Portland, Oregon fiction writer, writing professor, and gamer, Tom Bissell, was interviewed in my local alternative weekly concurrent with the release of his book, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. It’s a long, rambling interview that touches on, among other things, why Portal is so important, why most game reviews aren’t very good and how tedious it is actually writing for a game developer.
“There’s this whole world here that is not being written about.” And I think it’s not being written about because a lot of game journalists [are] just too deep in the world. The game writing that goes on in the game sites and the game magazines is really good for what it is, y’know? I mean, not really good, c’mon—but [while] some magazines are better than others and some writers are better than others, for the most part, it sets out to… give you a sense of what’s going on from an insider perspective, and [offer] a consumer’s guide kind of piece of writing telling you what to like or not to like about this game, and what’s good and what’s not good. What isn’t really in any of these experiences is what the emotional experience [of a game is], and what [are] the aesthetic realizations and the kind of personal emotional reactions that you have. There’s no personal account. There’s not even a place for it, really, in any of these magazines.
Bissell has written for such hoity-toity rags as the New Yorker and is an active and ardent gamer. His is an interesting take on where games are and where they are going. I’m not sure how deeply he’s gone into game journalism and I haven’t read the book. Some of this interview is boring but a lot of it is interesting. There is a link to a short print version in the first paragraph in case you just want to cut to the chase. Oh, and the book looks interesting too.
Email the author of this post at scout@tap-repeatedly.com.
I haven’t had a chance to take a look at that interview yet Scout but I’ve remembered Tom Bissel’s name ever since I read his flagrantly arrogant stance on spoilers. He argues that it isn’t what happens that matters but how it happens, which I think, quite frankly, is horse shit. He even goes to the efforts of revealing a few choice spoilers – without warning – part way through the article as if those of us who do care about them can somehow ‘unknow’ what he’s just unashamedly thrust into our collective faces. It made my blood boil. Thankfully the comments section below had a few scathing counter arguments which was a welcome relief. The article is here, and of course beware of the spoilers.
Unfortunately the comments aren’t accessible anymore unless you’re registered. Just registered and they’re all gone, which is a shame.He also did a great piece on his past cocaine addiction and concurrent experience – and love of – GTA IV. There’s a lot of good stuff in there and I highly recommend taking a look, but I think it’s quite telling that it took a fuck ton of coke to enjoy GTA IV…
Hey, we both used the word “concurrent” correctly. Take that Bissell… you slavering coke hound.
Seriously, I was dimly aware of Bissell though I had never read anything about him until this weekend when I ran into the interview in the Portland Mercury. Probably the part in the interview most interesting was how hard it was getting work as an article writer. He claims he hasn’t had a paying freelance writing job in three years now.
“Just registered and they’re all gone, which is a shame.”
Just a note: That is a contribution to what is wrong with game journalism. Sigh. I also vaguely recalling the article and how silly it was but there we go!
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On the quoted part of the interview…
Not sure of the guy myself, but journalism is distinct (or at least should be) from reviews. That, and it is distinct from the third choice of the (much misused term) criticism.
So tom wants more criticism. It won’t come from journalists though! There’s a few initiatives working for that – Kill Screen (odd name but there you go – http://www.killscreenmagazine.com/) apparently is trying, and Critical Distance (http://www.critical-distance.com/ – I’m surprised not in your tap sidebar, heh) collates much of the blog content. Of course, usually it’s just peoples spare time going into it…
Anyone else know of any other distinctly critical-led sites? (ie; versus posting news or reviews w/scores. I’d hasten to add I’d love to see more of it on tap-repeatedly! 🙂
Mike; you’re posting this interview yourself and I assume you entirely agree with this Tom person – just this is entirely an assumption since you just call it interesting! What is your own thoughts since you write for this very site? You don’t get paid presumably – yet, do you think there should be a market for paid critical opinions? Why do you think there isn’t? Or is it just how it is in most media anyway? (It’s not an easy thing to answer o’ course).
