Kotaku
It may have been a clueless, yet skilled writer who raised the question, but it took one of the top game journalists to really answer it: Why is there no Lester Bangs of video games?
Chuck Klosterman tackled the question for Esquire, showing both his panache for writing and total misunderstanding of game culture. Lucky for us we have Clive Thompson.
In an article for Wired, Thompson cuts through the bullshit and gets to the reasons. While he breaks down the reason behind the lack of any seminal gaming journalist out there into four sections, the whole thing can be summed up in his to-the-point conclusion:
With games, we're in the realm of ludology. It's an insanely rich field of human art and meaning, but it's utterly neglected. It's not taught in schools. It's not written about in newspapers. So we're just now scratching its surface. The game criticism of tomorrow won't look anything like the stuff that Pauline Kael wrote. It'll be some crazy, unruly spawn of sportswriting, gonzo journalism, analytic philosophy, memoir and investigative reporting. The Lester Bangs of gaming is going to be a philosopher of play.And personally, I can't wait to read him.
Don't let this summary serve you, go read the entire article, it's worth it.
Why aren't there... [Collision Detection]
