Dipping into the game journalism swamp again is me, and I know it’s probably a little grating by now, coming from an outsider looking in. But I did want to pass along this diary-like post at Lungfishopolis, which is at once maddening, sobering and interesting. In a three-part series entitled “Confessions of a Games Journalist,” Brandon Cackowski-Schnell explores his soul after venturing out to his first-ever press junket. Assigned to preview Saints Row 2, Cackowski-Schnell flew to Las Vegas, stayed in the Four Seasons hotel and enjoyed expensive steak and wine on THQ’s dime. He then camped out in his hotel room the following day to give the game a thorough play-through.

They dropped the 360 HD off in the room around 10:30 and I started to play the game. At this point, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to have happen. On the one hand, if the game was bad, I could prove to myself that these people could buy me all the steak in the world and it wouldn’t prevent me from writing my honest opinion. On the other hand, the guy I had just spent the last evening talking to was very nice and this game represented his and his team’s life for the past two years. Why would I want it to fail? This was exactly the problem I was worried about. My responsibility to the reader has to win out every time, but if the game sucked, what would I do at that evening’s co-op event? Smile politely, say something nice about it and then trash it in the preview? Be honest but make everything awkward? The mind reeled.

Cackowski-Schnell casts his fears aside when he finds the game to be good, but let’s not lose sight of the conflict. A lot of smaller publications, in this case GameShark, don’t object to these kinds of junkets because they are the only chance to preview a game. Cackowski-Schnell hints that his pay is paltry, so it’s unlikely that the publication will then cover his airfare, food and lodging just to save a little editorial integrity. Journalists in this case are forced to convince themselves that the $1,000 meals and fancy lodgings won’t get to them. But alas, publications have ethics codes for a reason. There’s always a chance of subconscious leaning, and perhaps some writers do feel a sense of obligation to the generous publishers.

But just as important, the game gets press — supposedly unbiased editorial content — out of the deal. Saints Row is a decent series that made its name through striking similarities to Grand Theft Auto. It has to be good, or else it’s a shameless knockoff. It’s not a question of whether the previewers will find fault with the game, it’s a matter of them coming back to their laptops to write mostly positive copy. That’s far more valuable than advertising, and the smaller game journalism sites get caught up in the grind.

Editors can (and should) reject these offerings, but then you’re losing coverage. It’s a slightly tamer version of the dilemma behind “exclusive” reviews — detailed, of course, at the Sore Thumbs blog — where magazines get to review the game first, but only if the score is positive. It’s hard to suggest a solution as a newcomer, but I’d like to see the focus of game journalism shift away from previews and hype, with more focus on the culture of play and the people who create our games.

Posted by Jared on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 pm.