Arnie Katz – Critics

Arnie Katz co-founded Electronic Games magazine with Bill Kunkel in 1981, establishing the editorial standards and coverage philosophy that defined American games journalism for a decade.

Arnie Katz brought a background in science fiction fanzines and hobby publishing to his partnership with Bill Kunkel, and it was Katz who shaped the editorial tone of Electronic Games: enthusiastic but analytical, consumer-protective on hardware quality issues, and committed to treating games as worthy of serious attention. He championed coverage of game designers by name at a time when publishers routinely withheld developer credits, and his interviews with Atari and Activision programmers helped establish the concept of the game auteur. After Electronic Games, Katz edited numerous other gaming publications through the 1980s and 1990s, including Video Games & Computer Entertainment and GamePro in its early years, and remained a working games journalist into the 2000s.

Notable Work:

Co-founded Electronic Games with Bill Kunkel in 1981, serving as editor and primary editorial architect
Pioneered named interviews with game designers, establishing the idea of the developer as a credited creative voice
Wrote and edited for Video Games & Computer Entertainment and GamePro throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s
Contributed to the early coverage of the NES launch and the console market recovery after the 1983 crash

Key Facts:

Katz came from science fiction fanzine publishing, giving Electronic Games an enthusiast-community sensibility from its first issue
He and Kunkel were among the first journalists to cover the video game industry crash of 1983 as a critical editorial story rather than an industry rumour
Electronic Games under Katz's editorial direction maintained an unusual commitment to covering home computer games alongside consoles
Katz continued editing and writing about games well into the internet era, bridging print and online games journalism