OMG, A Gen Z Nonbinary Gӕrl Single-Handedly Shifts Game Studies!!!

No to Narratology, No to Ludology; Yes to Concepts, Yes to Aestheticism!!!

“Games are beautiful. They do not need to be justified.”

- Eric Zimmerman, Manifesto for a Ludic Century

Boomers and millennials of the old days have argued for decades now over narratology (emphasis on story) vs. ludology (emphasis on gameplay) within the field of Game Studies. We all have heard and read all about it, this divide is being cited in all the theory books ever, and we are bored of this whole discourse, we could never relate to any of these two sides (or any other binary sides of anything whatsoever).

Fuck narratives. Fuck ludics.

Let me propose to you an option for a third path. Let’s label it something like: aestheticism and technical, conceptual appreciation.

I am an experimental writer. There is no plot, no story, no important message, no big interpretation.

At writing school and in the literature scene, people were always complaining about a lack of a common theme. Everything needed to be rationalized and explained and justified for every little detail.

They were always looking down on me as if I forgot the obvious.

But: I didn’t. I knew about narrative, but I just don’t fucking care about it, story, all the expected traditions.

I suck at writing relatable characters, and I am not interested in writing characters. (Ewww, humans!!! I’ve got the autism^TM!!!)

I am not interested in artificially crafting and telling a cohesive story.

Games are about spaces. About art. About being really really awesome and cool as a concept. About appreciating smol inspiring details. About really little things. About having super neat ideas. (For example!!!)

Concepts. Ideas. Visions. Little energetic sparks in your sleep-deprived brain.

I write stage plays, I write poetry, I write whatever one wants to label it (I really don’t care, and I really hate genres & so on in art!!!), and both theatre texts and poetry are about energy and about the sound of language material, and about being super cool with language, so WTF do you want with your narratives and characters??? I could never relate to any of that!!!

I WRITE WHATEVER FEELS NECESSARY FOR THE TEXT RIGHT NOW!!!

I GAMEDEV WHATEVER FEELS NECESSARY FOR THE GAME THING RIGHT NOW!!!

I DO WHATEVER I WANT TO DO!!!

GAMES ARE ABOUT VIBES!!!

(And like how cultural concepts and intertexts relate to them :3)

(And like feelings????)

(And like atmosphere!!!!)

No to gameplay, no to game mechanics.

No to story, no to linearity, no to any narrative sense or meaning.

YES TO THE RHIZOME, YES TO THE INCOHESIVE, YES TO THE FRAGMENTED, YES TO THE STUMBLING, YES TO THE EXPERIMENT, YES TO THE MAGIC OF RANDOMNESS, YES TO FEELINGS OF INTELLECTUAL INTEREST.

The ongoing post-truth himbo-bimbo-thembofied 21st century has abandoned us. The most common denominator these days in the outside world is: I don’t fucking know, and I don’t fucking care. Pure misery. Life under capitalism, and academia under capitalism, is loveless, cold and absent-minded. Staring out the broken window and waiting until the day is finally over and you can leave and rest and do other stuff, like life stuff. We have short attention spans. Noaboady kan reed an späll anymoor or ewan ret al tese stöfs or evvn buuks. We don’t even know what we are doing, and we are definitely not reading all that. (This text doesn’t even have any pictures or videos or GIFs or fancy fonts in-between!!! Boooo!!!!)

And that’s fine: There are other options to engage with culture these days. Such as “games”/ludic artifacts/virtual-digital media art/you name it – video games and game-likes and software-whatevers are great stuffs. They are intermedial, they are hypermedia, they bring all the disciplines together, they are actually super difficult. Wow. I feel honored to look at this software-whatever that you made instead of rotting in bed!!! It might not be a super good gaymy-thingy, and I also might tell you lol, but I will still appreciate it!!! And going on to appreciate:

• aesthetics – the overall vibe, the colors, the clothing, the shapes, how words feel and sound like and look like, the visuals of it all,…
• tech – the underlying visual effects, the technical sound design, depictions and speculations and fabulations of technology, the implementation of subversive and cool new stuff that I’ve never seen before,…
• concepts – the whole thing as a thing, how it relates to other things and culture and discourse, what it makes me think and think of and think about, what I remember, the super neat niche ideas, the wanting to give u a kiss on the forehead,…

THE 21^st CENTURY IS A SURFACE IS A SURFACE IS A SURFACE

AND ACADEMIA DOESN’T NEED TO BE ASHAMED OF REFLECTING JUST THAT

ACADEMIA CAN REFLECT ON THAT SURFACE

AND WASH ITS DIRTY DIRTY INSTITUTIONAL FACE AGAIN AND AGAIN (OH YEAH THAT ONE SPOT RIGHT THERE UNDER THE CHIN AHH YEAH I SHOULD WASH THAT AGAIN)

(And also academia can be super geeky about the very very smol things within a thing within a thing within a thing!!! That’s so great about it!!! Not the canon and traditions and super old dusty stuff that you really do not want to touch or reproduce ever again, but the silly stupid little passion!!!)

And, honestly, games are whatever we want them to be!!!!!

And the same should apply to our Game Studies methodologies and how we see games and think about them!!!!!

ICH HABE FERTIG!!!!!

UND FANGE DOCH GERADE ERST AN!!!!!