Evolutia Jurnalismului de Jocuri Video
LUCRARE DE LICENȚĂ
Evoluția jurnalismului de jocuri video
The evolution of video game journalism
Table of Contents
1. Abstract
2. Rezumat
3. Introduction
4. Sports Journalism
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Print
4.3 Radio broadcasting
4.4 Television broadcasting
4.5 Internet
4.6 Conclusions
5. New Media Theory
5.1 Defining New Media
5.2 Social Structures
5.3 Telework
5.4 Telestudy
5.5 Virtual vs. Organic Communities
5.6 Social Media in Journalism
5.6.1 Facebook
5.6.2 Twitter
5.7 New Media in Everyday Life
5.8 Conclusions
6. Video Game Culture
6.1 Introduction
6.2 A short history of video games
6.3 Video Games in movies and comic books
6.4 Regulatory Systems
7. Online video games – The good, the bad, and the addicted
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The good
7.3 The bad 39
7.4 The addicted
7.5 Conclusion
8. Professional gaming scene
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Definitions and Tournament overviews
8.2.1 Intel Extreme Masters
8.2.2 Dreamhack
8.2.3 Global Starcraft II League
8.2.4 World Cyber Games
8.2.5 Major League Gaming
8.3 Public Reception
8.4 Most popular eSports video games
8.4.1 League of Legends
8.4.2 Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
8.4.3 Counter Strike
8.5 Conclusion
9. Video Game Journalism
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Reveal-preview-review cycle
9.3 Print-based journalism
9.4 Web-based journalism
9.5 Controversy
9.5.1 The accusation
9.5.2 The response
9.6 Conclusion
10. Definition of concepts
11. Hypothesis
12. General Methodology
12.1 Methods
12.2 Data collection
12.3 Data collection framework
12.4 Instruments used
12.5 Data interpretation
12.5.1.1 Phase 1 73
12.5.1.2 Phase 2 73
12.5.1.3 Phase 3 74
12.5.1.4 Phase 4 75
12.5.1.5 Phase 5 75
12.5.1.6 Phase 6 76
12.5.1.7 Phase 7 76
12.5.2 Video Game Interviews – World Elimination Process
12.5.2.1 Phase 1
12.5.2.2 Phase 2
12.5.2.3 Phase 3
12.5.2.4 Phase 4
12.5.2.5 Phase 5
12.5.3 Tables Interpretation
12.5.3.1 Criteria Nr. 1 – Team
12.5.3.2 Criteria Nr 2 – Game
12.5.3.3 Criteria Nr. 3 – Season
12.5.3.4 Criteria Nr.4 – Year
12.5.3.5 Criteria Nr. 5 – Goal
12.5.3.6 Criteria Nr. 6 – Against
12.5.3.7 Criteria Nr. 7 – Score
12.5.3.8 Criteria Nr. 8 – Match
12.5.3.9 Criteria Nr. 9 – Playing
12.5.3.10 Criteria Nr. 10 – Play
12.5.3.11 Criteria Omissions T2 – Tournament
12.5.3.12 Criteria Omissions T2 – Event
12.5.3.13 Criteria Omissions T2 – MLG
12.6 Hypothesis verification
12.6.1 Question Nr. 1
12.6.2 Question Nr. 2
12.6.3 Question Nr. 3
12.6.4 Conclusion
13. General Conclusions
13.1 Sociological
13.2 Cultural
13.3 Academic
Bibliography
Table of Figures
Fig. I. The influence of Facebook on Top News Sites……..……………………………………………….…..23
Fig. II. Twitter news is viewed as more unique…………………………………………………..……….………24
Fig. III. Social Media……………………………………………………………………………………………………………25
Fig. 1a Phase 1………………………….………………………………………………………………………………..………72
Fig. 1b Phase 2…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……..73
Fig. 1c Phase 3……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………74
Fig. 1e Phase 4……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………74
Fig. 1f Phase 5…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….75
Fig. 1g Phase 6……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………76
Fig. 1h Phase 7……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………77
Fig. 2a Phase 1……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………77
Fig. 2b Phase 2……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………78
Fig. 2c Phase 3……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………78
Fig. 2d Phase 4……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………79
Fig. 2e Phase 5……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………79
Fig. 2f Phase 6…………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………80
Abstract
The present paper, entitled “The evolution of video game journalism”, offers a general insight into what video game journalism is, how it has evolved and what are the cultural and social impacts that it has had in today’s technology driven age. Furthermore, the paper offers a content analysis study on post-game interview questions, a comparison between the interviews found in traditional sports journalism and video game journalism. The starting point for this content analysis is the hypothesis that aims to see if video game journalism post-game interview questions are similar in construction and meaning the traditional sports interview questions. The analysis and the results illustrated in the final chapter.
Content analysis was the research method that was best suited to illustrate the comparison between traditional sports and video game journalism. Other methods have been considered but I have argued that they did not offer the intended results, as their focus would have been of another nature.
The first chapter of the present paper illustrated the evolution of sports journalism and how it came to be one of the biggest journalism types, alongside politics or economic reporting. Furthermore, the first chapter illustrates the how the evolution of technology has helped shape sports journalism into the field it is now today.
The second chapter illustrates how New Media is defined by the academic community and how it has been a part of the evolution of information. It also highlights how virtual communities have emerged, in order to redefine social structures. Furthermore, the chapter illustrates the impact that the World Wide Web and the Internet have had on the journalism news gathering process. In this regard, social networking websites can be seen both as a distribution tool and as a research tool.
The chapter on Video Game Culture aims to show the evolution of video games and how they have influenced Internet users. Also, the chapter offers a general overview of the background in with video game journalists activate and what are the elements that make up the video game journalism process.
In the last part of the present paper, I present the general methodology of the research and the content analysis. The data interpretation and results close the present paper, presenting a general overview of how video games have influenced society, culture and journalism.
Rezumat
Lucrarea de față, intitulată “Evoluția jurnalismului de jocuri video”, oferă o prezentare generală a ceea ce numim “jurnalism de jocuri video”, cum a evoluat și care este impactul cultural și social pe care acesta la avut asupra societății moderne. De asemenea, lucrarea de față oferă o analiză de conținut; un studiul comparativ între întrebările de interviu din jurnalismul sportiv tradițional și jurnalismul de jocuri video. Punctul de pornire are la bază întrebarea de cercetare care vrea să vadă dacă întrebările din interviu de după-meci din jurnalismul de jocuri video sunt similre în construcție și înțeles cu cele din jurnalismul sportiv tradițional. Analiza de conținut, împreună cu rezultatele cercetării sunt presentate în capitolul final.
Analiza de conținut a fost cea mai bună metodă de cercetare pentru a ilustra comparația dintre jurnalismul de jocuri video și jurnalismul sportiv. Alte metode de cercetare au fost considerate dar aportul lor nu ar fi confirmat sau infirmat prezenta ipoteză.
Primul capitol al acestei lucrări include o ilustrare a evoluției jurnalismului sportiv și o prezentare generală a cum a ajuns acesta să devină unul dintre cele mai mari domenii jurnalistice, împreună cu jurnalismul politic și economic. De asemenea, capitolul present ilustrează cum evoluția tehnologiei a avut un impact direct asupra jurnalismului sportiv, conturându-l în ceea ce este astăzi.
Al doilea capitol ilustratează impactul pe care New Media l-a avut în evoluția transmiterii de informație. Prin urmare, acestă evoluție a contribuit la apariția și dezvoltarea comunităților virtuale remodelând astfel structurile sociale. De asemenea, capitolul present mai ilustrează impactul pe care l-a avut World Wide Web-ul și Internet-ul în procesul jurnalistic. În acest sens, website-uri de socializare pot fi văzute ca un mod de distribuție dar și de colectare de date în procesul jurnalistic.
Capitolul intitulat “Video Game Culture” ilustrează evoluția jocurilor video și cum au influențat acestea user-ii. De asemenea, capitolul ilustrează o prezentare generală a mediului în care jurnaliștii de jocuri video activează si care sunt principalele elemente în procesul journalistic al jocurilor video.
În ultima parte a prezentei lucrări, metodologia generală si analiza de conținut ajută la o mai bună întelegere a subiectului de cercetare. Interpretarea de date și ilustrarea rezultatelor din lucrare prezintă o panoramă a influenței jocurilor video în societate, cultură și jurnalism.
Introduction
Technologies have shaped the way we interact with our environment and with each other. They have changed the process of information, the way we spend leisure time and have certainly affected the way we communicate, professionally or not. The impact that developed technologies have had on fields such as medicine and engineering is obviously. But these effects can been seen in other fields, such as journalism for example.
The rise of technology has broaden journalism, as a field, and it now includes IT news and has offered new opportunities for the journalist with the ever growing field of video game journalism. The impact that video games have had on society and culture has triggered a response from the journalists, who are now more interested in covering such topics. In other terms, technology has influenced the way we communicate and how journalism has moved to the online medium, in a constant race of information. The rise of social networking websites, and Web 2.0, changed the way audiences may interact with broadcast companies. Furthermore, the process of distribution and research has been changed by the World Wide Web. Journalists now have most, if not all, the information in an online format and news companies can branch out using social network websites as a platform for their media text.
While other forms of journalism have been directly influenced by the rise of the Internet, video game journalism emerged as a new type. It mainly deals with reporting the current news in the industry, reviewing the products that come out from developers and also offering live broadcasts of press conferences and video game tournaments. Furthermore, video game journalism borrows elements forms other types of journalism, e.g. sports journalism, in terms of the post-game interview and the manner in which broadcasting occurs. While there are distinct differences between sports journalism and video game journalism, at certain points, these two types of journalism, converge and share similarities.
I have chosen to insist on these converging points between sports and video game journalism, to analyze if video game journalism can be seen as sports journalism, when referring to post-game interview questions from both of these two journalistic types. In my content analysis, I highlight the Top 10 most used words in both traditional sports and video game journalism, and offer an overview of what these words refer to, in both cases. But before doing so, offering a contextual background was necessity. In this sense, video game journalism has evolved around the cultural and social impact of video games and one cannot talk about this subtype of journalism without illustrating how video games have appeared and shaped our society. Also, it is worth nothing the background from were video game journalists report and illustrate how this background is different from the traditional sports.
The theoretical background in the present paper, illustrates the evolution that sports journalism has had and how technology also shaped this type of journalism. Each subchapter highlights how each medium (print, broadcasting and internet) have directly affected traditional sports journalism. Furthermore, theever growing field of video game journalism. The impact that video games have had on society and culture has triggered a response from the journalists, who are now more interested in covering such topics. In other terms, technology has influenced the way we communicate and how journalism has moved to the online medium, in a constant race of information. The rise of social networking websites, and Web 2.0, changed the way audiences may interact with broadcast companies. Furthermore, the process of distribution and research has been changed by the World Wide Web. Journalists now have most, if not all, the information in an online format and news companies can branch out using social network websites as a platform for their media text.
While other forms of journalism have been directly influenced by the rise of the Internet, video game journalism emerged as a new type. It mainly deals with reporting the current news in the industry, reviewing the products that come out from developers and also offering live broadcasts of press conferences and video game tournaments. Furthermore, video game journalism borrows elements forms other types of journalism, e.g. sports journalism, in terms of the post-game interview and the manner in which broadcasting occurs. While there are distinct differences between sports journalism and video game journalism, at certain points, these two types of journalism, converge and share similarities.
I have chosen to insist on these converging points between sports and video game journalism, to analyze if video game journalism can be seen as sports journalism, when referring to post-game interview questions from both of these two journalistic types. In my content analysis, I highlight the Top 10 most used words in both traditional sports and video game journalism, and offer an overview of what these words refer to, in both cases. But before doing so, offering a contextual background was necessity. In this sense, video game journalism has evolved around the cultural and social impact of video games and one cannot talk about this subtype of journalism without illustrating how video games have appeared and shaped our society. Also, it is worth nothing the background from were video game journalists report and illustrate how this background is different from the traditional sports.
The theoretical background in the present paper, illustrates the evolution that sports journalism has had and how technology also shaped this type of journalism. Each subchapter highlights how each medium (print, broadcasting and internet) have directly affected traditional sports journalism. Furthermore, the chapter overall shows how sports journalism, as a field, was not in high regards at the beginning of its evolution but it was grown a lot, to the sports journalism formats we now today. The same can be said about video game journalism, with the note that the process of evolution is still underway.
To further understand the social impact of technologies and New Media, a closer look into how the World Wide Web and the Internet have contributed to the change that is now an omnipresent part of our everyday lives. The chapter New Media presents how New Media is defined by the academia and what are the social structures that derived from this evolution. In this sense, the construction of online social structures has offered on insight into how Internet and computer users see video game journalism.
Sports Journalism
Introduction
Sports journalists bring to traditional journalism reporting, play-by-play action of the events, interviews (pre- and post-), detailed accounts when it comes down to analyzing the highlights of a game, and on multiple accounts a whole game. Most of these elements move from one medium to another, from print to broadcasting only to end up on the internet. All of these types of reporting can suit every medium we have today, but some are better suited for a particular one than the others.
While the life of a sports journalist may always seem on the run, rushing from the outskirts stadium to the Community Center for the local chess championship, sports journalism has not always been seen as the best, up there with economic and political reporting. Back in the day, the editorial staff referred to the sports section of the staff as “The Toy Department”. . The opinion is shared by Hunter S. Thompson in Rolling Stone Magazine:” With rare exceptions…sportswriters are a kind of rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunk whose only real function is to publicise and sell whatever the sports editors send them out to cover.”
Even if in the early days, sports journalism had its rough and transitional moments; it has expanded and made a name for itself within the business. Even if it has an entertainment value to it, sports journalism has found the means to solidify its importance in the field of journalism. This influence can be seen in the outside world, in other branches of social sciences, and even in everyday speech, people use sports catchphrases as a “metaphor for life.”
Regardless of the critics and the acclamations, sports journalism has always done one thing: to report on the current game. Some sports journalists have become known in the business, much like Pierce Egan’s contribution to football , and other have been forgotten by the branch. As stated above, even if every reporting method works for all media some are better suited to fit particular type.
Newspapers were the first of the media now use today to offer last night’s sports result in the morning news. This pressured journalists had to be back on time and as not to miss the paper going to print. The keys to sports journalism reporting are “accuracy and objectivity” , regardless of the medium but more so in the print.
Among all the sports stories that can find their way into print, three of them are seen to be the major ones to cover: the advance, the recap and the post-game analysis. The time stamp for these can differ. They all can happen in the same day, from the late night post-game analysis to the early week pre-game press conference. This cycle has to be completed in order for the coverage of the game to be as accurate and as precise as possible.
The advance includes all the pre-game coverage done by the reported. It is a preview of the upcoming game; it offers backgrounds statistics about key players and previous encounters. It also gives the line-up for the game to come and a few statements from the pre-game press conference. Considering that this is a pre-game article, it will not be long and the deadline pressure is not that big.
The recap, or “the gamer” as it is also referred to, offers the general information at the end of the game: the final score, any remarkable plays or outbreaks. For the print, it is a small summary of the events of the game. Most likely, this will appear in the day after issue of the newspaper.
The post-game analysis can offer more in-depth accounts of the play style and the highlights of the game. Mistakes can be pointed out and the referee’s decisions can be taken into question by re-analyzing the highlights. Also, interviews with players and coaches offer another point of view towards the analysis. They key element of a post-game analysis is the reminder to always write in perspective.. The post-game analysis can always be used later on as a reference to another game.
Regardless of the part of the cycle a reporter has been set to cover, objectivity plays an important role in journalistic process. Being neutral towards a game can have positive or negative influences, depending on the point of view. If writing for the local paper, the emphasis will be on the hometown team and the angle of the story may be constructed around them. But a radical approach to this is a wrongful way of approaching the problem. If writing for an opinion column, the journalist can express his believes but even there he should exercise caution as to not make mistakes on the actual phasing. In any case, the reporter should try to be “as even-handed as possible” when it comes does to how the story is written.
Reporting for print has the same characteristic as reporting for the other media. But in today technology-driven world, the fate of the print medium is uncertain. All the information is made available on the internet and broadcasting (radio and television) minutes after the game has finished. The print medium can only publish the next day and by then the game, as a subject for an article, had lost some of its importance. Bell stated that: “it is clear to me that the future of written journalism lays more in electronic distribution than it does with the printed pages.”
The problem is not in the content of the medium but more in the distribution process. For the print to have a fighting chance in the technology era, it should focus on post-game analysis. When talking about post-game analysis in the other media, all of them are live broadcasts of the event. Mistakes can occur; the presenters do not have all the necessary background information. But in the print, all the information is there, it is solid. This isn’t to say that the broadcasting media do not possess accurate information. The print can offer the audience “more in-depth and reflective sports journalism.”
