So last week I made a post about the snobbery around "literary fiction" and how anything from 'genre' is looked down upon is so irritating. And that's true and I stand by it. and I just want to say it's hilarious (/derogatory) how that gets reversed in Gamer(TM) spaces. For like 15 years now that type Gamer(TM) has been throwing a fit about more grounded, narrative/character driven pieces, from Gone Home and its contemporaries that led to the originally prerogative genre name of 'walking simulator' to the latest culture war nonsense about Mixtape. Which isn't really my jam-- because it's a nostalgic coming of age piece for both a time period and a sub-culture I'm not nostalgic for-- but which I know enough to recognise as a love letter to both rock music and an entire sub-genre of film.
And when I see these guys bitching and moaning about these more grounded stories (relatively! Mixtape still exists in a Very heightened reality) I do feel the pretentious part of my rise up like. Actually you know what, DO get comfortable with a text that doesn't have monsters or magic or whatever in it. Better yet, get comfortable with a game that isn't based entirely around violence.
truly it goes to show how arbitrary these things can be that the two subcultures around entire mediums can be annoyingly judgemental in opposite directions

















