David Jaffe Rags on Games Journalists

[fitbabits]

I popped over to David Jaffe's personal blog (http://davidjaffe.modblog.com/) earlier this evening and found his November 2nd entry (http://davidjaffe.modblog.com/?show=blogview&blog_id=772894) more than a little interesting.

It really bothers me when game journalists throw themselves in with the folks who actually make the games when they talk about OUR industry.

I'm not sure if you have noticed this as well, but I see this alot [sic], especially in op-ed pieces, letters from the editor, etc....often times it reads something like this:

-We need to examine other ideas than just racing games or our industry will dry up....

OR

-Our industry is worth 11 billion dollars...

...but the thing is, the game journalists are not part of the game industry in my mind. They have their OWN industry: magazine publishing. Or web publishing. Or hey, even journalism! But not GAME MAKING.
Some pretty strong words from Mr. Jaffe. This quote - "...when we do a good job- champion it and bring the message to the masses." seems to be in response to God of War not fairing well commercially. Strikes me as a little contradictory given that God of War was universally praised (http://www.gametab.com/ps2/god.of.war/2681/) by gaming journalists everywhere!

Is he biting the hand that feeds him?

One last thing - I'm particularly proud of the headline and the punnery involved!

[Rirath]

It really bothers me when game journalists throw themselves in with the folks who actually make the games when they talk about OUR industry.

I think using "our industry" is fine when these mag/web guys spend so much of their time playing games, at game shows, in dev's offices, reading the releases... writers don't call themselves devs, but they sure as heck are a part of the industry. Their living is still made from the gaming industry. Not everyone is a programmer or artist, or wants to be for a living.

What bothers me is when people confuse publishers with developers.
I'd rather have a writer say "our", than someone in marketing.

[Dirty Harry]

Technically, don't game magazines make money profits?, they are deriving funds from game related news and game sales and game related toys and all that crap. Doesnt that make them part of the gaming industry?

[bean19]

God of War didn't do well commercially? Every gamer I know personally owns the game.

[bapenguin]

He's got a point from a certain perspective, but really the media is part of the industry. It's the PR part of their industry.

Just like shows on TV like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood are part of the Movie/Entertainment industry. It's the same concept, we help promote their games. We gain them exposure, and give them coverage. Without that concept, it would be more akin to independant artists trying to get shows at galleries for self promotion and sales of their product.

[fitbabits]

God of War didn't do well commercially? Every gamer I know personally owns the game.
It sold well, just not as well as Sony expected it to. And you know some good gamers! :)

[Liquidize105]

You quoted the whole thing... Hehehe qxD


As for this: I totally agree with him. The role of media is the same everywhere - to inform the public. Therefore game media should not be apart of the industry that makes the games they write about.

I got sick of reading fanboiy interviews that go "OMGZ WERE SO HONORED BY UR PRESENCE, WERE NOT WORTHY, BTW DOES IT HAVE GOOD GRPX? AND VAGUE ANSWERS WILL DO THX!!"

That's why I'm here. Of course, what I want to talk about with the developer (which is simply to talk openly) makes my job much harder dealing with the publisher. The pubs want questions sent in so they can prep their "I can't confirm nor deny" answers.

We don't have to HAVE TO get into specifics! An interview that goes in-depth with the artistic/technical design principles would also be interesting.

So far, I've only done interviews with developers who also do their own PR. Thank god some developers have wised up and gone steam/self-funding.

[Mason]

I've got a problem with this.

If it weren't for the many sources of gaming news and the people who read them, I'm not sure that there'd be anything purchased anymore outside of EA. Game companies get away with miniscule marketing budgets because the gaming community actively disseminates this information on its own.

Without publications and word of mouth, how would a game like, say, The Indigo Prophecy be received? I sure as hell didn't see any commercials for it. If I hadn't read about it on my own, it would've been just another box on the wall at EBGames.

Game journalists and game developers rely on each other. That isn't to draw equivalency between the two ventures. I'm not sure who challenged this guy's ePeen sufficiently for him to need to rant at such length about it, but it's total nonsense that betrays some rather ridiculous insecurity.

I mean, how pissy would it be if a football player bitched about local sportscasters referring to it as "our" team?

