Cahiers du Jeux Vido?

A comparison between amateur videogame journalism and post-war French film culture.
Game Studies: Rules of play Jaap van der Velden 21-06-2011 3226727

INTRODUCTION

With the emergence of the internet, the way in which we receive and especially make and spread news has changed completely. In his article Everyones a Critic, NGai Croal discusses the changing role and authority of the critic. Before the internet appeared as a tool that enabled anyone connected to let their voice be heard, this privilege was available only to a minority of people. Criticism before the internet, was a very top-down activity, where the masses could only incidentally express their opinion through for example letters published in magazines or interviews. With the emergence of the internet, the traditional top-down one-to-many broadcasting systems changed into a many-to-many structure in which people were no longer dependent on recognized critics for gathering information and where information flows in every direction. This structure led to the rise of a form of citizen journalism, which Luke Goode a senior lecturer and specialist in digital media and their social and cultural consequences - refers to as [] a range of web-based practices whereby ordinary users engage in journalistic practices. Citizen journalism includes practices such as current affairs-based blogging, photo and video sharing, and posting eyewitness commentary on current events (Goode, 1288). The responses from acknowledged journalists towards the emergence of an amateur journalist culture have been predominantly pessimistic (Scimeca). As a game critic and consultant, NGai Croal focuses primarily on what impact these changes have on game journalism. Unlike many other critics, Croal has and optimistic view concerning these changes and he thinks that amateur videogame journalism can also bring us good things. He states that [Amateur videogame journalism] has enabled other thoughtful, considered, and knowledgeable voices that would never previously have been heard to attract an audience to take game reviewing away from solely a consumer guide function and explore games from as varied a perspective as other media. (Croal) Dennis Scimeca, technologist and freelance writer, refers to Croals article and adds to this that he himself sees [] this citizen journalism as an essential process of garnering a wider audience for the legitimate discussion of video games, similar to what happened with film when journals like Cahiers du Cinma began publishing (Scimeca). His comparison between what happens

now with videogame journalism and what happened in post-war French film culture is interesting. However, Scimeca does not further elaborate on this comparison, which leaves room for a further exploration in this essay. Looking at what Scimeca means with his statement by focusing on how the emergence of journals like Cahiers du Cinma had a certain influence on French film culture may be helpful if we want to get a better understanding of what state contemporary videogame journalism is in.

HISTORY OF THE CAHIERS DU CINMA

After the First World War, French cinema enjoyed much domestic attention of intellectuals. During the Second World War however, the German occupation of France meant a total closure from cinema other than German propaganda films, so that after the war five years of ground breaking American movies such as CITIZEN KANE (1941) became available for the French to see. This led to a certain atmosphere of cinphilie, expressing itself in the many film screenings in clubs, the emergence of film courses in French universities and the rise of journals such as Cahiers du Cinma in 1951. Founded by Andr Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, a group of young film enthusiasts who were initially inspired by the concept of camra-stylo the filmmaker-author writes with his camera as a writer writes with his pen (Bordwell and Thompson 415) the Cahiers became a very influential reference for French film studies. The most important point made by the authors of the journal was that the film director should be seen as the author of the film; a function that before then was usually assigned to the scriptwriter. This so called auteur theory supported the belief carried out by the Cahiers that film criticism should examine film primarily in terms of its and thus its directors ideas. Although this auteur theory was not agreed upon by all, it did have the effect of getting people to talk about, and film-makers to experiment with, new cinematic approaches and conventions. (Farr). With its founding, the main goal of the Cahiers was to criticise French cinema. Especially remarkable about the rise of this journal and similar journals was that they took the discussion about the legitimization of film as an art form away from the academic field. Eventually they achieved converting film studies into a field as esteemed as any other academic field in the arts (Fournier Lanzoni 209). Thus the journals brought about significant changes in attitude towards the film industry, among critics and theorists as well as film-makers.

AMATEUR VIDEOGAME JOURNALISM So we can say that Scimecas claim that the recent trends we see in videogame journalism are comparable to the period in which the Cahiers du Cinma was founded is in a way true in that more people are given a voice. In fact, amateur (or citizen) journalism seems to go further because it also removes the barrier of setting up a physical journal, thus abridging production and distribution difficulties. Probably the biggest problem, which emerges as a side-effect when everyones a critic, is that the quality of the content can hardly be guaranteed. Scimeca also recognises this problem and brings forward the example of Gerard Williams, who is better known under the alias HipHopGamer. He points out that Williams, by using his own peculiar style, is able to address a certain audience, one that would otherwise be underrepresented. Thus we see that Williams does open up the discussion on videogames to a wider audience, but in this case the quality is questionable. Scimeca sums this up in his use of []misleading headlines, unprofessional interviews, deliberate attempts at starting flame wars, and a complete lack of bias neutrality (Scimeca). Thus, the main problem is that the best amateur critics should be given a voice, though they can easily be overshadowed by the majority of less qualitative amateurs. A possible solution to this problem lies with the established and recognised journalists. If they want to keep the level of videogame criticism quality high, maybe they should actively promote those amateur voices that they think are worthwhile giving attention. By working together they could definitely improve and strengthen videogame journalism. Another option would be to retrace the steps of the members of the Cahiers du Cinma by not only criticising videogames, but also actively participate in their development. Bazin, DoniolValcroze, Truffaut and other members of the journal eventually saw that the clearest way for them to change French cinema was to start making films themselves. They saw a very clear relationship between the criticism on films and film-making itself, since attending film screenings in the Cinmathque and cin-clubs was already a way of thinking cinema and thinking about cinema. Writing for their journal they already saw as a way of making films (Hillier 11-13). Criticising videogames could then also be an opportunity to gain more insight in what elements do and which do not work in videogames, opening up the possibility of aiding in videogame development. In fact, NGai Croal who was mentioned and quoted in the beginning of this article already followed this path. After 14 years of working as a game journalist for Newsweek, he decided he wanted to start focusing more on the development side of gaming (Crecente). Nowadays he works as a videogame consultant, a job that perfectly enables him to put to use the knowledge about videogames he gathered while criticising them. Only now he uses it to make videogames better.

SOURCES

Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film History: An Introduction. 2e. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. Crecente, Brian. NGai Croal Leaves Newsweek and Game Journalism. 4 March 2009. Kotaku, the Gamer's Guide. 17 June 2011 <http://kotaku.com/5163638/ngai-croal-leaves-newsweekand-game-journalism>. Croal, N'Gai. Everyone's a Critic. 20 November 2010. 9 June 2011 <http://www.nextgen.biz/opinion/everyones-critic>. Farr, John. When the French Spiced Up Film: Rohmer, Truffaut, Godard and Cahiers Du Cinema. 31 January 2010. 12 June 2011 <www.huffingtonpost.com/john-farr/when-the-french-spicedup_b_443701.html>. Fournier Lanzoni, Rmi. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. New York: Continuum, 2004. Goode, Luke. Social News, Citizen Journalism and Democracy. New Media Society 24 November 2009: 1287-1305. Hillier, Jim, ed. Cahiers du Cinma. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. Scimeca, Dennis. What defines a games journalist? 17 December 2010. 9 June 2011 <http://bitmob.com/articles/what-defines-a-games-journalist>.