An Open Letter to Penny Arcade, Revisited

I owe Penny Arcade a big, fat apology.

Last month, I wrote an editorial in which I played contrarian to their announcement that they intended to fix gaming news with the help of Ben Kuchera. I took exception to the fact that they believed one man could handle news coverage better than the rest of the industry. I argued that their best effort would never stand in, functionally speaking, for the high-volume blogs that dominate modern games journalism. I suggested that they instead draw attention to gaming journalism's overlooked side by emphasizing criticism, commentary, and analysis.

Now that the Penny Arcade Report has launched, I think it's fairly clear that this was their intent all along. Kuchera's first three articles are high quality, original journalism. The curated section, called The Cut, features an admirable selection of the best work other folks in the industry are doing, free of any editorial license. Every single article published or promoted on the site is worth reading, something that's basically unheard of for a gaming blog.

Strictly speaking, though, they're not news, and this is precisely where I butted heads with their claims in my previous editorial. Assuming this first slice is a fair sample of the content they'll be putting out in the future, the Penny Arcade Report will probably never be a good way to stay informed about the latest happenings in gaming. For the average gamer, it's a stellar read, but not an outright replacement for the Joystiqs and Kotakus of the world.

But then, that argument misses the point just as much today as it did when I first made it. When I get caught up squabbling about the semantics, I fail to see what the Penny Arcade Report is actually attempting to do: create a gaming public that cares more about thoughtful discussion than hearing the latest PR copy. They don't want to "fix" news so much as make it obsolete. They're changing the rules to the game.

See, games journalism has something of a new media hangover at the moment. Blogs won the day with timeliness and broad appeal, but now we're stuck in an arms race on both fronts. The sites that rise to the top are the fastest and most exhaustive, and all concept of depth and relative importance is sacrificed in the process. In the worst cases, everything is reduced to noise. That much is apparent to anyone who's ever read a gaming blog, perhaps doubly so to anyone who's written for one.

Of course, there's been movement against the trend for years now. Banners designed to draw attention to the few scraps of valuable content are now standard issue on every gaming blog. Big names like Kotaku and The Verge have attempted to reconcile the old and new approaches through dramatic layout changes, with varying degrees of success.

But the Penny Arcade Report takes a far more dramatic step backwards. Content flows in infrequent, deliberate waves. The coverage willfully ignores much of what happens in the industry, in favor of providing depth and analysis of a few key events. This is gameswriting that assumes you're already informed. It's effectively a culture magazine wrapped up to look like a gaming blog.

To be clear, I don't intend that as criticism. I think what the Penny Arcade Report is doing has potential to move the discourse forward in a big way. They're certainly not the first site to focus on original gaming content, but they're by far the highest profile, and if they can change what people expect from games journalism, all of us, fans and journalists alike, will benefit immensely. I remain skeptical that they'll be able to effect the sea change they're aiming for, but it's a decidedly hopeful skepticism.

So here it is: I'm sorry. I was wrong, and I earnestly wish you guys the best of luck with what you're doing. You're off to a great start.