And as far as GoW goes, it was a great game which I never once saw any non-web marketing for, so perhaps there are more direct causes of its reported commercial shortcomings. One that would've made its sales zero if not for gaming journalists and communities.

[AaronGF]

By this definition, people that play games, pay money for games, or any of the other elements that support the game industry would not be considered a part of it. Gamers would be just the pawns that games are sold to, not a part of the mechanism.

Calling for better journalism is fine, but insisting that only a small sector of the game industry is "really" the game industry doesn't make much sense at all.

And as much as the comments suggest that it's not elitist... it seems pretty elitist.

[Liquidize105]

Calling for better journalism is fine, but insisting that only a small sector of the game industry is "really" the game industry doesn't make much sense at all.

Wanna quote for me the part that says that?

Seems to me like he wants to be told as is with none of the sugarcoating. Media singing and dancing to the tune of big publishers who privatize them defeats the purpose of public media.

[Voodoo]

This is like saying the Rolling Stone or MTV for that matter has nothing to do with the Music Industry. What a assclown.
http://diablo.sytes.net/ccannon/assclown.jpg

[Liquidize105]

I think there's a big difference between "IS" and "has to do."

Game media has to do with games. It reports and broadcasts but it's not the information itself.

That's my understanding of his plea.

[AaronGF]

Liquidize105, it's not a specific thing that he says, but it's pretty clear that he considers the act of making the game to be the only valid claim to the industry. I just happen to disagree with that, because there's a great deal more to any industry than that.

Plus, it all depends on how you draw the line. Are all employees of a game developer "part of the industry"? Are publishers? EBGames and game retailers that specialize in selling games?

Saying that making games is the only way to be a part of the industry is really excluding a lot more people that get things done in the game industry than just journalists. :)

"They have their OWN industry: magazine publishing. Or web publishing. Or hey, even journalism! But not GAME MAKING."

I'd argue this comment can be applied to internal PR, marketing, retail, and a wide variety of others. Just change the comments to, "They have their OWN industry: the retail industry. Or selling things. But not GAME MAKING."

*shrug*

[Kefkataran]

I'm agreeing with Liquidize here more than I usually do. :) I like the idea of getting interviews where people don't settle for the easy answers and pampering that many devs have become so used to.

[Dirty Harry]

Do i smell the birth of a new print game mag that actually is hard hitting entertainment.

[Liquidize105]

Yeah. It's pretty clear that "industry" to him is the gamemaking one. Media has its own "industry."

Both concern games; but gamemaking isn't game reporting, and vice versa.

"Industry" is the wrong word here; he made the mistake of using it and you guys are making the mistake of putting too much emphasis on it. Let's just call the whole thing the "game business."

[Wonka]

I think that developers in general would feel a lot more love for the gaming press if the gaming press were more professional. By professional, I mean if they had their facts correct and double checked them before publishing them. And if, (for example) they would usually know the difference between what a developer does and a publisher does.

That last thing gets messed up so routinely, that it's a sore spot for many. It usually comes up when someone in the gaming press has a complaint about something in the game. A common assumption by the gaming press is that any feature in the game that they don't like is the direct fault of the developers. This is a very VERY naive thing to assume. Developers basically make the game that the publishers ask for (read demand). Some developers get a lot of control over what is in their game and others, um not so much... Publishers very often ask for very stupid things. But if you are making a game for them, you do what they want because they are paying the bills.

So this is really just evidence of the extreme bitterness that a lot of developers feel towards many so called game "journalists".

[EternalGamer]

What he is calling journalists for is using the royal "we" when they talk about where the industry is headed. It is a rhetorical flourish which he seems to be taking literally, but it does (intentionally or not) tie into his second point--that videogame journalism lacks moxie. Instead of this inclusive and yet non-commital "we" why don't we ever see gaming journalist actually calling companies' or designer's bluff on what they see as bad decisions. Have you ever seen a print article that takes a contraversial stand akin to the recent Warren Specter comment about Rockstar? For that matter, have you ever read a videogame journalist' article that made you think at all about what the writer was saying at all? Rather than actually delivering food for thought, game journalists depend far too much on hype--on the the knowledge that the gameplay public are already interested in videogames so all they have to do is mention a game and deliver the most vanilla type of commentary about it and it will be lapped up. The reason gamers keep reading is all because they are interested in the subject matter, but almost never because they are interested in what a particular journalist has to say, because almost none of them ever make an attempt to have anything interesting to say in the first place.