Another possible solution for the survival of the print in the technology era is featuring the newspaper, or part of it, on a personalized website. In this sense, the distribution process expands and the editorial staff has a fighting chance in the digital age. The editorial policy may be to include only teaser articles and not the full, in-depth analysis. British publications, such as The Guardian and The Times, have made this transition from print to online and have established a reputation for themselves.
The print medium had lead the charge of sports journalism but broadcasting media has reshaped audiences and has brought a new window through which sports journalism may reach the mass public. The information is now transmitted live, the coverage is live and the way the news is report has changed.
Radio broadcasting
Out of the two broadcast media that have shaped and continue to shape sports journalism, radio has made the transition from palpable paper to invisible sound waves. If newspapers focused on the end result and the post-game analysis, radio brought sports journalism “the sporting moment and communicating of drama, the spectacle and the excitement of sports.” It also introduced a new journalistic actor to the scene of sports reporting, namely the sports broadcaster.
At the early days of sports radio, broadcasters were not necessarily sports journalists. In fact, at first, broadcasting was not considered to be a part of sports journalism. The broadcaster’s initial position was to bring legitimacy to the field of sports journalism. This can be seen the early days of the radio sports broadcasting in the BBC. When comparing the two media, print and radio, the emphasis fall on the latter as radio managed to “suggest a greater degree of detachment and professional engagement with sports”, something that print journalism could not have achieved do to their partisan outlook.
A radio broadcaster shared some of the journalistic elements found in newspaper reporting. Objectivity is a must for a radio broadcast to be considered professional, no matter how emotional close the broadcaster is to a particular team or country. Objectivity, as a journalistic necessity, has a higher degree of importance to radio broadcasters as their words can reach a much larger audience, than a newspaper’s number of copies, and the transmission is live and any type of mistake is hard to rectify and some of the times, costly.
A professional commentary strives to find balance between narrating the events and description the game’s tension and atmosphere to the listeners. Failing to find that necessary balance may lead to an omission of the action and negative feedback from the audience. But what is truly hard for a radio broadcaster is to add “that dash of drama and urgency that draws it all towards of entertainment.”
Good broadcasters have been associated with the games they cover much like John Arlott for cricket and Raymond Glendenning for football and horse racing. Their talent and style of commenting have been the corner stone for the evolution of broadcasting, in radio and television. The broadcaster brought that “dash of drama” to sports journalism and forced the print industry to focus on a particular style of coverage, different from that of radio reporting.
News gathering for radio broadcasting has its own particularities. Being an only-sound medium, the processes of gathering information for the news bulletins different from the print media. The basic information, short comments, game predictions, can be done over the phone using a recorder connected to it. Also, telephone interviews are quick and clear, there isn’t a lot of static or background noise to it and it does not require any clean-up at the editing process.
When doing field work, the radio sport journalists has to be aware of several aspects. He can tell the story using background chants and cheers from a football game but he should be aware of what the fans are chatting, as not to be insulting of profane towards someone. Interviews should be conducted in low background noise places as to not ruin a good quote.
The sports radio bulletin should hold the listeners in which background sound sample collected from the game. Radio is a linear medium and the audience don’t have the possibility of turning the page no the next article, as in newspapers, or opening a new tab, on websites. . The sound samples are just a way to make the news segment more delight but they alone cannot make up the whole news segment.
The news text makes the story have meaning, puts the events into perspective and offers detailed information on what has happened in the world of sports. The text blocks need to be short yet packed with information; brief yet precise. Most of us see radio as “a sound medium”, as opposed to televised broadcasting, but Andrews stated that “radio does have pictures, but we create them ourselves in our mind’s eye.”
As a medium, radio has had a strong influence in the evolution of sports journalism, as in introduced a new figure that today has become synonymous with live coverage, the broadcaster. This element will also be carrying on to television where sports broadcasters will present pre-game interviews, the game itself, and the post-game analysis. In this medium, sports broadcasters can also be considered sports journalists, as opposed to the yearly days of broadcasting sports radio.
Television broadcasting
The way television has approached sports journalism and the sports community sets it apart from the rest of the media discussed so far. Television needs both sound and picture to convey the message and station owners buy the rights to air a team’s game on their network. This has led to filtering the sports journalism materials, news, analysis shows, has not to ever sped and insult on team organization and loose the rights of broadcast. It is with this medium, that sports became a “media product” and media and professional sports team outlets grew. Alongside this, the link between them grew to a point where sports coverage rights are sold for millions.
Up to this point, sports journalism news coverage focused on the reporting of the results and the game and not other angles possible angles of the story. This reporting cycle can become routine for a sports journalists and won’t focus on other side angles seeing as they are covering the public agenda. Television reporting of sports has changed that. Breaking this chain of reporting, the public agenda slowly changed and story about the economics and politics of how team organizations are run became popular. Managers and players started to become stars and attracted the attention of the ever-watchful eye of the media. This process changed the boundaries between “traditional notions of sports journalism and journalism about sports-related activity.
Furthermore more, this process let to the tabloidization of sports journalism and thus the has been an increase in demand of sports-related news stories and articles. Franklin sees this as “dumping down” the journalistic process and argues now that “the task of journalism has become merely to deliver and serve up whatever the customer wants.” . The result is a drop in style and accuracy to accommodate the demand. The process of tabloidization in sports journalism has led to an academic perception that sports, alongside scandals and other entertainment form are “different press fields” and are opposed to politics or economical reporting.
When considering how reporting is done for the audio-visual medium, it is safe to say that, out of all the media, television is the most demanding. The process is much slower than the rest in terms of gathering the necessary elements to make up the news story and the deadlines are more or less the same with those in radio. The pressure is there and a wrong camera angle, regardless of the high suggestive elements that make it up, is no good.
Taking away the possible mistakes that happen when filming new story, the process that involved the camera crew to arrive to the scene and set-up the equipment must be taken into considering when scheduling the interview with player or management. The locations need to make sense to the audience. The editing process also needs to be taken into account when filming the news segment or the interview. Several types of shots are required as not took bore the audience and keep the image fresh.
Talking from the general perspective of the process, the filming is only the first part. Scripting writing the news story and then the final edit of the material are still part of the production of televised news stories. Only after this process is complete, the audio-visual material is ready for broadcast.
But the television, as medium, is the most powerful when it comes to live coverage of a game. It has the most potential as it has the ability to offer pre-game interviews with guests from the sports world, pre-game and game coverage, and finally, post-game interviews and analysis. A good broadcast journalist has the ability to do all of these during the network’s live coverage. Having rehearsed his questions with the cameraman will help with the pre-game interviews; the pre-game coverage comes from the background information the journalists has prepared forehand.
The live commentary is the peak of the live coverage, where “small flaws can make you a national laughing-stock” . Commentators have the tendency to over react or over dramatize the play of the game and they are the ones that need to take extra caution when narrative the development of the game. Working with the network’s producer will improve the changes of the audience having the picture/sound depicts as possible. In this sense, producer will be tempted to talk to you through the ear piece and attention distribution is a must.
Sports broadcasters have slowly become famous for their styles or their coined phases. Even if they are play-by-play commentators or in-depth commentators, at a certain point in their career have quickly reacted to play making it more powerful and dramatic if they would have continued in their normal style/register. Nevertheless, “silence is the greatest weapon” a commentator may possess in order to convey the gravity of the situation.
Print, radio and television have each played there role in the evolution of sports journalism. The new medium that has managed to bring all of the other at one spot is the World Wide Web.
Internet
As a trademark of the digital era, the World Wide Web has become the medium that sports journalism has crossed over. Combining all the aspects of the print, radio and television, the World Wide Web is an infinity platform of possibilities, from amateur reporters to professional journalists of the craft, changing the way journalists operate and relate.
When talking about sports journalism, this new medium can be characterized by the speed of information. It is a constant race between news organizations to deliver the content to as many readers as possible in the quickest time. This speed of circulation has a direct effect on the relationship between the journalists and the players. Athletes have a disregard of the media, now more than ever. Not all of them share this disregard but in a world where a player’s quote can be uploaded to the internet in a matter of minutes, the link between journalists and professional players is put to the test.
The internet has brought audience closer to media organizations. Forum, e-mails, commentary boards are just a few the tools that audiences have if they want to give feedback to the media organizations. In this sense, the audience can speak up; say what should be changed, and what needs to be added to the structure of the media outlet.
If the media organizations believe that change is too costly or is not necessary, members of the audience will created their own websites or blogs to accommodate their need. These can become real clusters of debate between internet users. Some of them may do their own reporting when it comes to sports journalism. A blog is an easy and free way to express own opinions over the World Wide Web.
Media organizations have embraced the internet as a means to offer more content to their audience. Radio organizations, like the BBC, or print publications, The Guardian, have moved their news section, sports included, to the online. Some of the best websites, in terms of content, are does managed by existing media outlets already. Also, the internet provides additional articles written by other small online sports publications.
The biggest influence that the internet has had over the field of journalism is the elimination of fixed deadlines. As it is a race of information, the articles do not need to meets specific hour deadline to make the publishing possible. Website may publish articles at any time of the day, from almost all electronic devices. This can be used as a tool for media organizations to attract readers to their offline publications or outlets. Releasing barely any information on their website, with the promise of a detailed account in the offline, is a way to attract viewership.
Sports reporting on the internet can include all of the media that have been discussed in the previous chapters. The internet can be used as a publishing platform and as a research tool at the same time. When news stories are considered, the internet can offered breaking news stories moments after the events took place. These news stories are no more than one paragraph, but get bigger as the story develops.
When it comes down to sports press conferences, websites can offer free live coverage. Also, an editor for the website may write articles in real time. Using the play-by-play, of Live Text system, websites can offer coverage of a game. Even if this coverage is not live, it is very close so it. But all this time of reporting but obey the laws of the internet. The style in which these stories are written are similar to radio standards: short and precise as the attention span of an internet user is that high. Long blocks of text will discourage the user to start reading and long video or audio material will suffer the same fate.
Conclusions
Sports journalism started out as an area of journalism that was not regarded as been one of the best of the subtypes of journalism. In the dawn of sports journalism, reporting revolved around a fixed pattern, a cycle that was Boyle referred to it as routine. But with the evolution of each medium, sports journalism grew in popularity, always adding a new element to the mix.
The print industry started sports journalism on its patch to where it is today, at the top along with political and economic reporting. The guidelines and the types of reporting (e.g. post-game analysis) were outlined and promoted in the print industry. Its main role today is to offer in-depth analysis on the game.
The development and the popularization of the radio began the era of broadcasting for sports journalism. Print publications held the same role but radio brought the element of live coverage to the sports journalism. In this sense, sports had a voice to tell its story, to paint a picture of the events that were developing on the field. Radio broadcasting also brought a new, and a faster, way of reporting the sports news stories, developing its own set of rules and guidelines in the process.
The audio-visual medium has taken sports journalism to new level. The medium expanded on the idea of live coverage, offering both picture and sounds to the game it covered. Live broadcasting started to became popular and sports audiences started to grow and form separate audiences, focus on a particular sports. Television broadcasting brought other sports to the audience, some that were not covered to that extend before its arrival.
If reporting terms, television broadcasting has expanded the field of sports journalism to sports club politics and economics. Sports-related news started to appear and individual players started to stand out from the team; drawing the attention of the media. This would also expand the idea of reporting as news stories were not strictly related to the game itself. The new transfer rumors or soft news concerning a player’s favorite pass time activities have become subject of news stories.
But ever after this constant evolution, sports journalism is not at the end of the road. The internet has changed the way we communicate with one another. The one thing that internet has taught journalism professionals is that all of the previous media are a part of it. A newspaper article can feature a recorded audio interview while using archive footage of a game to put the media text into a bigger context.
The internet also brought the possibility of individual reporting of sports journalism. Fans and enthusiasts reporting on their favorite team’s progress is a mark of the power that is the internet as a communication medium. This style of reporting has proven to challenge the traditional form of journalism and to become the alternative.
Today, sports journalism is high regarded in terms of traditional journalism but where sports journalism was five decades ago, video game journalism is at the present times. Both have started as “Toy Departments” and both have evolved in the process. The only difference is that sports journalism already made it.
New Media Theory
Defining New Media
Internet, as medium, has had its impact on every type of journalism, both as a communication and a research tool. It offers the possibility of instant communication and instant delivery, a distribution process that is crucial in the type of media. But the internet and the World Wide Web are just parts of the new-age of digitalization and technology. Even if it is a trademark of New Media, there is more to it.
A breakdown of the term “new media” will help in the general understanding of what we can today call “new media” and, as a consequence, will emphasis the effects it had on society, culture and communication. The term “media” has been used to reference to collective nature of the business, e.g. “the media” but it also indicates the cultural and material products of those institutions”. The “new” element in media suggests the quality of the products that derive from this media; on the ideological notion of “new is better”. This concept is derived from the idea of a strong ideological movement about progress in the Western world. . New Media can also be defined as “emerging media” or as “computer-mediated communication”. But regardless of the terminology, “new media is everywhere”.
The terms was first used by communication scholar Marshall McLuhan but the terms popularity emerged only in the 1990s when it became synonymous with the new computer technology that was developing. The use of terms helps defined the “new” from the “old”. The latter may be applied to other media technologies such as television or radio. The point that needs to be made here is that, at certain point in history, thee two, television and radio, where considered new media. Today, we associate new media with the internet and the rapid travel of information but this just a late 1990s perception of what “new media” is.
The concept of new media may find to the replacement of an “old” technology with a new but this not necessarily the case. Take, for example, the impact that the digital Web has had on the print industry, as a journalistic means of distribution. Academia had suggested that print will lose in front of this new medium and that it may vanish completely. But print, as a medium, has not disappeared. Even if it suffered a loss in profits it still survives in the process of media distribution. This replacement of the “old media” is probably a key feature of how we perceive new media and its effects. Speaking from a business standpoint, it forced companies to “go digital” if they want to stay in the race for profits.
New media has brought on change the fragmentation of audience and a shift from audience to users in a media economic background were markets are targeting specific audiences and niche markets are on the uprising. Furthermore, it contributed to the development of related business initiative and it presented a new way interaction between “new technological possibilities and established media forms”.. In the same chapter, Lister highlights the chance in society and culture that are related to new media. He defines them as such:
A shift from modernity to postmodernity: when referring to the economic and structural changes in society in the 1960s.
Intensifying processes of globalization: as a means of blurring national borders and emphasizing corporate policies and organizations.
A replacement, in the West, of an industrial age of manufacturing by a ‘post-industrial’ information age. This suggests a transition of workplace and different forms or revenue are explored.
A decentering of established and centralized geopolitical orders, implying the loss of power in Western colonial regions.
When further looking on the term, “new media” can be seen as a sum of parts, each with its own impact on a certain aspect of society, culture or professional branch. New forms of entertainment are available through new media, products that now today are a part of our everyday lives. Video games and special effects in movies are some of these new formats. New ways of seeing and shaping the world, through media, has been made possible.
The rise in attention of virtual communities and ability to shape the perception process of society is forming new relationship between users around the world. All of this is done within a temporal space that is not clearly defined in the online cyber world. Time zones around the earth may affect users in the offline environment but in the online time and space can be easily manipulated and changed.
Social Structures
Social structures are being influenced, and changed, by the growing use of computers around the world. Offline social structures are influenced by the interaction with the online world and the effects of this interaction be seen both online and offline. Social infrastructures are made up of dimension. Space and time dimensions are the first to be taken into consideration when talking about social structures. These two, along with a third dimension –depth, appear to slowly loose emphasis in network societies; as they are being changed. Networks societies can create and add new societies to the ones that already exist, but the particularity here is that these new societies do need to be link to modern society. The traditional societies are re-linking to new network social structures and this helps to fill the void brought on by the traditional communities.
Giddens talks about time-space distantiation as way for societies to expand throughout history. The two dimensions keep expanding as societies expand . The traditional society needed direct interaction with other people in order to expand. But, with the technology process that we have today, time-space distantiation may be reaching the end of its expansion process. Time barriers are being broken seeing as how new technologies may store a lot of information in little space and then pass in on to the next generations. The only elements that are lost are those that have been decided so.
Space as a dimension is can be characterized in more way then one. The first may be upgrading as a way to see the individual environment. Even if the individual sees the environment around him as being decisive for his personal perception, when put into a global perspective, the “people acknowledge the shrinking relevance” of their personal environment. The second characteristic of space, both as a dimension and as an environment, is objectivity. The social environment made by humans is adopted by the natural environment. As a result, social and economic crises will be considered a part of the natural environment process.
