Hi, I'm Brian.
I'm new here. This is the first entry in my biweekly column, Paratext.
Paratext is a concept in literary criticism: it's all the material that is part of a work that isn't the work itself. For a book, it encompasses the title page, the index, the cover. It's a fitting name for this column, I think, because I'll probably write around games a lot.
I like to think that I was brought on board to counteract Gus's pretension and Garrett's crankiness, but the truth is I'm probably more pretentious than Gus (I mean, "Paratext"?) and crankier than Garrett. So let's just agree that the site needed another bearded dude with glasses, yeah?
Or maybe they were just looking for a photographer. Because that's another thing I do.
I often feel a little out of step with video game media. So much of it is about what's next, what's coming down the line. And I totally get that -- it's really, really fun to think about games, isn't it? And for all the marketed promise of video games to make them about YOU, the place where they most are is in your mind. I mean, once we get to playing the game it does a lot of the imagining for us -- visually, systemically.
But it's hard for me to get into upcoming games (except Saint's Row 3 -- you guys oh man!). Probably a failure of imagination on my part. So I
compensate by digging into the past. I trained as a librarian in grad
school, in part because I love digging through archives (be they digital
or physical) of material. Which lets me find things like this amazing
book from 1983, Mind at Play: The Psychology of Video Games (the other reason I trained as a
librarian is that I love helping people find things out. And it was the
closest I could get to being a private detective).
Older books like this help you keep perspective in a very solid way. Instead of just assuming that concerns over video game violence have always been there (or started with Mortal Kombat, because that's the first one you were old enough to be aware of), you can document their historical existence. You can find arguments that Pac-man shows the potential of the medium to provide a model for rewarding socially positive behavior (gamificate that!), or anthropological studies of the demographic make-up of arcades in the early 1980s.
As someone whose arcade experience was limited to mall arcades of the early-to-mid 1990s, safe spaces where your parents could dump you with a few quarters while they went shopping and not worry, the idea of a sketchy arcade fascinates. It also lets me pretend that my misspent youth was a little edgier -- maybe there were drug deals and businessmen gambling five feet away from where I was losing horribly at Killer Instinct. I know the skeleton was slow, but he was a pirate. And he could teleport!
So that's a look at the future of this column, which will be about the things and the people and the places surrounding video games -- and often about the past. But like so many other things about the past, it will actually be about the present. Maybe I'll learn, while writing it, how to be excited about what's to come (other than Saint's Row 3, no, seriously, can't wait). And maybe you'll learn, while reading it, some interesting historical tidbit that you can use at your next dinner party.
I will try my best not to be pedantic, but I make no promises. Again, I called the column "Paratext".
Thanks for having me.
 |
| Brian Taylor |
| Let's look toward the future together! |
I'm new here. This is the first entry in my biweekly column, Paratext.
Paratext is a concept in literary criticism: it's all the material that is part of a work that isn't the work itself. For a book, it encompasses the title page, the index, the cover. It's a fitting name for this column, I think, because I'll probably write around games a lot.
Or maybe they were just looking for a photographer. Because that's another thing I do.
I often feel a little out of step with video game media. So much of it is about what's next, what's coming down the line. And I totally get that -- it's really, really fun to think about games, isn't it? And for all the marketed promise of video games to make them about YOU, the place where they most are is in your mind. I mean, once we get to playing the game it does a lot of the imagining for us -- visually, systemically.
 |
| Brian Taylor |
| Minecraft and Skyrim: GET HYPED because I'm psychologically incapable of doing so and need to hype vicariously. |
Older books like this help you keep perspective in a very solid way. Instead of just assuming that concerns over video game violence have always been there (or started with Mortal Kombat, because that's the first one you were old enough to be aware of), you can document their historical existence. You can find arguments that Pac-man shows the potential of the medium to provide a model for rewarding socially positive behavior (gamificate that!), or anthropological studies of the demographic make-up of arcades in the early 1980s.
As someone whose arcade experience was limited to mall arcades of the early-to-mid 1990s, safe spaces where your parents could dump you with a few quarters while they went shopping and not worry, the idea of a sketchy arcade fascinates. It also lets me pretend that my misspent youth was a little edgier -- maybe there were drug deals and businessmen gambling five feet away from where I was losing horribly at Killer Instinct. I know the skeleton was slow, but he was a pirate. And he could teleport!
So that's a look at the future of this column, which will be about the things and the people and the places surrounding video games -- and often about the past. But like so many other things about the past, it will actually be about the present. Maybe I'll learn, while writing it, how to be excited about what's to come (other than Saint's Row 3, no, seriously, can't wait). And maybe you'll learn, while reading it, some interesting historical tidbit that you can use at your next dinner party.
I will try my best not to be pedantic, but I make no promises. Again, I called the column "Paratext".
Thanks for having me.
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