I’m Building a Blogging Collective For Small and Experimental Games and I Want Your Help!!!

We’re going to cover the avant-garde, experimental and otherwise small.

Pssst, I already know I want to help out Owen! Oh great, here’s the link to the discord https://discord.gg/G3AzGtr. It’s also at the bottom if you need to be convinced to help out first. Now on to the pitch

Oases

Why build yet another new game writing site Owen?

I have decided I am going to try and start a blogging collective or a publication where those of us who are already invested in covering the small and experimental corners of videogames can try to build something better together. I feel that the current state of coverage for these works isn’t good enough. That’s not to mean the current work is bad, many of us are doing great work already. From the bloggers who get maybe ten views a post to the freelancers writing at larger publications there is good writing being done on tiny and experimental works on a regular basis. The problem at this point is that so much of that writing is scattered across dozens of tiny blogs and youtube channels or buried in the archives of sites like Paste, Waypoint or Kotaku beneath dozens of posts on AAA works.

I don’t want that work to stop as so much of it is amazing writing. But I feel there should be a home for experimental games coverage. There isn’t a place we can point to right now and say “go here to learn about the avant-garde and cutting edge stuff.” At best we have right now is something like WarpDoor, an incredible site (my homepage in fact) but simply not a home for insightful criticism about the sphere. That’s just not what it’s interested in doing. So much of these games are amazing and they deserve a group holding its banner and arguing its value.

celestial hacker girl jessica

So what are you trying to build?

I feel that the best way to start this is for those of us already writing, talking and posting videos about experimental work to start posting content to a single collective blog or site. We’d probably start with just a free blogging platform like a wordpress or a medium page as for so many of us this is a side hobby, running a full fledged site would be a big commitment. The way I see it, even if this proposed site is just half a dozen of us bloggers pooling the audiences we already have that would have benefits all on its own. It would be easier for us to build attention for the site, and the games we cover if we have a page that’s update 3–4 times a week instead of each of us doing one post every other week on our own seperately.

Primarily I want to build a site that reflects the values and practices of the games it would cover.

Love March

What are you going to cover?

Primarily we are going to cover the small, the avant-garde and the experimental. If its a kind of work that is marginalized by mainstream gaming coverage we are going to be here for it. I want to cover jam games, little visual novels, the bizarre and off putting, even bigger indies that get passed over by normal coverage. So things found on Game Jolt, Itch.io and the few remaining flash portals, but also games on Steam or other big stores. Games like #Wargames, because how in the world did the followup to Her Story not even get enough reviews for a metacritic rating.

And if you can convince me you have a really unique take or angle on some AAA thing, perhaps that too. But that’s not the focus here, I just don’t want to rule it out entirely right out of the gate.

Palmystery

Who are you looking for to participate?

Honestly? Anyone who wants to contribute. I explicitly do not want this to be an exclusive club. Not only do more participants mean more games get covered, but the diversity of voices would result in a greater variety of experiences and perspectives. I want writers who were around for the flash portal days, I want writers from other disciplines, hell I want people who haven’t written before.

That openness is what makes experimental games so great. Works like Oikospiel that come from first time designers sit next to works from the veteran yet chronically underappreciated, such as Molleindustria who sits next to the person trying out Construct to make a small two minute platformer for their first game jam.

That’s what I want to build in a site. Something that lives up to the people making the art, we owe it to them.

Oἶκoςpiel Book I

What are some of the basic principles of the site?

1. You own your writing. — — — I’ll be upfront right here, we’re not paying anyone to work on this site, it’s a volunteer thing. It’s not like I’m opposed to paying people to write but let’s be realistic. We’d be covering games that struggle to get much of any purchases for the art itself, so there’s even less of a market for criticism about that work. It’s not like we will be pulling in money and not passing it on, this is a passion project on all parts. If somehow we monetize it fantastic, but I’m not going to pretend it’s something that will fall into place once we’ve launched. It’s almost certainly not going to happen. So as I can’t pay you, I’m not interested in taking ownership of your work. Want to post your article on your own site as well? Go ahead. Want to pull it down from our site later on? By all means. Everything you contribute will be 100% yours.
2. We will cover a wide diversity of games and people that make them. — — — If you ever sort through the “new releases” tab on itch.io you’ll see the sheer multitude of projects that get released. People of all backgrounds, genders, races and places contribute. We will cast as wide a net as we can. I’d like to say we’ll have a diversity in writers, but I have a harder time promising that. As the staff will be 100% volunteers we will kind of get who we get. I’ll make an effort at getting diverse voices but I don’t feel great going to people of backgrounds not yet reflected in our staff and ask for free labour so we can be a diverse group.
3. No deadlines, schedules or expectations. — — — People participating in this collective will be doing it out of love. So participate as much as you feel comfortable with. Want to have a weekly column? Fantastic! Want to contribute here and there when you can? We’ll always have a space for you. Just have one thought to share and won’t stick around? We’re glad to feature you as our guest. No pressure ever on anyone to produce content. If this means the site fizzles out after some amount of time, well we gave it our best shot.
4. No gross people. — — — You know what this means. No racists, homophobes, transphobes, harassers, gatorfucks, etc.. are welcome.

Dystropicana

When is this launching, how do I get involved?

I don’t know yet. This is just a call for participants. I want the publication creation to be a collaborative process. I’ve set up a discord for anyone interested.

Discord - Free voice and text chat for gamers

Hope to hear from people interested in joining me.

-Owen Ketillson