Board game journalism: New Boardgame Journalism – necessary?
In November 2013, Guido Heinecke started a discussion about game reviews with his article “New Boardgame Journalism – necessary?”. At the time, Heinecke was editor-in-chief of TricTrac Deutschland; today, he is managing director of Spiel des Jahres. We have documented the discussion from back then.
Dossier Spielejournalismus
This article is part of the Dossier Spielejournalismus. In this dossier, we document selected events, articles and discussions from the history of games journalism. Guido Heinecke’s article was first published on 21 November 2013 on TricTrac Deutschland.
Since March 2004, our colleagues over in the digital sector – the ones with the blinking devices and twitching controllers – have had the term “New Games Journalism”. It was coined by British games journalist Kieron Gillen in a manifesto of his – and thus created, or at least named, a new movement in writing about video games.
This new approach to cultural journalism in digital games was inspired by a new reporting style with a subjective tone and strong literary influences. Emerging in the 1960s, this new way of writing threw journalistic conventions out the window and took the reader by the hand in a very personal way. To cut a long story short: video game journalists – especially online – quickly picked up on this idea and suddenly stopped focusing on numbers and data in their reviews. Instead, they tried to get to the heart of a game’s soul through self-reflection: What happens to me when I play? What feelings come up, what fascinates me?
In particular, the veterans of the scene sneered at these arrogant upstarts with their elitist-hip yet enviably intimate stories. Today, in 2013, the online magazines that have largely developed their own take on New Games Journalism are the ones closest to their readers’ hearts: Polygon, Rockpapershotgun and, here in Germany, Superlevel.
And what about us? This is a fair question. Let’s think: What can we, the board game journalists, learn from our colleagues with the consoles and Let’s Play videos? Don’t we also need a “New Boardgame Journalism”?
“The classic and long-winded review style still dominates”
In our world, too, the classic (and long-winded) review style and traditional industry journalism still dominate. The big magazines set the example: Spielbox, Fairplay. All of this is very solid, and I’m not trying to put it in a bad light here. And if I look at the great Sebastian from the Zuspieler media empire, I don’t need to explain to anyone that the man has enriched the scene with a huge number of really good stories.
But I want more closeness. I mean: there are so many review sites on the internet that are, above all, one thing: dedicated. It’s incredible how much time and energy people put into their hobby projects. But many of them are also something else: boring. Time and again, I criticise the famous 10-80-10 style of many sites. That’s 10% introduction, 80% rule paraphrasing and 10% evaluation. Ideally with points. Because, dear authors, you’re stealing time from your readers. That’s why they all scroll down to the last paragraph and skim the summary. Did you really want to waste so much time writing for that? I don’t think so.
I’ll take a look at myself here, though I’m not putting myself on a pedestal: I don’t review often. Yes, this is slowly changing now. There are reasons for that, to do with the jury and so on. In June 2012, I wrote an article about this that is now more relevant than ever:
“When I write about games, they have already passed the first exclusion criterion: they’re worth something. I don’t write about bad games. That doesn’t help anyone, it just wastes time and won’t be read anyway. Good negative reviews are a very high art, which I don’t always manage to pull off, I admit. In today’s flood of new releases, I think a bad or mediocre game is punished enough by being ignored.”
So much for the motivation. But what, in my eyes, makes a good review? I’ll quote again: “It is based on evaluating the interaction, not just looking at form and content. In my critiques, I take my cues from art. A game accordingly already has multiple material levels that need to be analysed: an author invents the formal mechanism, an illustrator gives the whole thing aesthetic form. This needs to be described.”
Reception aesthetics of the game
However, I consider one phenomenon to be much more important, which actually comes from art and literary theory: I call it the reception aesthetics of the game. This does not refer to the object itself – i.e. the game as a box plus its system of mechanisms – but rather to what develops in me as a player. And I extend this in parallel to the atmosphere at the gaming table. So: how does the game work in its flow and thus create enjoyment or displeasure for its recipients – how does it communicate with us players?
It’s about describing as vividly as possible in a review what makes the game fun, why it will also be fun for you and – if the reviewer is an experienced veteran of the scene – in what context it stands in relation to other works by the author or similar games. There’s a lot of effort behind this, as seen in the expert texts in Spielbox.
We write about games. Not about stock prices. It’s essential to describe what the game does to us as individuals. We play to relax, not to understand the horrors of modern warfare. You, the readers, want to know if the title delivers on entertaining you according to your taste. I’ll tell you how it was for us – the way I’d tell a good friend. And the style needs to be entertaining to read.”
