Well look at that, I gave a TED talk! I spent a lot of time on it and found out firsthand that this sort of public speaking is a completely different skill than stuff I’ve done before, so it was quite the experience. Watch the video and see an extended script of the talk below. […]
Author Archives: Mattie Brice
2016 at Alternate Ending
Writing has been weird for me this past year. My decision to move to New York was a last attempt to find a place for myself in the field of games. I admit, I don’t really feel like I belong, or if there is a place for me. But I’ve put in so much effort, […]
Top 10 Fav Games of 2016
2016 has been quite the year. It was my first full year in NYC, which I’ve taken to quite well. I’ve been spreading out from video game culture and investigating the different ways play manifests in the world through multiple disciplines. It’s been pretty rough considering politics, and so maybe it’s apt to talk about […]
Creating Power Through Play
We are used to critiquing power and seeking to diminish its effects. But what attention have we paid to creating power for those who don’t have any? This is a sentiment I’ve heard from artists, activists, and other interventionists over the past year. It’s not something I’ve considered before; I’m used to pushing back against […]
Games for people
Ever since my move to NYC, I’ve been spending more time hanging out with people who are not in the video game industry or related fields. It’s a breath of fresh air really, both because I’m not hearing about the same old thing everyone else is talking about, but whenever I say anything half intelligent […]
Making games during sad times
This month is soaked with deja vu. Habits and nervous ticks I hoped long-gone resurfaced and many of my friends wear tired faces. Two years ago I felt like I went through a natural disaster and had to cope with what the existence of large groups of hate mobs after me meant for my life […]
Queerbaiting and Fan Futures
If I’ll remember 2016 for anything, it will be the year of the queerbait. This year I’ve seen a rise in subtle homoeroticisim in games and other media that leave it up to the player to connect the dots for a queer subtext. Queerbaiting is usually used as a critical/pejorative term, where it is clear […]
Curating Diversity for IndieCade
Among the many conversations around representation and diversity rest the dilemmas and strategies of curation. No one’s fully figured out how to exhibit games, most typically using the model of product expos that offered either demos or the impossibility of playing the full game in a crowded space and a line. With the expo model […]
The Grasshopper for the People
Welcome back for some more game studies condensed and contextualized for people outside of academia. Given the nature of canons, these works build pretty directly off of what came before them, and so you might want to check out the previous two posts I’ve done before getting to today’s, The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits. The […]
Playing with UI
Once upon a time, I kept up with video game release cycles, Steam sales, and games Twitter fads enough to be aware of what games out there I should be playing. These past few years found me receding away from all these, and in conjunction with the exponential growth of individual creators out in the […]
Games, Art, and Design
I feel like a tennis ball hit between the rackets of Art and Design. When first exploring critical theory and occupying myself with creative writing and art history, I wasn’t really aware of an art vs design divide. My first university major was Interior Design & Architecture which sparked my interest in spaces and how […]
Performance & Mimicry: Do Video Games Even Have Rules?
Performance and how it manifests in play takes up more of my thoughts as time goes on. We do see some mention of performance in games, typically that players perform with games as an aesthetic perspective. Players and objects as agents influencing each other, rolling into one another like improv acting is generally something I’m […]
Man, Play and Games for the People
Back with some more game studies theory where I take commonly taught text, grab the important quotes, and explain their significance for the non-academic and academic who needs a refresher alike. Last month I did Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens which is the oldest in the canon, and this time we’ll be looking at Roger Caillois’ […]
Subjectivity and Reverse Difficulty
This past year has been an exercise in exploring the more fuzzy aspects of video game design, particularly around style and taste. These subjects have my interest outside of games and I’ve experimented in how to incorporate them, and at times these disciplines feel squarely at odds with game design. Expressing yourself often comes out […]
UnREAL, Feminism, and the Reality Game
I recently wrote on the different ways reality TV games approach play and game design that differ from conventional attitudes on the topic. Despite how much film is seen by games people as a static medium, the form of reality TV using games to generate narrative, politics, and a wider scale of participation via spectacle […]