I recently appeared on Destructoid to give a video interview about my work and talk about video games as the guest of Jonathan Holmes, whom I like a lot. The comments are ridiculous and aimed at ‘putting me in my place.’

The ‘threatened gamer’ is a hyper-visible but increasingly-irrelevant market category that gets its sense of competence and importance from being at the center of marketers’ aiming eye for the past decade. I recently wrote about the weird dissonance of being an adult at a video game expo, and increasingly other adults, especially those who actually work in games and write about them, are noticing the same dissonance. Linked in my piece there are several articles specifically aimed at dismantling the absurdity of the Preview Event. I see the trend as a sign of life.

Here, I talk to GoldenEye 007 director Martin Hollis about his long-standing boredom with violence and the new romance-oriented public installation game he’s making for the upcoming GameCity event in Nottingham, where I’ll be giving several talks.

Most things in games are more interesting than the commercial sector. Following the scandalous reveal of Horse_ebooks and partner Pronunciation Book, I speak to the company’s Tom Bender about what it’s all really been about — an art project that currently takes the shape of a 1990s-style FMV game. 1990S STYLE FMV GAME, you guys. Bender and his colleague are pleasantly focused on adding more mystery to our experience of the internet, not dispelling it.

The most disappointing thing for me about “gamer culture” isn’t really that there are a group of vocal product-gobblers who think that an entire medium belongs to them. It’s that there are so few people who are willing to interrupt them in that perception.

I mean, everyone wants to make money, I get it, but for example: Where is the statement from GameSpot that says it’s proud to have Carolyn Petit on its team and it won’t tolerate any abuse of her from its community? Why did her GTA review have to pass 1000 comments, many nauseatingly abusive, before it was closed?

Why is the fact my video interview generated 400 comments of inflammatory, polarizing discussion something to be celebrated? Where is its statement about its community’s treatment of a guest it invited? Why does this recent profile of me mostly focus on what I supposedly bravely-endure in my social media presence, instead the games, creators and ideas I bravely endure something or other to bring attention to?

Are so many people stuck in such a holding pattern that we listlessly wave groundless ‘controversies’ through our bullshit detectors? Do we not have anything else to say?

I’m past even being bothered by it: My writing very rarely targets the market category that identifies as “PROUD GAMERS”, and I don’t participate much in the commercial industry’s schedules or cycles, and I still make my living, and I still have the support of tons of amazing people. Still. It’s just kind of boring and disappointing, and embarrassing for us, isn’t it?