I’ll give the entire interview a read though. It is if nothing refreshing to think someone cares about the situation enough to say something. Usually it’s just an half apologetic shrug from everyone involved before they go back to the norm to keep their heads down less they get fired.
Hey Andrew.
I don’t agree with Bissell and I do. How’s that for ambiguous? Mostly, I was struck by the same narrow world view I have seen in so-called “serious” writers for decades. They dismiss so much work out of hand, claiming there is no quality stuff out there…yeah right. I see the same attitude when literary writers address genre fiction. But I also understand where this kind of thinking comes from. For example, Michael Chabon, a “serious” writer talks about contemporary disdain for the detective story: “Telling stories well is a neglected and undervalued element of what is thought to be a ‘real’ writers job. There is a bias against any kind of narrative in which plot is foregrounded.” Now in the same way there has always been tons of quality genre fiction going unheralded by the “serious”, we now have all this writing about games going on below the radar. The image is of industry geeks slobbering over interface issues instead of getting in touch with their feelings. I get this from personal friends all the time when I tell them I write video games reviews for a web site for free. You can see the utter confusion in their eyes just before they change the subject. Bissell comes from this background of academia and seems to carry around this mindset but at the same time he likes games and “gets” them so I find that interesting and familiar.
I primarily posted the interview just to see what kind of reactions it would get as a lot of what Bissell talks about are topics that come up here a lot as well. I’m rabble rousing, mostly.
It was an interesting piece. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Not sure exactly what I think of all of it quite yet. Need to digest a bit first.
This guy laments that journalists fail to express their “emotional experience…, and what [are] the aesthetic realizations and the kind of personal emotional reactions” to games in their write ups?
In this literary peasant’s view, I don’t want to read about your experiences in that regard. I’d rather play the game & discover those things myself. I thought that was what game playing was all about.
After reading Gregg B’s comment, it sounds like what he wants is some kind of AAIR*. AAIR being my made up term for impression-centric AAR/walkthrough complete with spoilers.
I read the interview and the link Greg pointed too. I can understand his frustration at people getting upset for talking about the fact that there is a mortar in “Gears 2”. Sure, that’s a bit whining right there.
But as for plot spoilers, that’s not at all what I want out of a review for story driven type games. Part of the fun of RPGs is finding stuff out on your own and some of my favorite moments were “WTF!” moments in games that I didn’t seem coming and were shocking and fun. I’d much rather have the element of surprise when playing to get the full effect.
While it wasn’t made exactly clear in either piece, I think this guy might have written an article for The New Yorker. I wish he’d talk about that a little more. /sarcasm
Ajax19, I get The New Yorker. Here’s his article, “The Grammar of Fun”: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_bissell
One of the best WTF moments for me lately was in Gothic II: NOTR. I hinted at it in my review but decided not to describe it in detail cause half the fun…hell, ALL the fun was stumbling upon it.
I do get bored with talking about game mechanics in my own reviews though it’s my own fault. I’m too lazy to try and place a game in perspective historically or critically and I don’t want to reveal spoilers. So what I do is try and reflect my experience of a game through accretion. By describing at lot of little in-game experiences, hopefully a reader will get the jist.
It does depend on the type of game as well – and the type of player. If I’m playing an adventure game and get stuck beyond my (considerable) patience I’ll use UHS hints (in the style of Infocom’s old Invisiclues) because they let me find the solution to the puzzle I’m stuck on without giving me the solutions to any other puzzles. So they are obviously the least spoilery hints available.
Some other gamers, though, prefer to look at a linear walkthrough instead because they consider them less spoilery – they don’t care about seeing the solutions to other puzzles (though they tend to prefer very linear games so there’s less likely to be another puzzle that might be solved before the one they’re after), but the section headings in the UHS guide might tell them that they’ll be going to Madagascar later in the game and they’d be more upset at finding that out in advance.
Before I read that article, can you tell me what games it spoils?
