Reddit reviews Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form
We found 10 Reddit comments about Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I'm really torn on this whole Greenlight thing.
I read Anna Anthropy's book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters recently, and in it, she makes the case that gaming is reaching a point where it's becoming an accessible medium at a hobbyist level. It used to be that you had to be a master programmer or artist or have a team of people funded by a company to make a game, but now we're reaching a place where tools are bridging skill gaps and almost anyone can make games.
She compares it to other media (e.g. writing, video), where accessibility opened up the platform and allowed for a huge plurality of narratives, thoughts, and experiences -- a point touched on in the video when talking about YouTube. An open medium gives us tons of crap, yes, but it also allows people to make games and tell stories that are different and individual and that wouldn't otherwise get made.
And I can definitely understand the value in that. There are a lot of brilliant people out there with a lot of compelling ideas and experiences, and it's great that games are finally reaching a point where they can be used to capture and express those on an individual level. It's going to lead to more diverse narratives and mechanics.
But I struggle with Greenlight because I find myself at odds with what I think and what I want.
Truth is, I really like Steam, and I really like that it is more limited in what it offers. I benefit from that in the implicit assurance of quality that's offered, as well as in my ability to parse what I want from a finite set of options. If I want to get a racing game, I can compare a small number of them, rather than having to sift through hundreds of similar-looking entries, and when I buy that game, I can be reasonably certain that it's going to be a complete game, run decently well, and have a minimum set of production values. And even when that isn't the case, Steam is slick enough that it's easy to see that as the exception rather than the rule.
As a customer, Steam works well for me, and I worry what a massive influx of games would do it. On the other hand, I definitely want access to some of that influx through the convenience of my favorite digital distribution platform, and I, deep down, really do think that that influx should be able to be accessed even if I don't want it.
Greenlight seems like an attempt at that, but it's one that seems half-assed and cursory. Even with dozens of professional reviews, news articles, and videos covering a well-known game, people still struggle all the time with whether or not it's worth their purchase (just look at all the heming and hawing that goes on over a $5 AAA game any time there's a Steam sale). Yet, with Greenlight, we're expecting people to make snap judgments of a game's worth and quality using a couple of promo shots and paragraphs, and we're doing it by popularity which, as reddit regularly shows, isn't always a great metric. It seems reductive, and seems to favor things that many smaller games are less likely to have (e.g. great graphics). A submission could have amazing writing and an incredible story, but if it doesn't have a look good or have a well-known fanbase/personality backing it up, it's probably going to be dead in the water on Greenlight. The whole system feels like an improper response ("beauty contest") to the problem at hand (plenty of fish in the sea).
I don't really know where I'm going with all of this other than that Greenlight is confusing to me because I'm not sure what to think. I really like the idea of openness and accessibility, I definitely see both the benefits and drawbacks of not having that, and I'm stuck pondering a bunch of different implementation issues when I consider how things could be changed. I also think the whole thing would be easier if we weren't so damn reliant on Steam in the first place. I'm thinking maybe the answer isn't in letting every game into Steam but instead getting some of us out of it and into Desura, GOG, and other platforms. The games want to go where the gamers are, and right now we're sitting behind the walls and loving it.
The creator of Dys4ia (and Mighty Jill Off, and other games, Anna Anthropy) actually wrote a book related to this subject, called Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. Which I haven't read, but I'm sure will interest you.
Here it is
https://imgur.com/a/E6iuQzI
The book is called: Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form
Link to amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Rise-Videogame-Zinesters-Drop-outs-Housewives/dp/1609803728
The citation is from the first chapter, the file I found had no pagination.
Reminds me of this book. No points for guessing who wrote it.
This is definitely the course we're on, and it definitely sucks.
Still, we can either look at it as an inevitability or try to fight against it. And there are still champions out there fighting for a more democratized culture of games creation. I see no reason to resign ourselves to that fate yet - though it's almost certainly far too late for the current blockbuster AAA environment.
Some attempt at a happy ending that ties into a theme.
Not sure if you guys have ever come across "Anna Anthropy". But she is a transgender video game developer who wrote a really interesting book on her life and career:
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Videogame-Zinesters-Drop-outs-Housewives/dp/1609803728
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Anthropy
"Rise of the Videogame Zinesters" is a fun, inspiring read. Not only does it feel good to see a feminist viewpoint in the game development community, but what she has to say about design, career, and artistic choices is really good as well. What she has to say is useful to anyone in a creative field, in my opinion.
xiaorobear wrote:
The creator of Dys4ia (and Mighty Jill Off, and other games, Anna Anthropy) actually wrote a book related to this subject, called Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. Which I haven't read, but I'm sure will interest you.
The creator of this also just published a book that came out like last week.
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Videogame-Zinesters-Drop-outs-Housewives/dp/1609803728
I don't know - I feel like I'm expressing myself badly here.
None of what you are suggesting are bad things. They're all sort of... no-brainers, but I just keep watching these scandals pop up and then fade out, over and over again... it breeds cynicism, I suppose, but I can't help but feel that we must be missing something, or that there's some other way of working at this.
I think part of it is this:
> And improving that relationship by fixing the content coming from the content creator is something I feel is extremely important.
because I just have no faith left in the games industry, much like I have little faith in the movie industry to improve itself, much like I have little faith in the music industry to improve itself. When you strap creativity onto a structure revolving around profit, I honestly don't think that is an avenue we want to be shoring up. The relationship of power between a consumer and a producer in our capitalist system is not equal. I would love to say that things like Bioware finally writing in a gay male NPC is progress, but the very fact that this bafflingly lukewarm tokenism is held up as an example of progressive games-writing is problematic in and of itself.
As to your points about the unique nature of the videogaming community, I believe that it's not specific to the medium, or at least not caused by the medium. It's very, very easy to trace the isolated, gender-segregated history of the tech and games industry, and how that reflects on a) what kinds of games are made and b) who those games are sold to, which leads to c) who gets inspired to make what kinds of games.
Have you read Anna Anthropy's Rise of the Videogame Zinesters? She calls for creation outside of capitalist systems of games-making. It reads more like a manifesto, which I think is a good thing, and ends in with a Twine tutorial. I think you would enjoy it.
eta: In hindsight I think this is a better way of articulating my point.
> we all contribute to the gaming industry by purchasing certain games we choose/enjoy
implies that all games arrive through the capitalist system, and I think that that's not true and also not the best way of doing things. And I would encourage alternatives as a way of trying to encourage or create less toxic communities revolving around games.