Klosterman responds to "critic" critics
by Christopher Grant 
{ Jul 11th 2006 at 7:15PM }
Pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman didn't earn many followers when he criticized gaming critics for not filling in the deified shoes of rock-critic turned cultural messiah, Lester Bangs. The response from the gaming community sounded something like, "He's dead and they've buried his shoes."Critics like Wired News' Clive Thompson made short shrift of Klosterman's Esquire piece, basically saying that there's plenty of intelligent discussion going on, it's just not going on in the pages of Esquire magazine.
Klosterman, a little bruised perhaps, pulled himself up and sat back down again with Gamespot's Rich Brown to explain his critique. He said, "I think that people were confused by my piece. What they seemed to think that I was saying is that no one is doing good video game criticism. And that's not really the point, I wasn't making that argument. What I was saying is that there seems to be no dominant person writing about video games in a way that transcends the insular culture of gaming. In other words there's no one writing about video games who is of interest to people who aren't actively playing them."
The reason there is no Lester Bangs of gaming is similar to the reason there is no Lester Bangs of music or Pauline Kael of movies anymore. People don't want serious criticism, they want service journalism: how many stars?; how many thumbs-up? In his own way, Klosterman is right, he's just not an informed critic. He reveals as much with, "I know people who are more engaged with it than I am, and when I say 'it,' I mean the Internet."
Follow the debate:
Read - The Lester Bangs of Video Games (Esquire)
Read - Why No Lester Bangs of Gaming? (Wired News ... or Game Girl Advance or John Scalzi)
Read - Chuck Klosterman answers critics (Gamespot)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DrMike @ Jul 11th 2006 8:05PM
Hmmm.... you spelled shoes as "shows". Otherwise... yawn...
lacking cleverness @ Jul 11th 2006 8:23PM
You know, this Klosterman became a criticism critic by criticising the critics, but you criticised him for doing so. Does that make you guys critic critic critics?
(Ouch, my head.)
C. Grant @ Jul 11th 2006 8:39PM
lacking cleverness: somethind like that.
DrMike: it's been amended. Thanks.
Slestak @ Jul 11th 2006 9:20PM
Klosterman rules. It was a great article. Chuck is one of the reasons I keep my Esquire subscription. That, and the hot chicks ;)
PayTheMan @ Jul 11th 2006 9:40PM
I believe video games won't become truly accepted as anything other than "violent" or something that no-life nerds do in their time until our generation permeates the media world. We still have veterans in the business unwilling to acknowledge the internet as a valid form of journalism (blogs). As the old leave and the new enter we'll gradually see more and more acceptance for our form of entertainment.
Probot @ Jul 12th 2006 12:44AM
I've posted on most threads about this, and my criticsm doesn't change. Klosterman doesn't understand gaming. He wants it to be something it isn't.
"...the experience of gaming acts as a unifying element for young people."
As a gamer, I don't think games unify any more than music or movies. Unless someone is playing the exact same games I am, then I won't really connect to them on that level.
I wish I knew what rock was like in the '60s and '70s (or more about Lester Bangs), because that might help me understand Klosterman's point of view. Did rock fans read Lester Bangs or did Lester Bang fans start listening to rock?
I think it's interesting when he mentioned that mainstream magazines are looking for game journalists. However, he made the mistake that most mainstream industries make about niche markets, mostly about how "niche" they are. Recently Tycho, from Penny Arcade, talked about being approched by a few Hollywood studios interested in use the PA characters for TV shows and such.
"We've been in quote talks with three separate entertainment entities, and in every case these people imagine that they are descending from heaven in a shaft of light, hand outstretched, offering to raise us from the ghetto squalor of comics and the Internet. They offer terrible money for a tremendous amount of work, and we're supposed to accept whatever they say because they are from Los Angeles or New York. We don't need them, and never will. Our readers have assured this. The next emissary from those debased kingdoms can fall to one knee before my golden throne and kiss my signet ring."
Source: http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=10665
So when Klosterman says "These magazines are for audiences of 250,000 people", it shows how little he understand the internet. I've said it before, PA gets around 2 million hits a day. Why should they lower their readership to get to an audience that won't understand what they're talking about?
