Kill Screen, a shiny new magazine that set out to challenge the video game literature status quo is here to prove that gamers do read. Read about how they started and what they’re planning to bring you from 2o2p's interview with Jamin Brophy-Warren, Editor of Kill Screen.
[Tara] How was Kill Screen conceived and what does that name signify?
[Jamin] Like all good ideas, it was developed over chicken tikka masala in San Francisco. Chris and I, along with some of the future members of the KS family like Tom Bissell, were lamenting the lack of long-format game writing. The places that we worked with on the national level were generally not that interested in games, so that left a big hole in terms of story-telling. So we figured that we should start that project ourselves.
I had met our designer Tony Smyrski years earlier when I was working as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and was researching a travel story on Luxembourg. Turns out that we're both from Philly and former all-boys Catholic schoolers, but it took a trip the former financial center of Europe to make a connection. We stayed in touch and I brought the idea to him immediately after Chris and I had spoken. Tony is responsible for the incredible look and feel of the product, and we're really indebted to him in terms of bringing written ideas to life through design.
The name came from Tom actually. He says it came in a dream. We liked it so it stuck. In terms of significance, Kill Screens in the real world are the functional end of gaming, and a lot like Steve Wiebe, we're chasing that endpoint too, just from the standpoint of writers. Also, it's just a cool phrase.
[Tara] What have been some of the most exciting and frightening revelations of going live with this project?
[Jamin] Well, the frightening part is the same as an exciting part. The question we get the most is "Why Print?" to which my answer is two-fold. First, the problems of print media are manifold, but they're not unsolvable. Print has a pricing issue -- for years, publications told people that the physical product was worthless and when something cheaper came along, readers fled. Print is a luxury and we should treat it as such. But that comes with a responsibility -- to create something worthy of being held, cherished, and passed on. Kill Screen is designed to create an experience that can't be replicated digitally and I think if you're not a free publication, high design and higher prices are the way to go.
Second, print is just the start. We're treating the print product as a design bible that informs other projects that we're working on. We're revamping our website, we're working on a mobile product, we're designing t-shirts. Magazines need to start thinking of themselves as idea centers that create opportunities outside of the product's pages.
So it's extremely exciting to be building a business with the mistakes of other much larger companies to inform our decisions. That is also terrifying because we don't see a lot of other models that are working right. (Although VICE and Monocle are two publications that are doing
things right.)
[Tara] The Kill Screen crew is quite the ensemble of talent from non-gaming backgrounds. How will this benefit the content?
[Jamin] Well, it makes the writing better. I think writers outside of the game world feel like they can't write about games because they don't possess encyclopedic knowledge. But Chris and I know about games so we can guide people along the way if they have questions. Usually editors at big publications don't know anything about videogames and that makes the editing process hairy. (Personal experience.)
Our writers are focused on stories -- specifically, this larger question "What do games mean?" That means looking at the personal experiences that we collectively share through game play and the creative process of people who make games.
[Tara] Kill Screen is essentially open-sourcing some of the writing. Other than costs associated with starting a magazine, why this model?
[Jamin] Well, it's not quite open-source. We're just opening the doors to new talent. Chris is a phenomenal editor and has been doing a great job crafting small ideas into big ones.
[Tara] Reading and gaming can be thought of as substitute activities. How will Kill Screen make us put the controller down and pick the print up?
[Jamin] One of the interesting things we found in polling our readers was that they bought a book once a month. (I'm in that boat as well.) So reading is a natural activity for a lot of our readers. The pitch to newcomers is that we tell good stories and our frequency allows for you to really dive in at your own pace.
[Tara] Web 2.0 has bloated the net with gaming articles that boil down to commentaries on commentaries on commentaries. How has this affected the content quality out there?
[Jamin] Well, I think it's made the world a lot smaller. With dozens of publications printing the same press releases, I think it can be difficult to find new and interesting stories. I am happy about the overall ecosystem of videogame news and reviews, but we'd rather watch from the sidelines and pluck the things that are interesting rather than follow what other sites are doing. Good storytelling is evergreen and it's a rare commodity, so I'd rather focus our energies on that first.
[Tara] I see today’s print gaming magazines as almost “strategy guides” for the industry. They’re where you go when trying to figure out how to spend your next $60. Kill Screen aspires to be “what early Rolling Stone was to rock n’ roll or Wired was to tech.” What exactly is that?
[Jamin] Well, sorry, this sounds like a mantra -- but it's about telling good stories. It's choosing interesting topics and approaching them with the respect and time that they deserve. There's a reason that Kill Screen comes out every few months -- we like to take our time and really produce
something that's going to look and feel timeless.
[Tara] Issue 1 is out. What did you learn from the reception of Issue 0 that you took into account for the second
issue?
[Jamin] Most of the feedback was positive -- in a weird way, we could use more criticism. There are some internal things that we noted that I can't talk about just yet because we're deciding how we want to implement them. The biggest thing was length -- this issue was twice as long so it feels more like something that justifies your time and money.
[Tara] How are you defining success for the magazine?
[Jamin] Sustainability. Another publisher told me that running a business is a marathon not a sprint. We have a lot of ideas for what we want to do with Kill Screen, but the key is to roll them out one at a time. Right now, our dreams outstrip our resources, so it's a matter of figuring out what makes sense to do at each time. But I want to create an environment where the each piece of Kill Screen -- the magazine, video, apparel -- thrives and can continue to support people in the future.
Like what you hear? If you would like to contribute to Kill Screen’s sustainability, check out their site for subscription information.
2old2play members can also save $20.00 of the subscription by using the coupon code: 2OLD2GAME