Phelbas,
It’s more general than that. I only breezed through it, though I think there might be some discussion of Bioshock. The reason I breezed through it is because I haven’t played Bioshock yet. It’s on the list.
Speaking of my list. I was doing incredibly well there for a while. I easily had my most productive gaming era in years over the last seven months or so, knocking 4-5 different games. Sadly, I got bit by the “Civ IV” bug and I’m infected with the disease. I had this very same disease for a good 3-4 years, in which Civ IV dominated my PC gaming with only the ocassional “Freedom Force”, “Football Manager” or “Eastside Hockey Manager” thrown in for good measure.
As for general spoilers. If I get stuck in a game and start to feel annoyed, I will hope onto a wiki or walkthrough in a heart beat. I usually give it some time and try a bunch of different things, but if I feel I am stuck, I will seek help. But, I will try to limit the focus of my search to just what I need to know.
Phlebas,
Bissell spills some plot points about the third act of Bioshock and the ending of Assassin Creed II. He also reveals plot points about the movie Jaws, and the books Anna Karenina and For Whom the Bell Tolls. His main point is that an obsession with spoilers is infantilizing.
You know I’ve still not seen Jaws, but I didn’t know there was a plot in it (I mean a Shark is on the poster).
Good thoughts on the topic Mike, sorry for my late reply. I agree – it is interesting Bissell is coming at it from the “academic” angle (or to me, the “git who spoils things for no reason” angle, or “person who mixes reviews and criticism” angle, heh) but has a deep knowledge of videogames, or at least seems to! He’s someone I can entirely see where they are coming from but could never hope to find middle ground with.
Lucky I don’t write anything even semi-professionally 😀
Ajax; you’re right – a great lot of entertainment is gained seeing something for the first time, whatever that something is – usually the story though. I don’t go looking at criticism though to find guides and spoilers – if I get stuck during something, wiki’s and FAQ’s are godsends – some even detail bugs, thank you Mr. Fallout 3 wikia!
@Scout: I had never used the word ‘concurrent’ before and I think that explains it: you’d used in your article 😉
Tom Bissel seems to be talking about New Games Journalism which Kieron Gillen wrote a pseudo manifesto for back in 2004. If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend you go over there and take a look. It’s fascinating. A lot of NGJ articles are just great pieces of writing that transcend the boundaries of our typically arcane and impenetrable culture; in many cases you don’t have to know anything about games to enjoy these pieces.
(I wrote a comment earlier while at work and I think I got the wrong end of the stick with this topic so decided to trash it.)
He lost me at There’s not even a place for it, really, in any of these magazines.
It’s one thing (though, as Gregg points out, not a new thing) to complain that there’s not enough. But to claim there’s none denies the legacy of Crash, Your Sinclair, Amiga Power, Edge, PC Gamer. Since the 80s there have been magazines that printed interesting writing about games, not just industry and consumer reports and marks out of ten, and it’s often people who grew up reading those magazines (and some of whom now write for the ones that are still around) who write the current NGJ stuff.
But even if he’s clueless about the journalism side, he seems to have some interesting thoughts on games. I might well read the book.
I got that impression as well Phlebas. He obviously knows what he’s talking about but some of the things he says don’t hang together so well. He pulls up Dead Space a lot for being pure and smart but in my opinion it’s a shining example of clumsy – and in some cases lazy – storytelling but it’s also a very derivative experience, mashing together numerous games until it eventually runs out of ideas itself and gets lost around the half way mark. I haven’t played Far Cry 2, but Steerpike can probably vouch for that. I’m glad he regards Portal so highly though, and so he should. I’d argue it’s one of the most important games ever.
EDIT: It’s also interesting that he brings up the whole abstract layer of collecting ‘thermos’ in Alan Wake. That’s exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in my recent Suspending Disbelief and Roleplaying article where certain game-y elements just snag you out of the experience because it’s so artificial and yeah, abstract.