Here's the way I see it. Equire's readership is dwindling. Gaming is getting bigger. They want to tap into that market. But they want someone with an existing following and they aren't finding anyone that will talk down to the audience, which is necessary for mainstream approval. It's not about game journalism not existing or being good; it's about Esquire not able to capatalize on game journalism.
32_footsteps @ Jul 12th 2006 1:19AM
"In other words there's no one writing about video games who is of interest to people who aren't actively playing them."
You see, to me, this points to the huge flaw in Klosterman's logic.
To be quite honest, who outside of music geeks really cared all that much about Bangs? The only reason I know of Lester Bangs is because one of his proteges, Cameron Crowe, basically wrote and directed a cinematic love note to Bangs, the movie "Almost Famous". I still don't have any concept of who Kael is.
Klosterman has a point in that there aren't any video game critics who reach beyond the insular world of video gaming. Well, as it turns out, there aren't any critics who reach beyond the worlds of music, movies, or whatnot. The only reason you might be able to name some critics (like Roger Ebert) is because their quotes are often used as ad copy (whereas in the video gaming industry, box quotes are only attributed to the outlet, not the specific writer).
Really, Klosterman ought to start wondering where any of the critics known outside of their circles are. I bet he'll find that all critical disciplines are as devoid of well-known names as video game criticism.
James Agee @ Jul 12th 2006 1:24AM
The thing is, for whatever reason, games just aren't objects of contemplation.
Games have existed in one form or another for centuries, yet people have never written serious game criticism the way people have written art or drama or music criticism. Aristotle never wrote about sports or gambling the way he wrote about poetry and theatre.
Gamers don't want to read about games, gamers want to play games. Ten years from now, no one is going to care what anyone had to say about Sonic the Hedgehog or Descent or Grand Turismo 4.
Serious, or even semiserious criticism should consist if an effort to get at the essence of the work in question. Take for example these music reviews:
http://www.slate.com/id/2145412/
By contrast, most videogame writing on the web, and Penny Arcade is a perfect example of this, consists of people writing about themselves playing videogames. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just the way things are.
More to the point, videogaming doesn't need critics, videogaming needs sportswriters. More Roger Angell, less Robert Christgau.
Probot @ Jul 12th 2006 2:36AM
I'm gonna try to play devil's advocate here. As a note, I use Penny Arcade as an example a lot. That's just because they're the biggest I can think of, especially when you consider it's only two people. Also, like I said, I don't know much about Lester Bangs, so I'm gonna make up a mythical figure for rock journalism and call him Lester.
There is no Lester Bangs of music today. That's true. But there was once. When rock was new and a solid part of the youth culture, a journalist came along to focus the movement. The mainstream didn't know about rock music; they knew about Lester Bangs. They knew what he told them. Mainstream perception of rock became shaped by what he wrote. So much so that some mainstream rock became shaped by what he wrote.
That's what gaming lacks. A force that permiates the mainstream. Not just a translator that simplifies the gaming jargon. But a biographer that intimately knows the subject and is challenged with relating that experience to people that will never get to know the subject.
Klosterman wants a journalist like that. Less focus on individual games or companies or genres, but more writing on gaming culture. And he wants this writing to be relatable to people that aren't into gaming.
Penny Arcade is certainly not that. And while it may be true that no other media has a critic like that anymore, they all once did. In order to become accepted as a mainstream media, there needs to be a phase in the culture where a critic comes along and connects the core cultural concepts of gaming with a mainstream audience.
[End of devil's advocate]
Notice the theoretical nature of this arugment. "Cultural concepts" doesn't have a meaning really. It's like saying the "essence" of a work.
What part of the culture would be relatable to a mainstream audience with limited knowlegde of the games themselves?
The game designing process is a far cry from making a rock album. While a rock band is usually about four or five people, a game design group could consist of dozens. Even if you focus on the top two or three people, what are their typical days? Some progress meetings, reading email, looking over spreadsheets; game design is an office job.
There is no gathering equivalent to a rock concert. E3 tries to replicate that, but fails because it tries to disguise itself as a trade show (though no one really buys that).
