Why games are still niche and not mainstream, and how journalism can help them gain cultural credibility. Our book is out now with MIT Press in the Playful Thinking series. You can download a full, Open Access PDF here or buy the book at your fav bookstore.

The book addresses both the history and current practice of game journalism, along with the roles writers and industry play in conveying that the medium is a “mainstream” form of entertainment. Through interviews with reporters, we retrace how the game industry and journalists started a subcultural spiral in the 1980s that continues to this day. Digital play became increasingly exclusionary by appealing to niche audiences. At the same time, this culture pushed journalists to the margins, leaving them toiling to find freelance gigs and deeply ambivalent about their profession.

According to Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, this is a

“A well-crafted book that exudes a passion for games and combines a healthy skepticism for the state of game journalism as a genre and its place within institutional journalism, with a set of prescriptive, provocative, and aspiration solutions for game journalism’s future… A must-read for journalism and game scholars, this book masterfully presents the complex dynamics that form and establish journalistic genres and their impact and influence on journalists’ practices and sensemaking and vice versa.”