"Do you happen to have a pair of birds that are... just friendly?"
There are lots of unusual plush toys and fancy resin dolls these days. Far more than there once were. First they were made for humor’s sake — the Albert Einstein and Shakespeare action figures. Then for education’s sake — the Presidents of the United States action figures. But now merchandising has become a parody of itself. There’s no need for… read more
(or, Buy My New Book)
Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System has been published and is now shipping from Amazon.com or your favorite bookseller. The book, which I wrote in collaboration with Nick Montfort, is about the relationship between the hardware design of the Atari VCS, some of the games that were created for it, and those games’ influence on later titles and… read more
On an artistic style in contemporary videogames. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
Are games art? Last year, what Jim Preston wrote drove the nail into the coffin of this absurd and useless question: To think that there is a single, generally agreed upon concept of art is to get it precisely backwards. Americans’ attitude towards art is profoundly divided, disjointed and confused; and my message to gamers is to simply ignore the… read more
The Hidden Uses of Newspapers
Given my ongoing research on games and journalism, along with the occasional publications of my games by news organizations, I often think about the fate of the newspaper. I’m talking about the print newspaper, that big, black and white thing one folds and unfolds and holds in front of one’s face. There’s lots of talk about the death of the… read more
Two notes apropos of Graham Harman
Along with several others, contemporary philosopher Graham Harman has been instrumental in rekindling the thirsty brush of philosophy, igniting a new and exciting fire in this tired old field. It has become known as Speculative Realism. Harman’s work has become tremendously influential in my recent thinking, despite my not (yet) having made this influence as apparent in print as I… read more
The Onion Kebabs Apple
Satirical news source The Onion is funny every day (something that can’t even be said for The Daily Show or The Colbert Report), but sometimes they manage to elevate deadpan to the sublime. Today’s piece on the fictional announcement of the Apple Wheel is such a one. Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard Everything about this piece is… read more
On games as experiences rather than games as products. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
When we use a toaster, or a sweater, or a word processing software package, we have certain functional expectations. A toaster should caramelize bread evenly and consistently. A sweater should keep a body warm without fraying or stretching out from repeated use. A word processor should help automate the crafting of documents without requiring specialized expertise. Some of our expectations… read more
Jane Austen on Facebook
In the vein of Hamlet in Facebook, here is Austenbook, a version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Facebook News Feed format. Like Hamlet in Facebook, Austenbook is a hypothetical adaptation of literature for social media; it adds the look and feel of a newsfeed, but the latter’s writing isn’t as snappy as the former. Worse, the addition of… read more
Fandom and Detritus
One of my gripes with Henry Jenkins’s book Convergence Culture was its tendency to privilege pop cultural fan activity to other sorts of attention. Appealing though they may be, I wondered if Harry Potter and Survivor really sat at the pinnacle of human creativity in the way that the book implied. One of the problems that concerned me was the… read more
IGI Global and Other Vampire Presses
For those of you who have become cynical in the face of academic publishing, an enterprise sometimes accused of supporting itself in spite of rather than in support of the ideas contained in the books that are its product, I share with you the following email I received from IGI Global: Subject: Forthcoming Copyright Years – Invitations to Publish Dear… read more