The internet IS the culture. An interactive entertaiment medium needs an interactive news medium and that's what the internet provides.
Message board flamewars, viral videos of chimps playing Ms. Pac Man, race debates that are tangentially linked to video gaming, web comics, constant 10 ten lists, discussion of whether games are actually art or about the business models of episodic content or about the role of publishers and retail chains in a future of digital distribution. All of this is the culture of video gaming. And none of it is getting to a mainstream audicence because their looking in the wrong place.
They don't undertand that magazines and newspapers and TV, for the most part, are less important to gaming culture.
Traditonal media does have one advantage: unlimited bandwidth. No matter how many people subscribe to Esquire, your personal copy will arrive in the mail. Penny Arcade still has server problems once in a while. And their links are the equivalent of a DoS attack.
But that's a temporary, technological problem. One day, people will realize the scope of the internet and when they start to understand its usefullness, it will start to become the mainstream avenue for journalism. And when that day comes, video gaming journalism will be at the forefront because we already there.
Judd @ Jul 12th 2006 3:05AM
Probot made a good point when he said "Did rock fans read Lester Bangs or did Lester Bang fans start listening to rock?" Of course a video game critic is not going to be known by non-gamers, BECAUSE THEY ARE NON-GAMERS. Almost everybody watches movies so everyone has heard of Roger Ebert, but he's only known because society knows about movies.
"In other words there's no one writing about video games who is of interest to people who aren't actively playing them." Well duh... why would you be interested in a writer writing about something you don't give a shit about? Television is different, I might be flipping through a channel and watch something I don't care about. I'm not a big golf guy, but I might watch it on TV. And even if I decided to read an article about golf(that's the only crap they give you in the doctor's office anyway), I sure as hell won't remember the writer's name.
Please Mr. Klosterman give me one guy(cause I wasn't around in the 60's), who writes about something and people know who the writer is, but they don't know what they're writing about. It can be someone who writes about anything; entertainment, an obscure sport, a place, a time period...
I agree that it would be nice if video game critics were more well known, but people can't know about a critic until they know what he/she is criticizing.
Jojo McIntyre @ Jul 12th 2006 8:56AM
I agree largely with Agee's post above--as Metal Gear creator said (paraphrased,) games aren't the same as existing art. Before everyone jumps in, what he meant was that no one revisits old games the same way people revisit old films or music or books. Due to the way games and gameplay are increasingly attached to technology, you don't have that timelessness that other art forms have. Ergo, less criticism. That said, Lester Bang didn't really do criticism so much as sensationalism. THAT, I don't understand why there hasn't been a great critic borne.
Secondly, I totally disagree with Joystiq's post that people don't want criticism any more. Look at the phenomenal success of Pitchfork. Say what you will about the level of criticism and quality, but these certainly aren't 2-line summaries or "journalism" in any sense.
Add to that example Slate, as some one mentioned, as well as the continued strength of NYTimes book reviews, movie reviews, what have you--I think there is a open area for game criticism. It may actually help game developing if there were more concrete critiques rather than, "it sucked, controls were crap." Perhaps it would help if more game reviewers were failed game makers. :)
32_Footsteps @ Jul 12th 2006 9:44AM
First off, Probot, I can answer your Bangs-flavored version of the chicken/egg dilemma. The only types of pieces Bangs ever wrote were either music reviews or interviews with musicians. So the answer is, rock fans read Lester Bangs, and there were *very* few people that came to Bangs outside of rock.
Again, I have to call out the idea that Lester Bangs was a huge force. Seriously, for someone that was supposedly so huge and influential with the public at large, I never heard of him until I read reviews for "Almost Famous" in 2000. My wife, who is a music geek, also hadn't heard of him before then.
If anything, based on the size of the audience, how polarizing a persona he is, and how relatively unknown he is outside of the culture in question, I think the Penny Arcade guys really are the video gaming Lester Bangs - except with a larger audience. Mind you, calling PA "the Lester Bangs of video gaming" is hardly a compliment.
