“Politics is the art of controlling your environment.”
-Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
Game designer and blogger Anna Anthropy is thought of by many as inflammatory, provocative, and controversial. Whether the issue at stake is the legitimacy of the Independent Game Festival’s yearly awards , the questionable taste of Kotaku articles and the problems with the editorial response , or even the, Anthropy thrives on a hard-line, take-no-prisoners approach, and refuses to apologize for it.
She pops up in the gaming press with tidal regularity, here mentioning her game design philosophy, there presenting her unconventional response to a solicitation from Stephen Totilo. Regardless of where you engage with her opinions, she presents and defends her opinions with the heat and passion of one utterly certain of her convictions.
Which is why I snapped up her book “Rise of the Videogame Zinesters” as soon as I was able: for once, she had her own platform and space to present her own case rather than being forced into a reactionary role. What would she say?
ON ARSON AND ARCHITECTURE
I should emphasize that, while I sympathize with Anthropy, I don’t always agree with some of her chosen battles. That’s likely a manifestation of my own privilege in the games writing space: as a white cisdude with a college education, I’m afforded many opportunities that I can’t even acknowledge properly. So while I don’t always agree with her, I do value her immensely; whatever bridges she may burn getting her points across, she definitely gets them across, and that’s perhaps the most worthwhile activity one could do in the self-destructively homogenous culture of game development. I would be very, very hard-pressed to name a game designer or critic I respect more than Anna Anthropy.
You might notice that I’ve spent the last four paragraphs talking about Anthropy herself, rather than her book. That’s because, in a very real sense, I feel that it’s impossible to write about Anthropy’s work without writing about her persona: both her game design ethos and her social justice advocacy come from her unique but relatable perspective.
That’s largely what her book is about. Rise of the Videogame Zinesters is equal parts autobiography, manifesto, and how-to manual, but how and where those threads collide is where the book is at its most interesting.
Which isn’t to say that it is ever uninteresting. To get the consumer review aspect of this article out of the way, you should absolutely buy this book. If you’re reading this site, you either got here accidentally or you have some level of interest in game criticism. Either way, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters (henceforth abbreviated to ROTVZ) presents one of the most succinct, accessible, and interesting primers on game design and development that I’ve ever read. Unlike the vast majority of game design texts, which focuses on the “mainstream” or AAA development practices of the industry, ROTVZ focuses on games at their most personal. Anna Anthropy writes about making games as you grew up with them, grew to love them, and eventually fantasized about/started to make them. At $15 CDN/US, it’s easily an eighth of the size and price of any of the currently definitive game design books, and it’s far easier to read besides. Buy it here .
A MANIFESTO FOR ONE
Some take the relentlessly self-inserting and reflexive nature of Anthropy’s games, writing, and criticism as a basically narcissistic act. I think that’s giving her way too little credit. If narcissism were all she were after, she’d end up more like late 90s John Romero, selling herself as the main draw of this book rather than method.
After discussing how games can present meaning, and providing a pretty handy primer on critical thinking to complement this, Anthropy relates the story of how she came to game design as a profession. Like me — and, probably, you — she was initially fascinated with games because of the way they made her feel and the way they could immerse her in a fictional space. Determined to create gameplay instead of passively receiving it, she completed most of a creative writing degree and spent time at the Guildhall, learning about play, narrative, and systems of meaning, before heading off on her own due to frustration and personal circumstance. Interspersed throughout this narrative are also sweet mentions of her submissive, Daphny, but they never become cloying or saccharine, and always feel like a peek at two people who are absolutely batshit for each other.
It’s tempting to anachronistically read her current avowed anti-authoritarianism onto her younger self: “I thought and still think that higher education is bullshit,” she remarks. The interesting thing is that her time in academia and the Guildhall are seemingly uncharacteristic expressions of hope and faith. Like many of us who grew up loving and admiring video games for their possibilities, Anthropy embarked on a mission to make them her life’s work. She found that all the “acceptable” or “standard” routes were at best, irrelevant, and at worst, actively antagonistic towards originality, creativity, and innovation. Again, it’s tempting to take her iconoclastic image as evidence that she’s innately biased against these institutions, but her anecdotes strike me as fair-minded and congruent with my own experiences in these arenas.
Given those options, it’s a small wonder anyone chooses to work in the mainstream games industry — and indeed, she introduces the book with a statistic saying that more than half of currently working video game developers intend to leave the games industry within five years. She points out an observation that will doubtless seem old hat to anyone even vaguely associated with the games industry: both studios and publishers use the fantasy of working on games, the “dream job,” to crush any hint of collective bargaining or nonconformism. There is the constant and unspoken threat of a mob of fresh college graduates, mentally nubile and malleable, educated in the latest techniques and willing to be exploited in exchange for free pizza and ping-pong. After all, they’ve been told over and over by games press and private schools like Digipen, the Guildhall, and Full Sail (and many more) that “this is just the way things are; you’ll have to deal with it.”
It’s exactly this broken and alienating system which Anthropy is reacting against. I don’t have space to detail the myriad injustices which are accepted as commonplace within the games industry, but Anthropy’s book, far from being the cynical diatribe that one might assume, reveals itself to be essentially an expression of hope. Having found the industry wanting, she uses her earned platform to present an alternative to the status quo: an egalitarian and deeply personal manual to game design and production, written as openly as possible to include as many free resources and sources of inspiration as possible.
In many ways, ROTVZ is the symbol of her life’s work as artist, game designer, and advocate: in this text she personifies an anti-industry perspective, as enabling unconventional thinking and creativity as she found the Guildhall and academia stifling and conformist. She details the theory, practice, attitude, and autodidacticism necessary to make one’s own games. She gives the reader all the tools she has to make, if not a living, then an authentically creative piece of art.
As I’m sure others will, I initially scoffed at the quasi-utopian ideal of the enlightened masses drawing the game industry into an enlightened age. Fortunately, that’s only what you see if you rely on your assumptions about Anthropy; Rise of the Videogame Zinesters is not a manifesto calling for the game industry to change. It’s Anna Anthropy presenting her personality, life, and subjective experience as completely as she can, so she can invite us to learn from her mistakes and memories as much as her games call for our participation and complicity. In other words, ROTVZ is a manifesto for one, asking you to meet her halfway and make something . Even, or especially, if she disagrees with it.
Ironically enough, the book is perhaps best summed up by the juxtaposition at the closing pages of her work; while, on the back cover, Ian Bogost blurbs enthusiastically (and incorrectly) about Anthropy’s preoccupation with “the strange aimless beauty” of personal creativity, the conclusion to her bare-bones About the Author couldn’t be more laser-focused or pragmatic.
“She wants you to stop reading this and GO MAKE A GAME.”
Rise of the Videogame Zinesters can be purchased on Amazon here , in ebook or physical form.
