What's the point of the games media anyhow?

cool so um this is your chance to defend the role of a journalist it doesn't need journalism in mobile games in particular neat defending I mean you'll adjust we started this and it was you're gonna introduce yourself very briefly and this sort of try respond to the sub question just game journalism need defending right now what do you think so my name is Lucia Dutch I'm the news editor of pocket gamer biz so obviously being a news editor I think of course I'm going to defend James media it's it's essentially getting stories written about your game and getting people to notice what you're doing from from people who are literally dedicating their lives and are so passionate about the games that you're creating I think people sometimes forget that games journalists are genuinely people too and we're we're a bit stupid but we're with gamers at heart we're not these kind of scary horrible people that step behind

laptop someone to destroy games we were genuinely passionate about them and if you can give us a story and a game that we can write about and love as much as you do then of course it's going to be great coverage for both you and us so Peter you're not you're not scared of destroying a game surely oh no no no so I'm I'm Peter Willington I'm the editor of apps buy.com which is the video arm of pocket gamer and yeah I mean games press games critics we talk about your games for free spring advertising right like and it's positive advertising usually so I mean just on that sort of base opportunity cost level it's it works it's really really effective and it's it's really difficult to convince someone with an advert that playing your game is something that you should be doing essentially but it's much much easier if somebody who is a trusted source as a trusted Authority is the head of community says hey that's what a

tanks game is all you know so that's it it's great it's definitely worth defending so Keith is it any different being in the little sort of more I don't know mainstream media is that better phrase I don't know yeah I guess yeah i think that i asked the thing with with me is that as they as the video game editor of The Guardian I'm kind of one one step away from the traditional games media so I cover games in a slightly different way and is that still relevant yes definitely I hope so i'm out of the job the way I look at games and I think the way that the press the specialist press are going to have to continue to look at games is as a kind of a culture with an overview of the of the industry and what games me today like now youtube superstars have taken over that kind of preview role have taken over the kind of enthusiasts role and so the games press has got to

become more of a kind of authorial sort of aggregation or voice to get the content together find out what it means what does it mean for culture like if you take something like movies for example if you look at the way the Guardian covers movies it's not really that much about reviews and previews it's about what at this movie meaning the wider in the white a zeitgeist I promised myself I'd never use that word excellently now I'm used it so what the games mean and and so we're kind of value if you have a game or a story around your development studio that's important that says something then that's kind of where we come in what would have supported you know last year for example it took a game like it wasn't a mobile game in fact it was it was on our iPad but this water this war of mine a really interesting game about civilian surviving in war and telling their stories this is a very different view of the way war is usually depicted in video games that's a really interesting story that we could that we could pick up as a newspaper and use to explore what games mean so I think that's kind of my role these days isn't

so much here's a preview of a game it's what does this mean in the wider cultural context and if you want your game to say something in that context then the press is the best place to come possibly not a youtuber so Jordan what about what do you what do you come from this is about professionalism is about passion I mean what about the YouTube influence is that affecting the way you write a song on yep yes that's actually why I thought it was interesting that I'm here as well as Keith so I'm a freelancer and I actually keith is one of the people I write for at the Guardian but I also do stuff on youtube so I kind of straddle both the old and the new ways of doing game journalism if you want to call it that and and it has it has definitely changed and I'm in an interesting position because I'm freelance I could choose what kind of things i do and if the magazines stop paying quite as much which is something that happens then I can move over to somewhere else obviously a staff writer is in that position if they're at a magazine and

they've decided to stay there then they just have to keep defending the relevance of magazines until the magazine folds which obviously as a freelancer I don't have to do i do think it's interesting that newspapers though are still quite a big thing like some newspapers don't cover games really at all but the ones that do they seem really really interested in it like The Guardian it's really good to see them bringing game what's keith's for you but like seeing the way that newspapers have been framing games and coverage is interesting as well I keep her saying they've gone from doing the traditional like reviews and previews thing and moved it more into a cultural thing which i think is important they're moving away from like some newspapers have games in like the tech section purely you know like product reviews but they are moving into a more which i think is a good thing and I think that takes us to Chris quite neatly as well I mean your movement into sort of this will be sports cider I mean it kind of turns the whole industry on its head doesn't it it's the audience who are now the entertainment that we're writing about is that fair it definitely does so I'm the launch editor of eSports

