First table scraps

I've sold my first, yet unpublished article to Gamasutra; emboldened by that, I decided to pitch a column I'd been thinking about for months to one of Gamasutra's sister sites, Gamesetwatch.

I love the dialog and content there and I'm honored to be one of its columnists. Right now, "alternative" video game discussion seems centered around three things: games journalism and the relationship amongst consumers, journalists, and game devs/publishers; the content and making of the games themselves; and the relationship between video games and other institutions and media.

The phrase "we play" usually means the same thing as "we read", something we go into rooms and do alone and then talk about later, like a book club, only with an atypical, non-Oprah-watching demographic. Then we go home, play some more, and come back to the water cooler to talk about it again. The "interaction" part isn't the only unique part of video games. There's another part that makes it different from all the rest, though, and that's the fact that some parts can only be done with others. The "interaction" is sometimes people, not just product.

The Game Anthropologist will still be about games, but ultimately, it will be about the people who play them.