Fragmentation becomes another dimension in the sense that the traditional communities are influenced by network societies and gradually start to be replaced with social networks. Due to the interacting between these networks and the exchange of information, a generalization and standardization of the social environment at a global level has begun to take shape. In this aspect, “human activities seem to become more uniform after the scale extension of social communications; the same activities are happening in ever more places. . Western culture has been able to influence other part of social structures around the world and a certain level of standardization has set in. Western economics and ways of life have drastically influence traditional communities, changing them. But the same can be said for other powerful culture, mostly Asian, which has influence Western society structure. This reciprocal influence is a sign of this blurring the boundaries between communities or a sign of McLuhan’s “global village”.
Telework
Teleworking implies the use of a computer from a remote source or from another location that the general environment of business, an office. At the beginning of the 21th century and the digital age, most teleworkers were employed in Western civilizations, and even there, number didn’t make up that much of the workforce. Most teleworkers are professionals that do not necessarily need to be in a working environment for their projects to take shape. Consider a programmer working on latest software. Even if he is compiling and working on small portions of the software, and not the whole program, he’s work involved a solitary nature. The same can be pointed out for system designers and consultants. They can both manage to work in a professional environment or a more personal setting.
Looking at the advantages of a teleworkers some of them are pretty straight forwarded. Considering that a teleworkers prefers to work from home, he can contribute to his personal environment. Helping out with the household or looking after the kids are two example of this. Also, a teleworkers has the ability to plan his day how he desires as long as the deadline is met. In this sense, no interruptions can occur and the teleworker can finish without any disturbance. Furthermore, the fact that he is not commuting from one place to the other save time and that can be invested into the teleworker’s project.
As far as disadvantages go, teleworkers face a couple a couple of problems while working in other surroundings that the office. A first problem may be carrier advancement, as teleworkers’ “functional tasks are poor.” And the opportunity of advancement in the workplace may be hard achieve. This can also be explained by the fact that they work at a flexible schedule. Other professionals working in the office environment will work overtime with no pay to make a statement.
The social nature of the teleworkers is not that developed seeing that he doesn’t make relationships with colleagues from the same profession or the same office. Dialogue with management is almost non-existent and sometimes flawed. The lack of support from management can be another disadvantage of the teleworker. No one is there to supervise the work done by the teleworker and suggestions rarely available. Furthermore, in case of hardware or software problems, the teleworker must solve the problem himself. Returning to the social nature of the teleworker, isolation one of the biggest risk in this line of work. It may reduce productivity leading to missed deadlines and termination from the workplace but it can also affect the personal lifestyle of the teleworker. Not being able to clearly distinguish between the workplace and home, the teleworker may experience unwanted tension in the household.
Telestudy
Telestudy takes a lot after the telework in the sense that it offers a range of educational possibilities that cannot be, or are costly to, implement in the school environment. The visual interaction that computer can bring to the learning process is a new element of how new media and new technologies have begun to take shape in both professional and personal background. The advantages of the telestudy are closely related to those of the teleworker, the elimination of the need to commute and the possibility of personalized schedule. When referring to telestudy from the teacher’s perspective, easy and quicker grading is added to the list of advantages and the opportunity of distant education become available to a wider range of the people.
But the negative effect of telestudy may outweigh the advantages it brings. The telestudents that use the faculty service may interact only with the faculty through their platform. This makes communicating with fellow class games harder and can limit interaction between them. The same limitation can be between students and academic staff. The quality of their interaction will be at a low point, at the quality of the program of study is based on the “trial and error” way of improvement. The last of direct supervision of the student is need as some of them cannot handle the independence that this type of study offers.
With to physical concept from the teacher, the risk of a student losing interest or being distracted is high. Again, the social nature of this is brought into question, as both telework and telestudy can lead to isolation from surroundings and be a trigger for other philological problems. Regardless of working or studying, the computer becomes the closest colleague of the one using it. These problems may be fueled by the blurring of the work-home environment, as the case of telework. There also is that need for mobility, the need to change to scenery and to life in the outside world as well.
Virtual vs. Organic Communities
An individual can be a part of both of these communities at the same time. There are no limitations to this, only a few differences worth noting. Virtual communities can be described as social structures that are not linked with time and space as dimensions. Furthermore, they are associations of people that are not tied by physical or material circumstances other than those that they and the media establish. Organic communities on the other hand are bound by time and space and surroundings. This is mostly because they depend on physical interaction with the members and together they form a “social body”. In order to keep the community united, face-to-face interaction is required at constant intervals. Every organic community has its own set of beliefs and rules, influenced by the rules and believes of the society they live in. Furthermore, they share a language, a social organization and a particular structure.
When talking about the limitations of composition, an organic community can be made up of a neighborhood, a workplace, and extended family. These compositions are stable and long lasting. The individual can choose to change a community for another but this mostly implies physically moving from one neighborhood to another, changing a workplace etc. when referring to virtual communities we cannot talk about a fixed structure. The people that are coming and going in the community changes and there is the risk of that virtual social structure to falling apart at any time. Virtual communities consist of people that have gathered for a specific interest. And once that interest has been fulfilled, the community can fall part. Virtual communities are temporal. Sooner or later they fall apart but they are always under a constant change. Take for example, a virtual community in a massive multiplayer online game such as World of Warcraft (2002). The virtual communities in the game, called guild, all share a common goal, to get the best equipment possible and gain fame in the game. But in order for the community to please the game, thus diminishing the profits of the company, the developers offer regular expansion pack to keep the game fresh and raise the bar.
Culture and identity in virtual communities is another aspect worth exploring. As stated, virtual communities are form around a general interest. Once the interest has been satisfied, the virtual social structure ceases to exist. In all other aspects of culture and communities identity, all of the members are different. If the community has a longer period of time, the change that certain members may influence the community as a whole and shape it. On the other hand, the members with the similar identities may leave the community in order to find another one more to their expectations and particularity. In this sense, an organic community has the change to better maintain its cultural value and identity in time.
Considering all of the above, virtual communities do not have the possibility of replacing traditional communities and they certainly cannot replace organic communities. On the other hand, the virtual social structures can be added to the traditional communities as to complete them. The element that makes possible is referred to as “communities online”, an organic community that has a virtual element on the Internet. . The distinction should be drawn between “communities online” and “online communities.” The latter, are a particularity of the Internet, existing only in that sense.
Social Media in Journalism
The rise and the popularization of the Internet and the World Wide Web have led to the creating of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Although, these are the most recent of them all, social media platforms have been around for quite some time. We can speculate on the sociological implications of these platforms and how they have effected interaction between online and offline communities. Moving on from these implications, social media platforms have had a significant impact in the way online journalism and both online and offline publications work.
Started a Harvard project, Facebook has been ranked as the number one social network by visits and has become one the biggest social networks available on the internet. . With the popularity of Facebook growing and the users’ interaction more and more through this social network, companies started to gain interest in the social sharing platform. In today’s terms, companies must have an online presence and signature if they wish to further advance their development. Creating a Facebook account and having someone constantly administrating is one of the easier, expanse free ways to do it. From a journalistic standpoint, Facebook can be used as a research tool and as a distribution method. The use of Facebook, in the journalistic process, can be considered to further emphasis the idea of new media, the information of speed.
In terms of using Facebook as a research tool, a journalist can look up companies and people of interest. Even if the information that is received by the journalists has been filters by the company or person in question, it is a good for further research. As company information, the journalism would find the general overview of the company, the physical address and the e-mail account for further contacts. Also, for a better understanding of the company, the journalist can browse between company posts to see what the topics of general interest were. Furthermore, comments addressed towards the company may provide a journalist with a potential source or a potential side eagle of the story that was not considered.
When reaching a person of interest, regardless if it is a public official or corporative member, the same tool apply. The address of the office, phone number and contact information are usually published on the Facebook page. Considering that a company does not usually deal with social issues, a person of interest might. In this sense, the person would be an active user of the social networking website to promote or dismiss ideas regarding society, politics or economic policies. Again, researching the person of interest’s Facebook page, may lead to side angles and potential sources. Facebook does offer the means to contact that person through email but an outside party email account would be more appropriate.
Facebook can also be used as a distribution platform of journalistic stories. Most publications and broadcasting network also have a presence in the online medium. Personal employees administer the Facebook pages of the media organization. Breaking news story, soft news articles and similar media text can be promote using Facebook. Most of the companies offer the title of the story and an outside like to their website. Some of the stories are only teasers for the offline edition but some most of the stories are full-length stories. In revenue terms, the free advertising that Facebook offers should determine a high number of unique visitors to the website of the media organizations. If this is the case, the organizations can sell advertising space on their website. Facebook also offers the possibility of paid advertising, which, in theory, should have a greater impact as it is a constant presence on the user’s Facebook profile.
Similar to Facebook, Twitter is also a social networking website that can he used as a news platform. There are key differences between how Facebook works and how Twitter performs, as social networks platforms. In Facebook, you have a personal profile that you use to surf to other profiles. Twitter works a little bit different; you have the profile but you use it to both “follow” other users and see their feeds or “you are followed” by other profiles. One does not exclude the other; both usages of the profile are available and recommended. A user may “tweet” or message other friends or they can have the messages public for everyone to see. These messages are usually short, using a maximum of 140 characters to convey the message.
As opposed to Facebook, Twitter only offers the distribution process as it lacks detailed information as a research tool. Media organizations can use Twitter to quickly message brief news nut graphs as story teasers. Also, a link to the website may be attached. Out of these, Facebook is seen to the most successful in attracting news organizations. An online news behavior report has shown that Facebook has become increasingly important due to the high number of users, estimated 500 million worldwide.
As it can be seen from the graph, Facebook has had a strong impact on new organizations such as CNN, NY Times and ABC News in terms of percentage of audience from Facebook. In the online, Yahoo News has had a significant increase in the numbers of unique audiences on their website. But even if Facebook has brought media organizations high figure numbers in terms of viewership, Twitter is still a favorite of media organizations when it comes to sharing the news stories. An annual report of State of News Media has shown Twitter to be the tool trough which journalists and media organizations spread the word.
The study also shows that the new stories found on Twitter are more unique and more diverse then on Facebook. Also, Facebook’s news is mostly recommended by family and friends and not by media organizations.
Considering this, none of the two social networking website has had a significant change in the way virtual audience consume media products. In this sense, Facebook and Twitter can have only started to become news platforms. Most of the news stories are still read on the media organization’s website and, if found interesting, shared on social media websites. Nevertheless, Facebook and Twitter can be considered a part of the journalist toolkit.
New Media in Everyday Life
After an overlook into the theory of new media and how academic studies have seen it, it is worth mentioning the impact that new media is seen, and used, in everyday life. The cultural aspect and impact of new media needs to be understood if one wants to truly understand new media and how the new technologies have shaped or private lives.
The popular cultural perception of new media has been shaped, mostly, by the introduction the audiences to video game culture. In this sense, video games have been a classic example of the evolution of computer, as a new technology. The constant improvement of video game graphic is a reminder of how far computer technologies have come. Culture and Media studies take up the concept of everyday life and looks at the impact new media has had on family relationships, routines and how people make sense of the world. From this perspective, the element of “new” is given by social and historical contexts and its appearance and development is a consequence of such. Williams applies broadcast television in this context arguing that the arrival of the television, as a medium, originated in the Industrial Revolution and that “mobile privatisation” is a series of developments that creates a bridge between privatization of screen media and the television takeover of cinema.
The intense popularization of the World Wide Web has created a strong social perception around cyberspace as place of “alienating, anti-social distraction from more authentic social and communicative activities”. In this regard, cyberspace has been seen projected a negative light on how new media is perceived. Replacing social interacting with cyberspace chat rooms and forums depicts a world of physical isolation in favor of a more digitalized environment. The future of cyberspace has been predicted by futurologists like Ray Kurzweil in the sense that cyberspace will evolve to a point where it will be made available through other means that the computer. The evolution of the computer chip will allow other household devices to become gateways to the cyberspace. They even go so far as to claim that “intelligent nanobots will be deeply integrated in the environment, our bodies and our brains, providing vastly extended longevity […]”
The use and perception of media technologies in the household must be analysis from the perspective of the everyday practices of that household. By this means, certain patterns emerge and differences can be easily stopped. Furthermore, there are four areas that need to be analyzed in MacKay’s view:
The significance of consumption of information and computer technologies ( ITC) for domestic lives and relationships
How ITCs are implicated in the establishment of individual and family identities
The relationship between household member’s public and private worlds
How technology ( as well as the household) is transformed in the process of domestication and incorporation
Using these keys in the analysis of technological impact in the household would emphasis the “shifting or negotiated meanings and implications of media technologies as they are adopted and consumed in the household. “ Bu the household environment is not static, there always is a constant flux and media technologies can have produce different results. Most of times a new technology is introduces into the household, there is a process of “redrawing of domestic boundaries and relationships”.
The Screen Play project, conducted from 1998 to 2000 tried to look at how households have been changed by having new technologies, namely a personal computer, as research tool used by children of the household. The project was based on the Graduate School of Education of Bristol University. One of the elements that were discovered by this project is that the members of the household have decided not to install the personal computer in main communal spaces, the living room, but rather in other areas of the house that are not used as much, spare bedrooms or attics. The study showed that the place where personal computers were installed influenced the use of the new technology and it “becomes a symbolic focus around which gender relations are negotiated and expressed in domestic space.” . In this regard, authority was perceived as the person that was using the new technology or as the person who dictated when the children can use it, namely the parents. The personal computer became a means to get authority and to impose authority to others. In this regard, the Screen Play study argued that changing the computer’s desktop and screen savers became a way of occupying “the digital landscape”.
The personal computer also introduces young users to the aspects of with Western society is build and what are the norms and rules govern it. This introduction can be easily seen in video games as they could copy the real world and digitize it to present a “capitalist technoculture” and depict the “an ideal image of the market system.”
It is clear that new media has shaped personal interaction between members of the same household and same can be said on a mezzo or macro level. Not did family interaction started to appear around new technologies, but this interaction was taken into the real world, beyond the limits of the household environment. The new media influenced relationships and communities but also influence the way people’s consumption of information. New technologies have become “a part of how new generation is growing up.” .
Conclusions
The introduction and the evolution of new media in the society has strongly shaped the way interaction is possible and who it applies to traditional communities. It has also contributed to the interaction between online and offline communities, given identities to organic communities and defining and underlying virtual communities.
In the professional sense, new media together with new technologies helped in the construction of the image of the teleworker and how he plays a role in the new digitized world. His contribution is has important economic and social consequences in the effects that new media have on the individual. Telestudy emerged as an alternative to the traditional field of academic, widening the academic possibilities in the “global village.”
From a journalistic standpoint, social media became a part of the reporter’s toolkit, in both distribution and research. Social media can be seen as a platform for media text to reach a larger audience. Furthermore, the media text can be filtered by the individual users resulting in a media product elite that is recommend by friends throughout the network. Social media can also be used by media organization to promote their products and attract audiences and users to their content. Studies have shown that social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have had success in this sense, regardless of how little. This can be interpreted as the beginning of a new distribution system that has the potential to a part of the journalistic means of communication.
Sociological impacts of the new technologies have forever change the way authority is distributed in the household and the way interaction is made possible through the personal computer. The new technologies continue to change young generations, making them digitally literate. Furthermore, it continues to re-shape the older generations and introduce them to the digital works. Where this is done by the personal computer, the internet or my other means, the offline environment is slowly drifting into the online and the result is a new era of communication, perceptions and entertainment. The entertainment value is given by the arising video game culture and the way users consume these video games and interact with them for a cultural to a society standpoint. Video game culture has transformed the face digital entertainment moving on from the rational forms and value of entertainment.
Video Game Culture
Introduction
With the rapid growth of modern day technology, the way we perceive work, leisure, information and interaction will forever be subject of change. These changes are still in effect and they will continue to reshape themselves as technology evolves in the year and decades to come. And the beacon for this ever changing age is the computer.
From a professional standpoint, the computer reduces the volume of physical documents that need to be kept in archive. A USB hard drive can now store the same about of documents, if not even more, as a traditional file cabinet archive room.
Furthermore, the computer is a must-have in an office building. Endless spreadsheets and business presentations are created every day. Most of them will end up on a conference room projector, to help the board visualize their next 5 year company strategy or help the company close deals or mergers and ultimately help the company to expand economically.
From a leisure point of view, the computer, alongside with the Word Wide Web, offer a great variety of pass time activities, both online and offline. In the online viewpoint, a user can watch a movie, a video stream, read a book or play a video game while listening to their favorite radio show, via the internet.
