Rise of the Videogame Zinesters - Review

A little while back I heard Patrick Klepek mention this book, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters by Anna Antrhopy, on the Giant Bombcast which I listen to regularly.  It sounded interesting and at the time I didn't make the connection to the game Dys4ia which Anna made and Patrick had posted a link to on his worth reading segment a few months earlier.  I had played Dys4ia and thought it was alright, but then swiftly forgot about it because while it was interesting there wasn't very much to it.  Rise can be summed up pretty much the same way: interesting, but not much to it.  To break it down, Rise is a book about how now through the power of free tools and distribution made easy by ubiquitous internet access, we should all start making smaller more personal games so that there is more art.  It sounds good in theory, but Rise fails in its execution.

 The most interesting, largely because it's the most problematic chapter in Anna's book is the first one, entitled "the problem with videogames."  Anna starts by making a lot of bold claims about how most games are about "men shooting men in the face," and if not, they must be abstract games or games where female characters are in some position of servitude.  This is on page 3 for Christ's sake, and is just the start of a whole book full of super reductive claims that there are no worthwhile games coming out of the mainstream anymore.  She proposes a model where an industry dominated by white males suppresses innovation and perpetuates what she perceives to be a stagnant medium.  This is her foundation for the rest of the book, which is unfortunate, because it's a really crappy attitude to have about games.

Anna Antrhopy - just THRILLED with games.

Maybe Anna didn't play the same games that I did this generation, or even last generation, or even the one before that.  Is Mirror's edge a game about shooting dudes in the face?  Catherine? Demon's Souls? Limbo? Trials HD? Flower? Heavy Rain? Mass Effect?  Isn't it horribly reductive to say that Bioshock is mostly about shooting dudes in the face, even when it's a first person shooter?  Is that what that game is really about?  I don't think so. Is Bastion a game that a stagnant industry produces?  If so, don't you ever change, game industry.

Machinarium - I'm pretty sure nobody is getting shot in the face.

It's not all bad, though. There's a pretty soberly written brief history of games. There are good descriptions of tools that are available for people to make games.  Anna even spends some time talking about games that' she's made, and her unusual perspective is kind of compelling, though honestly her ideas of what constitutes a "game" deviate wildly from mine and what most gamers might consider a game.  Hell, if you think quick time events suck some of the game out of a videogame, wait until you read the description of the stellar "gameplay" in her game, Gay Sniper.

If you still enjoy games, this book probably isn't for you.  I lent it to a visiting friend to flip through one night and she summed it up as "feminist smut."  That's a pretty astute description of Rise.  This is a book that's preaching to the choir, specifically designed for the already converted.  It's for all those folks you see trolling news blogs making hyperbolic comments about how there's no variety anymore, despite this being arguably the most diverse market for games that's ever existed.  It's a shame, because there are some good ideas in Rise that wind up taking the back seat to the author's mission to shit all over the existing establishment when she writes statements like "fuck Steam" without irony.