We are already starting to see the more visible critics getting namechecked in other media (Gabe & Tycho are two members of the Rejects gang in River City Ransom EX, for example). In 20-30 years, when the proteges of today's video game critics move into other realms and make paeans to their heroes a la "Almost Famous," people like Klosterman will realize that video gaming has had figures with the stature of Bangs all along. It just requires Klosterman and those that agree with him to recognize both that the video game subculture is more thriving than he thinks and that Bangs wasn't nearly the force that Klosterman thinks.
Probot @ Jul 12th 2006 10:59AM
"...no one revisits old games the same way people revisit old films or music or books."
There are some obvious problems here. First, video games haven't been around long enough, so there isn't much to go back to yet.
However, almost as a contradiction to myself, there actually is enough that people are going back to old games. Look at how much anticipation there is for Street Fighter II on Xbox Live Arcade or Nintendo's Virtual Console, or even the popularity of roms on the PSP. All these things show that people are very much interested in playing and appreciating older games.
Sure, those are only a small handful of games that people are going back to, but that's the way all art is. How many people have read a Ben Johnson or Christopher Marlowe play outside of a college English class? Not many, but I'm sure we're all aware of Shakespeare. Only the hits make it to the next generation of appreciation.
Also technology isn't a problem. Even if we're not able to find a working NES, I'm sure I will always be able to play Super Mario Bros. Take, for example, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." It's written in a language that didn't become standard English, and because of that, the author's name is lost. However, because of the work's popularity, it was able to be translated into more popular variants of English.
I believe the same thing will happen to popular video games. If there is a fan somewhere with the technical knowhow, then the game will live on. Technology will solve it's own shortcomings if the demand is there.
Gonzo @ Jul 12th 2006 11:44AM
I think this is being approached from the wrong perspective.
First of all there are game critics. I know I appreciate the reviews, as well as the humor, and obscure refrences presented by Adam & Morgan on X-Play and I suppose they would be the closest thing to a Siskle & Ebert take on game reviews except Morgan Webb is much easier on the eyes and much more funny.
Second of all: Games (not counting the ones in the bargin bin)are much more expensive than movie tickets, music albums, and even books. So while I appreciate the opinions of x-play reviewers and writers, I don't take their word for it. I'll go over to gamespot and see what the fan concensus is and maybe read a couple of the fan reviews that look intelligent.
Yea, gamers appreciate reviews, but as for me, it takes more than one good review to get me running to the game shop.
Jojo McIntyre @ Jul 12th 2006 12:31PM
Probot, I disagree that one would pay the same amount for Street Fighter II as one would for Prey. On the other hand, I'd definitely pay as much for North by Northwest on DVD as I would Bad Boys 2. (Much as I love both movies.) And I'd be terribly surprised if there wasn't a huge nostalgia factor involved with the newly released old games. For example, I just can't imagine that anyone would go back and play Castle Wolfenstein 3D except as a nostalgia piece, despite its ground-breaking nature. Do I think there are timeless games? Sure--I think that the original Zelda, Fallout, and the SCUMM games are timeless. But perhaps that's a factor of those kinds of games not being made anymore, rather than feeling as if they are exemplary independent of time. Another words, there's rarely the sense or pace of "progress" that you see in videogame journalism. The closest I guess would be movies with special effects, yet another computer-related effort.
And Marlowe and Johnson may be relegated to the English class-room, but Faulkner and Proust and Shakespeare sure ain't. When's the last time you heard that the golden age of gaming was Atari? Or even NES?
That said, it got me thinking that perhaps game construction critique WOULD be an interesting read. It'd give you some voyeuristic thrill--kind of like a deconstruction of car design in those car magazines or what have you. That'd be interesting, not sure for how long though. Honestly, I actually enjoy reading those stupid "Tom Versus Bruce" things in CGW and whatnot. They're fun--and it's encouraging to see mainstream game media not following "preview then reviews then cheatcodes" all the time!
Probot @ Jul 12th 2006 1:08PM
"Probot, I disagree that one would pay the same amount for Street Fighter II as one would for Prey. On the other hand, I'd definitely pay as much for North by Northwest on DVD as I would Bad Boys 2."
I never said you would pay the same price. I said there are people that will play and appreciate older games, and that is undeniable.