pro and I do a lot of freelance work with red bullying sports so in the sort of traditional news media sense i know of a sports journalist than games media journalist and looking at the way there are other people consume media that the sort of stuff that eyebrow is more akin to into the users trade oriented things letting other companies know how the successful companies in the eSports world are being successful and i don't think that there's very much scope for say hobbyist journalist youtubers things like that to go out there get their interviews and then put it into the context someone in a trade continue so i find that this side of games media journalism is probably one of the strongest of the minute but that's that's not taken away from any of the others I mean I've been interesting how that affects that's got a more sort of staff so you know the little trade side of the

press I'm thinking in terms of yourself are you seeing a deeper engagement with the readership affecting the way that you write and is that affecting the usability on there and the usefulness of promoting games I mean what a particular wondering is is the role of game journalism more about brand building that is about discovery what do you think I think building building a brand is obviously very important in journalism plays and massive pieces I mean even the just so even when you write about a story you'll often tag again and then if you write about multiple stories about again a reader coming into the site has this amazing Bank of knowledge about your game or about your company and so that's kind of Brandon just within the site you've almost got a mini website within a big games website um yeah I think that obviously appealing appealing to

readership and building that relationship with with readers and youtubers with their viewers have this kind of I think there's an air of celebrity about that which doesn't necessarily always exist within staff writers you're more you're not connecting with these journalists as people but kind of the site that they belong to and and that that can obviously feed into how your games written about but ya know I think I think in terms of developing a brand obviously James Jones I think it still has I mean of the next thing I'm going to move on to his video and I think you know pigs you're you're obviously ball that I've I ought to declare a bias on this thought as the evangelist for unity is every play which is a community service which focuses around video game played it i mean i have to say that because I'm that's what keeps me page but it's also i think really relevant to this because it shows the shift is towards people sharing information visually with each other not

necessarily through a fixed and established medium as a fixed and savage medium sharing video how does that change the way you work so i think that there is definitely big move towards sharing video to community generated content as well i think every play actually works really well we actually have articles built entirely out of every play videos that the communities created and shared and stuff like that we sort of say here at least eight amazing crotch shots from this game you've never seen like sketches and you know all that sort of like weird kind of fun clickable mashable kind of stuff and but there is still there is still definitely a space for an authorial voice and that definitely does come across better in video like the fact that hopefully everybody in this room knows who pewdiepie is is because you know that he's got a weird little pug that comes and joins him on his games and he's got that high-pitched intro that he does you know he's he's full of personality and and in that way he

becomes that authority becomes your friend and i think that sites like apps by him and pocket gamer and there are other video websites as well game trailers for example the more and more and more that they put their staff into the line of fire of actually being videoed the more that those people become personalities and become trust and become known and again it all ties into this it's your mates who recommend you your favorite games it's not some person who's just got a byline or at least that's something in my experience i think i'm really glad you brought up PewDiePie in particular because it allows me to shift the gear a little bit and and oddly I was making a stupid joke about paying you money for mentioning every play which again are thinks a nice segue into a wider debate about professionalization of these kind of YouTube videos and I think you know this this these is individuals who won not necessarily journalistically trained who are now being offered money who don't necessary have the experience to understand why they should be

transparent about that how do you think that's affecting Keith you're on the kick goes off I mean how do we think this is affecting the way we're consuming media but also how much we can trust this new media yeah it's interesting obviously last year we saw the gamergate controversy which is still kind of grumbling on it's this idea of how much you can trust the media and it did seem for a while as though youtube as were being kind of held up with these paradigms of virtue that were uncorrupted by the you know the publishing presence and then it turned out that maybe that wasn't perhaps quite as true as it looked and that there were possibly payments going on to youtubers to advertise or speak well of certain products and yet there is this whole issue which i think is developing it's going to develop throughout this year of well you know youtube attar they kind of an objective impartial voice in the industry and how are they going to how they're going to sort of establish a trust relationship with them audience members after its kind of been it's out