“Personal stories instead of cold product tests”
This is what “New Boardgame Journalism” should look like to me. And when I look at the scene, I do see movement. Udo Bartsch brought the laughter back to reading for all of us, Sarah Kestering takes us along to her games meetups in Skye, and with Daniela, Martin Klein is practically crawling out of my screen with all his subjectivity, or the Oldenburg Pöppelhelden take a deep breath to vividly tell stories from their circle with great charm and at length. Matthias Nagy is sometimes as scattered as he is well-informed, the Nos couple always throws in a few game strategies. We can see: things are happening.
And if Let’s Play videos by teenage hobby gamers are getting five-figure subscriber counts for PC games, then I know that the future also lies with YouTube. Will Wheaton’s Tabletop showed the way. The Brits from Shut Up & Sit Down are super telegenic. I’m waiting for the first truly worth-watching board game sessions that combine entertainment with information. Instead of monologuing people in front of game shelves.
I know myself that such close-ups and reception-aesthetic analyses of games and from the scene aren’t easy to write, sometimes don’t fit or can overwhelm authors. I’m in the same boat – it doesn’t always work out to meet my own standards. I’ve got stories here on Tric Trac that I’m proud of, while others are rightly buried among three years’ worth of articles (soon to be in the thousands). My form on the day plays a role. And so does my coffee consumption.
But: If we all make an effort to tell great, personal stories instead of cold product tests and run-of-the-mill reports, don’t we all win? Or?
Update 1 on 26.11.13:
Interestingly – and fortunately – the article has caused quite a stir. I’m happy about that, because the valuable discussion, among other places here in the comments, shows me that I’ve hit a raw nerve.
For example, the guys and gals at Cliquenabend have taken the issue to heart and announced a change in their style, http://www.cliquenabend.de/news/510600- … nline.html. Bravo!
And my dear colleague Michael Weber from Reich der Spiele (when did I last see him, by the way?) has had his own thoughts on all this, https://www.reich-der-spiele.de/special … urnalismus. He tackles the situation at its roots: On the remnants of the gradually disappearing game reviews in newspapers and magazines, review sites sprout up like mushrooms. And these sites by hobby writers and fans are also changing game journalism. As I already wrote, blogs democratise publishing. That doesn’t make you a journalist, though. Michael says this in his article, and I agree with him. But maybe not everyone has such high expectations of themselves, and it should remain a labour of love, an expression of deep affection for the hobby.
Michael also claims that a “New Boardgame Journalism” in the form common among PC and console gamers doesn’t suit us. You can’t postulate an emotional ride through the feel of the game and then leave out the objective details. If the rules are rubbish, for example. Or the mechanism is stolen, the tiles too thin, the yellow too close to the green. Generally, he says on Reich-der-Spiele.de, most people lack the professional tools of the trade. That may be true – if you’ve got the often-cited “fluent pen”, you’re probably also connected to the profession in some way.
I don’t want to throw my treatise on a new way of writing game reviews out the window. Berndward Thole once wrote a very long essay in the eighties on how a review should look, how it should make connections, include the author’s work and even take an interdisciplinary academic approach. That was in the golden days of board game reviews. Today, things have to work differently.
I’m still in favour of a new way of writing reviews. Maybe not in the form of some messed-up gonzo journalism, if that impression has been created. I also know that the majority of avid gamers – i.e. our customers – care about the hard facts. Still, I’m advocating for a different style, more relaxed, more storytelling, more feelings, more social components. I play because I want to have a good time with people. If I want to experience an over-elaborate mechanism, I can just look at my wristwatch.
A review has to be witty and coherent, daring to take new paths. Why was Udo’s review of Ora et Labora in Spielbox so well received? He mixed usual conventions with completely unfamiliar language.
Maybe we all still need to work out our own modern form of cultural journalism, each in our own way, to ensure diversity. We’re still at the beginning.
Update 2 on 27.11.13:
On Zuspieler.de, Frank Noack elaborates on his comment below, viewtopic.php?f=22&t=391593. The scene doesn’t need new journalism, but the industry does, he writes at its core. Because 17 million households are craving guidance on what to give to children, friends or themselves. What’s missing for the industry is everyday game journalism that conveys the fun of gaming to casual players.
On the one hand, this is exactly what I’ve been saying: interaction, emotions, excitement – casual players want these just as much as hardcore players. They simply want to know if a game is subjectively good because they trust the reviewer. Boring detail questions and rule babble put them off. Yes Frank, exactly my point.