Price has nothing to do with art. The only reason North by Northwest is the same price as Bad Boys II is because the DVD manufacturing cost is the same. Actually, Street Fighter II is only $10, whereas Prey is $50, so you don't have to pay the same for both.
But, like I said, price is irrelevant to art. I don't have to pay anything to read Shakespeare or don't have to pay much to see classic movies from the 1920s.
Nostalgia may play a part for those who've already played the games. But I know my little brothers enjoyed Super Mario Bros. 3 just as much as I did when they first played it a couple years ago.
And there are many more games that I have never played. There's no reason to limit myself to what's on the shelf today. So classic games will always have an audience.
Yes, some games won't hold up well. But, again, that's true of any artform. Art isn't a popularity contest. Just because Shakespeare is the only well-known Elizabethan playwright today, it doesn't mean Ben Johnson didn't make art. Not all plays or novels or essays matter today, even if they had significant weight when they were written. However, that doesn't devalue the medium's ability to be art.
Jojo McIntyre @ Jul 12th 2006 1:22PM
I think you may have misunderstood me. My point is this, given the option between today's latest and greatest and yesterday's latest and greatest, most would opt for today's latest and greatest in videogames. The same is not at all true for other media, regardless of whether it's "art."
Classic games will have a forum, yes, no one doubts that, but not considered at par with the contemporary games--and as cruel as it may be, I believe price absolutely has implications. It may not be artistic worth, but the market does have some bearing on the item's relevance.
But that's only a part of the bigger question, which is why gaming is not yet "mature"--which is an altogether different issue. Part of it is that it's an interactive medium, yes. Part is its relative youth, although 20 years is hardly young anymore, esp in today's accelerated climate. Part of it is the increasingly high cost of production and technical requirements. Who knows, maybe it will always be shinier blood and guts with some edgier materials.
32_Footsteps @ Jul 12th 2006 2:36PM
"Classic games will have a forum, yes, no one doubts that, but not considered at par with the contemporary games..."
As a counter, I'd like to point out that classic games tend to dominate "all-time best" lists. While people often disagree as to which games specifically belong on there or where to precisely rank all of them, you'll find that most such lists heavily represent the 8-bit and 16-bit eras but surprisingly few in the current generation of consoles. If anything, the implication seems to be that newer games by and large are not on par with the classics.
Probot @ Jul 12th 2006 3:19PM
"My point is this, given the option between today's latest and greatest and yesterday's latest and greatest, most would opt for today's latest and greatest in videogames. The same is not at all true for other media..."
I don't disagree with what 32_Footsteps at all. But if you take the strict scenario of having Galaga on the table next to Halo, then yes, the person would probably pick up Halo more readily.
However, I think it is the same for all media. You have to understand the analogy though. If classic gaming is Atari and NES, then the equivalent classic movies wouldn't be Hitchcok, but stuff like "Birth of a Nation" and "Nosferatu". I doubt most people would chose either of those over "Pirates of the Carribean" or "Superman Returns."
I don't think timelessness is necessary for something to be art. At the same time, I do think some games are timeless. No matter when I play it, Tetris never gets boring.
I think we've strayed a bit off topic a bit. Someone mentioned that critics are needed for the medium to mature. But as 32_Footsteps pointed out, Lester Bangs didn't help rock grow outside his readership. And his overall impact was very temporary, as most people today don't know who he was.
I want to point this out again. The internet is the culture of video games. You can't seperate the two. And the journalists that know games use the internet primarily. Game journalism is mature, but it isn't shaping itself after older media, so people don't know how to react to it.
Jojo McIntyre @ Jul 12th 2006 4:10PM
32 footsteps, I totally agree that game rankings skew towards the older games, and I think that that's one promising indication of "maturity," although I still believe it's nostalgia-led. That said, on a value basis, there's no comparison to me that people would prefer to play newer games to older ones.
In music, however, people still buy Beatles albums--Pink Floyd still has like the 3rd best-selling album of all times in the States. Further, there's a vibrant indie/underground scene in music, books, movies--none of this is happening with games.
