The UK’s Guardian newspaper has proclaimed a Games Week for their paper. The Guardian has withheld nothing from this celebration: they flooded their website with new articles from the greats in VG journalism and VG creators. It’s a must read.
Richard Bartle, writer and game creator, sums up the direction of video games in his article:
“I'm talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you've already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you're gone.”
Bartle cites that nearly half of the UK population have grown up playing video games, and as the years pass the percentage will keep growing in favor of gamers and I bet the same goes for the USA. The next generation of journalists and politicians will all have grown up with video games as a massively influential media.
Each article on the site is another look into the depths of video game journalism. Here are just a few of the highlight articles: Why Gaming will Survive an Economic Meltdown, Advertising in Video Games, and How the Sims put nongamers in the Top Slot. What a great acknowledgment of video games as cultural relevant media. We'll see games popping up in news broadcasts more and more frequently.
For the most part The Guardian is only publishing Games Week articles online, but who cares, that’s where the gamers are...for now.
By the way, Stephan, someone posted a link to this page from the Guardian website. Here's a trackback:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/08/2
Yes, there's plenty of good stuff. You can try the niche route, creating original content nobody else is creating... but it's also a good idea to think of your site as a filter, pointing to good stuff that your intended audience will want to read. If you don't point to the same site all the time, and you're good at finding out-of-the way sites that have content that's worth a broader readership, your value as a news filter is the reason people will keep coming to your site.
I love that post. It won't be hard to outlive them, especially when we are quickly converting all the old stiffs with games like Brain-Age...
I made a mock-logo for Games Week. You can check it out at "www.s0rethumbs.com" (that's a 'zero' in s0re not the letter O). We're trying to start up a VG journalism site...but there are already so many good ones out there.
Great post, Stephan! Gamers don't have to change the minds of the non-gamers... we just have to outlive them.