What the $#!+ is

Game Criticism

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Kris Ligman

Financial Officer

Critical-Distance.com

No really

Is this game criticism?

Is this game criticism?

Spoiler: game criticism is not actually a thing

ADDITIONAL SPOILER: it is actually several things.

• Consumer reviews (“is this worth my money?”)
• Art reviews (“does this feed the soul?”)
• Opinion (“BioShock Infinite was bad, actually”)
• Editorial (“I work for this site so I need a separate word to distinguish my opinion pieces from that of freelancers”)
• Essay and analysis (inside the scope of academia or otherwise)
• Deep dive and granular analysis (“let’s decompile this Wolfenstein level to see how it really works”)
• So much stuff I can’t even describe here

Ian Bogost’s facepalm is also game criticism in the right context.

Video essays have really taken off in the last few years

Things game criticism is (generally) not

• Journalism (“inside Gabe Newell’s unexpected presidential bid”)
• Reportage (“here’s a list of new titles and some screenshots from E3”)
• A bug report
• A leftist conspiracy
• Any Youtube video beginning “Hey guys…”

“Writing about games.”

A few other game criticism myths I have heard

• “It’s all a bunch of stodgy old academics writing dense books no one will ever read.”
• Hopefully this class has shown you the books aren’t actually that unreadable!
• Most game critics are in their 20s-30s and write primarily online for free-to-read publications.
• Few write about games as a full-time job. Fewer still have any sort of job stability and most burn out in a decade or less. (Sound familiar?)
• “The people who write game criticism are not game developers.”
• Erik Wolpaw (Old Man Murray) went on to co-write the Portal games. Clint Hocking coined the term “ludonarrative dissonance” while directing Far Cry 2.
• Countless indie devs began as critics and journalists; many continue to pursue both at the same time. To name a few: Jim Rossignol (Sir, You Are Being Hunted), Aevee Bee (We Know the Devil), Cameron Kunzelman (Epanalepsis).
• “They’re all paid off by publishers/the Illuminati/DARPA.”
• If that were true you’d think more of us could earn a living from it.
• “Game criticism is irrelevant for anyone making games.”
• Well, about that...

You can learn from criticism, even if you don’t agree with it.

“Earlier this week, several people on Twitter voiced their discomfort with what they perceived as Nazi imagery in Luftrausers [...] We do have to accept that our game could make some people uncomfortable. We’re extremely sad about that, and we sincerely apologise for that discomfort.��The fact is that no interpretation of a game is ‘wrong’. When you create something, you leave certain implications of what you’re making. [...] If we accept there’s no wrong interpretation of a work, we also have to accept that some of those interpretations could not be along the lines of what we’re trying to create.”

Rami Ismail, Vlambeer�April 6th, 2014 (via Wayback Machine)

So with that in mind, what’s Critical Distance?

Embedding a non-Youtube video required too many steps ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Critical Distance is...

• A living archive of videogame criticism, investigative journalism, video essays, and howling at the moral void of the universe.
• A resource for beginning writers.
• A community bulletin board.
• An intersectional anti-canon, promoting writers and voices you haven’t heard from before.
• A “safer space” that is accessible for everyone. No toxicity or bad-faith arguments. Content warnings for sensitive or stressful material.
• Many of our “Blogger of the Year” awardees have gone on to major positions at big publications, including Gita Jackson (Paste; Kotaku), Kate Cox (Consumerist), and Austin Walker (Giant Bomb; Vice).
• Currently expanding our coverage of non-English game crit, especially German, French, and Japanese.

Also pictures of my cat.

OK but how can it help you?

• Searchable archives going back more than seven years.

OK but how can it help you?

• Searchable archives going back more than seven years.
• Blogs of the Round Table and Resources for Writers, if you have an itch to write and don’t know how to get started.

OK but how can it help you?

• Searchable archives going back more than seven years.
• Blogs of the Round Table and Resources for Writers, if you have an itch to write and don’t know how to get started.
• Critical Compilations: special roundups gathering all the most important writing on a given game or series.

OK but how can it help you?

• Searchable archives going back more than seven years.
• Blogs of the Round Table and Resources for Writers, if you have an itch to write and don’t know how to get started.
• Critical Compilations: special roundups gathering all the most important writing on a given game or series.
• Agony Auncle: can’t find material on a game or subject? We’ll create a reader guide for you.
• It is not TECHNICALLY doing your homework for you.
• You can also use it to settle bets.

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