I don’t know shit about how video games are made. Not in any meaningful sense. I mean, I could tell you that video game production probably has some kind of pipeline, that designers, programmers, playtesters and writers are involved, but I have never seen that pipeline up close or from afar. I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.
Why am I telling you this? Don’t I write about video games? Isn’t this just hurting my credibility as a writer and (ostensible) expert in this field?
Here’s a secret: I don’t really write about video games. I mean, I play games, I write about how I liked or disliked a certain game, I write about the themes and lore and plot and political implications I see in a certain game, but I don’t write about video games, in the same way that someone invested in understanding how video games are made might write about them. I’m a tourist in this industry, no matter how many years I spend playing and writing about games.
That’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s also a necessary one. I don’t want to be considered an expert on anything, least of all game design or development. If you enjoy a take I wrote, that’s cool. But fuck me up if I ever claim expert or authority status on something in this space.
I work for a call center that does customer service and tech support for consumers. One phrase we bandy about a lot is “scope of support.” If you’ve ever done tech support you’ve probably heard this phrase too. It basically just means “a bubble of limitations to what you can help a customer with.” It’s a concept implemented to ensure that you don’t do something to make a customer’s problem worse or diminish the quality of support they get later on.
Let’s say I work specifically with Windows. My scope of support is limited to Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. I can help someone install and reinstall the Windows OS or troubleshoot the native software therein. Someone calls in with a problem getting their email set up in Microsoft Outlook. As native software, it falls into my scope of support, so I help them out.
I discover that their issue is actually with the email account, not Outlook – they’ve forgotten their Gmail password. Because Gmail is the property of a different company, it falls outside of my scope of support. I have something like eight Gmail accounts, so technically I know how to help them fix their problem, but the question is: should I?
Same customer, same issue, two weeks later, different tech support person.
I support Windows and native Windows programs. Customer can’t set up their email on Outlook. It’s an issue with their password – Yahoo! this time. I don’t know how to help them because Yahoo! Mail is outside my scope of support and I’ve never had a Yahoo! email account. They get upset and ask why I can’t help when the last person could. Don’t I know anything? They ask. Didn’t I learn how to do my job properly?
When I write about games, I often think about my “scope of support,” so to speak. You may notice I don’t get too much into the technical side of the games I’ve covered. Mostly I’m talking about personal thoughts and feelings, but occasionally I may dabble in talk about “gamefeel.” That’s as far as I’ll go. But sometimes I forget my own advice and make bad tweets about Pokemon DLC.
I think it’s important, if you’re a journalist or a critic or whatever, to know and acknowledge your limitations – your “scope of support,” as it were. I don’t want to be a bummer but I think a lot of people treat media people like they’re polymaths and experts at everything, and that’s 1) dumb and b) a mistake. I don’t know shit about game development. I’m doing my best to learn! But I should not talk about games from that perspective.