Chuck Klosterman is at it again, biting off more than he can chew and posing the question: “Why are there no video-game critics?” As usual, he begins by doing a half-assed bit of research and then spends the rest of the article ranting about how frustrated he is that his investigation didn’t turn up anything interesting. Sample sentence:
“It’s hard enough to figure out why something does exist, but it’s even harder to figure out why something doesn’t exist.”
In the end he somehow comes up with pretty much the right answer i.e. that games can’t really be critiqued in the same way and with the same analytical tools that we use for film and literature because the narrative structure exists only superficially in most games and the player’s interaction with the environment becomes way more important than any “story” elements. He even starts to dance around the really interesting questions of free will and “potentiality,” going so far as to suggest that *these* are the issues video-game critics should focus on, before declaring that, “I can’t see how such an evolution could happen, mostly because there’s no one to develop into these ‘potentiality critics.’” Dude, what? Have you never read Lucky Wander Boy? Also, how do you even write an article like this without making at least a passing mention of the term “Ludology?” There are plenty of blogs on the subject.
[UPDATE] In the course of my research for this post, I found out that D.B. Weiss (author of Lucky Wander Boy) has been hired to do a rewrite of Alex Garland’s original Halo screenplay. W00T to that! =)
[UPDATE 2] Found a follow up interview with Klosterman on GameSpot and he explains himself a bit better here.
eric, i know you’re aware of how i feel about chuck klosterman’s writing. for those of you who don’t know - i think the writing itself is terrible and akin to a really half-assed paper written for a blow-off class. it is based far too often on quoting someone or something and then saying ‘i agree with this’ (you’ll notice he does this a few times in that esquire article [how did this guy get to write for esquire? why is he so popular? i don’t understand this.]). and most frustratingly, the opinions expressed therein seem designed to be contrary and provoke a reaction.
i do not understand why people read this guy. the only reason i read these two pieces was so i could validly comment on them. admittedly i went in with my prejudices, but i didn’t find anything that urged me to reconsider my dislike of his writing. i think this esquire article is a prime example of why i read a few of the essays in that one book of his then threw it back at you in disgust.
i did however enjoy the gamespot interview. he spent the whole time backpedaling and asserting that his article was really saying all of these things that it clearly was not, or could not even be interpreted as implying, no matter how wild the reader’s imagination. i think maybe he just lives for creating controversy - the journalistic (and i use that word loosely) equivalent of a drama queen.