For someone that prefers the offline setting, the computer can be a great source of outdoor activities. From daytime nature trips to the never ending nigh life, a computer can give you detailed information in a matter of seconds. The options are more than enough to suit every need and taste.
But probably the biggest change that the computer era has brought to modern society and culture is the vast quantity of information, all of it neatly sorted and organized throughout the World Wide Web.
Academic literature on any given subject is hosted on the internet, available to every user that seeks it out. News articles, blogs and online television all come together to help the everyday user to stay in touch with news from around the world at any time of the day.
Considering all these viewpoints, the way we perceive interaction has also been changed in the last decade. Anytime, the user goes online, he will be able to interact, at a macro level, with other people from around the world but will be isolated from those around him the room, if any. Considering this, at a micro level, the user is in isolation but is also making himself available for interaction on a much larger scale.
In general knowledge, computers are also associated with video games.
A short history of video games
Started as a simple experiment and ended up as a worldwide industry, video games are present in our everyday lives, from mobile phone mini-games to HD graphic behemoths. As video games evolved, from a simple stick figure like design to a realistic representation of environment, society and culture evolved with them.
And this evolution started behind the closed doors of the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT) with the development of the computer game Spacewar! In 1962. From there, the game industry started to grow and in 1971 the first coin-operated video game, Space, made its way to the public.
Up until 1974, video games featured mainly blocks and solid figures. It was Midway’s TV Basketball that introduced the first arcade game with human stick figures as game avatars.
By the middle of the ’70 the gaming industry suffered its first crash and many companies left the business. Nintendo released the first home video game in Japan.
The beginning of the ’80 brought America the classic arcade game Pac Man and Atari’s Battlezone making Atari the first company to release a game that features 3-D environment.
Sega takes game publishing to the next level as they advertise their Zaxxon, using other media, namely the television. This marks the starting point for a newly formed collaboration with other media.
In 1994, Ernest Adams forms the Computer Game Developers Association and Blizzard releases the real-time strategy game Warcraft, bringing the video game industry to a new level. Three years later, the first MMORPG, called Ultima Online, is launched in America by Origin Games.
The start of the new millennium brings the Sony PlayStation 2 to the public and the Nintendo Game Cube. Also, the social game The Sims (2002) becomes the best-selling home computer game of all time.
From this point on, the video game industry is starting to grow at an increasing rate. In 2007, the MMORPG World of Warcraft registers 9 million users and in 2010 Star Wars: The Old Republic is released.
Video Games in movies and comic books
Online video games have been some of the most successful genre in video game history. Most of them have changed the way interaction is perceived in the digital age and have allowed players to form bonds over the computer, without as much as leaving the room. But critique has also been part of the online video game evolution.
Video games like World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, and The Lord of the Rings Online have recorded skyrocketing profits and millions of users explore the digital world they have to offer.
Users have the opportunity to interact with each other in a fantasy setting where the rules of right and wrong are clearly defined. It is in this digital world, that the users take up game avatars and explore the surroundings under an alias and under a faction banner.
These factions represent a set of beliefs and ideas that the player is already accustom to from popular culture. Having said this, take the example of Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft(2004) factions.
The player can choose between the Alliance faction and the Horde faction. Previous in game lore and character descriptions, paint the Alliance as the good guys and the Horde as the ruthless opposition.
Regardless of faction, players tend to form communities inside their faction and even on a deeper level, in the form of a guild. It is in this guild form that the players form bonds and even friendships with people half way around the world, people that they haven’t met before and probably never will. In this regard, online video games are means of socialization and digital interaction.
The critique that has been brought to online video games, especially to video games such as World of Warcraft(2004), is related to addiction and the means in which players interact with each other. As stated earlier, interacting through a computer can be considered isolation at a micro level and interaction at a macro level.
Also, player age has been taken into consideration. Even if player averages are 21-23 years old , teenagers also represent a part in the total video game’s population. In this sense, the critique is addressing the video game companies about wheatear or not they are taking action towards preventing teenagers to play these types of games.
Addiction is considered by video game critiques the root of evil when it comes to online video games and video games as a whole. The way in which the game is constructed, to keep the player in, resembles a casino that wants to keep its public at the tables and thought be to induce addiction to the human mind.
Even if there have been extreme cases in which video games were to blame for a death of an individual, the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not consider video game addiction a valid mental disorder.
But regardless of the critique, one thing is for certain. Video game companies have grown and have become one of the biggest entertainment industries of the world, surpassing even Hollywood in revenue terms.
The explosion in revenues can be associated with the high demand to play video games by the general public but also by aggressive marketing from companies and the decision to expand video games to other media such as print or movies.
Comic book culture is strongly related to entertainment and video games companies considered expanding into this medium for profits but also to expand the universe of their gamers, the personalities of the characters and the narrative.
The companies will opt for an alternative storyline, rather than continue where the video game narrative left of. Thus, they can help the public better visualize the world where the action is taking place and they can continue the main story in a sequel of the video game.
But not all video games companies can afford to invest into print and some of those that do, may not have to success they were initially hoping for. BBC’s radio presenter, Jonathan Ross, believes that his is a problem with the generation perception and that “[most people’s] image of comic books is men in tights swinging or flying through the air. And that’s fine, that’s part of the appeal, but there’ll always be that stigma.”
There are some video games that made the transition from video screen to print easier than their counterparts. Konami’s Metal Gear Solid (1998), commonly abbreviated as MGS, had a successful transition mostly because of its narrative. The conventional adaptation of the game’s story was carefully structured and restructured to fit comic books. Tom Gouter considers the Metal Gear Solid comic book “the Metal Gear Solid game with a much lower difficulty curve.”
The already constructed in-game universe was a key factor for the Dead Space franchise (2008). In this case, Microsoft insisted that the video game’s writer, Antony Johnston, write the comic book.
Even before the video game was released in 2008, Antony Johnston was already a successful comic book writer, having successfully published Queen and Country (2001), Alan Moore’s The Courtyard (2003) and Wasteland (2006). Tom Gouther believes that the Dead Space comic book worked because “Dead Space is a story that’ll get as big as its author is allowed to grow it.”
Other video games companies wanted to expand on the character and not on the narrative. Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) is one of the reasons why people remember 8-bit video games. Sega’s considered that its award winning game was not complete because the video games did not evoke Sonic’s attitude well enough. So, they decide to move Sonic from digital to print.
Sega hired Archie Comics to bring Sonic to the comic book market. Sega’s decision in hiring Archie Comics was well founded, seeing that the comic book publisher is best known for preserving comic book views on teenagers.
Tom Gouther explains that the success of Sonic the Hedgehog comics was due to the fact that “gamers are quick to decry the soap-opera-for-furries tone of Sonic’s ongoing adventures” and that video game nostalgia is one of the most powerful selling factors.
Comics books and only bring a small portion of revenues whereas movies are a great source of income for the video game publishers and the movie studios. With the ever expanding video game industry, Hollywood saw the potential of video games to become big blockbusters.
This belief was shared by Paramount Pictures when they approached Eidos Interactive to purchase the rights for Tomb Raider (1996). The movie has Angelina Jolies playing the lead role of Lara Croft while The Expendables’ 2 (2012) director Simon West is brought to coordinate the movie.
Box office records show that “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001) has the best lifetime gross for all movies related to video game adaptations, even if it only grossed $274 million. Even tough, the movie is the highest grossed, the critics were not pleased with the movie itself. The Chicago Reader’s critic, Jonathan Rosembaum, found the movie to be “unafraid to look absurd but lacks the self-conviction needed to come off a camp.”
Stephen Hunter, of the Washington Post, shared the opinion of Jonathan Rosembaum when calling the movie “a loud, banal, empty, frenzied, plasticized, flavorless, drab, violent in a bloodless way and sexy in a sexless way.” A similar movie had the same potential as Tomb Raider; to become a great adaptation but somehow it fell short.
Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2003) was adapted for cinema in 2010 with Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince. The total budget for the movies was $200 million but, according to box office ratings, it only grossed $90 million coming in second place, after Tomb Raider, on the “Best Video Game Adaptations” chart.
From the critics point of view, the movie was better than Tomb Raider, register a higher average score 5 out of 10 than Paramount’s 3.9 out of 10. (12) Monohla Dargis, of the New York Times, saw the talent of Prince of Persia as beng “generally top notch – from the cinematographer John Seale to the parkour expert David Dellet” but at some point the elements didn’t seem to work together and the “results were a mush.”
Ubisoft Entertaiment has announced that it will continue to bring the video games to the cinema’s with their award winning franchise Assassin’s Creed. Also, Ubisoft wants to bring two of Tom Clancy’s game so life, namely Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell.
But what stands out in this particular case is that Ubisoft wants to have the reins of the production even if Sony managed to grab acquire the rights to the movie. Jean-Julien Baronnet, chief executive officer of Ubisoft Motion Pictures announced the partnership with New Regency and with Michael Fassbender, known for his role as Magneto in X-men: First Class (2011), to rewrite the story and to allow “Ubisoft to maintain control of key elements of the movie’s creative direction”.
One thing that video games and Hollywood have in common is the depiction of violence. Regardless if it’s mild or intense violence, it is still present in media products and entertainment products.
Regulatory Systems
To try and keep the depiction of violence in check, self-regulatory organizations have been formed. For Canada and the United States the Entertainment Software Rating Board, abbreviated as ESRB, is the self-regulatory body that distributes ratings to publishers.
This organization came to be after 1993, when US Senator Joseph Lieberman arranged a hearing on the topic of video games. He claimed that video games were promoting violence to kids. “The hearings particularly focused and Mortal Kombat and […] Night Trap chiefly because these two games featured footage of actors and actresses.”
Ever since, the ESRB has been distributing rating to help and control the distribution of violence in video game products. This topic has always been in the eye of the public, even more the past year after the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in West Virginia.
US senator Rockefeller proposed a bill that could lead to a study on the impact of violence in video games and other media. The US Senator would ask the National Agency of Sciences to “conduct a comprehensive study and investigation of the connection between violent video games and violent video programming and harmful effects on children.
Jay Rockefeller’s statement was only the beginning of a series of public hits against the video game companies. California State Senator Leland Yee believes that “gamers have to quiet down” and that “gamers have no credibility in this argument.” The State Senator later cleared up the air stating that he was addressing the video game companies and not the gamer as an individual. Leland Yee also proposed a law to regulate violent video game sales to minor but the bill was overturned by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court believes that the content of the video games, regardless of their violent nature, are under protection of the First Amendment which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The European video game content rating system is the Pan European Game Information, commonly referred to as PEGI. Much like the American body, PEGI is a self-regulatory system that replaced many national systems when it came into use in April 2003. The study made by Nielsen Games demonstrates that the PEGI system is accepted by 93% of the gamers questioned but only 32% recognized the name of the self-regulatory body. An increase number in rating awareness has been measure in countries like France, Italy and Norway.
In comparison to the United States, Europe does not have such media prolific scandal when it comes to violence in video games. Furthermore, the European Commission has officially expressed its support when it comes to the future development of the PEGI system and recommends member states to “integrate PEGI into their own classification systems and raise awareness of PEGI, particularly to parents and children.”
The European Commission considers the PEGI system a building block for the converge approaches in the Single Market at points out that four countries, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Romania, do not possess a regulatory system in place.
Online video games – The good, the bad, and the addicted
Introduction
Online video games are the digital playgrounds for users that come to interact with each other and share in the same experiences. Online video games can be seen as an extension of the classic video games in the sense that they bring a new element to the game but still keep the game structure intact.
The new element is the possibility of playing with other people, sharing the same story and the same emotions with other players. Online video games can be considered „a technology rather than a genre, a mechanism for connecting players together rather than a particular pattern of gameplay.”
When talking about online video games, one must not exclude the fact that video games have had this feature even before the internet. In the early days before the World Wide Web, two computers could be connected together with an Ethernet cable to establish a network.
The popular game Doom (1993) was an avid promoter of the gameplay style „deathmatch” in which players would find themselves in an arena are battle until one player would reach the number of point ( kills) in order to win that specific arena. In order to achieve this time of gameplay, gamers would have to move from the Local Area Connection (LAN) protocol to the internet using internet protocol suite, TCP/IP.
With this protocol, players now had the possibility to play other game genre across the internet as well. Real time strategy games like Starcraft: Brood War (1998) introduces a matchmaking service that allowed the users to queue up for a game. The service would then find seek out other similar players on the network and it would establish a connection.
This matchmaking system would later be perfected by introducing the Elo system, the ranking system found in chess. This improvement of the matchmaking system will establish rankings for amateur and professional players alike.
The most significant rise in online video games was with the release Ultimate Online. Even if the game was not the first of its genre, Massive Multiplayer Online, it was heavy popularized the sub-genre Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, commonly referred to as MMORPG.
In 2004, Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft, a video game to mark the company’s 10 year franchise, Warcraft. The newly released game, would go on to become one of the most popular MMORPG game in history, registering in 2007 a total of 9 million users worldwide.
But with such large number of players interacting in a digital crafted world, problems are inevitable. A lot has been said about MMORPGs, both good and bad. In the end, both opinions must be taken into consideration if one wants to understand the mechanics of such huge video games.
The good
Even if the games offer different settings and characters, the general idea is the same. Develop an “animated fairy tale” where players may come together for the digital greater good.
Celia Pearce offers, as an introduction, the definition of “community” as seen by the German sociologist, Ferdinand Tonnies:”Communities take varying forms, from religious sects to neighborhoods, and are characterized by affiliations around a group identity that includes shared customs, folkways, and social mores. Typically, the will of individuals within a community is, to certain extent subjected to the greater good”.
This definition of “community” may very well be applied to the online medium. The members that come to form a guild share a common goal and through the guild they find it easier to achieve this goal. The only difference is that, the goal for all the guilds is mostly the same: beat the game. In terms of an online game, there is no clear victory as it would be in a normal game. The game goes on, and players may revisit and re-battle the strongest monster.
Seeing as the goal is the same for all guilds participating in an online game, certain rivalries emerge between guild members, similar to real life affiliations to a particular group (sports team, political party etc.). These rivalries are mainly settled in battle arenas where a guild member goes head-to-head against a guild member of the opposing factions.
The guild is a hierarchic system where at the very top we find the guild master (GM), the one scheduling guild events, raid events, much like a social/professional leader in the real life. He is helped by officers that may make decisions in the GM’s absence. Raid parties or events are social gathering where one or more guild may participate in order to achieve the common goal. As in real life, all rivalries are set aside in a raid event.
The bad
Online games are similar to casinos. They tend to keep you hooked as much as possible as exemplified by Scott Rettberg in “Corporate Ideology in World of Warcraft”, referring to the Blizzard universe as “World of Warcrack”. In almost every case, online game do not require large sums of money to be played considering that you only need to pay the monthly subscription.
But you pay with your time. Dedicating several hours per day to an online game is a serious investment of time and effort. Most online games apply a Western economy basis by introducing the auction house system, where a player may trade in game items for in game currency or in particular cases, real life currency. Scott Rettberg considers that World of Warcraft “is training a generation of good corporation citizens […] to climb to corporate ladder, to lead projects, to achieve sales goals” .
Most of the non-gaming society sees online video games, and video games in general, as “unproductive” but economist Edward Castronova, quoted by Celia Pearce, counters the argument by saying that “traditional econometrics to determine the gross national product of video games.”. Meaning that economy in an online video game give players a link with the real world and that they are actively participating in the expansion of the world much as like they do in the real one.
Another major social issue regarding video games is concerning our physical and mental health. Even if the back pain and neck stiffness are common side effect for every computer game, these effects may prove more dangerous to online game players considering that usually an MMO event may even take up to eight hours. According to Johnny Lim, gamer and writer for mmosite.com “usually spasms and strains develop because of deregulated flow of blood in veins and muscles without moments or out of positions.”. Also for the emotional health, one can suffer “serious issues such as nervous breakdown and heart ailment.”
But these are isolated cases that can easily be avoided by leading an active life. Just your average day’s walk in the park helps your body lose the back pain and neck stiffness. For the emotion part, the best course of action would be detaching yourself, party or totally if possible, from the video game at hand.
Sadly, these isolated cases may surface and may produce serious health problems and in some cases even death. Video games are not the sole cause of death in many cases but their influence may push the limits in most cases. Most of these cases are associated with video game addiction and society sees this as a main reason to avoid playing video games at all.
The addicted
Most, if not all, video games have the tendency of becoming addicted. For single player games this is rarely the case seeing as you can pause/save the game and continue at another given time. But for online games this because as a serious problem seeing as the pause feature is restricted in many situation, forcing the player to finish the task at hand, regardless of how long it may take him.
