Rise of Video Game Zinesters a demand for more amateur and individual expression in games

Anyone can make a video game, and it is a little harder than drawing a doodle. But amateurs should make games, because it's fun and fulfilling, and because we need more diversity in video games than the cautious, often predictable games big studios put out. These are Anna Antropy's ideas in Rise of the Video Game Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You are Taking Back an Art Form.

Anthropy's book is related to academics, but it's written in an accessible style. The chapters don't build on each other for a linear, climactic thesis, but highlight different aspects of the history and present of self-published games and mods in a collage that makes for a bigger-picture understanding. Anthropy tells her own story of dropping out of college, struggling for a while, but succeeding to make games by herself like Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars.

Her passion and self-confidence are infectious. The last section on how to make a game was filled with (what seemed to me, the currently non-programmer) excellent advice on storytelling and just getting something on screen.

I liked this book so much that it's hard for me to criticize it, but there were some things I found puzzling. None of the images had captions, though their relevance was usually intuitive. I was also annoyed by the inclusion of a certain ubiquitous Tolstoy quote. The history chapter seemed linear and obligatory, but paid special attention to the role of deep-pocketed publishers and shareware entrepreneurs. The book succeeded in heightening my awareness of how games can be so much more than men shooting things, and in inspiring me to make my own game (which I might describe as craptastic, and I'm proud of it!). If you don't read this book, at least go out and make a video game! Set aside two hours and just make something in Scratch (that's what I did)!

One Excellent Textbook about Video Games

I read forty-four books this year, which is not as many as I have read in previous years. I read a lot of articles and blog posts about video gaming, but only two books about it (an indication of the location of all the hip criticism at the moment, I think, though Dan at Digital Ephemera has an impressive list). I've already told  you my thoughts on Extra Lives; this post is about Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction.

In short, I loved the book. It was easy to read and elucidated all the things I was confused about (including some a hint that Aarseth's taxonomy of interactive games is impractical, why didn't I think of that?). The game history section focused on the evolution of the form, being aware of the limitations of hardware but without getting caught up in a specs discussion. I also loved the chapter on narrative. The overview of video game "risks" seemed a little overly dichotomized (psychologists' research vs anthropologists', essentially), but it gave a good overview of the state of things (most research from psychologists oversimplifies the variable of "video game").

These guys really did their research! If you're overwhelmed by the amount of serious literature on video games, this book will have you covered for a while, though it does not cover current issues like the rise of the indie game and viral marketing things. It also has a disappointing amount of punctuation and sentence errors. Anyway, I liked this book so much that I wrote the only Amazon review for it (some small part of me is sad when good books like this go unnoticed). Hope you've had a great holiday!

The Misleading Title of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter

I just finished reading Tom Bissell's Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. It reads a bit like a series of extended and thoughtful blogposts on how games affect Bissell personally and how they can be better narratively. Even though his taste in games is almost the opposite of mine (every time I try to like a FPS, I fail), I found his discussion thought-provoking and insightful. I completely agree that video games should pay more attention to their writers and make conversations less barf-worthy. 


My main observation of this book is that the title leads readers to believe the book will be an organized treatise backed by scientific studies about video games (a book I would like to read), when it is rather a series of personal narratives about how video games are a personally meaningful art form that has the potential to be more awesome. Its best audience might be people who already love video games, not those who need convincing (those who need convincing should just go play a game, in my opinion). I especially enjoyed the little sneak-peaks into studios he described, such as how BioWare has a reference library complete with The Celtic Book of the Dead and an idiot's guide to world religion (for lore). Last I heard Bissell was working on a video game script (as in, dialogue trees), and I'm eager to see what he comes up with.


I'm becoming increasingly aware of the strange ghettoization of gamers. It comes up briefly in the book: "More than any form of entertainment, video games tend to divide rooms into Us and Them." At a women's group activity at my church, we played a game where we would say something about ourselves and other women who had that thing in common would raise their hands. I made some clarifying point that then, we should choose facts about ourselves that aren't too unique, and an acquaintance commented jokingly that I should "leave Mario out of it." Most of the other women in my neighborhood see my gaming as a guilty pleasure, which seems odd given that, supposedly, some 40% of women play video games of one kind or another. I think it might have to be something you grow up with, like sports or playing a musical instrument, but nerdier. I don't think it should be that way, though perhaps the hardware and time commitment demand it.