Rock, Paper, Shotgun is a UK-based blog operated byGamer Network and authored by Graham Smith, Brendan Caldwell, Alice Bell, Alice O'Connor, Katherine Castle, Matt Cox, Nate Crowley and Sin Vega, and formerly also Alec Meer, John Walker, Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Adam Smith, Philippa Warr and Quintin Smith. It was launched on 13 July 2007. Launched as an independent website for reporting on video games, primarily for personal computers, the site was acquired and brought into the Gamer Network, a network of sites led by Eurogamer in May 2017; with this acquisition, Gillen and Rossignol moved on to other ventures, but all other staff at the time remained.
Contributors
Kieron Gillen, a co-founder of the site, was a regular contributor until 30 September 2010, when he announced that he would no longer be involved in posting the day-to-day content of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, focusing more on his work with Marvel Comics, but would continue to act as a director and occasionally write essay pieces for the site. Quintin Smith replaced Gillen as a writer in October 2010, before also leaving in July 2011. Nathan Grayson was another former main contributor to the site, before stepping down in July 2014. Rock, Paper, Shotgun also features less frequent contributions from several other writers, which have included Tim Stone, Phill Cameron, Lewie Procter, Robert Florence, Richard Cobbett, Craig Pearson, Duncan Harris, Lewis Denby, Porpentine, Cara Ellison, Cassandra Khaw and Leigh Alexander.
Content
Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports on upcoming major releases and independent esoterica, and includes reviews, previews, features and interviews related to PC gaming and the PC gaming industry. Some of the frequent categories of stories posted on Rock, Paper, Shotgun include:
Diary: Impressions of a game presented in 'diary' form, often from the perspectives of many writers, and over the course of many parts or updates, such as Solium Infernum: The Complete Battle for Hell, or Diary Of A Nobutoki: Sengoku. These articles are differentiated from reviews as they do not seek to objectively evaluate a game, only to present the experiences of the writers playing.
The Fixer: A column featuring guides on tinkering and fixing games.
The Flare Path: Weekly news and impressions of simulation and war games, written by Tim Stone.
On 8 February 2011, the game Bulletstorm came under scrutiny by Fox News through two articles by journalist John Brandon, describing the game as the worst game in the world. The game was targeted because of its profanity, crude behaviour, and sexual innuendo. Alongside the panel of Fox News anchors was the psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, who remarked: "Video games have increasingly, and more brazenly, connected sex and violence in images, actions and words. This has the psychological impact of doubling the excitement, stimulation, and incitement to copycat acts. The increase in rapes can be attributed, in large part, to the playing out of such scenes in video games." Other claims included that the game could reach audiences as young as nine years old, and that the gore and profanity could seriously traumatise a child of that age group. These claims were largely ridiculed among gaming websites, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun, who ran a series of articles discrediting the reports by Fox News. The articles analysed Lieberman's claims and found only one of eight sources she provided had anything to do with the subject at hand. Fox News acknowledged that they had been contacted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and responded to their claims on 20 February 2011 through another article, stating that the game still remained a threat to children.
In 2014 a Rock, Paper, Shotgun article by John Walker about the existence of orphaned classic video games and the suggestion to let them enter the public domain after 20 years, raised a controversial public debate about copyright terms and public domain between game industry veterans John Walker, George Broussard, and Steve Gaynor.
