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Are Gamers REALLY Dead?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Pete Incaviglia, Jun 10, 2008.

  1. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    I felt like I had a similar issue when I was at a biweekly newspaper in college.

    I covered a big time college basketball game and I knew the five-day-per-week student paper would also. I started out writing a typical straight-up gamer, but realized that would already be in The Major Daily, The Big Student Daily and most major to middling outlets in the area.

    So I shifted gears and wrote a second-day lede and turned my gamer into more of an analysis piece. I didn't get much reader feedback for it, but the sports editor at The Big Student Daily complimented it, which was good enough for me.

    I agree with the idea of ditching the traditional straight up gamer for print when people are going to see it on the Internet or TV or radio or in the stands. If you want to continue to write those, stick with games where most people aren't going to know the outcome before opening your paper.

    I like the featurized/analysis approach for gamers. By definition, your interpretation of the game is going to be a little different from other writers, other broadcasters, etc.
     
  2. GuessWho

    GuessWho Active Member

    They might not be dead, but they're in intensive care. I rarely read gamers anymore, even my own.
     
  3. TheMethod

    TheMethod Member

    I've been reading NBA Finals gamers, because I'm hoping to get information like this:

    -- Strategy points -- why didn't Boston trap Kobe? Is there a history of playing him (or other great scorers) straight-up in those situations, etc.
    -- Good quotes, the kind you don't see on TV.
    -- Explanation -- of anything and everything. I already know who, what, when and where, I want to know why and how.

    The modern game story should enhance my understanding of what I've seen, and allow me to apply it to future games. Personally, I don't care how Leon Powe felt about his great game, having been homeless and all. They told that story on TV, and I can pretty much assume he felt good about it, but wasn't in tears or anything. Not that the story shouldn't be told, but I don't think the gamer is the place for feature stories.

    Obviously, all this explanation is extremely difficult to do when the game starts at 9 p.m., because you have a print deadline. But as soon as print dies, we won't have this problem, and we'll be able to write good, informative, game stories that enhance the coverage, even for someone who watched the game on TV.
     
  4. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    I agree wholeheartedly in theory that print gamers should be featurized and analytical and quote-filled and all that stuff that people can't get from the boxscore.

    The problem with all of that is production time. For some strange reason, as the newspaper technology improves, the deadlines get earlier. If I'm covering a night game that ends at 10 and I can't send a word for the newspaper past 10:45 (and we're talkign about the write-thru, not the crap running story for the first deadline), it's tough it to featurize it too much.

    Ironically, it's the web story that could be more featurized, because there are no truck drivers or printing presses waiting for the web. You can file it at 11:30 and have it posted at 11:35.

    Our industry is all backward.
     
  5. captzulu

    captzulu Member

    I can't agree more. I would add to that list things like turning points, key stretches, surprise contributors, etc. Frankly, either for online or for print, I think newspapers should explore doing away with a traditional story and just do an analysis package of notes or bullet points that address these issues. You can easily fill your 18-inch hole with something like this. And from a production standpoint, for anything other than a 9 p.m. start, doing a package of quick hits like this would be easier than writing a gamer. No need to strain for a good lede on deadline (and half the time coming up with one that doesn't really work), no need to worry about how you have to transition from this quote to that stat. No need to do a bunch of play-by-play. And the thing is, as a writer compiles the info to write a traditional gamer, they would have already thought about things like key stretches or strategies. I know I've seen some papers try it for exhibition games. I wish they would start doing it for real games. I think this would be especially useful if you're covering pro sports or major colleges, since the game would be likely on TV and there would be an AP story to take care of the play-by-play and nuts & bolts.
     
  6. Tenhut

    Tenhut New Member

    As a friend, who is always harping, said: Write a story that gives the person who watched it - and has no radio or TV - something he/she didn't know or would find interesting while still covering what happened for the person who wasn't. Just because a person was there doesn't mean they were able to take in everything. They will still read the game story, and for a reason.

    Let's not overthink this. Leave that to "management."
     
  7. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    All the arguments about whether game stories are dead overlook a base issue.

    Game stories that are 80% play-by-play are bad gamers. And they were bad gamers in 1990, 1980, 1970 and 1960.

    A good game story will always have its place, because it will be a well-crafted story providing analysis, reaction from the principals, and most importantly, it will cut through the bullshit and tell the reader what the result means.
     
  8. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    Amen to that.

    Consider this: Given what you said above, I think it's still valid that the nature of gamers has changed a bit to the point where anything short of a deadline gamer will read more like a second-day story than it did 10 years ago. It's an evolutionary, and not a revolutionary, change.
     
  9. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    I believe that's true, Brian, and I also question how necessary that was. I think it's been a reaction to the "gamer is dead" faction.
     
  10. editorhoo

    editorhoo Member

     
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