there that in fact they are kind of fused as part of the marketing and promotional tools of a video game developers so I think you know with this there's a long process that's going to have to be undertaken the same process as the video game magazine print industry went through in the early eighties when you know gay magazines died off as the enthusiastic rest diritto gate anyone remember that yeah yeah so a very silly argument that people had over who was getting what perks but sorry Kari no yeah do it Demeter's great was very important as well I mean I think within the video games community there's a lot of cynicism about the relationships between video games presenters and writers in all spheres of the industry and it's something that everyone has to work out and for a while youtubers climate gotta get out of jail free card but I think that's been that's been put back in the deck now because we know a little bit more about how that business works so I think the whole industry the whole games media industry including YouTube including people who deal mostly

on social media have to fundamentally deal with that transparency issue these difficult for me because obviously I'm that kind of step removed and I feel as though I am yeah i'm not i'm not making videos and I'm not holding myself up as I saw a you know paradigm is that as it as a bull cynic as a lot of YouTube superstars are I'm very much more about the cult that you know the love of the culture and the interest in the fascination of games one thing I want to look for it in my case I think you know the whole idea you know what media worth bothering with and I would say yes it is you know games are a form of communication now they're not just products though a way of people that expressing themselves you know your games for the leper in this room one of the things you want to do is express yourselves and that has brought games into another era another domain and you have to be part of communicate you have to be part of like the conversation that's going on you have to be part of culture and to do that you have to be known by us and to

be known by the media I don't think you can really in this DNA to bring our gaming isolation expected to do well I think you have to be part the communication is going on between craves and between fans and between kind of I don't know the cultural voices of our time so that's why I'd say that we're still that we're still relevant I think I'd like to come back to that but before ideas Wednesday for me yeah no no you're absolutely right we should do that as the next question but thing we've got Jordan here and she's treading both sides of the fence between the sort of youtuber and the writer and somebody who's being paid professionally for her writing and still presenting handles this kind of hole get a debacle about kind of where the source of income come from and the transparency affect you in your position yeah so as someone who's been doing youtube for a couple of years I've actually experienced this change myself transparency is becoming more reversing you too you now have to put in there I think in the title of the video or at least you have to put like a thing on your video in the corner that says if the content sponsored or you will have to soon at least and we've started doing

that in the videos that we make we now put thing in the corner if it's you know if Nintendo or someone has helped to produce the video whatever and I think as long as as long as the youtubers are regulated like that in the same way as the press are it'll just settle down into the same kind of thing it's just a different kind of content playing a similar role but there is a bit of a generational divide so like there is this this kind of cultural side of games that the people who've grown up with games are interested in reading about but the kids who are playing just ipad games at home they just want to watch videos to know about the game they don't want to read about you know got a cultural background of where the history of the game comes from or anything and they don't care if your video was sponsored by Nintendo as long as it says that there and it's all in people that that's fine they just want to know more about the game so an let that takes us to the eSports of it which is so arguably you could say the eSports is even easier because it's clear that you've got sponsors that's a natural thing is that true or is there some sort

of hidden kind of murkiness that we need to be wary of in future definitely on on the east west on home especially for watching today they'll have sponsorship everywhere and it's really it's really upfront about it it's a sort of backdoor things youtubers getting into a little bit hotter or apartment but just going back to me that Jordan said about how some gamers might not be so interested in the the cultural background of the games they're playing they might just want to see the gameplay i was i was talking to George Paco of deconstructing when he was saying that if he wanted to go and find out what a game was about he would watch a let's play but if you wanted to find out what the developer was thinking what what influences they drew from and what he could learn from their making that game he would go out and he would seek interviews from the Guardian other such mainstream publications where they would have a lot deeper cultural understanding Parvati what the process of making game involves so I think that kind of gives

