Hands down, the best hour I spent at PAX was attending Saturday's "Game Criticism and Old Game Journalism" panel.

Coming from a critical background myself (how many people can say they went to film school and ended up getting funded to write critical analysis of videogames?), these peeps spoke my language more than most of the other panels did. Not to mention, they offered some very unique insights, especially if you're anything like me and at once despair and hold out a great amount of hope for game journalism.

(Note: I like pictures as much as the rest of you but obviously, given the big Walls of Text that await you in this very detailed run-down, I didn't have time to take any. So, these photos of the panelists are pulled from other sources.)

The Players:

• Chris Kohler, of Wired, who moderated and took the lion's share of the mic time, not that anyone's complaining.
• Gus Mastrapa, a freelance journalist writing for The Onion and GameDaily, among other publications.
• Karen Chu, of PlayFirst, 1Up .
• Patrick Klepek, of MTV.

Introductions:

The four panelists, starting with Chris, each essentialised a major point they've had on their minds relating to game journalism, before opening things up to questions. As I mentioned before, one hour is really not sufficient for four people to get their thoughts out with any respectable degree of cogency, so while I applaud the panelists' efforts in saying as much as they did, an extra half hour would have made the panel so much better.

Chris Kohler

Chris begins by apologising for the poorly-chosen title for the panel. He clarifies by saying what we all hope is true, and really wish we could make more of a reality:

Game criticism is not just reviews. It's all critical analysis. You can offer critique, you can offer your own insights.

 Chris defines "new game journalism" by comparing it to that lovable but overplayed Hunter S. Thompson style, wherein a review might go on for pages and only barely touch upon the game itself, instead devoting a great deal of space to the reviewer's life or side observations. Chris insisted that "We're not doing old journalism well enough yet, so why do we need new journalism?"

He also relates an exchange he had with Tycho, in which the latter expressed his empathy because "your job is impossible". Chris joked that he seemed to be drawing a paycheck for this, so it was clearly not impossible-- but agreed that what Tycho actually meant was that the ideal of what game criticism should do and what it can actually accomplish are two very different things. He made the following key points:

• Any review is going to have the bias of the author.
• There is no such thing as a complete, comprehensive review.
• Videogames are an inherently subjective experience.

Chris then outlined the following advice, which he titled "Writing What You See, Saying What You Think":

• Cut it out with this relently positive attitude with previews. You should be frank and call things as you see them. Because...
• You should make clear that you're giving impressions on a work in progress. Because...
• We should be developing a better dialogue with the industry. Thus, preview material should be an opportunity for critics to offer constructive impressions on the work.
• Educate yourself and be informed when you review. This means not only being familiar with the genre you're reviewing, but any other relevant subject matter.
• Even so, you can't know everything. So just write what you think anyway, because you still might have a good point to make that nobody else is making.
• Anticipate counterarguments while you write. This will strengthen your writing.

Chris then introduced into the forum what would become one of the panel's leitmotifs: aggregate sites like Metacritic, and their role in the critical process. Chris was positive about these kinds of sites, saying they were the best way to create an objective, definitive review. He (or it might have been Gus; the two played off each other a lot) described the future of Metacritic as looking like "Zagat's Restaurant Guide for games".

Chris then turned to the "why" of game criticism, highlighting recent concerns within game journalism to bump off this "shill" reputation they've garnered. Chris points out that previously, game critics acted as the primary mouthpieces of the publishers, but now that all the major publishers have their own blogs to hype content, this eases the strain on critics to be relentlessly positive. He did, however, offer some ambivalence over whether this was an entirely appropriate replacement, since the internal releases from these publishers were bound to be far more uncritical than even the wealthiest shill. A new issue, too, is how do you compete when half of what game journalism does --reporting the new and shiny-- is taken away?

He offered no concrete answers for these issues, and rightly so. These are upcoming and ongoing problems that game criticism faces. He transitioned over to Gus to talk about a freer and more liberated form of game journalism.

Gus Mastrapa

Gus started out his presentation with a quote that had been passed onto him back in college:

"Criticism's purpose is to enlighten the text."

He went on to suggest game criticism should "shed light" on the text (for non-crit types, that doesn't mean just the script, but the entire work), even things that have little to do with gameplay. These holistic and more aesthetic analyses of games would help elevate them to an artform like film, he seemed to suggest.

