Gone are the days when an author self-exiles in a room for 48 days with a drip of black coffee and a mountain of filtered cigarettes, to emerge at the end with the next work of potential literary genius clutched in hand. Nowadays the writing process is transparent and collaborative - almost (gasp) social in nature.
Computer gaming, that other supposed bastion of solitude, has also changed phenomenally, with reports indicating that at least 1/4 of game industry revenue comes from subscriptions for the inherently social online products like World of Warcraft.
And so, from the marriage between the modern writing paradigm and the newfound community spirit of computer gaming comes a new in-progress book called GAM3R 7H30RY.
GAM3R 7H30RY is
interested in two questions.
- 1. can we explore games as allegories for the world we live in?
- 2. can there be a critical theory of games?
Author Mackenzie Wark continues:
I thought it would be interesting to share the book in its draft state to see if these questions are something other people might have ideas on or might want to pursue.
It's an experiment with The Future of The Book, in which Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto, produces 25 paragraphs on nine subject chapters. Readers are invited to comment and discuss.
In it, he discusses The Sims, The Cave, Katamari Damacy, Civilization III, Rez, Vice City, State of Emergency (in a chapter entitled "Boredom" - I couldn't agree more), Deus Ex and SimEarth. As the chapters are only 25 paragraphs long, it's hard to get into depth, but for a bit of intellectual contemplation it's nice to dip into. If you're a social animal and are interested in the process of authorship and/or the critical contributions of computer gaming, head over and submit your two penneth.
