another, the ranking system begins to take attention away from the actual subject at hand. I've listened to Giant Bomb's "game of the year" deliberation podcasts the past several years because that's the component of their lists that is interesting, and that's where you get to hear the staff speak passionately about their favorite games. The list itself is a byproduct that I couldn't care less about, except for the fact that it prompts such an intriguing discussion to arrive at that point. The more access to the list-making process we can give to readers, the more they'll actually get to hear why we like certain games so much.

Blips: Bad Words

Source: The top 10 worst buzzwords of 2013
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

My list of horrible video game buzzwords from the past year is up on Kill Screen. Consider giving it a look. It was a fun list to make because it allowed me to write jokes about dumb PR phrases while also venting a bit about the ways certain industry terms are used outside of upper management corporate strategy meetings. Spoiler: "content" the my number 1 worst buzzword this year for exactly that reason. I guess people are averse to using "product" now; perhaps it references the market too directly? I don't know, but "content" is just "product" for Millenials.

The other buzzword I was considering including was a perennial favorite, "fun." In 2013, it felt like "fun" came under fire more than it had previously, thanks in large part to critical breakdowns of what the term actually means in the context of video games from Ian Bogost and Leigh Alexander. It's similar to the way "beauty" was tied to the value of art for a very long time. All of a sudden there were painters and sculptures creating works that were not conventionally beautiful, works that could be a bit uncomfortable to hang over the couch, yet they were incredible, moving works of art. The need for games to be "fun" is likewise a limiter on what's possible in the medium as well as potentially constraining of what "fun" can mean. This is not meant to condemn fun games (after all, who doesn't enjoy having fun?), but rather to acknowledge what's actually being said when the "fun" descriptor is thrown into the mix.

Blips: Indulgence

Source: Game of Thrones Characters as Video Game Consoles
Author: Dan Solberg (as Gold_Skulltulla)
Site: Giant Bomb

So, a cool thing happened earlier this week. I posted this comparison of Game of Thrones characters to video game consoles on my Giant Bomb blog, and it proved to be quite popular. It's currently received over 125,000 pageviews and about 150 comments, almost all of which are extremely positive. The ball started rolling slowly when I originally posted the piece at about 4am EST, which meant that the initial batch of viewers were probably European (i.e. some commenters addressed me as "mate"). Eventually the Giant Bomb mods took notice and liked my post enough to promote it in the Community Showcase slot on the front page. If things had stopped there I still would have been quite pleased, but it was only a matter of time until some outside sources started picking up the story.

After some tweets and retweets, Luke Plunkett reposted a couple of my comparisons on Kotaku, along with some nice words of his own. Then things really took off, and my original post was racking up around 1,000 views and hour. Also, since Kotaku has such a wide reach as a publication, reposts of their repost began popping up all over the place too. I even got a shout-out from Bill Corbett who was a writer for MST3K and voiced the robot, Crow, for a couple seasons.

Here's a list of all the citations I've been able to track down so far:

Original Giant Bomb blog, Giant Bomb User Community Showcase, Giant Bomb Community Spotlight, Kotaku, Koatku Australia, Vinny Caravella tweet, Bill Corbett tweet, Snackbar Community tweet, a ton of other tweets, Reddit Gaming, Reddit Wii U, NeoGAF, Groupthink Jezebel, Imgur, TOR, IGN forums, Winter Is Coming, GameFAQs forums, Xerq forums, High Def Digest forums, PakGamers forums, Otaku Helpers forums, Retrovia Ireland forums, Funny Junk, Video Game Lab, Gee Willikers Batman, LOL Shed, Mordicai!, Gags and Fails, Chez Geeks, Cheezburger, Randomization, P1 Luck, Garotas Nerds, and Nerd Approved.

I'd never made a "listicle" before, and genuinely thought it would be fun (it is, or at least this one was). After the initial idea came to me, I looked up whether this had ever been done before, because it seemed sort of obvious. Turns out there was a meme that got passed around before, but it was limited in scope and lacked polish, so I felt like I was in the clear. I've been listening to the Game of Thrones audiobooks after making my way through all 3 seasons of the TV show, so this stuff had saturated my mind at a certain point. I had a tentative list going for about a month or so, and then I just realized that some of the jokes I'd written wouldn't work once the new consoles were released, so I stayed up and put all of the images together, applied the finishing touches, and sent it out the door.

What a relief it was that people actually seemed to like it! I didn't expect the level of positive response that this post got, and ironically, it seemed like a bunch of people went in expecting to hate it. In fact, I think "surprised praise" is the most pervasive sentiment in the comments. Well, that and people wondering where the SNES is (note: as a character, the SNES is boooring). I wish I could have worked in a ton of jokes and Game of Thrones references that were left on the cutting room floor, but I didn't want to force anything; that's why there's no Robb or Catelyn, for one. All in all, even though it's just a list of pop culture comparisons that gives the initial impression of being "click-bait," I'm really proud of it and glad so many people gave it a chance.

Thanks everyone!