But game journalism is not game marketing. It’s not in our interest for you to sell games well. Retailers, publishers and authors might wish for that. Unfortunately, the purpose of a review should be different. Bernward Thole defined in his “Umrisse einer Spielekritik” (Homo Ludens, Volume 2, pages 15-42) in the mid-1990s: “Game criticism is public communication about games that makes the presentation and evaluation of productions in this area of entertainment culture its business.” Even if much of this essay seems obsolete to me today and makes completely excessive demands, I fundamentally agree with him when he quotes Reich-Ranicki: “The critic should sift and organise, clarify and evaluate, polemicise and postulate. (…) Two goals hover before him: better books and better readers.” In our case, better games and better players.
Plain speaking: it’s about evaluation, not advertising.
For more on this: A year ago, I held a seminar on this very topic at the University of Konstanz together with Steffen Bogen. If you missed it: Game Criticism – Why? Why Not? This is where I started thinking about new writing styles.
Update 3 on 02.12.13:
Peer Sylvester, whom I highly respect, also adds his two cents on spielbar.com, https://www.spielbar.com/wordpress/2013/11/30/14603. He zeroes in on the side question that arose: how on earth can we best bring the game-uninformed on board? Because, as he’s right to say, Tric Trac is for the scene too. His solution: team up with video game magazines much more often.
Of course, I don’t want to dilute the main point here. If we’re thinking about a “New Boardgame Journalism”, it’s clear to me that we’re writing for the scene. Anyway, who is supposed to be the audience for such new writing? Honestly, it’s not about a target group for me. That won’t change through more subjective, livelier writing. It’s about the matter itself. About the way reviews and reports could be written differently, because the times in our scene have changed in just the past 5 years. There are more games, almost all rules are available as PDFs on publishers’ servers months before release, more and more blogs and websites promise information (and sometimes entertainment) in exchange for a slice of your attention. Peer is right: “Interesting writing may be on the right path, but it’s far from the goal.”
Many know that I’m a regular guest on the Insert Moin podcast, https://superlevel.de/brettspiel/. It runs for about thirty minutes on weekdays, and every now and then it’s about board games. The response is huge. The worlds of video and board gamers are more closely connected than some might think. Almost all console cowboys out there would certainly enjoy playing a board game too, if it were presented to them in an appealing way. Because they don’t necessarily know their way around either, but they’re playful enough to enjoy going offline and analogue for a change. Guaranteed.
Update 4 on 03.12.13:
This discussion is the perfect place to mention that Bernward Thole recently retired after 40 years as a games critic. I’d actually be very interested to hear his take on the subject. And the head of a certain Hannover-based Stoffhuhn editorial team and Germany’s review pope has also had his say: he’s not joining in. Maybe not actively, but few are as linguistically adventurous and experimental in their reviews as Udo Bartsch – especially in Spielbox. He’s simply far too modest and has probably contributed more to my thoughts on all this than he realises. http://rezensionen-fuer-millionen.blogs … nicht.html
Update 5 on 06.12.13:
Stefan Feld also commented on the ongoing discussion in a conversation with Jörg from Cliquenabend, https://vimeo.com/81114000. Of course, he enjoys reading “subjective reasons” and “what worked well or less well”.
I say: That’s not the point, because every reviewer essentially does that. The reasoning is always subjective. What I’d rather like to know is what the author (of the text!) emotionally experienced, not how they experienced the mechanism. What created tension, what does it remind me of, do I have experience with similar games. I look inward: What does the game evoke in me? Maybe the term “Spielgefühl” needs a more tangible definition. Does it describe what happens in your head, or what the hormones at the table do to you? I personally like to play lively, chat while doing so and perceive the people around me.
Stefan Feld adds: “Doing this on the side isn’t easy. It takes time.” And yes. No one’s asking anyone to churn out reviews on an assembly line. Quality is more important than quantity. Feld sees this too and rightly points out: “Most people in our scene do this as a hobby” and you have to make compromises. How exactly he means this is open to interpretation. If I take it as a call to slow down and put more effort into reviewing, then I’m fully behind him.