I agree with Jaffe. Give me a magazine that lays off the lame previews. Pay people to actually deliver regular columns with real thought content and interesting interviews. The problem is, the people who are willing and capable to give that type of content (and they are out there) simply don't have the inside access to do it properly and the people who do have the accesss realize that they don't HAVE to put that kind of effort in because they have the access. I subscribe to almost every major gaming publication, and sadly it takes me less time to go through ALL of them than it does a single issue of Newsweek or even Entertainment Weekly. It's pretty sad when 5 magazine publications (EGM, OXM, OPM, Play, and Hardcore Gamer) can't even offer the enough substance to match a single magazine in any other field.

The only one magazine comes close to fullfilling this need is Game Developer and since it obviously is written for industry insiders, only about half the articles make any damn sense to me.

Dan

[EternalGamer]

It usually comes up when someone in the gaming press has a complaint about something in the game. A common assumption by the gaming press is that any feature in the game that they don't like is the direct fault of the developers. This is a very VERY naive thing to assume. Developers basically make the game that the publishers ask for (read demand). Some developers get a lot of control over what is in their game and others, um not so much... Publishers very often ask for very stupid things. But if you are making a game for them, you do what they want because they are paying the bills.



Why don't we ever get to hear THIS story for example? Imagine a think piece that followed the tensions between a developer and a publisher leading up to a game's release (say Perfect Dark for example) and how the decisions were made to cut what, and the disagreements that occured between the publisher and developer over them (or between employees inside each). I understand you couldn't use actual names of individuals in some of these cases, but that's what anonymous sources are for. It happens all the time in every other industry. We can't we get interesting stories like this?

Dan

[Mason]

Yeah. It's pretty clear that "industry" to him is the gamemaking one. Media has its own "industry."

Both concern games; but gamemaking isn't game reporting, and vice versa.

"Industry" is the wrong word here; he made the mistake of using it and you guys are making the mistake of putting too much emphasis on it. Let's just call the whole thing the "game business."

Hate to point this out, but I don't think any journalist has ever implied that they share in the "game making" industry. And we all agree with the stupidly obvious idea that the game-making and game-reporting industry are distinct. But they are both mutually-dependent components of a wider game industry. Cut out the journalism (professional and amateur) and very few publishers would care to compensate by filling in the marketing.

I mean, by his definition are publishers even part of the game industry? They sure don't make any games, in a direct sense. But I'm sure that VUG would be surprised to hear that games aren't their business.

Most industries are pretty vertical. Oil, cars, whatever. They have their distribution and marketing all packaged together with their production. Games aren't like that. So what you're calling the "real" game industry is only a part of a larger whole that couldn't survive on its own. Most game companies let publishers handle distribution, packaging, and whatever light marketing they get. Game journalists make up for the gap between scant game marketing and the actual consumers. Whether or not they do it well is immaterial.

[EternalGamer]

Hate to point this out, but I don't think any journalist has ever implied that they share in the "game making" industry. And we all agree with the stupidly obvious idea that the game-making and game-reporting industry are distinct.

I'm not so sure I agree with that. Distinct in physicality, perhaps, but not conceptually. Especially with the amount of hype that goes on in the game media that gets built into the actual context of the play experience. That is only the most obvious way, but I think in many other (more subtle) ways, game journalists help to create the framework in which we "read" and/or decode the gameplaying experience, thus they are engaged in "creating" that experience.

Dan

PS. For any magazine editors looking to correct this problem, I would be happy to graciously offer my services after completion of my Master's this coming May. :)

[Mason]

Yeah. It's pretty clear that "industry" to him is the gamemaking one. Media has its own "industry."

Both concern games; but gamemaking isn't game reporting, and vice versa.

"Industry" is the wrong word here; he made the mistake of using it and you guys are making the mistake of putting too much emphasis on it. Let's just call the whole thing the "game business."

Umm, he's the one who wrote "industry". Even "business" doesn't cut it, since there is no game business if people don't know about the products. His real point is that game devs do the actual gamemaking, which is so simplistic that it is beneath comment, particularly since he doesn't cite any time when the media pretends that it engages in the actual construction of games. Because that's just silly.

