Let’s Get This Show Back on the Road

I’ve been doing some thinking lately: about what to do with MoeGamer, which you’ve doubtless noticed has been dormant since last August; about how I can provide good quality writing that will encourage people to show their support via my Patreon (which is due a revamp — watch that space over the next few days for details); and about how I can help plug the gaping hole the mainstream games press has left when it comes to coverage of more niche-interest Japanese games.

MoeGamer has always been a passion project that I’ve worked on when I’ve had 1) the time and 2) the motivation to write something. It’s easy to get wrapped up in something like this and start pressuring yourself to provide “content” day after day as often as possible — this is the model the majority of the Web operates on, after all, but it’s partly why the games press (and much of the press at large, it has to be said) is in such a mess right now. That constant drive for content — not writing, not criticism, not analysis, content — makes it very easy to get burnt out, which I think is partly what happened here.

Whenever I’ve done regular writing about Japanese games, be it for my READ.ME and Swords and Zippers columns on the now sadly defunct Games Are Evil or for my JPgamer column during my time at USgamer, I’ve always felt the pressure to always try and be on top of things: to be writing about something new; to be writing about something relevant; to provide an interesting spin on something that takes the pulse of (supposedly) popular opinion as well as my own take; to maintain the audience’s interest. Content, content, content.

While that may be an effective way to operate an ad-supported site with a team of regular staffers, it’s no way to run a passion project in which I just want to write in-depth articles about games that have particularly resonated with me — and which I want other people to experience the joy of, too. As such, I’m rebooting my thinking with MoeGamer and trying a new approach that will hopefully create something a little bit different to other games coverage out there.

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Each month, I’ll decide on a “cover game” which will be the focus of the site for the entirety of the month.

Put simply, I intend to increase the depth of my coverage while narrowing its breadth. This is something that professional games journalists do not have the luxury of doing due to that constant pressure for content, content, content. I, however, have no such professional commitments or obligations to adhere to, and as such I intend to seize the opportunity to dig deep into a variety of Japanese games — both old and new — and provide a more detailed breakdown of what they’re about than I can recall seeing on any enthusiast press site.

Here’s the plan. Rather than a scattershot approach, attempting to cover a broad range of topics as they strike my fancy and/or they’re relevant, I want to take things on a month by month basis, almost like a magazine. Each month, I’ll decide on a “cover game” which will be the focus of the site for the entirety of the month. And during that month I’ll publish a series of in-depth articles on the game exploring it from a number of different angles.

The exact angles I’ll explore each game from will vary according to quite what there is to say about it, but at the very least you can expect pieces on the game’s mechanics (or structure, in the case of a visual novel); the game’s narrative (with spoilers); the game’s aesthetics (visuals, sound, voice acting, music); its cultural context, or what we can learn from it; and perhaps its historical context, if particularly noteworthy. Where appropriate, I may also support these focused articles with more op-ed style pieces on broader topics that are relevant to the cover game, but the focus is primarily on doing extreme deep-dives into games that barely get the time of day on mainstream press sites.

This will doubtless be a challenging project, but focusing on just one game per month allows me the time to explore the titles in question fully and to be able to write from a completely well-informed perspective as someone who has seen (hopefully) everything the game has to offer — something that, once again, professional game journalists don’t have the luxury of having the time to do.

You may question why I want to dig so deeply into some of these games at first glance; with any luck, the articles I produce on each title will demonstrate how there is often a lot more to talk about with regard to these games than might be immediately obvious — or than might be suggested by the typically poor, limited and often ill-informed coverage they receive from mainstream press sites.

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Focusing on one game per month allows me the time to explore the titles in question fully and to be able to write from the perspective of someone who has seen everything the game has to offer.

I intend to kick this off at the start of April, and already have some games in mind for the first three months. There are plenty more possibilities staring at me as-yet unplayed from my games shelves, too, so this will provide an eminently suitable incentive for me to dig into some titles I’ve been meaning to explore for ages now.

I’ll begin with a deep dive into the recently released Senran Kagura Estival Versus in April, to be followed by the nearly-but-not-quite-as-recent Megadimension Neptunia V-II in June. By July I hope I might have finally actually finished Sting’s incredible dungeon crawler Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library and the Monster Seal, so I’ve got that earmarked for then. Beyond that, we’ll see which way the wind blows, and what tickles my fancy from month to month — and, of course, if you have any requests or suggestions as to things I should take a look at, do feel free to share them with me in the comments or via a private message. I’m always delighted to discover new things, and I will always give something a fair chance; I much prefer to look for the good in something rather than immediately write it off as a turkey, since a number of my very favourite games of the last few years have been, shall we say, not exactly critically acclaimed.

But if you’re here, you probably know all this. You know how poor coverage of these games typically is in the mainstream press, and you know well the disparity between critical and public reception. To those of you already on board with what I’m doing, then, I’d encourage you to share what I’m doing here, and to help point curious people in the direction of games they might be interested to try and may not have heard of. The extreme time pressures of professional games journalism coupled with the rise in kneejerk outrage culture means that a number of top-notch games simply don’t get a chance to be discovered by people outside the niche audience these days, and that’s a real shame; if we can help just one person discover a new favourite game that they might not have previously even dreamed of picking up, then I’ll call that a resounding success.

Watch this space for the beginning of this new project, then, and if you’d like to support what I’m doing and encourage me to do more of it, please consider flinging a bit of virtual spare change my way via my Patreon.

Thank you in advance for your support — be it through page views, comments, shares or cold, hard cash — and the Senrans and I will see you in early April!

Pete Davison

8 thoughts on “Let’s Get This Show Back on the Road”

  1. This is great news. You are absolutely right, these niche games hardly get the light of day which is a real shame. I was one of those curious people you speak of and it was that curiosity that helped me find all these new games. Agreed also that they do get a bad wrap simply because people have pre-conceived ideas, which is due to a lack of understanding. Building a community where fans can get in depth information is lacking, but I believe will help not just in building the fan base but encourage developers to not forget about us English speakers.

    I would start by enabling Disqus on your site as it is quite easy to share and follow discussions using this as well as commenting on blogs etc.

    Sorry for the long comment. Look forward to seeing some solid content rather than the bit sized information that the world of Internet has become obsessed with.

  2. Good thinking Pete putting energies into this site. My advice (unsolicited as usual) is that every single Moe blog you write on your angryjedi.wordpress.com site, you then reblog to this MoeGamer site. The quality of your game reviews is always high, the points are interesting and valid and helpful, and always promote the uniqueness of the Moe games. It doesn’t matter if the same blogs are on 2 sites – the more the better. And of course there’s nothing to stop you refining them to focus on a specific idea within them. And if you already do this ansd I’m teaching you to suck eggs, well great minds think alike! (clichés over). 😀

  3. Glad to have this site back, Pete. This was the first place I saw you after you left USGamer in the dust. And I like this idea, so I’m happy to use this link on my favorites again. 🙂

  4. Glad to see that you’re finding the drive to start updating this site again. I’ve been interested in some of the more niche jrpg titles since the US release of Ar Tonelico, at least. Having a place to get info on some of the more obscure titles (besides tvtropes.org, which has always been useful for learning what a game is about, but not it’s quality) is something I will be grateful for. I’m already looking forward to your dive into Senran Kagura; I’ve heard of the series, but don’t really know much about it.

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