us a segue into Keys question as well and I think that's trying to give him time that's kind of smoothly trying to sum up so what do you think is the cultural role that you as your in your role in journalism plays and what's the best way for the audience to engage with you forget answer that each and then I think weekly summed up so unless you want to hit that all funds men's me I think is the idea of communication I think culturally and this the media is all about telling your stories obviously the best way to engage with us is just those either if you're a developer reaching out really we just had a great presentation on exactly how to reach out to the media and taking all those kind of points if you're a reader I mean with it there's so many channels now you cannot just it's not just in the days of print well you have to write a letter might respond through those and media's even on Pocket Gamer at moment and on the consumer side there's now

little community I am sore so there's this whole community in an instant message chat room where you can connect not only with the writers with the other readers at the site so yeah I think fundamentally it's just enabling of communication as the media instantaneous communication that the media provides which is necessary for other avenues yeah i think that the games media now is about building communities and that's that's that's how this primary function certainly from my son things and i would say mainstream consumer mainstream video game consumers i suppose it's about kind of building up and building up that relationship and talking with your viewers talking with your readers but on the other side of things there's also having that relationship with the developer you know with the with the

games yeah with the other side of you know the games industry and actually building those those connections and then forging those relationships so that we do always have access to the coolest game to the pool is content and the stuff that people really want to see first and i suppose the other thing is is having having the name of pocket gamer or whatever it is to be able to go to somewhere like let's say gameloft and we have to say we want early access to your thing because our ghoul friends or you know people watch our stuff always want that stuff so i guess that's as harvest relationships yeah I think if you can kind of compare the media strata to maybe the way that there's comparative movies the way you consume movies so I would say like using social media to get the message about your game is kind of like the way can we use bittorrent to get move it to get movies it's kind of like fast and dirty in a legitimate whereas a youtubers kind of more like Netflix in though you go in

you know kind of what you want to watch you know kind of what you want to know and you get it and that's all you get whereas I guess the old school media like for example me and more like the blu-ray special edition box set of media in that people will come to us knowing that they're going to get the story about the game but also the kind of wider cultural analysis and and what and what it means when where if you'd lead so I you know there's agree i think those are three different strategies of the way the media kind of works the day in games I'm kind of happy to be at the boxer end being a being a hug my sad middle-aged man I'm kind of comfortable there but that's how work so I think we're still got a role in that like Jordans right I think you know younger gamers don't really care where they get their media from and they don't really care about the wider message for they don't get older and they will they will and we mature so that is always going to be important so as a freelance will receive the temptation is to say that my role is just whatever people will pay me to do but it kind of varies from

audience audience so obviously when I'm writing for The Guardian and roam free completely different audience than what I'm making videos with family gamer TV my role there is very much like an informational one and making videos for parents and the kind of thing I'm talking about is very different from what I'll be talking about in an article that I wrote for The Guardian and I think that's important to remember that it's not just you can kind of drill it down into one thing that the games media needs to do and one kind of person that they need to target there are all these different kinds of audiences they'll want to know different things they want to know them in different ways and as long as that is true that I'm happy doing all sorts of different things all the time yeah I don't think everything the moment is going to start to exist and everybody shut down and you'll be able to go in special director's cut edition and every if there's something but small ones no there will be a medium

I think that's really where I think it sums it up I mean the fact is that media hasn't disappeared it's become more diverse and we have media which has been created by individuals who were consuming it themselves it's been created by professionals to be able to give their insight and the authority that the brand that they represent the livers and so engagement isn't just about dealing with an individual journalists anymore who happens to have the voice to the audience you want you to know because that doesn't exist it's now about having all the voices who you can share a consistent message across to the people who are going to advocate and maybe if we're lucky those advocates will then promote your game as well so it's all of the above I don't like no time going to thank the journalist very much for taking part I hope that was useful sorry I can't ask questions were running out time again thanks for much guys