His pointless rant isn't worth defending. If he'd like to collect himself and try to make a more cogent point about how unprofessional most game mags are, then feel free, I sure don't read the damn things. But to pretend that they cross some sacred pronoun line by implying that they are in some way a component of the game industry is ridiculous. They are in the business of games. Sportscasters are in the business of sports. Pundits are a component of politics. Literature has plenty of room for both novelists and critics.

If we want to have a discussion about the ways that journalism contributes to the design of games and determines how games sell (or doesn't, depending on one's opinion), then let's do that. But prefacing it with a blanket statement that journalists have no right to consider themselves as active participants in neither the business nor evolution of games is just insulting.

[Mason]

I'm not so sure I agree with that. Distinct in physicality, perhaps, but not conceptually. Especially with the amount of hype that goes on in the game media that gets built into the actual context of the play experience. That is only the most obvious way, but I think in many other (more subtle) ways, game journalists help to create the framework in which we "read" and/or decode the gameplaying experience, thus they are engaged in "creating" that experience.

Dan

PS. For any magazines looking to correct this problem, I would be happy to graciously offer my services after completion of my Master's this coming May. :)

I was referring to direct claims of equivalency between game journalism and game making, which is the only thing that Jaffe could possibly be arguing against. Those I think would be pretty sparse, and statements like "we need more racing games" sure don't qualify.

I think everyone agrees that criticism can contribute positively to the development of any field. Even Jaffe seems to concede that one. People have varying opinions regarding the degree to which this is occurring, and the quality of the interaction.

Best of luck, but to the best of my knowledge we're mostly amateur gaming nerds here.

[The Iron Weasel]

Not, just any gaming nerds. HARDCORE GAMING NERDS! BITCH! :D

[thebuilder]

HEY! COME GET IN MY BED WITH ME!!!!
...Man, that title sounds all creepy!

So I am at home working right now....feeling sick the last few days and I just needed to get in bed...

...so the thing is I came home, borrowed a laptop from work, and hopped in bed to type up a document. Out of sheer shits and giggles I hit the INTERNET EXPLORER button and fuck all if I'm not on the net with a broad-ass band connection!!!

And I don't have WIFI in my house at all....

...there is a cafe next door that has net connection and I guess I am catching their signal. Not sure if it's legal or what...I mean, it just happened on its own, you know? I didn't seek this shit out! Still, it is REALLY fucking cool...

...I know I am behind the times with this shit but I have never used wi-fi in my house....oh my God, it is so fucking cool to surf the net in my pjs! This is really sweet!

Ok, gotta get to work...just wanted to share!

David

This guy is just another one of your run-of-the-mill internet asshats. Sure, he was the director of God of War, but those are not sufficient credentials to define himself as an authority on ANYTHING other than game design. That's another way of saying that just because he's a super 1337 game designer doesn't mean he has any business making useless dumbshit posts on the world wide web.

[Achilles]

This guy is just another one of your run-of-the-mill internet asshats. Sure, he was the director of God of War, but those are not sufficient credentials to define himself as an authority on ANYTHING other than game design. That's another way of saying that just because he's a super 1337 game designer doesn't mean he has any business making useless dumbshit posts on the world wide web.I guess to be allowed to post comments on the internet you have to have absolutely no credentials.

He also made the Twisted Metal games, including directing Black, which had great direction imo. And I've used as an example many times of how even menus can be dramatic, engaging, and drive the mood of the game.

As far as I can tell he's saying gaming journalists should stop thinking of themselves as being part of the game industry, and treat what they do like real journalism. He gives a lot of examples in his blog post. Personally I don't care enough about “real” gaming journalism to have an opinion on this. A hard hitting article on Miyamoto, well it might be interesting, but that begins to spawn the celebrity culture, and keep that as far away from me as it can be, thanks.

[Kefkataran]

This guy is just another one of your run-of-the-mill internet asshats. Sure, he was the director of God of War, but those are not sufficient credentials to define himself as an authority on ANYTHING other than game design. That's another way of saying that just because he's a super 1337 game designer doesn't mean he has any business making useless dumbshit posts on the world wide web.

Um... and you do have business doing that?

... right.

[Player 1]

I think both sides of this argument fail because of the scope of the argument can't be fully realised.