John Dewey, quoted by Bonnie A. Nardi believes that in video games a certain “aesthetic activity requires balance and proportion”. In extreme condition these properties are set aside for “extreme rage, fear jealousy” that may drive the player towards the intentions of the game.
The sociologist, Stanley Cohen describes video game addiction as more of a “moral pain” then a metal disorder. He goes on to say that “societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person of group of persons, emerges to become defined as a threat to social values and interest […]”
In the game of the online life simulator “Second Life” (2003) addiction leads to real life emotion problems as the case of a thirteen-year-old girl that was “tagged”,in game, by a virtual mafia group. The tag meant that her avatar was soon to be executed by the group. To prevent this from occurring, the little girl paid 100.000 simoleans (currency in “Second Life”). But in order to pay off the mafia group the little girl had to sell her pet cheetah, which see was very fond of.
A “Second Life” style video game, called “Prius Online” (2008) showed how far video game addiction could go. The British newspaper “The Guardian” reported that a Korean couple, husband and wife, had a serious addiction to “Prius Online”, spending around 12 hours a day at the internet café. As a result, their three-month old daughter was left at home, without supervision, and this led to the death of the child due to starvation. The parents were charged with child abuse and neglect.
Another example may be the case of a 28-year-old man that dropped dead after playing 50 hour non-stop game marathon of Starcraft 2. The man was so consumed by the game that the only time he stopped playing was to go to the bathroom or to take short naps. The Taegu provincial police office, quoted by the BBC said that “[…] the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion”.
Conclusion
From the popularization of the Massive Multiplayer Online genre, especially MMORPGs, the way we view interaction and socialization has been forever changed. Some may consider it a pressing issue of the present day gamers, other may embraces it with open arms but the fact remains the same: online video games move away from their traditional role, to entertain, and become social beacons for gamers.
The formation of a community is the key element for every online video game, something that even the video game companies strive to achieve. In revenue terms, forming a community will bring the company strong and constant revenues and will encourage other players to join that video game’s community.
In social terms, a new player will want to be accepted by the community and will accept the laws of that community without out contesting them. In this sense, the community will grow, will evolve and even change the rules to suit the flow of new comers if that suits their purpose.
A Massive Multiplayer Online can be defined by its large community but also on the negative effects that this has on the gaming public. In this perspective, video game critics have argued that online video games act like casinos and video game companies try to find new ways to keep their public happy and to keep having them pay the monthly subscription.
Video game developers will come out with new content every year and regular monthly updates, in order to keep the game new and fresh. The constant update in content can also bring new players to the game, impressed by a certain feature of narrative or gameplay mechanic. They too will so be a part of the paid community, trading money and time for in-game levels and achievements.
The time spent in the game is relevant and can directly affect one person’s social perception in the offline, real world. The player will grow fond of their game avatar because he already spent many hours and months into shaping it. He will be inclined to continue developing the character until it is perfect by the community standards.
This continuous struggle to meet the perfect standards may be considered a form of addiction that in several accounts have led to the death of the player. When referring to a particular video game, people will always point out the extreme and isolated cases because those were the most media prolific of all that video game’s universe. This “addiction” can be held in check with moderate game hours and more offline interaction.
Considering all of this, online video games are here to stay. Their strong impact on society and culture cannot be denied and it is through these games that the professional video gamers have emerged. And it this professional scene had not evolved, video game journalism would have either.
Professional gaming scene
Introduction
The constant rise of the internet and the World Wide Web, along with the popularization of online video games let to a social phenomenon that has grown larger every year since its first appearance, back in 1995 when Microsoft held the first offline tournament for the launch of Doom II (1995). This offline tournament marks the beginning of the professional gaming scene and sets the format for the years to come.
It is no surprise that the first person shooter genre got became the first video game to be played at a higher, more official level. Doom was one of the highly popular video game during the 1990 only to be replaced, at the start of the new millennium, with Counter Strike (2000).
When talking about professional gaming and the year of 2000, one must refer to Valve Corporation’s Counter Strike as a key factor in the rise of the professional gaming scene. Using the Half Life engine, Counter Strike (2000) became one of the most popular games in the early years of the new millennium.
Up until the present, the old competitions have expanded and new have ones have emerged to fit new the growing demand. If in 2000, only 5 games where the stars of the World Cyber Games competition, in 2008, that number has gone up to 14 games.
This is only one example of the growth in video game tournament popularity. Another example is number of gamers that are participating in the qualifiers. For the year 2000, the World Cyber Games started with 174 participants from 17 countries around the world and ended up with 800 participants from 78 countries by 2008.
But before going into detailed information about the public reception of the professional gaming scene, we must first define what professional gamers represents to the video gaming public, what are the major tournaments that offer video game journalism its content and what are the major video games that stand out in these tournaments.
Definitions and Tournament overviews
In popular video game culture, the term “professional gamer”, or sometimes referred to as “pro gamer”, is one of the common names given to a those types of gamers that play video games for money. Other classifications of gamers include: the casual gamer, mid-core gamer and hardcore gamer.
Besides earning a salary for playing a certain video game, a professional player must also have a good understanding of the video game mechanics and of the video game itself. He’s skill set needs to be above average.
This skill set can be measured by the Elo system implemented in most tournaments games. Also, professional players consider themselves athletes when presenting their online profile on social media.
Some professional players enter tournaments as a team, for games such as League of Legends and Counter Strike, or they can enter individual, for games such as Starcraft 2. Regardless of player entrance policy, all video game tournaments are part of the professional gaming scene, named Electronic Sports, commonly abbreviated and referred to as eSports.
Some of the big eSports tournament events are Intel Extreme Masters, Dreamhack, Global Starcraft II League, World Cyber Games and Major League Gaming. Each tournament has its own separate set of rules, their own separate prize pulls and their own separate sponsorships. Not qualifying for a tournament or not finishing in the top 3 podium does not affect the professional player’s ranking for other tournaments.
Intel Extreme Masters
Intel Extreme Masters stands out from the rest of the big, international tournaments, namely because it is composed of several smaller tournaments, all of them leading up to one final tournament. These tournaments have different locations but they do not change from year to year. The Grand Finals have always been held in the same location, at the CeBIT computer expo, in Hanover, Germany.
The tournament has featured a numbers of video games throughout its existence. Video games such as Warcraft III (2002), World of Warcraft (2004) and Quake Live (2010) have seen their fair share of fans and competitions but have made room for other video games like League of Legends (2009) and Starcraft II (2010). The online video game that has not been changed is Counter Strike (2000), being a part of the Intel Extreme Masters’ circuit for 6 seasons.
The tournament has separate prize pools for every of their smaller tournaments, officially called Global Challenges. The Grand Finals first place prize was $150,000 dollars last year. The main sponsor for this tournament is the hardware company, Intel. The tournament is owned by Turtle Entertainment, a German company that specializes in eSports “via its gaming services platforms, designed to support multiplayer online video games.
Dreamhack
Dreamhack is one of the largest computer festivals in Europe, event that is host to live concerts, digital artwork competitions and video game tournaments. The festival is held twice a year at the Elma Exhibition and Convention Centre, in Jönköping, Sweden. It currently holds the world record, recognized by Guinness Book of Records, for the largest LAN party and computer festival. Dreamhack also holds the record for the world’s fastest internet connection and the most recorded traffic.
The festival’s eSports competitions started back in 2010 with Starcraft 2 (2010) as the single video game present. By the next year, Counter Strike (2000) and Quake Live (2010). From then on, the video game roster expanded every year to accommodate video games like League of Legends (2009), Dota 2, and Battlefield 3(2011).
Dreamhack’s total prize pool is, per year, is over one million Swedish krona, more the $156.000 dollars, spread among the top 4 players/teams of each video game. The tournament features a group stage style of ranking with playoffs to determine the winner. For the online qualifier, the double elimination bracket system is used. In November 2012, Dreamhack teamed up with Major League Gaming in order to include team from North America in their video game tournaments.
Global Starcraft II League
Directly orientated for the Asian professional gamers, the Global Starcraft II League is a mixture of open seasons, tournaments and championships all under the supervision and coverage of GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment.
As the name suggested, the real type strategy game, Starcraft II (2010) is the only video game that is part of the league, from its rise to fame back in 2010. In order to expand, the League has formed a partnership with Major League Gaming to promote the American professional players in Asia and vice versa.
The League is broken down into two smaller leagues, named Code S (major league) and Code A (minor league). The two teams operate individually with yearly qualifiers to move up from Code A to Code S. Each league has its own group stage and professional games play on weekly basis, with the games being stream via the internet, in both English and Korean.
In terms of the prize pools, the Global Starcraft II League has different set of prize pools for each type of events. So far, the largest prize pool is $143.000 for the Season 5 Global League, with the winner taking home more than $46.000.
World Cyber Games
The largest global electronics sport tournament in the world, the World Cyber Games are a trademark of the international professional gaming scene, having existed since October 2000. The World Cyber Gams, commonly referred to as WCG, has been compared with the Olympic Games, in regards of the opening ceremony and the players struggle to obtain of the 3 medals, gold, silver and bronze. In popular culture, the WCG is also referred to as eSports Olympics.
The WCG started with five video games as their official game roster and reached its peak back in 2008 when the WCG’s video games roster included 14 games, including console games and mobile games. In 2012, the WCG only had 10 games in its roster all of them for PC. The roster includes video games such as: Warcraft III (2003), Dota 2, FIFA 12 (2011), Defense of the Ancients, abbreviated as Dota and World of Tanks (2010).
The Word Cyber Games format has remain the same, group stages with playoffs to determine the winner. When it comes down to the prize pools, the WCG 2009 featured the biggest prize pools of the tournament, $500.000.Despite this, the 2008 World Cyber Games attracted to most professional players, reaching an impressive number of 800 players form 78 countries. The official sponsors for the World Cyber Games are Samsung and Microsoft.
Major League Gaming
Representing the American professional scene, Major League Gaming, officially abbreviate as MLG, has been in eSports since 2002. The New York based company is an avid promoter of console tournaments, seeing that most big tournaments prefer using a PC.
Major League Gaming has never had a stable game roster, changing it every year to meet the demands of gamers around the world. Some of the big names for the PC branch are League of Legends (2009) and Starcraft II (2010) while Halo 4 (2012) and Mortal Kombat (2011) have been chosen to represent the console games.
MLG offers both online and offline tournaments. In order for a team to qualify for the only-offline tournaments it must pass a series of qualifiers. In this regard, the video games have been changed around from 2006 up to the present. The game roster includes Tekken 5 (2005), Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (2008) and Gear of War 2 (2008).
When talking about the offline events, Major League Gaming is having teams buy team pass for the event. Each team must buy its team pass before the next Pro Circuit. Also, amateur teams are invited to participate in their own separate tournament. The winner get the possibly to advance to the professional circuit, among other perks.
Public Reception
The big tournaments manage to attract professional players with the big prize pools and media coverage, eventually making them online super starts. The player battle it out in from on hundred, if not thousands of people in the audience, and even tens of thousands on the live streams.
The public reception for each tournament differs, but all of them are in the big league when it comes down to final numbers. Take the example of the Dreamhack Summer 2012. The event in Sweden manages to attract more than 15.000 people from around the world at the actual convention.
When it came down to the number of viewers, Dreamhack and its sponsor had 31 live streams broadcasting and registering 807 hours for the event and reacted a top score of over 12 million views and over 4 million unique views for the eSports competitions. The video games that received the most unique views were League of Legends (2009), Starcraft II (2010) and Dota 2.
The average view time was of 45 minutes. at the end of the event, the Head of eSports, Tomas Hermansson announced he had never expected to break the 1.5 million unique view mark.
This high numbers of view is only relevant if we talk about Dreamhack Summer 2012. For Dreamhack Winter the same year the numbers are different, but still high. A total number of 6 million views were registered and over 1.5 million unique views were logged with the peak concurrent views surpassing 94.000.
Tournament video streams are not the only way in which the video gaming public can follow their favorite players. Certain websites offer streaming services, regardless if you are a professional player or an amateur. In this regard, the biggest streaming website is Twitch.tv, offering game enthusiasts the possibility of following profession streams.
For the Starcraft II (2010) most viewed streamer back in September 2012 was Stephano for team Evil Geniuses with more than 6.000 concurrent viewers with a top peak of over 12.000. The second most viewed player was IdrA with almost 4.000 concurrent views and third place had 3.000 concurrent views and a peak of almost 7.000 views. Both second and third place are also members of team Evil Geniuses.
When it comes down to the official tournament numbers, Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft II (2010) reached a total of 50 million views over the first half of the Global Starcraft II League of 2011, which included 3 GSL Seasons, a World Championship and a SuperTournament). More than 40 million of these viewers were foreign while the rest where registered on China’s NeoTV. The United State, Canada and Sweden are the top 3 countries with the most viewers.
But the video game that has made quite the impact on the professional gaming scene is Riot Games’ League of Legends (2009). For the Season 1 Championship back in 2011, the total numbers of live coverage viewers was more than 1.69 million with the Grand Finals drawing in more than 210.000 unique visitors.
The numbers only get bigger with the Season 2 Championship in October of 2012. Riot Games announced that 1.1 million concurrent online viewers were registered at its peak and at the end of the event; more than 8.2 million total unique viewers were registered.
According to Riot Games, 2.4 million of those were from China and Korea. On top of that, the Southern California event drew more than 8.000 people at the actual Championship. League of Legends has managed to break the previous viewer record held by Dota 2. Valve Corporation’s game had registered around 567.000 concurrent viewers 4.7 million overall unique views.
When it comes to individual professional stream, the American based Team Solo Mid is one of the most view team in the League of Legends circuit. Back in July of 2012, TSM TheOddone was leading the chart with an average of over 16.000 concurrent viewers with a peak of almost 30.000 and a total 196 hours of broadcasted content.
These individual player streams directly affect he team in terms of public perception and popularity but it also directly affects the streamer as an individual. In social terms, he becomes and opinion shaper and viewers tend to follow his advices in terms of the games they play. Also, players will tend to copy the mechanics used by these players, considering that there are the best.
From an economic perspective, the professional players are receiving revenues from advertisement. These individual broadcasters have opened up a new platform for advertisement companies and “sponsors are getting involved with […] individual broadcasters.”
Co-founder of GameStreams, Mark Carte, believes that the industry in heading the right direction and that there is room for improvement when it comes to the streaming business, “it will become more polished. […]Broadcasters will put money into better equipment and software to increase production value.”
The evolution of technology can also increase the popularity of these individual broadcasters. The evolution of Smart TVs now offers the possibility of watching streams “by connecting a computer device via HDMI or some other device. Consoles will also receive an app that allows the users the watch and broadcast stream on their own console devices.
Most popular eSports video games
Some video games, like Counter Strike (2000) have a strong heritage when it comes to eSports, others, like League of Legends, have changed the evolution of eSports, but one think stays the same. These are the games that players what see on the big screen.
But in order to understand why eSports has evolved too much and what did the video games bring to the scene an overview of the most popular eSports video games is in order. The first video game has increased the viewership of the eSports scene and is striving to push it even further.
League of Legends
Riot Games’ award winning game falls into the Massive Online Battle Arena, abbreviated as MOBA, genre. The game is formed of two teams or either 5 or 3 player depending on the game map.
Each team starts the game at opposite sides of the map in what is called the Spawning Poll, close to the Nexus. The object of the game is to destroy the enemy Nexus. To do this, a teams must split up into 3 lanes and work thought a series of Turrets that guard each lane’s entrance to the base. During this time, play accumulates gold and experience to level up their abilities and items.
Completing objectives or killing neutral monsters give an extra gold income to the team or the player. Before the game start each player has to choose a champion out of the 112 champions available. Each month, Riot Games releases a new champion to freshen up the champion pool. These champions fulfill different roles: tank, support, mage, damage dealer.
League of Legends uses a matchmaking system to find the games for the players that are in queue. This matchmaking system takes the average Elo rating of each individual and tries to set the up the match with other similar Elo players, or in that number proximity.
The game offers different mods to suit the needs of new and veteran player alike. Tutorial and Co-op vs. AI is a good way to learn to game’s basic mechanics while more experienced players can play a Normal or Ranked game.
The Ranked mod allows players to compete in different Tier ladders (Diamond, Gold, Silver, and Bronze) and in different Tier leagues (Diamond I, Gold V, and Silver VI). Only the Ranked Elo is calculated when advancing to the next Tier ladder. Normal mod does not show Elo raking and it is mostly used for fun or for experimenting different champions.
