New Audio (video coming in the next hour)! Do Video Games Deserve Better? (Patreon)

Hey everyone AGAIN,

Here's the second post I'm making before Patreon's month-end deadline for said posts.

Super sorry the video isn't totally ready yet—I've been scrambling to get it done, but I'm so close to getting it rendered that I thought I'd just upload the audio here, then post the video once I've actually got it uploaded in the next hour or so. You won't have to wait long, promise!

This one is a little different to the last one, and will be Patreon exclusive because I'm not trying to cause drama or anything. Similar to the SolePorpoise dissonance video I made a while back, this one will be a response to a video by another creator. This time, the video in question is by Cinema Cartography, formerly Channel Criswell, entitled "Video Games Deserve Better". 

Contained within its dense 90 minutes, the film critic tries to wrestle with the notion that games are indeed art, and yet designers, developers, players, critics... all of them fail to engage with the medium on the level of legitimate art.

It might be one of the most staggeringly myopic, hubristic videos I've come across in a long time—only noteworthy because, as I discuss, Channel Criswell was someone I would have once called the best film critic out there (and this isn't even to mention the recent video he and his wife released that brushes up uncomfortably close to legitimate fascist talking points... but that's a whole other story). 

Either way, this video discusses the numerous failings of the piece as I see it, questioning whether the "games as art" discussion needs to happen in 2023, addressing my own failings in my early days of games criticism, and much more. 

It's a pretty multifaceted piece honestly and I'm thankful I have a smaller platform like Patreon with which to put it out. Who knows! I might put it out for the general audience at some point, but for now, enjoy the fruits of my labour engaging with this mad video. 

My plans for December are similarly mad. Got a LOT of videos and articles hopefully coming your way before Christmas. All represent LARGE projects that are going to take a lot of time—time I can only afford to put into this stuff because you have all so generously continued to fund my work. I legitimately cannot express how grateful I am for that. Thank you all so much and I'll talk more when the video is ready to upload.

Thanks again!

Hamish

Writing on Games