Those who write about the industry feel a little out of place by David Jaffe's comments because they feel their involvement is integral to the working of the industry. The may not be the actual wheel and cogs of the industry themselves, but they grease them and help them to keep turning. Perhaps Mr. Jaffe's perspective on this suffers due to not being a journalist and he is unable to appreciate the scope and relevance that journalism gives to the industry.

Likewise, I suspect few journalists can truly appreciate the level of commitement and involvement that someone like David Jaffe has (or any triple A game producer, designer, programmer, artist, musician etc). Putting together a game like God of War is the result of years of hard work. I'm not sure if any of you have worked on three year projects for corporations the size of Sony that run into the tens of millions of dollars in terms of budget. If you have you might think that games journalism seems like a pretty easy ride by comparison. You might think a loomnig deadline is stressful but can you imagine the stress and pressure Jaffe was under for three years and particularly as he closed the project? That's about as hardcore as it gets.

Let's face it, most people that work for a company often feel their work isn't appreciated or fully understood by other divisions in that same company. It's pretty commonplace. I think this piece of news is a reflection of that mentality.

I think you're all justified in how you feel, but a little more compassion and understanding on both sides certainly wouldn't hurt.

[bjornbarspingvinen]

I think he got a point.

Another problem is that many gamesites seems biased or bribed in so many ways.

[bjornbarspingvinen]

btw.... I am paranoid. :)

[fushi]

I am sorry, but I'm honestly unable to wrap my head around the problem he's having.

First off, the pieces that most game journos write are meant for the consumer, not the developer. They are meant to help players like us decide whether we should buy ourselves a game or not. A casual gamer who is not really into game design can't make these choices with a review that "tears [their] shit apart" and analyzes every aspect of the game's complicated design with finesse. Shit, games themselves have grown too big to be analyzed in such a manner. Jaffe should know that.

And secondly, he can always buy the more developer friendly mags or maybe even EDGE magazine, which mentions technicalities here and there, but not in great detail, for obvious reasons. Or maybe read some of Geoff Keighley's articles over at Gamespot.

His opinions are contradicting themselves too, but whatever. It's his style, I guess :)

[jeffool]

I think both sides of this argument fail because of the scope of the argument can't be fully realised.

Those who write about the industry feel a little out of place by David Jaffe's comments because they feel their involvement is integral to the working of the industry. The may not be the actual wheel and cogs of the industry themselves, but they grease them and help them to keep turning. Perhaps Mr. Jaffe's perspective on this suffers due to not being a journalist and he is unable to appreciate the scope and relevance that journalism gives to the industry.I totally understand people not digging what he said, but I think that the scope of his argument can be realized. You can find indepth conversation of nearly any film this side of "Dude, Where's My Car?" much easier than you can about virtually all games, from Ultima to Q-Bert.

I wouldn't want to put words in his mouth, but it seems that he's comparing much (not all, but much,) of Games Journalism to the Games Industry to what MTV is to the music industry. (That it's not really about the music/games, it's about them, and that they're down with the music/games.) And if I'm correct in that metaphor, well, I'm completely with him.

/edit: Added thoughts.
If a developer toys around and finds something fun, and makes a game of it, fine. If the devs spent three years building it, I want to know why they did what they did. Hey, maybe the answer is always "Because it was more fun that way." But we'll never know, because those questions aren't asked.

[GunnyMo]

Wow, he sure has an inflated opinion of himself. I consider myself "part of the industry" and I'm not a developer. I've played games since Pong and now I sell them FOR HIM as my own living. The same goes for gaming journalism. It is THIER input that many times can make or break a game (and that is sometimes very unfortunante but true). "Industry" is deifned as the commercial production and sale of goods. He handles the production; we (journalism, retail and the consumer) handle the sale. If the media and consumers don't take ownership in the industry; if they aren't proud to participate then the industry itself, imho, will fail in the long run.

His blog just strikes me as elitism.

[EternalGamer]

Why does everyone focus on the first part of his quote, when the real substance is in the second part? The question of whether or not game journalists are part of "the industry" seems to me nothing more than semantics. However, questioning if what they are currently doing actually has value and if they are pulling their weight [i]as journalists[i] is significant.

Dan

[thebuilder]

Um... and you do have business doing that?

... right.

HEY! COME GET IN MY BED WITH ME!!!!
I'm pretty sure that I'm on higher ground here by default.