The maps in League of Legends are called Fields of Justice. At the moment, the game offers 4 maps. Three of maps can accommodate 2 team of 5 players and one map supports 2 teams of 3 players. Riot Games have also released game mods such as Dominion and All Random All Mid, referred to as ARAM.
Each players account referred to as a summoner, a personal dashboard where the player can change he’s in-game bonus with Mastery Points and Runes. More Mastery Points and Runes points are awarded as the player reaches level 30, which is the level cap.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft II is the most playing video game when it comes to the real time strategy genre. The game is a direct installment of the 1998 Starcraft: Brood War and it is only the first expansion of the series.
Unlike League of Legends, the game has an offline campaign and a separate narrative when it comes to the story. The plot follows Jim Raynor as he tries to rebuild his forces from the loss he suffered in Starcraft: Brood Wars.
Put in a general context, the Starcraft series offers the player the possibility of playing with 3 races: the Terrans, a faction of human who were exiled from Earth, the Zergs, the an alien species that wants to destroy every life for in the universe and the Protoss, a race of technologically advanced aliens that powers mental powers.
When talking about professional play for Starcraft: Wings of Liberty, each pro gamers choses a race to play with, the one that he things to play the very best. Unlike League of Legends, or Dota 2, the professional players don’t change their selection only in extreme rare cases. In these terms, a Starcraft 2 professional player will become known for his high skill set with only one race.
Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty uses its own matchmaking system, an improvement over the previous Battle.net matchmaking that was used in the first Starcraft back in 1998. The players chooses a map and the team formats (e.g. 1vs1, 2vs2 etc.) and the system will match will find him a game.
The matchmaking service uses a variation the individual Elo system but it was been adapted by Blizzard Entertainment. With the new release of Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm in March 2013, the matchmaking services has been upgraded to be more interactive to new RTS players. Also, a new game mod has been added, namely the Co-op vs. AI. In terms of the narrative, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm picks up the story again, but this time from the Zerg perspective.
The Starcraft series is considered to be one of the most successful eSports games of all time and a game that requires “a real grasp of strategy […] as well as requiring lightning dexterity on the keyboard, players are required to make dozens of tactical decisions every moment.”
Counter Strike
Valve Corporation’s first person shooter is one of eSports’ veterans. It was first played on an international level back in 2001 at the Word Cyber Games and it has quickly become one of the most popular video games in the world. This high popularity is partly due to its simple design and the low system requirements making Counter Strike one of those video games that could run on every computer.
The game was first released as a mod for the first person shooter Half Life (1998) but it quickly made a name for itself. In consequence, Counter Strike had never had a narrative backbone. The game presented the player with Half Life modified match and with the option of joining the Counter Terrorist or the Terrorist team at the beginning of each map.
Each team must carry out its own objective and/or eliminate the opposing team. The Terrorist team must plant a bomb at one of the two designated bomb sites on the map. The Counter Terrorists must defend the bomb sites and if case the bomb is planted, defuse it.
If a Terrorists player carrying the bomb is killed, the bomb will be available for other Terrorist to pick it up and continue to the bomb site. If the bomb as already been planted but there are no more Terrorists alive on the map, the opposing faction must defuse the bomb to win.
Some maps present different objectives. In the case of hostage map, the Terrorists must defend a building and their hostages until the time runs out. In turn, the Counter Terrorists must assault the building, free the hostages or kill the Theorists or both. Each map mod can be played up to 20 players at a time, 10 for each time.
When talking about competitive play, things change a little. In this case, the only maps that can be play are bomb sites match. Competitive rules state that a team must have no more than 5 players and 2-3 substitutes.
Each team will, in turn, play as Terrorists or Counter Terrorists. In order to this to be decided, the first round of the game is called a “Knife Round” where only that particular weapon is allowed. The objective is to kill the enemy team and not plant/defend the bomb. The team that has the won the “Knife Round” will get to choose what faction they want to play first.
After the teams have chosen factions, the game follows the same rules as a standard plant/defuse bomb map. When the total number of the round score reaches 15 (e.g. 1-14, 7-8, etc.), the two will switch sides and play another game set up to 15. At the end of the set, the team has the most number of points (e.g. 27-3, 14-16 etc.) win that particular map.
Conclusion
The professional gaming scene started as small gatherings without the prospects of a high salary or international recognition. The aim was to share the love of the game with other people in a competitive environment. When the games popularity grew, so did the number of players joining in. A number of players started to stand up and were soon recognized by the community, and the sponsors, as being professional players.
The large convention center tournaments are a great source or journalistic material. It is at these large expos that developers come to show off their latest video games and it is at these conventions that hardware companies announced their latest advancement in the first of computer and console development.
Close to these areas, seminars and presentations about the video games’ presence in everyday life take shape while a couple of row back, give game enthusiast can buy memorabilia with their favorite video game characters.
From across the halls, the professional teams battle it out for digital fame and a large prize pool. The games are streamed live over the internet with post-game comments and game analysis. The live coverage for the event becomes a source of news. The professional players are always happy to talk to a video game journalist about their performance and give a little insight about their next match, they team and they future plans.
Video game tournaments and the professional scene offer endless angles to explore, from the next generation consoles to the fans that travelled half the world to be present at the event. When talking about print or video news content, official publishers’ sites, social media site and rumor blogs can become a gold mine in terms of the latest news in the video game industry.
But it if wasn’t for the rise and expansion of the professional gaming scene, video game journalism would revolve around the reveal-preview-review cycle. This cycle is still present in video game journalism, regardless if it is in print format, audio bits or video packaging.
The sum it up, the video game industry and the professional video game scene has evolved to a point where the fan base demanded constant updated content about what the developers and the professional players are up to.
In this regard, video game journalism development as a niche in the sphere of traditional journalism and it continues to expand with every new video game and tournament.
Video Game Journalism
Introduction
The evolution of the video game as a cultural product can be seen as the starting point for the demand in video game journalism. This niche, in the vast domain of journalism, is slowly expanding and growing alongside the industry.
One cannot start discussing about video game journalism and talk not mention the impact that video games have had on society and culture. From this perspective, video games can bring players together in an online setting as well as an offline setting.
In an online setting, mainly attributed to the Massive Multiplayer Online genre, players will form bonds with other that share the same in-game belief, regardless if they offline believes differ. In consequence, the player will log on into the game not to actually play the game but to socialize with guild members or other people logged on in the game at that specific time.
An example of online social interaction is the video game Animal Crossing (2001). The social game allows a player to buy and decorate his own house over time and sent gifts and messages to other players “and thereby perform socially meaningful actions.” The act of gift giving and message sending changes how to game is perceived by the player.
Furthermore, every video game is goal oriented and makes the player interact with it more because “pursuing goals is very emotional to us in general.” In this regard, a player who has accomplished one of the game’s goals in an online setting will more emotionally rewarded and will want to share his emotion with other people in the game.
In an offline setting, players have the option of participating to large video game conventions such as Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Gamescom, and Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). Here they can interact with other members of the gaming public and even with the developers of the game.
Also, at events like the one mentioned above, video game enthusiasts can dress up and impersonate their favorite video game characters. This cultural phenomenon, called cosplay, is popular in Asian countries but it has been picked but by Western counties as well.
The name cosplay is an abbreviation for “costume play” and it allows video game fans to recreate characters and scenarios from popular video games and other media. In this sense, “cosplay fancy dress gives movies and fiction lovers the opportunity to dream again.” During the large conventions, cosplay contests are organized where enthusiasts have a chance to show off their costumes and win prizes. One the latest cosplay contest was at East European ComicCom held in Bucharest in March 2013.
Reveal-preview-review cycle
When reporting on a particular video game that has yet to be launch, a video game journalist will follows the reveal-preview-review cycle of reporting. But before this cycle takes place, video game journalism may write a rumor about the game even before the video game publishers officially announces it.
A better way to explain this cycle would be to follow the journalist trail for a certain game. BioShock Infinite has been out for almost a month now, having its official release date back on 26th or March 2013. Published by 2K Games and it runs on a modified Unreal Engine 3.
Back in 2010, video game journalist, Ricardo Torres reporter that 2K Games has officially announced the latest installment in the BioShock franchise in New York City. Mr. Torres continues to article with his person impressions of the game that has been revealed.
He notes that “BioShock Infinite appears to be setting the franchise up for a Final Fantasy-like run. […] What the games appears to be going is taking key elements that are central to the BioShock experience and reimagining them in the context of a new story.”.The article continues a detailed account of the demo trailer show to the press.
Ricardo Torres’ account of the events is treated as a news story; this is the part where the cycle starts, with the reveal. The announcement has been made by the publisher; a quick look has been presented in order to create vibe around the subject.
The next official announcement comes in 2011 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, 2K Games reassures the video gaming public that BioShock Infinite is still the development and the process has suffered no delays. The announcement was made as a part of the Sony press conference. Also, the official game trailer was made available at the same time.
The trailer shows the main characters of the narrative, Broker DeWitt and a little girl by the name Elizabeth. The trailer also included some quick cuts and the setting of the story, a floating city, later to be revealed as Columbia.
One of Gamespot’s editors, Carolyn Petit wrote the news story and gave a detailed description of the trailer a little background information about the franchise. What is interesting to note is the fact that a single video game journalist does not follow the development of the game for the full cycle. The new story is given to the journalist that is available at that time and not to the original journalist that started the cycle.
The second part of the cycle has been complete, the preview of the game treated as a news story. The video game journalist reminded the gaming public that the game is still underway for it official launch in March of 2013.
After the game hit the shelves, the last part of the cycle can start. In this, another video game journalist, Kevin VanOrd, was in charge of writing the review of the game. Mostly, the review is made available in print, as a two-page article, and in an audio-visual format as the give the player a feel of the game before deciding if he should purchase it.
Also, the editors give a final grade of the game. Each website is entitled to have its own rating system, but most websites prefer to rate on a 1 to 10, 1 being a horrible game and 10 being the best game ever. Such is the case of Gamespot which rated BioShock Infinite with a 9.0 game. . According to the website’s rating system; the best PC game is Diablo I, with a rating of 9.6.
After the review is published, regardless of the format, the cycle is completed BioShock Infinite. If the developers decide to release extra content for the game, a multiplayer mode or addition levels in the form of DLCs, then the reveal-preview-review cycle will start all over again.
This reveal-preview-review cycle is possibly the best way of keeping tabs on a video game that is in production. If the development company is a recurrent name in the video game industry than the enthusiasm from the video game community will also increase along with the media coverage for that particular video game.
Print-based journalism
Before the internet emerged as a new medium, video game journalism was confounded to the print industry. Video games still have a place in the print-based form a journalism but not such a powerful one.
Video games weren’t always playing on the personal computers and the game consoles we take for granted today. Back at the start of the industry, coin operated machines were the titans of the video game industry. These arcade games were very popular among the public and eventually got their own genre.
It was inevitable that a print-based magazine would emerge to meet the video games fans demands when it came to the last arcade games, the latest high scores and about the industry itself. The first magazine that addressed this issue was Play Meter and it is considered the “leading publication for the coin-operated entertainment industry since 1974” in the United States.
The magazine is still available today, with the same editorial policy; to report on coin-operated video games only. Both U.S. and international subscriptions are available and Play Meter’s subscription based fans are 29% higher than their direct competitor.
But the most relevant period for video game journalism was during the “golden age of arcade games”, a name to the video game industry in the middle of the 1980s. There is a strong critique in deciding what the actual years of this “golden age” are but most critique places it on the middle of the ’80.
Walter Day considers the period to be strictly related to the 1980s whereas technology journalist, Jason Whittaker marks the beginning of the “golden age of video games” with the release of the video game Space Invaders (1978). Whitaker motives his decision stating that this arcade video game ended the video game industry’s crisis and “started a video game revolution.”
It is in this “golden age” that the first consumer-oriented video game column appeared in Video magazine, entitled “Arcade Valley”. The column game Arnie Katz, Joyce Worley and Bill Kunkel the opportunity to start the niece we now call video games journalism. Kunkel would later admit that video games allowed him to funnel his many talents into the pursuit of creating “gaming journalism.”
But the evolution of print-based video game journalism was not present only in the United States. Japanese media also saw a rise of interest when it came to video games. In the same period, video game columns could be found magazines such as „ Weekly Shōnen Jump”. The columns were written by video games designer Yuji Horii.
Even in that time, video game journalism did not have a consumer-oriented magazine. It was the U.K.’s “Computer and Video Games” magazine that was solely conceived for video games. The magazine was founded by Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz, former columnists of “Arcade Alley”.
Web-based journalism
The new medium allowed professional video game magazines to lead to charge in the change of media for video games. The internet also brought a decline in print-based journalism but give birth to the independent video game journalism.
The rise of the internet brought conflicts when it came down to the first online publications. A couple of magazines have claimed this title. One of the first claimers was “Game Zero” magazine that supposedly launched their website in later 1994 with the official announcement of the webpage to come half a year later, in April 1995.
The second publication to take credit for being the first online publication was Intelligent Games Online, commonly abbreviate as IG Online. Prior to its popularization on the World Wide Web, IG Online had already been published on the internet in the form of mini-sites for American Online (AOL) and the Lost Angeles Times. In that period, Intelligent Gamer Online was considered “the first national videogame magazine found only online.”
But from 1995 to the present, things have changed. More and more online publications have made their way towards the video gaming public. These, websites have developed strong business models and have adapted themselves to the new medium, the internet. But there were some publications that didn’t find the transition to be easy, and eventually disappeared.
Take the example of “Future Publishing”. The company has had a strong presence on the market with a pre-tax profit of 22.7 million GBP and a “solid growth of the company’s underlying business.” But in late 2006, the company started to show signs of decline after registering a pre-tax loss of 49 million GBP.
Future Publishing was also forced to sell one of its Italian divisions to reduce bank debt. This shows how a powerful company in the print-based industry could not adapt to the new medium and lost it all. But with the rise of the internet, came a new form of video game journalism.
When the World Wide Web started its Web 2.0 era, independent video game journalism was born. Players and users could now write their own reviews and thoughts about video games and the industry in their personal blogs or publish a video about their experience at one of the conventions. Video game journalism can be done by everyone, both professional and amateur.
Video game websites have embraced the idea of independent video game reporting and offer players the change to speak up and let their reviews reach a broader audience through the professional website. Gamespot has adopted a voting system what also includes the individual and a top left button that allows the user write his own review.
“Escapist Magazine”, an only online publications, has dedicated a forum for all user generated reviews and articles, with the best articles being published on the main page of the website. Also, the website offer guides on how the reviews or articles should be written, in what font style and what subject are considered forbidden.
At the same time, Ben “Yahtzee” Crashaw, writer of the “Zero Punctuation” show on “Escapist Magazines”, offers he’s overview on “how to become a game journalist.” He believes that the first thing a game journalist should not is a good writer, stating that “your audience have all had brains addled by all the Modern Warfare [games], so you need to communicate on their level.”
Furthermore, Ben Crashaw believes that being good at writer will make your appear “ elitist and pretentious” (96) and “most editors will funnel your submissions straight into the recycle bin at first glance if your spelling, punctuation and grammar are perfect…”
The article goes on to state that it is better no have little or no knowledge of video games and their history and that the “the blogosphere and YouTube will show that there is virtually limitless competition in the field of video game journalism” so a fresh perspective and style of writing is required.
This new form of approaching video game journalism can sometimes replace the traditional form of reporting, mostly when the profession is facing controversy and accusations of favoring a certain video game company.
Controversy
The accusation
Even the people that question if a video games is good or bad are often questioned if that is their objective side talking or are they subjective on the matter. The virtue of objectivity has always been a must in reporting and there have been scandals when that has not been the case.
Video game journalism has not been able to avoid such a scandal; the most recent one just late 2012 at the Video Game Media Awards. The annual event rewards the best video game reporting, and its journalists, of the year. The picture that sparked this controversy depicts Canadian game journalist, Geoff Keighley, described an industry leader, and a little table that promotes Doritos, the chips, and Mountain Dew, the fizzy drink.
Rab Florence, a recurrent writer of the website eurogamer.net, is one the people that is leading the charge is questioning why have video game journalists decided to act that way. Florence considered the image as “tragic, vulgar image” and that the image is “the most important image in games journalism today.”
The article mainly questions the relationship of video game journalists and the video companies’ public relationship heads. He gives the 2012 Video Game Media Awards as a social example of the industry representatives and the video game journalists being best of friends and even “ game journos voted for their favorite friends, and friends gave awards to friends, and everyone had a good night out.”
The believe he shares is that video game journalists and industry representatives should not have such an easy-going relationship but video game RP’s should “ be looking at games journos and thinking, “That person makes by job very challenging.”