(Personally, I believe games are already art, and Roger Ebert is an idiot, but as long as he's the apparent gatekeeper on what is "art" in this world, I guess we have to play by his rules.)

Gus then stated what I previously blogged about, that Penny Arcade and Yahtzee are our Pauline Kaels.  These two voices, he said, are means by which we entertain ourselves around games, even becoming a substitution for play. Anyone who has watched Yahtzee review a game they have no intention of playing and come away feeling they got a full gaming experience and were more entertained than if they had played it themselves knows what Gus is talking about.

He ended with this imperative to the field: he wants to see a videogame review in The New Yorker before he dies. Make it so, guys!

Karen Chu

The main thrust of Karen's time at the mic was devoted to arguing against aggregate sites like Metacritic. Although she acknowledged that these sites can provide a more comprehensive overview of opinion, she warned of the "tyranny of the majority". Anyone who has ever checked out a Metacritic page on a title knows what she's saying: aberrant viewpoints stand out like sore thumbs when the vast majority are of a certain mind about something. She and the other panelists related experiences getting massively flamed for these sorts of deviations.

Additionally, she made the (shocking, to me) observation that some game designers' bonuses are based on a game's Metacritic scores, which seems unfairly punitive even in the best situations.

Karen then went on at length about the tyranny of the majority:

• A reviewer can get hung up on what "most people" are saying.
  
  • You can be affected by reading others' opinions.
  • You are discouraged from straying too far.
  • Hate mail can be more discouraging than we like to think.
• If you can't deviate from the norm, how do you distinguish yourself?
  
  • Think of all those deliberately rebellious, "edgy" reviews that give the same score as most places, but only come off pretentious and forced.
• People write about games to start a discussion, not to silence it.

Karen capped off her presentation with a hopeful look to New Media:

• With new media (read: the internets and its many tubes), anyone can review, anyone can read. It's thanks to these tubes that we have sites like this one!
• Fan publications, like fanzines, are all going digital.
• A reviewer's greatest asset is his or her trustworthiness, because that will foster healthy engagement.
• Community engagement and feedback provides us with a sort of collective intelligence that we just didn't have before.
• It inspires new writing trends. For example, news blogs, which combine "journalistic voice" and "blog" voice... sort of like this article.
• Ultimately, it encourages more and different discussion.

Patrick Klepek

We were running short on time by this point. "But that's okay, because I've only been with MTV for six months, so I don't have much to say," Patrick said humbly, picking at his notes.

Patrick provided a good synthesis for the discussion up to that point.

• We need both art-for-art's-sake reviews and consumer reports.
• Reviewers need reader feedback to better appreciate what readers are looking for.
• "Cool hunters" like Kotaku are awesome, but don't create nearly the amount intertext that they could. That is to say, there isn't enough crossover to start the right conversation.

Q&A

At this point, my hand was hurting pretty badly, and most of the questions were sort of pointless, so I only made notes on a few.

Q: Where are we going to see the ultra-specific reviews that specialise in one particular aspect of games?

Chris, Gus and Karen: That's going to have to come out of fandom. Users can potentially create the uber-specific technical or art approaches that main game journalism lacks.

Q: What sort of pressure actually exists for the enthusiast press to conform to the standards of publishers/advertisers?

Chris and Karen: It is not as common as you might think, but if people see it, they should make a point to call it out. That's the only way things are going to improve.

Q: Is there anything good we can take away from new journalism?

Chris: Anything works as long as it's applied correctly. Have facts to go with your snark.

Q: Patrick, being as you work for MTV, are you ever under pressure to support, say, Rock Band, and thrash the competition?

Patrick: [His long answer was 'no'. His short answer was 'yes', he's still expected to refrain from thrashing Rock Band.]

Q: Could you talk a little more about reviewer bias?

Chris: Reviewer bias is a big concern. Most games are reviewed by experts, and most gamers are not experts. So in fact, the outsider perspective serves the majority.

Q: What are your feelings on scoring systems?

Chris: Fuck scores. [Audience applauds.] I didn't spend five hours writing a videogame review for someone to scroll down to the score at the bottom.

And there you have it. It's almost like you were there yourself! Minus Karen's pirate moustache, I mean.