Associate editor Bob Colayco hopes the game industry doesn't start running fluff stories like the Olympics did. Call him an impersonal jerk at [email protected].

　　Still, games are a powerful tool for reaching out to the next generation of kids. Kids have grown up with the technology, they're familiar with it, and they like it. More designers should figure out a way to use their games to teach something about the world. I imagine if they did that there would be a lot less griping in political circles about games. And, let's be blunt, it would be pretty cool as well. You more or less learn something new every day. So why not learn it from games?

　　If you want to be a rock star, start a band in your garage, not a game development studio.

　　Learning and growing culturally from the media we consume is something humans have done for centuries. Music, painting, sculpture, literature, and even film are all forms of media that have evolved over the years to be considered art forms. And as a result, we've seen people become interested not only in the media, but the people behind the art. And to a certain point, there's nothing wrong with being interested in learning a little bit about the people behind our favorite media, including games. But what concerns me is the slippery slope that interest leads us down.

　　Before I even get to discussing that slippery slope, let's talk about how I even came upon this subject. It was Brian's Freeplay column last week that led me to David Jaffe's blog entry discussing the distinction between who is "in" the game industry and who isn't. A quick summary: Jaffe doesn't consider game "journalists" (I actually hate that label) a true part of the game industry, and he claims that we "journalists" should be working on more hard-hitting journalism and on fewer general reviews and previews.

　　You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are a game developer.

　　Sounds reasonable. I don't really care whether Jaffe, or you, or the guy who made my sandwich today thinks I'm really in the game industry or not, but I am interested in hearing when people have suggestions about the type of coverage they'd like to see from outlets like GameSpot.

　　The example Jaffe gave of the type of journalism he wants to see more of pertaining to the game industry was a recent interview that show biz magazine Rolling Stone did with U2 front man Bono. Here's what Jaffe had to say:

　　Give me THAT but with KOJIMA....OR MIYAMOTO! And no more of this bull**** about how he plays the ****ing banjo and likes to garden. Wow, that's hard hitting! **** guys, dig into the man and let us know what makes him tick, what he really likes and dislikes, his political views, what his stresses are, what his vices are, does he feel stress to save Nintendo, etc....you know, go and WRITE something!

　　And it was at that point that I begin to respectfully disagree with Jaffe. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who feels this way, but I'm always much more interested in the products our musicians, film directors, and game developers produce than I am in the people themselves. The interview Jaffe pointed to as an example was totally dull and uninteresting. I don't care about Bono's sunglasses or his childhood. The only relevance he has to me is that I enjoy the music he made 20 years ago a lot more than the music he and his band are making today. That's it! Am I the only one who picks up rags like Entertainment Weekly, skips the fluff in front, and goes straight to the reviews sections?

　　Maybe that attitude is really dehumanizing. But I don't think it's any coincidence that other entertainment industries started going to crap when people started caring more about our manufactured pop stars and their gossip than they did about the product. This is why we have reality shows with the likes of Jessica Simpson. Do people really like her music and her talents as a vocalist? Or do they just want to hear the next dumb thing she says that makes her husband roll his eyes? This is also why ESPN sucks now, because it's all about cross-media promotion and the culture of sports stars blah, blah, blah. Music videos have invaded my SportsCenter. That's not what I want out of a sports news outlet. I want box scores, game recaps, and highlight reel videos of dunks, touchdowns and home runs. And I want funny, snarky, culturally relevant commentary while they do it. And that's where I draw the line. I don't care who Maria Sharapova is dating. (OK, maybe I do care about that last part, a little.)

　　Developer profiles are fine. The Real World: EA Tiburon is not fine.

　　Why should anyone care what Hideo Kojima's political views are, anyway? Is he running for public office? And if you did care, couldn't you figure it out from the hours upon hours of cutscenes from any Metal Gear Solid game? That was what made literary analysis of plays and novels in high school English class fun (if you thought that sort of thing was fun, anyway). You can't really ask Nathaniel Hawthorne what his views were on Puritan values in 17th-century New England because, well, he's long dead. But if you really cared, you could figure it out by reading and interpreting The Scarlet Letter. We didn't need an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto to know he was inspired to design a game while weeding his garden. You could have figured that out just by playing Pikmin.

　　Part of what always made the game industry cool to me (whether you consider a writer like me to be a part of it or not) is the newness and innocence of the medium. Because the developers and the people behind the scenes are relatively anonymous compared to professional athletes, musicians, and actors, the focus is always squarely on the product--the games. But as gaming forges its way into mainstream consciousness, at some point that focus is going to begin shifting toward the people behind the products. I guess that's OK, to a degree...until we start seeing stuff like Survivor: John Romero on TV. The day the culture of celebrity begins to pollute the game industry the way it has polluted television, film, music, and sports is the day I quit writing about it and go back to school to be a pharmacist.

　　Next Up: Real People Make Games by Greg Kasavin