This event was a social example of a video game journalist selling himself but the problem is reframed to hit a must larger problem. A new high budget video game will get a better grade on the ranking system not the game is that good, but because the editors decide to give it a good grade.
In that case, “everyone has a nice easy ride if the review scores stay decent and the content of the games are never challenged.” Florence argues that this problem is mainly because there is the pressure of “playing to the same audience” and “ad revenue keeps rolling in” if the review is a good.
The response
The response for the Video Game Media Awards of 2012 came in the form of numerous articles but one of them is worth mentioning. The article published on the online platform of the Guardian, and signed by Keith Stuart, talks about why is the industry having this problem and what measures are available for video game journalists.
The game writer highlights the strong relationship of the video game producers and the video game journalists as a “close and regular interaction” mainly because of “the threat of software piracy is ever present and terrifying to companies.”
This relationship is considered to be something usual in the entertainment industry and that the access of preview and review content is tightly controlled by the developers. In consequence, video game journalism can have it difficulties when it comes to reporting on the latest video games with an objective perception from the public.
A problem that Keith Stuart raises is the constant expansion of the blogging culture that has offered the possibility of video game journalists and video game fans to “co-exit and combine.” The article quotes Alan Rusbridger’s concept of open journalism as a partnership between bloggers and other participants outside of mainstream journalism but in this regard, “new frameworks have to be established in this complex area.”
In terms of solutions, Keith Stuart encourages other print and online publications to mark their content as hosted press tips in order to avoid these types of scandals. This practice is common among the Guardian and other UK publications such as “EDGE” magazine. The flagged articles must be treated as an advertisement and not as real article. An example of this is EDGE’s magazines detailed account of the features of the Samsung Galaxy Note II. The piece shows some of the primary uses of the smartphone but every page is flagged as promotion.
It is common in the video game industry for publishing companies to organize review events for the press. These types of events have journalists playing the company’s latest video game and having them share their opinion. These events “limit the reviewer’s time with the game and can be perceived by some as a questionable form of collaboration between the publisher and critic.” Keith Stuart recommends that journalists stop attending these events and have the publication buy the actual product and not accept the press copy given away by the producers. This way, an objective account of the actual video game will benefit the video gaming public.
Conclusion
Video game journalism has evolved from print-based to web-based but the core method of reviewing has stayed the same. The reveal-preview-review cycle is a sure way to keep on watchful eye on the industry and the development of a video game. This cycle does not always share the same opinion on each step. The reveal may be a fresh new video game idea that somehow got destroying until it ended on the computer of the reviewer.
But regardless if we’re talking about the latest million dollars game or the classic arcade games, video game journalism started in the print medium. Magazines and fanzines were the source of information for the video game public back in the “golden age of video games.” They led the change and the evolution of video game journalism and through trial and error; video game reporting established itself as a permanent niche in the fast domain of journalism.
The most significant rise in video game journalism came with development of the internet and the World Wide Web. Editors saw the potential of this new medium when it came to delivering information to millions of people and embraced it. Video game reporting was not present in only a couple of magazines, but thousands of website started to do their own reporting on the video game industry.
But most of these websites featured individual reporting; fans and enthusiasts that wanted to share they opinion with other consumers and give their own feedback and their own rating when it came to a certain game. This new type of reporting emerged mostly and blogs and the owners actually became game writers for the leading video game journalism websites.
These game writers would bring a fresh look on the games when the video game journalism was accused of lacking objectivity and rating video games to increase their website traffic and revenues. Such scandals are not isolated to video game reporting but can be found in every journalism niche. This can prove that video game journalism is doing its best to find a better place in journalism, alongside economic journalism, political reporting and also sports journalism.
Considering this last part, video game journalism can be considered a part of sports journalism with live coverage, post-match interviews and analysis on the big video game tournaments that are held in the big convention centers around the world every year.
Definition of concepts
Before going into explaining the hypothesis and the methodology used to either convert or infirm the hypothesis, one must define certain concepts that have been used or will be used further on. These definitions will give a better overview of the domain of interest and will help new comers understand the general ideas, and concepts, of the domain of interest.
All these definitions were taken from the online version of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. The definitions are available for validation anytime on the Longman Dictionary website.
1. Video game – a computer game in which you move images on a screen using electronic controls.
2. Reveal – to make known something that was previously secret or unknown. In the case of video game journalism, a video game reveal is the format announced of a game from a publishing company.
3. Preview – an occasion when you can see a film, a play, painting etc. before it is shown to the public. In game industry terms, a preview offers a glimpse into the game’s mechanics, graphics, and narrative. The preview is always shown to the public.
4. Review – an article in a newspaper or magazine that gives an opinion about a new book, play or film etc. The video game review can also be in audio and/or visual format and on other media, such as the internet.
5. Coverage – when a subject or event is reported on a television or radio, or in newspapers; live coverage of a match = the match is broadcast at the same time that is happens. For the video game tournaments, most of them are broadcasted over streaming platforms on the internet.
6. Interview – an occasion when a famous person is asked questions about their life, experiences, or opinions for a newspaper, magazines, television program etc. In video game terms, the post-match interview is the most common, where the journalists try to find out opinions and experiences of the match that has ended.
7. Analysis – a careful examination of something in order to understand it better. For video game tournaments, the analysis is used to explain certain stages of the match that led to the victory of one team.
These are the key concepts that are needed to understand the domain of interest and help the reader get a better view of the subject at hand. The definition of concepts is a must before stating the hypothesis and describing the methodology used to conform or infirm the questions raised.
Hypothesis
Video game journalism and sports journalism seem to bare similarities when it comes to the type of reporting they do. Live coverage, post-match interviews and match analysis, all of them are can be found in both journalism domains. If this is the case then:
Are the video game journalism post-match interview questions similar in construction and meaning with the traditional sports interview questions?
If valid, can video game journalism be considered a part of the traditional sports journalism?
If disproved, what are the difference in the construction and meaning of the post-match interview questions?
The hypothesis aims to find out if video game journalism can be classified as sports journalism when referring to post-match interview questions asked by both types of journalists, sports journalists and video game journalists.
After the method is applied, if the hypothesis is valid then certain conclusion can be drawn by which video game journalism can be considered a part of traditional sports journalism by means of question structure and construction.
If the method applied proves the contrary, that the interview questions asked by both video game and traditional sport journalists are not similar, and then conclusions may indicate that the two types of journalism are separate from each other.
General Methodology
Methods
Out of all the research methods that are available, both quantitative and qualitative, the best one would be content analysis. I believe that this method is the most appropriate when dealing with already-published interviews and content analysis is one of the best qualitative means to prove or disprove the above-stated hypothesis.
Ole Holsti defines content analysis as “any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristic of message.” In the case of the post-match interview questions, the content analysis is aimed at words that make up the questions, and the interviews, in order to see what words are chosen and what works are mostly recurrent in post-match interviews. As a result the performed content analysis will highlight the most used words in interview types, video games interviews and traditional sports interviews, in order to answer to the research questions stated above.
Other methods were considered when choosing the best option to conform or infirm the present hypothesis. Methods such as interviews, surveys and focus groups were considered, but in the end, the best method proved to be content analysis.
The interview, as a research method, appeared to be a good alternative but the geographical location of Romania made the task very difficult to impossible. The large tournaments that are a platform for such video game interviews are held in Western countries, such as The United States of America, Sweden, Germany, and in Asia, mostly the South Korean capital of Seoul.
In turn, Romania does not have a strong eSports platform and a strong community, as up to date, and video game journalism is mostly revolving around the reveal-preview-review cycle mentioned earlier. These reason the qualitative interview a challenging method at best.
The quantitative survey method was also considered for the conformation or disproval of the hypothesis but the end result would not be the desired one. A survey that would be applied to the online gaming communities, Reddit for example, could only prove the popularity of video game journalism and the eSports tournaments.
Even if considered questions such as “Do you believe video game journalism to be the same with traditional sports journalism”, the majority of the reply would only prove personal believe and it would not have any scientific background to it. The survey as a method was also considered but, in the end, the data resulting from it would not have been relevant.
The last method considered, before choosing content analysis, was the focus groups. On this account, the main problem with this method was the geographical location of researcher and the lack of eSports competitions in the city of Cluj Napoca. The closest city that can accommodate eSports tournaments, and as a result video journalistic interviews, is the capital, Bucharest.
Also, the video game journalists that live and work in the capital may disagree with by hypothesis viewpoint or they would have shown reluctance in participating in a focus group, motivating with difference professional reasons.
In retrospect, the content analysis was and still is the best research method available to analyze the structure and construction of video game and traditional sports post-match interview questions. Furthermore, content analysis is “summarizing, quantitative analysis of messages” and it is “not limited to the context in which the messages are created or presented.”
Data collection
Before performing content analysis, the interviews must be first selected and the best medium for this is the World Wide Web. Video game journalism has a more powerful presence in the online medium then in the print and thus a larger variety of interviews can be found on video sharing platforms, such as YouTube.
The print-based video game reporting mostly revolves around the reveal-preview-reviews cycle but at times, interviews with game developers find their way into the publications.
At times, certain magazines will features interview with professional video game players, but the interview will mostly focus on the general career of the player and not on the latest tournament and matches. Furthermore, print-based magazines appear on the monthly basis and the interviews that are desired for content analysis are post-match interviews.
Even if video game reporting and the online tournaments draw thousands of fans, most of these competitions are not present on the television medium. There have been several attempts at this, but for the present time, the main platform following is the live coverage is the internet.
All of the desired interviews are not just available on YouTube, but on their respective websites. The impact that YouTube, as a video sharing website, has had on popular culture, is one of the reasons that video game website have created their own channels and upload reviews, news and interviews.
Furthermore, following the acquisition of YouTube by Google in 2006, at a staggering price of $1.65 billion, has furthered cemented YouTube’s top place in video sharing platforms.
But YouTube’s popularity is mainly made up of the possibility of web users to upload their content online and not to be on the receiving end then it comes down to content. Some users are more active than the video game websites themselves, pre-recording the interview from stream website and uploading the video interviews on YouTube. This way, the interview is quickly made available to the video game fans.
The presence of both video game website and video game enthusiasts in the popularization process of video game interviews is a trademark of the new digital era, where traditional reporting and independent reporting blend.
Considering these, YouTube is the ideal video sharing platform to find post-match video game interviews and traditional sports interviews from all the video games/sports available today.
Data collection framework
It was been established that due to YouTube’s popularity on the World Wide Web that it will be the platform from which video game interviews and traditional sports interviews will be selected for the content analysis.
The search parameters must limit the large quantity of both video game and sports interview present on the video sharing platform. As a consequence of this wide availability of video the following criteria has been established:
A total of 100 interviews will be selected for the content analysis. Half of these interviews will be selected from video game journalism and the other half will be selected from sports journalism.
The time framing for these interviews will be “2012” regardless of day and month. This way, all major sports tournaments and video game tournaments can be included widening the possible selection of post-match interviews.
Both user and official websites uploads will be considered in the selection as this is one of YouTube’s most powerful features: user participation in the sharing of information.
The length of the video interviews is anywhere between 1 minute to 15 minutes. It was the interviewer’s decision on how much time the post-match interview should last.
For post-match video game interviews, 20 out of the 50 were regarding League of Legends tournaments, another 20 included Starcraft II, and the last 10 interviews were regarding Counter Strike.
For post-match sports journalism, the first 20 interviews were regarding football tournaments and championships, the next 20 interviews included basketball, both European and American championships, and the last 10 interview were regarding tennis.
Regarding the content analysis, only the questions of the journalists will be taken into consideration. None of the answers are the objective of this content analysis.
These limitations made the video interview selection easier and more specific to the present aim of the hypothesis. With the framework established, the instruments used for the selection must be brought into account.
Instruments used
Framing and delimitations are useless if the proper instruments are no used in the content analysis process. Choosing the right instruments is as crucial as framing and imposing limitations on the search parameters.
One the first instruments used was the video sharing platform YouTube. In this sense, YouTube offered the audio-visual means and video player controls to play/pause the video interview for a better transcription. Also, YouTube may serves as cloud storage system for the video game and the sports interview for further reference, if needed.
The interview questions were transcribed by the researcher using the Microsoft Office 2010 Pack, mostly using Microsoft Word 2010. The questions, in print format, were then the subject of content analysis using word count software that is available, for free usage at the internet.
The software displays the Top 10 most frequent words and their recurrence percentage in the text that that is subject to word count. Certain words have been manually eliminated from the world count; words such as linking words and pronouns as these types of words proved to be the most recurrent, at first.
After elimination, certain key words emerged. The content analysis was been done separately for both video game interview questions and the sports interview questions, offering a top of two Top 10 tables what would be the subject of data interpretation.
Data interpretation
Traditional Sport Interview- Word Elimination Process
Before analyzing the Top 10 tables for both Tradition Sport Interviews and Video Game Interviews, a detailed account on how the final Top 10 tables were obtained is on order. After the transcription of the video-audio interviews in print, namely in Microsoft Word documents, the first word tally offered the backbone of final tables. The raw table for Tradition Sport Interview is marked as Fig. 1a.
Phase 1
The first words that were eliminated because they did not make the case of this content analysis were: “how”, “think”, “will”, “ups”, “last” and “like”. As one can see, these words are made up of adverbs, verbs and prepositions. The adverb “how” appeared 64 times in the world count; it is part of the prepositional structure of a question. After these words were eliminated, the Traditional Sport Journalism table looked like this. The table is dubbed Fig. 1b.
Phase 2
After the Phase 1 has been complete, the new table included words such as “now”, “get”, “going”, “feel”. Again, most of the words that appeared as “keyword density” were verbs and their high appearance is justifying. But the words were also eliminated because they didn’t make the objective of the content analysis. This new table is referred to as Fig. 1c and this table is necessary for the next word elimination phase.
Phase 3
The third stage of the world elimination process included new words the Top 10 Traditional Sports Journalism Table. These words were “guys”, “back”, “us”, “tell” “good”. Seeing that they bare no relevance for the content analysis, they do not denote a correlation with sports or video game championships, the words have been removed. The new table is referred to as Fig. 1d.
Phase 4
In this phase, the words that needed to be removed were: “got”, “first”, “tell”, “big” and make. As none of these terms are not strictly related to traditional sports journalism, they were removed from the “Keyword Density” table, making room for a new set of words. After the removal of the above mentioned words the new table is referred to as Fig. 1e.
Phase 5
For this phase, the table is beginning to take shape and the words that need to be eliminated dropped drastically. In this sense, Phase 5 only included the elimination of words “time” and “know”. Even if these works can correlate with the Traditional Sports Interview table, they are not exclusive and such they were removed. The new table is mentioned as Fig. 1f.
Phase 6
In this first to last phase, an interesting word surfaced. As the elimination was done by removing the necessary words from the Microsoft Word document, certain letters were removed. As such, the word “because” appeared as “becaue”. This, alongside the words “go” and “said” were removed. The new table only need one final modification and is referred to as Fig. 1g.
Phase 7
This is the final phase in the Traditional Sports Interview – world elimination. The final word that needed to be eliminated was “point”. This word may be understood as a term of sport journalism, in the word construction of “point-guard”, a term used in basketball. But a closer inspection of the interviews shows that the word was used in the context of “my point is that”. Thus, the world has been removed. The final table, that is the subject of content analysis, is the following. The final table is referenced as Fig. 1h.
Video Game Interviews – World Elimination Process
The same process that was applied of Traditional Sports Interviews must be applied to the Video Game Interviews. The process that took 7 phases for sports interviews to reach the final table. For the video games interviews, the process took only 5 phases. The raw table is referenced as Fig. 2.a.
Phase 1
From Fig. 2a the words “how”, “guys”, “think”, “going”, “like”, “just” and “first” were the first ones to be replace in order to reach a final table format for the video game interview questions. These words have had a high frequency do to their overuse in common speech, e.g. “guys”. After the word elimination the table, named Fig. 2b looks like this.
Phase 2
The new table obtained has had three words removed in the second phase on the elimination process. These words are “now”, “up”, “go”, “will”. What is worth mentioning is that the number of works eliminated has decreased significantly. This number was only reached in after Phase 4 in the Tradition Sports Journalism process. The table obtained is referenced as Fig. 2c.
Phase 3
The number of word elimination is gradually reduced. In Phase 3 of the elimination process the only words that required elimination were “lot”, “because” and “feel”. Although these words have a high recurrence, they are not specifically linked with video game journalism and will be removed. The table resulting in the removal of the work is dubbed as Fig. 2d.
