From as far back as I can remember, I’ve been looking for something transcendent. While it may sound crazy, this is what gaming was to me for a long time. This interest later evolved into some extremely bad behavior.
When I went to live with my mother and my older sister, video games were there to distract me while my mother worked all day. I found the worlds of video games fascinating, an escape from my situation, much akin to what you described in your book.
I started writing fiction because while playing MMOs I was trying to create a narrative with the character within the very narrow confines of those games. After a while it got so frustrating being locked inside a game narrative with minimal variation and leeway, I stopped playing and started writing instead.
I remember being a kid and playing Pokémon Red in bed, under the covers with a flashlight because it was later than I was supposed to be up; my mom eventually took my Game Boy away on weekdays. Sitting on my grandparents’ kitchen floor playing Mario: 6 Golden Coins. I had a pretty substantial Christmas meltdown in ’98 when literally all of my cousins got Ocarina of Time and I didn’t.
There aren’t enough games with real emotional depth. Of course there are exceptions to that statement, but games that actually make you feel something are few and far between. I think this is especially true if you are a woman. So many games either ignore women’s agency or use them as eye candy.
We think video games are literature, and so why shouldn't there be literature about video games? That's the question we're hoping to answer here. Read more.
