Where have all the editorials gone?

One of the staples of almost every news source has always been the editorial department. Editorial departments of the NY Times, The Washington Post, and others have been some of the most read, discussed, and influential in journalism. For some reason this seems to have been forgotten in today's video game journalism environment, and instead we find the sly comments or state of gaming observations written into the reviews and previews that dominant today's gaming journalism instead written as stand alone editorials. Top ten lists and discussions of retro gaming are all well and good, but they don't add to the cannon of video game journalism, and they certainly aren't going to help legitimize the journalists who write them.

That's a shame. The biggest news stories, and the most discussed video game journalism is what score was given to the latest game. Perhaps that will spark some brief discussion on how scores are given out, or what makes a game great, but this is short lived and usually only conceptually responsive. In other words no one seems to talk about these things except to respond when they see something they don't like or agree with.

There have of course been exceptions to this rule. N'Gai Croal with his Level Up blog is a great example. Providing commentary, editorials, with reviews and interviews mixed in, this was the kind of video game journalism that is missing from the market place. Sadly Level Up has been shut down and N'Gai has moved on. That was a huge loss for me, and maybe part of the reason I am doing this now.

So who will be the H.L. Mencken or Thomas Friedman of video games? Both of these writers have made names for themselves in the editorial pages of their respective newspapers, and have contributed to the national political conversation. That's what I would love to see. Video games can cross state, country, and continental lines, so why can't our discussion happen on such a scale? Why can't what we say here have an effect on how our friends in Germany see and play games? Can that only happen during convention season? I guess there is the problem of there being no video game daily paper, but that's a post for another day.