PSA: games journalists are not your PR reps

A couple days ago, we wrote about the case of a Filipino teenager who murdered his grandmother after being interrupted while playing Dota. The response to that piece has been…interesting.

See: The Filipino media’s hate for gaming, and why that’s wrong

Specifically, we got complaints from some game industry people in Southeast Asia that we shouldn’t run this kind of story because it makes the game industry look bad. I’m not going to name names, but this is something we heard from several industry figures from several countries in Southeast Asia. And since we hear these kinds of complaints fairly often, I feel I need to remind everyone in the games industry of something: we are not here to make you look good.

I understand the confusion…

The line between games journalism and PR can seem like a thin one. In some cases, that’s because some games sites don’t have a meaningful ethics policy, and basically are doing PR work. But more often, it’s just because games journalists love games too, and it’s natural for us to get excited about them. We write a lot of positive stories about games simply because we had fun playing them and we want our readers to have fun playing them, too.

And admittedly, here at GiA it is also true that we want to see Asia’s gaming market grow and thrive. We have a vested interest, personally and professionally, in seeing Asia’s gaming scene get bigger and stronger.

…but we’re journalists first

Make no mistake, though: we are journalists, not PR people or industry lobbyists, and when bad things happen in the industry—things that are meaningful or of interest to our readers—we are going to report them. Even if it’s bad for your company. Even if it’s bad for the industry as a whole.

But we believe that in the long-term, openness and transparency are what’s best for the Asian gaming industry anyway. Ignoring problems like gaming addiction and gaming-related violence is not going to make them go away, nor is it going to make the mainstream media’s response to them any less focused on games.

As gamers, I would imagine we can more or less all agree that games do not magically make people violent (and there are scientific studies that support that conclusion). But we can probably also admit that game-related violence and gaming addiction are real problems. The Asian games industry is going to have image issues, especially with the older generation, until it finds a way to effectively address these problems.

Veritas vincit

We believe the first step in addressing these problems is acknowledging their existence. We need to discuss them openly. We need to contextualize the situation and assess the mainstream media response (as my colleague Xai has already done) to help spread a clearer picture of what the problem really is.

We also believe in the inherent value truth and transparency, both to our readers and to society in general. That means that we’re going to keep reporting on high-profile issues like the murder in Quezon City even if they do make the industry look bad.

We love the Asian games industry, but hiding the truth to keep the industry looking good is definitely not our job.

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