World-Class Journalists Honored at the New York Game Awards

Along with honoring the best in video games, the best in games journalism will be celebrated at the New York Videogame Critics Circle’s 10th Annual New York Game Awards tomorrow in a virtual-only event streaming tomorrow via Twitch and YouTube, with pre-show at 7:30pm ET and Awards at 8pm ET. The Award honors journalists’ best video game writing with the Knickerbocker Award for Best Games Journalism; the award is open to anyone who has created a journalistic work on the topic of video games during the awards year.

“For the 10th Annual New York Game Awards, we had a gold mine of content to choose from when selecting the finalists for the Knickerbocker Award, as 2020 saw some of the best games writing to date,” said Harold Goldberg, journalist and New York Game Awards founder. “Long story short, we reviewed hundreds of great examples of journalist work to land on this year’s nominees; the winner should be proud to be among a top list of creative people.”

From violence, culture, ethics and politics in gaming to unearthing some of gaming’s hidden gems, the nominees for the 2021 New York Game Awards Knickerbocker Award for Best Games Journalism are:

• Maddy Myers for a story in Kotaku: The Cost of Being a Woman Who Covers Video Games. English teachers and popular editing software often exhort plainspoken, unadorned writing, but they sometimes neglect the role that personal experience plays in it. Myers’ recapitulation of games industry misogyny could not have been written as forcefully, were it not for the hard-wrung experience of a decade-plus on the beat.
• Jason Schreier for a story in Kotaku: As Naughty Dog Crunches on The Last of Us, Developers Wonder How Long This Can Last. The excesses of AAA game production—reliably profitable for shareholders—always come at a broader cost. Schreier’s reporting has been a balancing of that ledger, accounting for the losses to personal finances...and to personal health.
• Nicole Carpenter for a story in Polygon: Former Employees Accuse Cards Against Humanity of a Racist and Sexist Office Culture. In Cards Against Humanity, the casual bigot found the premises, prompts, and thin veneer of deniability needed to indulge their impulses. Carpenter’s reporting describes a managerial staff callowly committed to that bit, asking its marginalized employees to just laugh it off.
• Emanuel Maiberg for a story in VICE: The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of The Last of Us: Part II. How many perspectives on violence are truly available to a prestige shooter game, which (as Truffaut said of anti-war films) must inevitably ennoble its subject matter? Of the angle The Last of Us: Part II opts for, Maiberg writes, “...the myth of the “cycle of violence” is one that benefits the side that can survive the status quo.”
• Claire L. Evans for a story in OneZero: This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest Cave. Evans’ telling of Patricia Crowthers’ connection to the first text-based adventure video game, is, among other things, an exploration of the origin of networks—physical and virtual—and the people who are ultimately written out of them.
• Kazuma Hashimoto for a story in Polygon: Ghost of Tsushima, Kurosawa, and the Political Myth of the Samurai. Samurai, “Japanese society’s violent landlords,” left a living legacy that can’t be captured in a photo filter or a line about honor. As Hashimoto writes, in dipping their pen into that deep inkwell, Sucker Punch unknowingly invokes a modern strain of nationalism.
• Zoyander Street for the story: PISSF****T: About a Jacket in Disco Elysium. Within a string of asterisks, Street finds a complex treatise on identity. With a work like Disco Elysium, so boisterous with theorism, contradiction, sexuality, and self-deprecation, it takes a rare writer to unpack meaning with so little pretension.
• Ewan Morgan for a story in The Washington Post: Ethics and Economics: The Conflicting Values of the eSports Industry. Sports have always been political; it will surprise no one reading to hear that eSports are political as well. But Morgan’s thorough reporting describes a fascinating dynamic, as the outspoken vanguard of the young industry faces off with nations looking for a new venue for “soft power.”

The annual New York Game Awards, presented by the New York Videogame Critics Circle, goes global with a virtual-only event, allowing for a group of presenters and performers that’s incomparable, including former Legend Award winners, performances by new and returning musical guests and a collection of industry greats to be announced shortly. The Awards celebrate the NYVGCC’s non-profit work in underserved communities, as well as the best games and game developers in the industry.

New York Videogame Critics Circle Programs Include:

• DreamYard Project at DreamYard Prep School in the Bronx, NY, offering mentoring, paid internships and college scholarships for underserved students.
• Mentoring, full courses and paid internships of students at the Bronxworks network of homeless shelters.
• Lower East Side mentoring and internships through a partnership with the Henry Street Settlement and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
• Community events at The Abrons Arts Center.
• Older adults mentoring at O.A.T.S., Older Adult Technology Services, at their Senior Planet tech center in Manhattan's Chelsea area.  
• New York Public Library system panels, talks and discussions about jobs in games and how games bring people together.

NYVGCC members are a culturally diverse and passionate group of videogame journalists from media outlets including Tom’s Guide, CNET, Time and The Washington Post; view a full list of members here. For more information on getting involved through volunteering or fundraising with the NYVGCC, click here.