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Why are video game reviews printed in the newspaper's business section?

Mike is a pretty good game reviewer. I usually check his stuff online, but I was reading print yesterday and it struck me: “Why do newspapers put video game reviews in the business section?”

Mike Musgrove – The Battle of the Fake Bands – washingtonpost.com.

Sure, video games are one of the only growing segments of the currently contracting media marketplace. But game reviews are not stories about how video games are eating mainstream media’s lunch. LostRemote however is a great place to read those stories, generally linked up by yours truly and Cory Bergman for a few years now.

But the Washington Post isn’t the only one who puts these in the business section. Most papers do. They also run their personal technology stories there. But this doesn’t make any sense. Mike reviews games that are enterainment, games that are biting into Hollywood’s bottom line and taking time spent from watching television. Movies and TV are reviewed in Style, Entertainment or Life sections.

Personal Tech columns, like those written by my buddies Mike Berman and Jim Derk, can have some life hacker moments about how to work smarter, but by and large they are about how you can use technology smarter to make your life better. Again, a technoculture moment, that has nothing to do with economy or local business.

So why do newspaper editors do it? I’m gonna have to go with the obvious hypothesis, one that is certainly supported by the business section stories about how the newspaper industry is imploding. It is because editors don’t get it.

Video and computer games are content. They are informative. They are learning platforms. They are entertainment.

They are the next step in the evolution of storytelling.