The long silence has not been laziness or forgetfulness. On the contrary I’ve been working (reasonably) hard and playing a lot of games and considering writing about them on Press Triangle. I don’t work as hard as I should, or as hard as I want to, but hopefully once I gain a sense of direction I’ll find the motivation which powered me through my A Levels (and nearly drove me mad). Until then, there’s a lot of ruminating and reading to be done.

Over the weekend I visited one of my best friends to hang out, eat food, watch fun TV shows and walk along the Dawlish coast in memory of my late-Grandmother. He’s currently working on a PhD thesis and preparing to move to the United States. In between the long walks and the pub food I took some time to reflect on his situation, and on mine – and how much I wish I was where he is right now. He worked hard, and he got somewhere. I worked hard (briefly), got somewhere and decided that I didn’t want to be there anymore and did a lot of minimum wage work before returning to a different University, where I still attend. Over the course of three years, in terms of my career and education, I have been at a standstill. And that, to put it lightly, fucking sucks.

I’ve just turned 21, which is younger than most of my friends. So perhaps my expectations are set a little high. But there are genuinely some pathways I would like to explore in my current field – video games – and I’m not entirely sure how I might get there. Hard work and blind luck are of course the two main contenders for that particular quibble.

Video game academia is pretty thin on the ground at the moment. While there are a few truly brilliant minds tuned in to the idea (Bogost, Aarseth, Crawford, etc) it is such a young field that there’s a lot of bullshit out there. I just read a four page “analysis” of BioShock’s ludic/narrative shortcomings that had me growling at the screen in frustration because the entire thing boiled down to the writer admitting he didn’t know what he was talking about (it should be noted that this work was not peer reviewed – if it had been I would have despaired entirely). Researchers like Jane McGonigal have some brilliant ideas, implement very worthwhile experiments and produce fascinating articles, but don’t quite touch on what it is that I want to explore.

For me, “good” video game academia (“good” here simply being the polar opposite of that bloody BioShock article) should be thought provoking, well referenced and supported by existing critical theories. This is in part because existing critical theories are pretty darn interesting, but mostly because no one has yet suggested a theory for approaching video games that has been adequately explored, substantiated and debated. The ideas of “Flow” have been poked and probed for decades without any real conclusions being drawn, mostly because no one can agree on what “Flow” really is. We’re running around fighting over definitions and never getting to the heart of the real issue.

There is so much to explore when it comes to games, and reams of research have been produced on the ideas of play, board games, sports, and all forms of play except the digital. While many cultural areas have been mauled by eager theorists video games remain only nibbled and chewed on. Research tends to focus on pragmatic outcomes – do video games make us violent, are they addictive, can we teach people with them? Which are all worthwhile avenues to venture down. What I would love to see is some more “deep” thought, along the lines of Bogost, exploring philosophical potential, critical interpretation, sociological and psychological analysis which approaches the game rigorously. There are plenty of easy targets to get started with – the human psyche and Silent Hill 2: discuss. The limit of brand identity on the play style and narrative arc of the Kingdom Heart’s series: explore. Player morality and comparative game play impacts in Mass Effect, BioShock and Fable 2: debate until you’re blue in the face.

There is so much there and very few people seem willing to attack these sorts of questions with any real academic rigour. Is it because they’re not deemed worthwhile? Culturally it’s about as relevant as your average English Literature essay, which is to say relevant enough to be worth doing. No, it’s not going to cure any diseases and it’s not going to send humanity into space. But cultural growth is of great importance, and like it or not, video games are culture.

So, that’s what I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of months. Where do I go from here? I’m currently on Lincoln’s Computer Game Production course, sadly as the last intake before the course is removed (although the Games Computing course remains). I often wonder where this degree will lead me in terms of academia, my employability, and my general well-roundedness as a person. I can honestly say I don’t know. Perhaps in ten years I’ll be doing a PhD on some sort of new critical game theory that I pulled out of my ass and shined up a bit. Perhaps I’ll be working in the industry, waiting until I’ve learnt enough about the game creation process before putting my thoughts to paper.

Wherever I end up, a vital part of the process will be working hard enough to get there. It’s just frustrating working towards a goal that you can’t even see yet.