N'Gai Croal to leave Newsweek for consultancy career

by Christopher Grant on Mar 4th 2009 11:53AM

That's right. Newsweek's N'Gai Croal – one of game journalism's most august statesmen – will be packing up his desk at the venerable (though not invulnerable) news magazine and heading out for waters uncharted, Gamasutra reports. Croal may be leaving games journalism but he's not leaving the gaming industry; instead, Croal will "pursue a career as a creative consultant to game developers" to help them reach that most mysterious of all gamers: the adult.

Croal has posted his final piece on his LevelUp blog, but if you want moar Croal, you'll still find his monthly column in Edge magazine, a personal blog at (the currently parked) ngaicroal.com and, of course, Twitter. If you had to read one piece of work from Croal's coverage of the gaming industry, the man himself recommends his investigation of the unfortunate Gerstmann-gate incident and (here's the good part, folks) "the contempt publishers have for the enthusiast press," calling it "one of the posts I'm proudest of." We're inclined to agree.

So, here we are ... from one editorial we to another, we'll selfishly miss your contributions at Newsweek but wish you the best in the new gig.

Source

Tags: Journalism, Newsweek, NGai-Croal

Reader Comments (58)

Good luck N'Gai... you're the King. (Shit, I imagine if he left Newsweek, he's getting a better paycheck from the new job. Good for him.)

Ahhhh yes, the cream puff consultant gig nonsense. This is when you know you've arrived. This probably means he'll be sleeping in late, housing donuts down, and contributing the occasional piece to some mag or newspaper.

"This probably means he'll be sleeping in late, housing donuts down..."

I think his love affair with the crueller began a long time ago.

Maybe he left because newsweek is racist.

That sounds like something a racist would say, racist!

N'Gai please.

I love you, Dirty.

I love you, MAAAAAAN!

Maybe now there will finally be a black person working on Resident Evil.

This makes sense since he's posting on Level Up about once a month recently.

I don't like him. He pulled the race card with re5. Instead of rising above, he sunk below. For shame.

My feelings on him are mixed. He has written some fantastic articles, but he's also said some dumb things like the RE5 thing. I'm also pretty sure he was the one who made the asinine comment "develop games for wii, then port up". It was also hard to not laugh at him for his defense of The Club on an old 1up yours podcast.

Odd, because his statement about developing games for the masses, then refining them for the smaller audiences was highly respectable, in this topsy-turvy industry that likes to have the elite dictate to the customers and make products just for themselves, it was a bold stance

I'll grant that its not plausible from a technical perspective (since the gulf between the Wii and PS360 is a bit too vast for that), but its an excellent theory, a theory grounded upon why the most successful PC devs (namely Blizzard and Valve) are so successful (relatively low minimum requirements). This idea that the bleeding edge is first priority is nonsensical from a business standpoint, and both Valve and Blizzard have devalued this idea from an artistic standpoint also

It was respectable to you, someone who doesn't have anything other than a wii and therefore is used to getting inferior products. But for people like me, making an inferior game then porting it to our systems would, almost always, result in lazy cheap ports that are no better than the inferior system's. That would be a problem to me.

http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2008/04/race-and-resident-evil-5-trailer.html

And tmac, when you can actually point out to me out a game on the "superior" systems that's as good as Mario Galaxy, I'll concede that you have something to say.

He finds a way to troll the Wii on an article about N'Gai, and you want to feed him?

I'm bored. It also gives me a chance to probably laugh at his new found love for the PSP.

He's an "august statesman"? Never heard of him.

He's going to consult game developers on how racist their content is and how to replace that content with the senseless killing of thousands of white dudes.

I'm a comment zombie.

BTW, sorry white dudes, I meant European Americans

My God. All you losers shut up. Ngai Croal has done more for the gaming industry, and more for the games you guys play, than all of you combined. He's interviewed and talked to more important people than you'll even think about talking to. He's actually done important work. The fact that you can't even from complete sentences, or don't know the contributions he's done, proves that half of the gaming community is populated by impossible morons.

Actually, Mr. Croal has yet to talk to me, and according to my mother, I am the most important person in the world.

Right now I'm thinking about talking to a billion Super Dave Osbornes, a billion Abe Lincolns, a million Dame Ednas, 4 Christopher Grants & 2 Ronald Reagans. Honestly, I'd like to see N'Gai top THAT. Also, I didn't know he's done froming sentences since this is about a consultant gig?