[DirtyHippy]

I agree with EternalGamer as to the second part of his diatribe being the more significant.

IMHO how can there not be a conflict of interest when the vast majority of revenue print and many web site operations derive is from game publishers (i.e. ads). Publishers have used this power countless times to force the hands of reviewers.

This is why I have been reading EvilAvatar for almost eight years now - for the most part a lack of bias (i.e. equally irreverant to all game news).

[fitbabits]

This is why I have been reading EvilAvatar for almost eight years now - for the most part a lack of bias (i.e. equally irreverant to all game news).
Damn, 8 years and this is only your second post? :)

[jeffool]

I agree with EternalGamer as to the second part of his diatribe being the more significant.Absolutely.This is why I have been reading EvilAvatar for almost eight years now - for the most part a lack of bias (i.e. equally irreverant to all game news).Hey, I think I see a new potential slogan here! "Evil Avatar: You're all assholes... All of you."
I like it.

[Kefkataran]

I'm pretty sure that I'm on higher ground here by default.

Mmm. Not really. *shrug*

[Mason]

Why does everyone focus on the first part of his quote, when the real substance is in the second part? The question of whether or not game journalists are part of "the industry" seems to me nothing more than semantics. However, questioning if what they are currently doing actually has value and if they are pulling their weight [i]as journalists[i] is significant.

Dan

Like I said, if he or anyone else wants to have an intelligent discussion about the active role game journalism can have/has had on game design, then let's do it. But prefacing it with a broadside against the entire concept of journalism having even the slightest bit of stature when it comes to creative feedback on games is not the way to start such a discussion.

He chose to make that point. I'm not obligated to overlook it and pretend that the man makes sense.

And besides, if he considers a few advertising-filled gaming mags to be the sum total of game journalism, then there's nothing meaningful that can be said. Of course those magazines are crap, people only buy them for the demos. But I've read tons of great and enlightening pieces online, mostly by amateurs. The fact that this form of journalism isn't enfranchised as a commercial venture isn't relevant, people still read it and it affects the community's perception of games. It is part of the conversation.

[EGO]

Just because you're a groupie for a band, doesn't mean you're actually IN the band.

[Rirath]

What if you work for Rolling Stone, and tour with the band?
Are you in the band's industry?

[Achilles]

I don’t know. Are magazines like Time in the news industry, or are they in the political industry? I’d have to agree with the GoW guy that magazines are in the magazine industry, not the game industry. Their subject happens to be gaming. In the case of Rolling Stone I’d say that they’re in the magazine industry and their subject is music. I’m not sure if they use terms like “our industry” or if they keep it with “the music industry” though, I don't read rolling stone.

[Rev S. Campbell]

This is like saying the Rolling Stone or MTV for that matter has nothing to do with the Music Industry. What a assclown.

I'm afraid, sir, that it is YOU who is the assclown. (Whatever the hell an "assclown" is.)

There are some really terrible analogies going down here about football teams and PR departments and so on, when in fact, it's really easy to tell what "industry" you're a part of, by answering the following question.

"What are you selling?"

There you go. Couldn't really be simpler. Game developers are in the business of selling videogames. Game publishers are in the business of selling videogames. The publishers' PR departments are in the business of selling videogames. The marketing teams? Selling videogames. Retailers? Selling videogames. All these people make their money from selling videogames.

Magazine publishers and writers are NOT in the business of selling videogames. Their cut of the sales of a videogame is zero. In fact, in many senses their job is to STOP videogames from selling - their purpose is to tell people which games they should buy and which ones they shouldn't, whereas the job of everyone in the previous paragraph is to try to get people to buy EVERY videogame, regardless of its qualities and merits. Magazines are in the business of selling magazines. Therefore, they're a part of the magazine industry, not the games industry. It's not hard to follow.

And sure, if nobody bought videogames at all the magazines would go out of business, but their publishers wouldn't - professional writers can write about anything (you don't need qualifications to play games, and you don't need qualifications to listen to music or watch movies), they'd just make another magazine about something else. The magazine industry does not depend on the videogames industry, and it is therefore not a part of it. At the moment, a lot of magazines fail to understand that concept (the thing Mr Jaffe was talking about, for the many among you who're apparently illiterate and have completely missed his point), which is probably why most mag sales are currently falling through the floor.

