I can’t decide whether or not I regret writing the article which seems to have put GameGirlAdvance on the map. When I wrote it up last summer, I showed it to my partner and co-editor. "Do you think it’s okay to publish this?"
He laughed. "It’s great!"
"I don’t want people to be offended."
"It’s fun, it’s playful, it’s honest, it’s a little controversial. I think it’s perfect for GGA."
I agreed with him, I just had wanted a second opinion. So up it went -- the story about the unique game peripheral that shipped with the Japanese version of the gorgeous, offbeat Rez. The story itself is a light-hearted take on my experience playing the game with the "trance vibrator" attachment. There were some pictures, too, which I took myself -- suggestive, maybe, but as one commentator pointed out, it doesn’t show as much as you’d see in a swimsuit advertisement. I suppose it’s the suggestion that was scandalous -- it’s a piece about masturbating. Some people seem to have a problem with it. Former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders got in big trouble by saying that masturbating was healthy.
But though I thought it might make some people squirm, and others squirm with delight, I wasn’t prepared for what happened.
The response to the article shut down the server for a day. The comments thread turned into one of the most interesting and enlightening experiments in journalism I’ve ever had the misfortune to instigate.
It’s painful even now to read some of the responses. Not necessarily the ones calling me "slut" and "whore" -- those are just stupid -- but the long, fraught ones which explain very sincerely and passionately that I am single-handedly ruining the chances that women will be taken seriously in the game industry. Ouch. That hurts.
It shouldn’t be so shocking -- it shouldn’t be such a big deal -- the fabric of videogame journalism isn’t so fragile that one woman can pierce it.
And that really proves to me how little room there is, still, for all of us to participate. In some ways what we do -- videogame criticism, or to put it more broadly, cultural analysis -- is a highly contested space. Some seem extremely threatened by voices that shouldn’t be here but are. Even some of the smartest industry people I know refuse to look seriously at writing from non-orthodox sources. But tossing out all of Janet Murray’s ideas about interactive narrative because she hasn’t played enough videogames is stupidly hiding behind our own blinders.
Our orthodox press has failed us. I receive a number of leading video game industry publications every month. I was reading one this morning, and I came across a review of a game which, according to the text, had a flawed inventory system, frustrating AI, ho-hum graphics, and a game world which required hours of aimless wandering around while trying to figure out where to go next. The final score: eight out of ten.
Eight out of ten? Eight out of ten for what, exactly? Eight out of ten must have been for all the fabulous features not mentioned in the review, a stunning character design, perhaps, or a completely innovative, exciting combat system. Because eight out of ten could not possibly sum up the reviewer’s rather dour take on the gaming experience of this product.
I read much better reviews on weblogs, on fansites, in zines produced for absolutely no money with no screenshots. I read better reviews on the message boards. It’s terrifically depressing that the best in videogame writing is completely outside the videogame industry, with the exception of a notable U.K. publication, which reads like rebellion but looks like shiny, pretty, collaboration.
I think the time is right to stretch the field as far as it can go. It’s time for the outsiders, the non-conformists, yes, the non-gamers, to jump in. This is not a bad thing. It will not dilute the oh-so-pure professional journalism practiced by the bulk of trade magazines. No, the outsider’s role is to challenge, to refine, to hold accountable, to uncover new perspectives, to rebuild standards.
This month I had a chance to interview the editors of the Japanese independent videogame magazine Continue. One of them told me, "We would like to write about games in a way that’s interesting for people who don’t play games. Our goal is to write such a great culture magazine that non-gamers will pick it up and find something to enjoy." I cherish that goal for GGA, too. Because I think as videogames become interwoven with our other cultural entertainments and products, we’ll no longer have to stage meaningless pissing contests over who is more hardcore than whom to earn the right the play here. We won’t have call ourselves gamers enjoy playing games.
In the full flower of videogame criticism, we’ll see videogame reviews in Seventeen, in Vogue, yes, in Martha Stewart Living.
I hope I am doing my part, however small it may be. I am encouraged by the fact that the response to my article, although peppered with several comments that are as nasty as they are hard to forget, was overwhelmingly positive. I got a flood of emails from people who wanted to congratulate me. "Your article was a lot of fun! I showed it to my boyfriend/girlfriend" or "All the girls in the office are passing this link around" or, frequently, "Where can I buy this peripheral?"
Someday I’ll be able to say, "Why, at your friendly neighborhood sex toy shop, of course!"
I suppose if I can say that, I don’t regret writing the damn thing after all.
Jane Pinckard
waits patiently for the Martha Stewart trance vibrator
[Next: Chapter 8: Critical Hit]
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