Comments on: Through the Lens of Gaming

By: This Link Drag Is Independent « Electron Dance

This Link Drag Is Independent « Electron Dance — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:47:03 +0000

[...] "Through the Lens of Gaming" by Richard Clark (Unwinnable), 24 Aug 2012. One for the writers. Clark drags out some of my deep-seated fears about the work I do for Electron Dance. Am I writing what I see? Or do I see something so I can write? The key danger in writing personal essays about videogames is that the writer might read into a game in order to have something to write about. This is not bad writing – it is a lie. [...]

By: This Week In Video Game Criticism: From ‘weird Japan’ to Final Fantasy VII

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 09:57:09 +0000

[...] to Richard Clark’s “Exegesis” piece, GameChurch colleague Jordan Ekeroth takes the position that human subjectivity will [...]

By: Starsheep Interactive Corporation » This Week In Video Game Criticism: From ‘weird Japan’ to Final Fantasy VII

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:17:01 +0000

[...] [...]

By: saneman

saneman — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 01:59:27 +0000

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

By: saneman

saneman — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 01:53:10 +0000

If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy’s trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one … he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.

Honoré de Balzac

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.

Søren Kierkegaard

By: Current Times 8/18 – 8/24 | this cage is worms

Current Times 8/18 – 8/24 | this cage is worms — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:09:59 +0000

[...] I was cited here. Clark writes the essay that I should [...]

By: stevensukkau

stevensukkau — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:07:58 +0000

This punched my in the proverbial nuts: "When a writer feels the need to draw strained analogies and forced metaphors from a videogame, he is providing a redundant service for the reader who has already done that work and who is, in reading the piece, essentially watching the game being played in front of him rather than playing it himself. That reader is either bored or lazy."

By: @WombatofDoom42

@WombatofDoom42 — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:09:55 +0000

I hate that moment when you've written out a large, personal essay and then find yourself faced with the question: "Is anyone else going to care about this?"

It's a difficult balance to maintain– the difference between self-gratifying fluff and deep, personal commentary is sometimes a thin one.

But I think you're right– a lot of the time, I tend to write less personally and more pseudo-academically, but that very personal element in games-writing is very important, and, when done right, can be quite powerful.