Profile Post

This profile post is about a Keith Stuart, someone shows knowledge and passion in video games and the technologies used for games in throughout the history. Stuart is an editor from the Guardian’s games section. He has written about video games and related technology and media in the past 20 years. He started as features editor on the magazine Edge and then started writing about games as freelancer for big publications such as The Official PlayStation Magazine and PC Gamer and T3. Stuart is said to be the “main contributor to the Guardian’s award winning games blog and a regular on the Tech Weekly podcast” (theguardian.com).

Stuart’s experience in the past 20 years certainly shows his capability in writing about games and technology. He constantly follows the latest news and updates and delivers polished analysis and report of various things in the video games industry. For example, in his post about Oculus Rift and virtual reality (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2014/jan/23/oculus-rift-valve-virtual-reality-kickstarter), he accurately explained the current state and future predictions on how VR will affect the games industry and our daily lives. His observation and analysis are thorough and insightful as he examined the VR technology from the beginning of its history, back in the early 90s. Then, he mentioned on Valve’s statement that “VR can become a consumer reality by 2015”, which is considered to be highly authoritative because Valve is one of the few companies that made multiple significant impacts with their technology in the video games industry.

Similar to most technology bloggers, Stuart is excellent at delivering informative contents to the readers. Many of his posts are written in an objective style where he observes and analyzes his subjects. With the 20 year experience as a games reporter, it is difficult to find his observations false or inaccurate. Looking at the comments to his blogs, most of his readers talk about their reaction to the post or something they learn after reading the post. It is hard to find any comments that challenge or disagree with the points made despite that he expresses his voice in certain places in the post.

There are some posts where Stuart takes break from the informative reports. A good example would be his post on Christmas gifts for gamers (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/dec/13/alternative-christmas-present-gifts-gamers). Even though he chose the gifts based on his opinion, he offered some good insights on each of the items just like when he talks about new games or technology. Stuart almost never expresses his voice in an overly assertive way. It is easy to tell that even when he shows voice, he is not trying to start a debate with the people who believe in the other way. Although it is true that his blog topic is not a so serious one, you can feel that he consciously avoids any conflict and simply tries to make the readers enjoy the blog and things about video games in general.

Stuart usually makes couple of posts every week on the Guardian’s official blog site, although I do not know if he publishes in any other places. He definitely seems to be the major author in the Guardian’s game blog as he post significantly more frequently than other authors and I find his posts more interesting than the other ones, both the topic and his writing style. I will definitely continue to follow Stuart for more interesting blogs about various aspects in the video games industry.