And Mr darkpact, who always seems to have an opinion, has also weighed in, http://darkpact.tumblr.com/post/6906830 … s-medaille. He takes – and I think this is very important – the wind out of the sails of the claim that only professional journalists should write. In the comments, this was even called presumptuous. Of course, everyone writes differently and quality varies, but that’s precisely why it could only benefit the overall quality if hobby writers also venture into new territory and thus hone their writing skills. After all, not everyone is born a Henry Nannen; it also takes practice and hard work. So why not step out of your comfort zone in your own blog every now and then and try something new?
Update 6 on 09.01.14:
Hey, the idea is still alive! I’m very pleased that Kathrin and Peter Nos have also given the topic some thought and have laid out their ideas in several theses, sharing them openly with us. You can find the really worth-reading article here, https://das-spielen.de/index.php/neuer- … -internet/.
In general, I agree with the arguments there: Blogging is a flexible, liberal way of writing, and everyone probably approaches texts differently. Anyone can write. But not everyone wants to read it. You don’t actually need to be a trained journalist – what matters is the joy and pleasure of storytelling. And not everyone can write in an interesting way. As Kathrin and Peter say, clicks and comments are the most important feedback.
But why shouldn’t this New Boardgame Journalism be for daily newspapers, Amazon reviews or under-the-Christmas-tree players who want snappy buying recommendations? Strict rule paraphrases wouldn’t be the answer either. What people are really interested in is the description of the fun, the emotions at the table. The mechanism isn’t a reason to buy for casual players. A game is supposed to entertain. In my view, the success of Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop lies in the fact that viewers want to replicate the fun and excitement from the show at their own table with their friends.
Even frequent players and connoisseurs should enjoy lively stories about the game in question. They’re usually more broadly educated in the hobby and, when reading, engage in an internal monologue with the author. They know Knizia, worker placement and Ludonaute. But they also know where to download rule PDFs onto their home computer. It’s true, substance is needed here: flow, challenges and playability need to be explored. We don’t want to argue about the content. But the form, the language chosen, can also be lively and well-phrased here, rather than just consisting of subject-verb-object sentences. One path to more creative writing is certainly a greater focus on subjective feelings – the essence of cultural criticism.
Update 7 on 23.01.14
The guys from the Bretterwisser podcast recently invited me, and we discussed the current state of affairs. I also formulated a central thesis there: If you want to promote games as a cultural asset, you have to discuss them as such. It’s worth listening to follow my train of thought. http://bretterwisser.de/bretterwisser-007/
Update 8 am 29.04.14:
It’s not me bringing this topic up again – it’s Deutschlandradio Kultur. It would have been nice if the colleagues had looked beyond the world of video games, but two Saturdays ago, the station’s ‘Breitband’ programme actually dedicated part of its show to ‘New Game Journalism’. In four levels, the participants work their way from virtual realities, online games and indie studios to the topic of ‘washing machine test vs. travel report’. And there are some truly illuminating insights that I’d also postulate for ‘New Boardgame Journalism’:
In this country, a points-based rating system is indeed given more weight than elsewhere. Maybe that has cultural reasons. We want to quantify and categorise. Percentages and ‘4 out of 5 stars’ help some people more. But: mere numbers don’t easily reflect the feel of a game. Yet they do fit the mainstream.
Dry numbers essentially exclude newcomers and are strongly geared towards readers who grew up with this system. With PC games, there were numerical ratings and maybe a comment box as far back as 20 years ago. Did board game review systems develop from that same spirit?
For video games as well as our board games: technical reviews and content descriptions emphasise the attributes of a technical product – which a game, with its mechanisms, themes and functions, can also be – while more subjective reports highlight the cultural medium. That doesn’t necessarily have to be some wild feuilleton style.
The discussion calls for more travel reports and fewer buying recommendations for PC games. This makes me feel vindicated: even if board games don’t lean as heavily towards interactive films or hero odysseys, they do have a narrative at their core. The journey there can sometimes be worth telling.
Deutschlandradio Kultur on 19.04.14: Breitband – Versus-Spielespezial (via WildersWelt)
Update 9 am 21.05.14:
As you can see, the thoughts on this matter haven’t quite left the building yet. And that’s a good thing, because maybe something will come of it. In Nuremberg, colleague Wenzel invited me for an interview at the end of January; alongside me, the lively instigator of this little revolution, was the esteemed Synes Ernst, who describes his own take on things in this context. And we see: the idea of writing vivid, engaging game reviews that take the reader along isn’t all that new.
Now the video is here, and I’d like to invite you to spend a good half hour in the Zuspieler channel. Admittedly: we sometimes gallop off in directions that don’t quite match the questions, but that just shows how the ideas are bubbling over.
