David Kushner: We're Still in the Pong Age of Gaming as Entertainment

Electronic Gaming Business, May 21, 2003

Brandishing rave reviews from no less than The New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York Observer, and even (shhh!) Library Journal, David Kushner's tale of Mssrs. Carmack and Romero, "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture" (Random House, $24.95), is yet another sign that gaming has arrived as a cultural force. Who better to grill about the state of gaming in the mainstream press than this contributing editor to Spin who has been cajoling editors to run his stories on the industry since the mid 1990s?

EGB: Are the mainstream media really ready to start covering gaming as a major entertainment medium and industry?

Kushner: Honestly, that Newsweek cover story on The Sims - I don't know if that opened the floodgates - but basically up until the last six months you still were not getting the feeling that the mainstream media was recognizing this for what it is, which is a major cultural and economic force. It's one of the reasons I wrote the book. You've got an industry where Americans are spending more money than on movie tickets.

It's still a young industry. I feel like these are the Pong years for this industry as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The number one thing I was trying to do was tell a story that would interest anybody, and it happens to be a story that is set in the video game world. My small part in this was to take it to the mainstream world and get them to be interested and to get them to appreciate that adults are making this for a lot of other adults. There's a lot of artistry. There's science. There's humor. There's a range of titles. The media for years was so lazy. The only stories you'd read in the mainstream magazines were that games lead to violence.

EGB: Is there a sea change? Is it any easier to get editors to pick up stories on the industry?

Kushner: At least now we are starting to see stories that are different. And it's a generational thing. I am 34 and I grew up in the 2600 generation. I don't know a world without video games. And frankly, a lot of the people controlling magazines and publishing houses didn't. It's not important to them, and they can't connect with it. The reality is that the media is subjective. Twenty years from now we're not going to be having these conversations because we'll all be in control.

EGB: What are the remaining hurdles with editors?

Kushner: There is still a sense of why is this important? It hasn't penetrated. You don't have to wrestle to get an assignment on other media. How many magazine stories do you read about the making of Gangs of New York? These guys and women deserve that attention. They are amazing artists. It just pisses me off.

EGB: But doesn't the industry have to get better at talking about itself in compelling ways that point out the artistry to the uninitiated?

Kushner: I wrote about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for Rolling Stone and interviewed the designers, and the one thing they were talking about is they think the problem is that there isn't a language yet to talk about games. How do you really talk about GTA? It's easy to say it's a game with hookers that you beat up, but that's so reductive and it's obviously so much more than that. So how do you talk about games? To me GTA is not so much the content, but I think what gamers really respond to in GTA is the design and the freedom, the freedom to play it out in a number of ways. Just the fact that you can drive on a beach and just sit there. No one talks about that.

I think it is a problem that we who write about the industry and who make the games are still coming up with a language that will express something that is unique. It's a matter of time. I think it's up to the mainstream press to wake up a little more because game developers don't need better publicists they just need to do what they do and make cool games.

EGB: Any indication so far on the reception of the book and how the mainstream press is regarding it?

Kushner: I have been just thrilled with the coverage so far. The New York Times review was really complimentary and the guy really understands it. USA Today is covering it, Washington Post and GQ. It's great because it's about time that people paid attention and looked at this in a more complex way. The benefit of this aside from everyone selling more games is that it will enable the industry to mature, become richer and more diverse than it is now. For example, if you and I want to go out and make an R-rated movie with mature themes there's nothing stopping us. There's a place for that in this world. If you and I want to go out and make a mature game, there are a lot of people who are going to be unhappy about that. There's not acceptance. It's retarding the medium, because game developers are shackled in what they can do.

EGB: Is the industry shooting itself in the foot a bit by not drawing a harder line about marketing and selling M-rated titles to kids?

Kushner: I am honestly ambivalent about what is happening in Washington and trying to make it against the law to sell to kids. That's drastic to me. I don't think anyone gets thrown in jail for selling an R-rated ticket to kids.