Probot, if NES and Atari is Nosferatu and Metropolis, then let's take a more recent example. I find it hard to believe that anyone would play Ratchet and Clank 1 over whatever the newest iteration is. Same for Rayman. Same for most FPS's. Same for Civilization. There's a sense of progress here that doesn't necessarily exist in pure "art." That said, I think you've hit the nail on the head when you mentioned Tetris. To me, the greatest "art" that gaming has produced is more abstract, like Tetris, or perhaps SimCity or something non-linear.
John Scalzi's article is pretty good--I don't agree with all his points, but I think it's fair to say that the elegance and beauty of gaming is in the playing of it. Not the overblown music or script or even graphics (I'm think FFVII here) but in the elegance of Tetris or the wonder of GTA. It's like a rollercoaster or chess--there's a visceralness that doesn't have to be art to be compelling.
The biggest fallacy is trying to compare gaming to a narrative-driven medium like movies. It's tough--you're just not going to win against that kind of arguments. The question of how much of this is intrinsic to the gaming medium and how much is a function of the people creating games is uncertain to me. Although my gut says that it's both, but more skewed towards the platform's nature.
DannyHibiki @ Jul 12th 2006 4:39PM
I hate this emo poseur more on his annoying inclusion in Heavy Metal documentaries than what he says about games.
He just annoys the crap outta me with his hipster smugness.
Probot @ Jul 12th 2006 9:29PM
"In music, however, people still buy Beatles albums--Pink Floyd still has like the 3rd best-selling album of all times in the States. Further, there's a vibrant indie/underground scene in music, books, movies--none of this is happening with games."
First part, classic games do sell very well when they're released, such as the NES Series on GBA. However, due to the nature of the market, older games don't stay on the shelves. I think if you could find new copies of Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy VI for PS1, they would sell.
As for the underground/indie scene, it's there in games, but absolutely much smaller, and I think that's an area where games have to start growing.
I still don't think it's a rule that people will pick the older version of a movie and the newer version of a game. I think it's true in a lot of situations, but I think that has to do with the nature of the industries. In the film industry, sequals are usually worse than the original, or at least less popular. However, in games, a major franchise will show improvement in each game.
Take the Star Wars trilogy for example. If you had all three original movies on a table, I think most people would gravitate towards the first one. Now imagine you had Metal Gear Solid 1-3 on the table. I think again, people would gravitate towards the first one, despite it's lack of graphical sophistocation compared to the other two. It doesn't have anything to do with the time it was developed; people will choose on the quality of the game or movie.
In your example however, the latest Ratchet and Clank game is an improvement over the first two, and that's why people would choose it.
"The biggest fallacy is trying to compare gaming to a narrative-driven medium like movies."
I completely agree with that. I prefer to compare them to music, a medium that CAN tell stories, but doesn't need to in order to be considered good art. Games are centered on gameplay; the interaction is the art. The same way sound is the art in music.
I do think video games can be narrative-driven and some games do it well. The problem is, we've been inculcated by the movie industry about what narratives should look like in visual form. Games can't and shouldn't try to be that. I think they can have narratives, but they have to discover a way to make them work interactively beyond the button-push, cutscene, button-push formula.
Probot @ Jul 15th 2006 11:00AM
I know this thread is long dead, but I just want to respond to Gonzo's comment because it brings the problem of terminology.
To me, a game review is different from a game critique which is seperate from game journalism. But I think all three are necessary. And of course, one person can do all three, just not at the same time.
We're all familiar with is game reviews. They tell us if the game is worth paying for. They tend to associate games with numeric ratings.
I think game critiques should go deeper than that. They should explore the narrative, gameplay, social relevance, connection with the user, etc. This kind of writing does exist, but there isn't a market for it. It is largely academic and that's common for all forms of art.
And we're all familiar with game journalism. This is what I think Klosterman was specifically talking about. He thinks there are no Lester Bangs-style journalists. He wants a writer to appeal outside the hardcore audience.
The summary of my comments is that I don't believe Lester Bangs is what Klosterman thinks he was. It's unlikely for a gaming version of his image of Bangs to arise. However, there are game journalists that are doing what I believe Lester Bangs actually did.