Impossible Moron sounds like a badass game, dude.

Comedy gold, Markez.

I can smell the burning all the way from here!

I voted you up!

Upvoted Slacks. Reasons: He is right in his argument. Also: you are morons. Also: Mooooooooooooose is a moron.

And how exactly does someone "from" a complete sentence?

At least Whoopi will always be able to fall back onto "The View" if consulting doesn't work out. Am I the only one that doesn't want him directly tampering withgaming?

Maybe he'll go on to be a pundit. He'll maybe be better at that than most, because he has 10 years of gaming experience. This is in contrast to his work as a gaming journalist where he is frankly hampered by how his obsession with movies seems to cause him to see games as a red-headed stepchild. And his lack of gaming experience (seriously, only 10 years!) means he ends up as a good writer with junior-grade gaming knowledge.

It's a shame he has to leave, but I'll pick up Edge every now and then to see what he has to say. Maybe he can appear on the Joystiq Podcast soon, too.

But the "Not N'Gai" picture - is that J "God in male form" Allard with dreads?

Wow, that sucks. He's been a terrific voice in this industry in the last few years. I wish him a supreme amount of success and hope he'll keep contributing to the community in column and podcast format.

As much as I love the enthusiast press, they don't bring much legitimacy to the gaming industry. N'Gai has done more on that front than any other journalist. I'll miss him.

I have a lot of respect for him, too, because his opinions seem to grasp the scope of the industry. He seems to see the big picture, an industry where artistic expression and commercial stability can co-exist, a somewhat revolutionary idea in this day and age where people seem to think that a good game and a commercially successful game must be two different games

I would also like to add that he was severely underrepresented in the actual Newsweek mag. Very, very rarely did i see his works there, and i generally get my weekly dose of Newsweek

He always struck me as having more interesting perspectives on games journalism rather than on games themselves. "Consultants" to any creative medium always end up ruining things. Most games are created by adults for adults and work best when they're not interfered with by third parties ("consultants", producers on the publisher side, focus groups, etc) who are not a port of the development team.

Jeez, the latent racism here is about as potent as it gets.

I sense a great deal of Haterade being consumed ITT

He will be missed.

Not!

For whatever reason it may be, I just couldn't stand him on GT's Bonus Round videos.

So who cares? One of the most overrated figuers in the gaming industry.

He's off to discover racism in places it doesn't exist!

Had an influence on me, don't care about who else he didn't have one on, anyway, always for the better, hope his new career path opens up more opportunity

Accusing people of racism doesn't make him a better journalist, It's hilarious how one can't say anything against Croal without being accused of racism. Stop it please.

I always liked him. Hope to see him in more Bonus Rounds.

>:(

Maybe game companies should hire better writers instead, who come up with storylines and characters that don't have cliché and predictability written all over it. Or throw the money at designers that come up with games that try different things.

On the other hand, maybe a "N'Gai approved" seal on the game box will be enough to shift more units to the targeted demographic.

I've really liked N'Gai. He's been a fresh face. Maybe not one I have agreed with on EVERY single thing, but he has done a great job. He will be missed.

I am hoping he can still jump on some podcasts now and then. I know he used to go on 1UP (now Listen UP) from time to time, hopefully he will still do that.

I straight up don't like N'Gai Croal. It seems like he's always trying to create some new controversy in video games. He agreed that there was racism in RE5 (let's be serious, there isn't), he said that game blog sites like Joystiq put EGM into it's hot water (it's not that simple), and I'm really sick of that type of reporting.

i liked his work, and wish him well

N'Gai was a great representative for the gaming press. Having "Newsweek" associated with his work gave him instant credability in the "Mainstream." And he never did anything to tarnish that image. He is a class act and always wrote that way. Not to mention how he helped offset the "Soulja Boy" stereotype of African Americans who play video games.

He could have easily thumbed his nose at the enthusiast press, like many other mainstream mags have done in their coverage of videogames. After all, no one at Newsweek would have likely called him on it. But he embraced the Internet and enthusiast press and as such, he became a part of it and seemed to get respect from both sides.

Good luck to N'Gai.

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N'Gai Croal to leave Newsweek for consultancy career

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