critical theory — |Game Studies Blog|

Dear Player: Confessions of a Pokémon Eater

I crave candy. It’s a hunger I share with 7yr-olds and cartoon characters. Much has been written about how this primal urge, Niantic’s Pokemon GO, is either saving or dooming a generation (and its road traffic). But we’ve had ARGs and fandoms before, why is this craze proving so provocative?

Space, UncategorizedMerlin SellerJuly 28, 2016critical play, critical theory, digital landscape, game studies, merlin seller, pokemon, pokemon go, Summer 2016, video game theory, virtual worlds

Dear Player: DOOM Actually

DOOM means ‘hope’ means ‘doom’. Id’s 2016 DOOM is a game of flouting expectations: it succeeds where critics anticipated a flop; it reinterprets nostalgia without being either typically modern or old-school; it is a game with the trappings of horror but in which the demons are scared of YOU. To me, DOOM signifies ‘hope’ for a decrepit genre, and I think it paints the player as a villain in order to show us what we’ve been missing all these years.

Flow, Mastery, UncategorizedMerlin SellerJuly 5, 2016critical theory, Csikszentmihalyi, Doom, Doom 2016, flow, FPs, game mechanics, game studies, games are art, history of computer games, merlin seller, Naomi Clark, video game studies

Dear Player: Mad Max and Theseus' Ship

This is the Dead Barrens of Mad Max – a world recycled, perturbed, lost and found. The player stands at the edge of a game world well aware of its limits. I turn and I jump back into the centrepiece of the game, a bricolage of scrap, pistons and oil all grinding against each other in an effort to become a car called the Magnum Opus.

FlowMerlin SellerSeptember 23, 2015critical play, critical theory, digital landscape, game art, games are art, Mad Max, mad max game, movie games, play, procedural rhetoric, ps4, ship of theseus, video game studies

Dear Player: Everybody’s Gone to the Uncanny Valley

The lush golden haze of Yaughton is quiet, but far from peaceful. Fictional places are weird things, they make space where formerly there was none, but they can feel like they’ve always existed. The never-was is hard to erase.

Representation, Space, TimeMerlin SellerSeptember 11, 2015archers, art games, critical play, critical theory, dear esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, indie games, interface, medium, ps4, radio history, uncanny valley, vanishing of ethan carter, video game studies, video game theory