Game journalists are not progressive in how they cover social gaming

In the latest issue of Game Informer, Editor-in-Chief Andy McNamara said that in order to prevent triple-A games from dying because of social media and mobile games, you need to “show the industry you care by throwing your support behind the elite blockbusters (and not just first-person shooters).” It was yet another instance of someone in the media decrying the impact social and mobile games are having on the industry.

While McNamara did have positive things to say about his experiences with these genres, his overriding concern was the negative effects this market may have on triple-A title development. It left me wondering why so many in the games media, who are so quick to call for developers to adapt to the market and to change with the times, seem so hesitant to do so themselves when it comes to the product they create.

Let me ask you a few questions: When have you seen a mobile- or social-network game on the cover of a major game magazine? How many reviews or previews of said games do these magazines you read include? Lastly, how many articles have you read positing over the impact social-network and mobile games may have on the industry?

I would bet good money that the last question was the easiest to answer because it seems like every month in every issue of every game magazine there is the familiar "will mobile and social games kill the industry?" piece. It had been the subject of numerous sessions at gaming and developer conferences, and it appears on almost every gaming website with the regularity of the sun rising in the morning.

Let’s imagine that in movies, the mumblecore scene suddenly found immense success. Tens of millions of consumers began to watch movies like Tiny Furniture because they are cheap to view and easily accessible. Do you think that the entertainment media would ignore those events and write numerous articles wringing their hands over the effects this rise would create? Maybe they would, but it is much more likely that you would see mumblecore movies on the covers of outlets like Entertainment Weekly and inside the pages of Variety.

Now, I am not saying that every game magazine and website should bow to the new mobile- and social-media masters, but I am saying that at least one or two might be wise to cover them in a more positive light and with more of an eye for detail.

Imagine the effect the instantaneousness of looking at the review of a mobile game and then buying it on your phone could have on the audience for a game magazine. Imagine the people walking by the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble who ignore the games section yet play Angry Brids every free second of their day. Don’t you think that that consumer may be more likely to buy a copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly or GamePro if they saw Angry Birds on the cover?

Andy’s editorial was wrongheaded, and more than that, he asked us to support the wrong side of the industry. If we want our big-budget console games to continue, wouldn’t we better serve the industry by throwing our support behind the smaller — but still great — console games being made by developers that could end up making the next, big, elite game with the right support? Really, that is an article for another day….

Again, I am not saying that we should all rush out to cover every aspect of what is happening with the world of social media and mobile games, but I do think that we need to examine our attitudes on them and think about how we can use their existence to our benefit rather than decrying that their development might lead to less of the triple-A games we love. The debate needs to become how much we should cover social and mobile games, not how badly they are going to effect the industry we love. Would that be such a bad thing?