cart life — |Game Studies Blog|

Dear Player: Punching Paintings, Where Form Meets Function

What do videogames do? What do videogames want? This is a story about iconoclasm and blood, dystopia and freedom. To start thinking about videogames as an artistic medium, let’s begin with looking at how games comment on the art world. Let’s start with a painting...

IntroductoryMerlin SellerJanuary 16, 2015cart life, critical play, depression quest, games are art, gone home, kentucky route zero, lim, merlin seller, minecraft, punchamonet, video games

Dear Player: Game Realisms, The Rise and Fall of the Indie Game

I’ve torn a newspaper again. A few more mistakes like that and I may not be able to renew my trade licence, let alone afford a place to sleep. In my defence, the thing was so pixellated I couldn’t even make out the crease – but that’s Cart Life for you. What follows is a short and biased story about the changing nature of game fictions. This is an opening into the recent history of computer games and how they relate to the mode of production in late consumer capitalism and the redistribution of leisure time. Above all, it’s a story about one of the terms most often abused, by game critics: ‘realism’.

RepresentationMerlin SellerAugust 12, 2014cart life, consumer capitalism, critical play, don't starve, games, history of computer games, indie games, minecraft, realism, video game theory