Phase 4
In Phase 4 we also see a reduction in the total number of words that will be filtered by the process of elimination. On this particular table, the words “get” and “time” are removed. This phase is the first to last and the resulting table is almost really for analysis. The next table is identifiable by the name Fig. 2e.
Phase 5
After the elimination of the adjective “new” for the Top 10 Video Game Journalism table, and replaced by the initials MLG, the final table is referenced as Fig. 2f. This table will be subject of content analysis. The Sports Journalism table and the Video Game Journalism table will be presented and analyzed alongside each other.
Tables Interpretation
The present sub-chapter will try to analyze each term from both tables and try to offer reasoning of their relevant meaning for each table. In order for the comparison to be easier to follow the two tables will be presented side by side as Microsoft Office tables and not print screens. The Sports Journalism table will be referred to as T1 and the Video Game Journalism table will be referred to as T2. Both tables will include the following categories: Criteria Number (abbreviated as Cr. Nr.), Word, and Word Count Percentage.
For the comparison to be easier, each term will be discussed in both tablets, thus eliminating the need to write the same word twice. The comparison will start with the table T1. Any other word that does not appear in both tables will be dealt with separately.
T1 – Sport Journalism T2 – Video Game Journalism
Criteria Nr. 1 – Team
The word “team” has the most appearances in table T1 as opposed to the video game table, T2, were it is ranked on number 3. The term signifies the profession organization of the players in both types of competition. When it comes down to the construction of the interview questions, the word “team” has a higher significance in traditional sports journalism. This can be explained as such: the team composition in traditional sports journalism outweigh the individual value of the player.
As shown by the table, in video game journalism terms, the word “team” is not that meaningful. One count argue that, even if most video games are played in a team-orientated composition, the focus is on the individual player and his skill level to “carry” a match to victory, all on his own.
Criteria Nr 2 – Game
The term “game” is highly valued in both tables. For both types of journalism, “game” signifies the importance of the two teams facing off. When it comes to traditional sports journalism, “game” offers the element of the interview and it incorporates other terms such as “goal” and “play”. In this sense, the term has a broader meaning but I can also have its importance diminished when put in the much bigger context, e.g. “a game in the season”.
For table T2, the term is considered a must when talking about video game interviews. Interviewers may spend the whole questioning session talking about a certain strategy or play and ignore prediction questions for the following games. Thus, the word “game” has a bigger significance for video game questions then for traditional sports questions. In the latter, a part of the interview will be dedicated to prediction questions of the upcoming games or derbies for the team. This can be seen especially in football.
Criteria Nr. 3 – Season
This term can only be found in the T1. It is used to put the word “game” in a much bigger context (“the game of the season”) and it talks about the relevance of the whole championship rather than just the finished game. This term is can only be found in the T1 table because video game competitions do not follow the “season” structure of an organized event. In this sense, the term “season”, from T1, can be associated with the term “tournament” for T2. The latter term will be discussed later in the paper.
The T1 term has a great significance to the overall structure of the traditional sports question as it allows the interview to be put in a much broader context. In this regard, the interview can also bee see as a post-game interview, when referring to the game that has just ended, but also as a pre-game interview when discussing season reaction and season expectation and the upcoming matches.
Criteria Nr.4 – Year
This word may go hand in hand with the previous explained term as it can be synonymous with “season”. It signifies the importance the game in the overall context, e.g. “the game of the year” or it may be used to emphasis the end result of the game, e.g. “Your team finally won, this year, against…”.
Again, this term is particular to the T1 table, mainly, because video game competitions do not structure the events with a certain year structure in mind. Events will be held in mid-summer if the logistics allows it, as opposed to other sports that finish the competitions until summer.
Criteria Nr. 5 – Goal
The term is another particularity of the T1 table. It also has a strong link with football and it cannot be put in the context of video games. The only time that this term is used in the context of video game competitions is when one is referring to the video game FIFA and its affiliated championships. Although the FIFA video games are popular among video game enthusiast, they are not always apart of big video game competitions, e.g. Dreamhack.
When referring to traditional sports journalism, the term is the synonymous with football. As the prime indicator of a team’s victory, the word “goal” will always be the subject of post interview question especially when talking about the “king sport”. One reason for this is that, scoring a point in football game is much harder than in other sports like basketball and handball. The term does not rank as high as other words in the T1 table mainly because it is not used as a way of keeping score in other sports.
Criteria Nr. 6 – Against
The world signifies the quality of the game in opposition with the other team. Referring to physical endurance or skill level, the term is used to place a certain fact, or question, in a general context. This term can also be found in the T2 table but, as opposed to the 6th ranking for T1, “against” has a higher ranking, 2nd position, in the T2 rankings.
This can be explained by the referring to certain match-up in the video game competitions. Seeing as the focus is on the individual skill of the player and not on the team, the word has a higher chance of recurrence and it speaks of the individual player’s performance. Furthermore, the term can also refer to players and to certain in-game match-up, e.g. champion counter-picks in League of Legends.
Criteria Nr. 7 – Score
While the term “goal” talks about the individual performance of player ( “what a lovely goal by…”), the word “score” talks about the overall ranking of the game. For traditional sports journalism, the “score” is the means to which one can keep track of a team’s performance and determine the winner of the match-up. A high regarded team has more chances to widen the score gap between itself and a smaller team.
When referring to video game journalism, the overall score of a game is not that relevant. The focus does not fall upon the difference in the score, e.g. 15-8, but on the team that one. The difference in score between the team is rarely the topic of discussion in post-game interviews. What does hold some height is the individual player statistics.
Criteria Nr. 8 – Match
Mostly used in football post-game interviews, the term can be considered synonymous with the word “game”. Although they can be refer to the same idea, journalists can also use the term when they want to bring up tactics into the conversation. They usually refer to this as “the match-up between…”
This can work for both individual players, e.g. “the match-up between Ronaldo and Messi” or between team, e.g. “the match-up between Real Madrid FC and Barcelona FC”. In the T1 table, the term ranks at number 8 and in the T2 table the word can be found on the 6th position.
Even if the above mentioned arguments are valid for video game journalism, the term is more offended used because journalists tend to talk about tactics and certain match-ups more than other milestones in of the game. As such, the word has a higher position in table T2 than it T1.
Criteria Nr. 9 – Playing
As shown in both tables, the terms “play” and “playing” both have had recurrent mentions in both sports and video game post-match interviews. But “playing” and “play” do not have the same meaning. Ranking in on number 9, the term “playing” refers to the overall impact that the player has had in the game. This is valid for both traditional sports and video game interviews. For sports journalism, this implies passes and assists, in the case of football, rebound and point score, for basketball.
For video game competitions, the term has a more lucid meaning to it. It also refers to the level of impact that the individual professional player has had on the game but his direct involvement is bigger seeing that video game competitions are more fast-paced that a game of football, for example.
Considering all view points, the term “playing” in a present element in the construction of the interview question for both tablets. A slightly higher impact is awarded to the term in T2 as in ranks at number 8.
Criteria Nr. 10 – Play
As stated above, there is a distinction between “play” and “playing”. In the case of the term “play”, it refers to the tactics that when in the actual game. It implies the team formation a certain captain has suggested or a certain attack formation drawn up by the couch. Also, it can refer to the level of synergy between the teammates; have they played together or is the team composition new and certain “plays” are still hard to master.
The same arguments are valid for video game professional players that use different “plays” to win, and put on a show for the fans. Considering that the games are roughly 40 minutes long, more plays can be found as to assure victory. As opposed to traditional sports, video game “plays” may include finishing the game earlier as their main objective seeing that the objective is to eliminate the opposing team and not to win in a given timeframe.
For the T1 table, the term “play” is ranked at number 10, with minimum references in the sports interviews, 3%, in comparison with table T2 where the word is ranked at number 5 with, 7% references in the post-game interview. Not a big difference but a difference none the less.
Criteria Omissions T2 – Tournament
A specific term for the second table is “tournament” as a reference to the organizational structure of the video game competitions. As stated earlier, the word “tournament” is the equivalent of “season” for the T1. Even if the two terms may refer to the same meaning, they are not the same. The “tournament” structure is based on an elimination bracket system, were the winning team advances.
For a better public reception of these tournaments, the organizers tend to use the “double elimination” system; were teams play a best of 3 ( with the finals being a best of 5) and the loosing team falls into the “Looser Bracket”. That needs to lose a second “best of 3” in the “Looser Bracket” to be knockout of the tournament. Of course there are tournaments that use a group stage system as oppose to the bracket system, e.g. Dreamhack.
In table T2, the word “tournament” in ranked amount the Top 5 terms. This would suggest that the questions asked in the post-game interview do not only target the game but also the tournament as a whole.
Criteria Omissions T2 – Event
The tournaments themselves are a part of certain computer festival and electronic events throughout the world. Including questions about the actual event, the video game journalists is trying to get a personal reaction from the player on organizational matters, from logistics to time delays.
A traditional sports journalist would as similar question when referring to the visiting team’s opinion about the stadium and the logistic behind the game. This information may we used to paint a picture about the good/poor organization of the event/game. In the T2 table, the term “event” is ranked at number 7.
Criteria Omissions T2 – MLG
A particularity of the T2 table, MLG stands for Major League Gaming. The tournaments overview has already been presented in Chapter 3.2.5. One of the reasons that this tournament has had so many references in the post-game interviews is that it is one of the biggest tournaments in The United States.
This big fan base for the MLG tournaments is due to the popular culture of video game in American society. Also, it is one of the oldest eSports events in North America. Most of the interviews were carried out during MLG events, mostly the Summer Championship and the MLG Anaheim. Furthermore, the Major League Gaming is a Launchpad for amateur enthusiasts to become world renowned players.
Hypothesis verification
Before confirming or infirming the hypothesis and answering to the research question, a quick reminder of what does questions were can made the job much easier. As stated in Chapter 6, the research questions were:
Are the video game journalism post-match interview questions similar in construction and meaning with the traditional sports post-match interview questions?
If valid, can video game journalism be considered a part of the traditional sports journalism?
If disproved, what are the difference in the construction and meaning of the post-match interview questions?
After a quick reminder of the research questions a step-by-step approach to answering them may prove to be the best method. In this way, no question shall be left unanswered; even if one will be eliminated by the other (e.g. questions 2 and 3).
Question Nr. 1
The first question of the research paper aimed to address the structural construction and meaning of both traditional sports and video game interviews. The factual basis for this can be found in the T1 and T2 tables above. To give an answer: Yes, video game journalism post-match interview questions are similar in construction and meaning with the traditional sports post-match interview questions.
The cause of this is the fact that both types of interviews use the same words in the construction of the post-match questions. Most of them, keep their meaning when talking about both video game and traditional sports journalism. The other words do not fully charge their meaning but adapt to the video game post-match questions. Seeing that video game journalism and video game professional events are held at computer festivals and electronic festivals and do not follows a group system, some of the words may adapt to fit this new framework of organizing professional games.
To further insist on this, I would propose an analogy on two traditional sports: football and basketball. While both of them are socially and culturally regarded as traditional sport, football and basketball have separate characteristics. Even if certain words, such as “play”, “game”, “match”, “against”, are a part of both structures, there will always be particularities of that sports, e.g. “goal” for football and “point-guard” for basketball, to name a few.
To sum it up, when addressing the construction and meaning of post-match interview questions for both traditional sports and video games a link between them can be established.
Question Nr. 2
Both questions Nr.2 and Nr.3 were directly dependent on the answer given at Question Nr.1. Considering the answer given above, the second research question is valid but only when talking about the structural construction and meaning of post-match interview questions. In this regard, video game journalism can be considered a apart of traditional sports journalism.
The words used suggest a correlation between the two types of sports journalism and, as a result, may further expand the subtype of sports journalism. Furthermore, this would frame video games as a new age, new medium sport, a sign of evolution from the traditional sport but not separate. Even if it can be considered a new age sport, video game competitions still bare marks of the traditional sports; in the case of this present paper – the structural construction and meaning of the post-match interviews.
To sum it up, video game journalism can be considered a part of traditional sport reporting when considering the post-game questions. Of course, this is not the only element present in both types of journalism but this present element was the subject of the research.
Question Nr. 3
The last research question would have had an answer if the content analysis did not show any correlation between the two types of sports journalism. Seeing how this is not the case, questions Nr.3 will remain unanswered. This does not imply that there aren’t differences in both traditional sports reporting and video game reporting but it suggest that, meaning and structural construction wise, the two types of reporting are similar.
Conclusion
The content analysis that was done on 100 post-match interviews (50/50) showed similarities in meaning and construction when faced with certain words. These words had the most high rated density throughout the all one hundred interviews but they were not the only ones. Even the low density questions bare the same characteristics as the top questions present in the content analysis tables.
This suggests that video game journalism may be included in the vast umbrella of sports journalism, alongside games such as football, basketball, tennis. This would also imply an evolution of sports journalism and an adaptation to the new media that have had a great impact on society and culture.
Furthermore, this could suggest that video games have come a long way since their initial development and have managed to change their perception from a strictly-entertainment-based format to a much more professional outlet, this including the development and the consumption of video games in today society.
Both video games and sports journalism have reached a peak in their evolution, intertwining and adapting to the demands of the world’s audience both in professional reporting and entertainment value. This can only should an evolution of society itself and how digital culture has crossed over into day-to-day lives.
General Conclusions
Sociological
Video games have created new audiences through their depiction of reality and from their adaptation of popular traditional media (books, movies etc.). Even if the process of creating new audiences start in the early days of the industry, late ‘70s – earlier 80s, the biggest effect can be seen in the present time.
Technology has evolved to a point where anyone can be home-schooled to create a, rudimentary, video game, to transfer their fantasy into programming code. But most fans considered letting the creation in the hands of the professional while they evaluated to final product of their craft.
Different communities have sprung over the World Wide Web, each with its personal idea of what the best video game genre is. These communities can fragment themselves even more, and that side when it comes down to the best video game in a series, e.g. the World of Warcraft series.
But these effects are not only seen in the online medium. Fans and communities often reunited at computer festivals to share their enthusiasm about an upcoming game or a newly launched console. They also root for their favorite professional teams that take the idea of video games one step further, to a professional revenue-oriented level. Also, enthusiasts tend to build costumes of their favorite video game heroes and impersonate them in “cosplay” competitions through the world.
These are some of the surface effects that video games have had on the modern audiences. The value that video games bring to entertainment is so great, that the industry has even surpassed other entertainment-oriented media, namely Hollywood. Movies are starting to become the subject of movies and TV series in an attempt to draw more revenues and further expand their audiences.
Cultural
The cultural implications of the evolution of video games go hand in hand with the influence they had on society. The cultural values of video games can be seen mostly in the audio-visual media and print. There are two aspects.
The first implies the creation process of the cultural product. Video game companies are always looking to expand their universe, and revenues, and as a consequence, video game comics book are development for the purpose of analysis different narrative plots that the video game has intentionally left out, or could not be covered.
If the professional product does not need the fans demands, the community can create their own cultural products and alternative stories. There has been a lot of discourse if this is fan creation is an infringement of the copyright laws but the verdict is somewhere in the grey area. Nevertheless, fans and companies created auxiliary media products to the video game in questions, cementing the cultural impact that the video game has had on the public.
The second aspect implies the distribution method of these cultural products. The upper hand is of course with the contracted company that was fired to participate in the construction of the media product. But there is always an alternative.
Enthusiasts have used social media website, like Facebook and Twitter, to promote and expand the cultural value of their product. Video-sharing platforms, like YouTube, have further expanded the possibility of fan-created content to become popular and to participate in the cultural expansion.
Video games have also influenced the way we behave in society. Most video game enthusiast will use commonly known catchphrases coined in video games when trying to make a cultural referenced. Also, certain non-video game companies will use visual references to retro video games to attract young clientele.
Academic
The cultural and social impact that video games have had on the world public has caught the eye of Western academia. They have offers grants to the academic research of video games and have encourages academia staff to study their impact.
Even if most of the academia literature covert the big topics of video games, there is always room for more. Considering the rapid growth of the eSports communities and the cultural impact, this new cyber sport field has been barely touched by academia.
The comparison between video game journalism and traditional sports journalism is still a field of research that has much to offer academia and the potential of auxiliary research topics around this feel in endless. From the cultural perception of professional video game players to the study of audiences, the field of eSports and video game journalism is still opened research. This field is just an example of research that is worth exploring from an academic point of view.
But one thing is for certain, the impact that video games, regardless of it being cultural, sociological etc., has drawn the attention of academia and this can be seen as prove of the evolution that video games have had in the past decade. From stick figures to 3D modeled actors, video games have managed to break socio-cultural barriers around the world.
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