[mister_slim]

Magazine publishers and writers are NOT in the business of selling videogames. Their cut of the sales of a videogame is zero. In fact, in many senses their job is to STOP videogames from selling - their purpose is to tell people which games they should buy and which ones they shouldn't, whereas the job of everyone in the previous paragraph is to try to get people to buy EVERY videogame, regardless of its qualities and merits. Magazines are in the business of selling magazines. Therefore, they're a part of the magazine industry, not the games industry. It's not hard to follow.
Actually, videogame magazines are in the business of selling advertising. Since they are dependent on videogame companies to buy that advertising, they are essentially selling videogames. Reviews are basically an afterthought.

[Achilles]

Actually, videogame magazines are in the business of selling advertising. Since they are dependent on videogame companies to buy that advertising, they are essentially selling videogames. Reviews are basically an afterthought.So a magazine is in the industry of whatever it sells advertisements for? Is that true of news papers as well? I don't buy it.

[mister_slim]

So a magazine is in the industry of whatever it sells advertisements for? Is that true of news papers as well? I don't buy it.
Well, if all of your advertising is for games and all your coverage is of games, it's fairly obvious that your ability to sell games is what your ad sales depend on. Every major publisher knows exactly what kind of a sales bump they'll get from each ad buy at each different magazine.

I'd like to see more game mags go outside the industry for advertising, but I don't think they have the balls or the independence.

[Achilles]

Well, if all of your advertising is for games and all your coverage is of games, it's fairly obvious that your ability to sell games is what your ad sales depend on. Every major publisher knows exactly what kind of a sales bump they'll get from each ad buy at each different magazine.

I'd like to see more game mags go outside the industry for advertising, but I don't think they have the balls or the independence.I think Car Magazines are a good example. Pretty much every ad in a car magazine relates to cars or car parts (not every ad in game magazines is for games, some are for 3rd party controllers or other peripherals, or even TVs and computers; Alien Ware for example isn't selling you any games, is the magazine in the computer industry?). But I really don't think car magazines say things like "The best car in our industry right now is...", or "What our industry needs more of is hybrids!". I'm pretty sure they say "What the auto industry needs more of is hybrids!" Because they're not part of the auto industry, they're a magazine that focuses on cars, and therefore sells a lot of ad space to car companies.

Now I’m well aware that there are some people who will never believe this, mostly because either they want to think that reviewers are part of the game industry, or because they just have it in their heads and they don’t want to be told different. After all there are some people that still think handhelds are really called handheld consoles, even though it's a fact that handhelds and consoles are two different things.

[mister_slim]

I think Car Magazines are a good example. Pretty much every ad in a car magazine relates to cars or car parts (not every ad in game magazines is for games, some are for 3rd party controllers or other peripherals, or even TVs and computers; Alien Ware for example isn't selling you any games, is the magazine in the computer industry?). But I really don't think car magazines say things like "The best car in our industry right now is...", or "What our industry needs more of is hybrids!". I'm pretty sure they say "What the auto industry needs more of is hybrids!" Because they're not part of the auto industry, they're a magazine that focuses on cars, and therefore sells a lot of ad space to car companies.

Now I’m well aware that there are some people who will never believe this, mostly because either they want to think that reviewers are part of the game industry, or because they just have it in their heads and they don’t want to be told different. After all there are some people that still think handhelds are really called handheld consoles, even though it's a fact that handhelds and consoles are two different things.
That's an interesting point. I haven't looked at a car mag in years, so I have no idea what their ad distribution looks like. I would guess that they probably have a wider range of ad purchasers than the typical game mag. You know, like gas companies, accessory makers, gps systems, various products that aren't cars but are of interest to people who like cars. How about selling that gamer demographic to more than just game companies? Then the editor doesn't have to worry about EA pulling 10% of his advertising at once.

[Achilles]

How about selling that gamer demographic to more than just game companies? Then the editor doesn't have to worry about EA pulling 10% of his advertising at once.I agree, they really should do that. They do get the ads from Alienware, Radeon, ATI, etc. but really TV manufacturers, sound system manufactures and heck even car manufacturers should advertise in gaming magazines and on their websites. It's the plight of most trade magazines to rely on their subject for advertising though. Just think of mags like Sci-Fi magazine, which basically have nothing to advertise except the books and shows they write about.