Introduce Yourself!

[Cameron Kunzelman]

Go ahead and introduce yourself in this thread! Feel free to include blogs, twitters, etc. 

I am Cameron Kunzelman and I tweet at @ckunzelman and I blog at TCIW. I am in a hurry right now and I have to commute but thanks for being in the group!

[Denis]

'allo! Denis Farr here.

Tweeting at @aeazel and blogging over at Vorpal Bunny Ranch and other places when they'll have me.

[Cameron Kunzelman]

Woop woop Denis this is gonna be so fun.

[Bryant Francis]

Hey folks! Name's Bryant. I'm an assistant editor/contributer at www.jacehallshow.com, the blog for IGN's the Jace Hall show. You can find me on Twitter @RBryant2012---I tend to tackle games analysis with a film analysis lens, try to contribute to the diversity debate as best I can, and have a frantic obsession with Bastion. 

[Mark Duval]

Allo. I'm Mark. I tweet at @MarkDuval and blog at fragmentsarefound.com

Look forward to seeing the thoughts of everyone in this group :)

[Chris Leggett]

Hi, all! I'm Chris Leggett, (@leggetron) and I'm a journalist from New Zealand who relocated to Seattle, WA with my wife around 10 months ago. I was editor of Game Console magazine back home for close to three years, and I've contributed to NZ PC World, Gameplanet and more. I plan to chip in for more US publications this year, though! I'm excited to participate in this group so I can get my head around the subtle style differences :)

[Age Past]

Jeff Mechlinski from Baltimore here.

Fledgling RPG, and Card Game designer, with a degree in Industrial Design vast experience with replication technologies including laser scanners.  Working with @Battlejack on a company to create custom game pieces and boards through laser cutting.

My main project is Age Past, a high mechanics RPG that opens RPG up giving players control to do what they want to.  Always looking for testers and reviews and future projects.

[BardicKnowledge]

I'm Ryan Thompson, @BardicKnowledge on Twitter.  I'm working towards my PhD in musicology with a focus on video game music research -- there are a group of now that collectively refer to ourselves as "ludomusicologists."  I'm speaking this summer at NYU on opera in Final Fantasy VI, and I write occasionally in my spare time for XBLAFans.com.  I'm looking forward to chatting with all of you!

[Brian Taylor]

I'm Brian. Lapsed games writer. From Pittsburgh.

[Nate Andrews]

Hi all. Nate Andrews, @_nandrews on Twitter. Managing Editor of
Nintendo World Report, contributor to Nightmare Mode, Medium
Difficulty, and others. From Michigan.

[Maddy Myers]

I'm Maddy Myers, I tweet @samusclone and I write about video games for the Phoenix. My writing has appeared at Kill Screen and the Border House, too. I have a personal site with all my work at metroidpolitain.com.

[Kaitlin Tremblay]

I'm Kaitlin Tremblay, @kaittremblay on Twitter. I write a nerd-culture/feminist blog, ThatMonster. I write comic book and book reviews at NerdSpan and for Comics Should Be Good. I also edit and write for Medium Difficulty.

 

[Tony Perriello]

Hi! I'm Tony Perriello. I'm a Web Developer located in Pittsburgh, and as of late last year I've started making games :)

I tried my hand at a few reviews many many years ago for a friend's blog, and lately I've been feeling the urge to read more criticism, enter into more discussions, and try my hand at it again.

I tweet at @tonyperriello, and I've got a tumblr: http://tonyperriello.tumblr.com/

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 11:17:48 AM UTC-5, Cameron Kunzelman wrote:

[Javy]

Hello everyone,

I'm Javy Gwaltney. I'm a games writer from Kennesaw, Georgia. I write regularly for Dusty Cartridge and am the Games Editor for CultureMass, which should be online soon. I've also had a number of pieces promoted on Gamesbeat and have had an article published on Medium Difficulty. My twitter is @JavyIV.

I look forward to receiving and sharing feedback with you all.

Cheers,
Javy

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 11:17:48 AM UTC-5, Cameron Kunzelman wrote:

[Alexander Feigenbaum]

Hi, I'm Alexander Feigenbaum.

I've recently started writing about games at www.amadeusgamezart.wordpress.com. I'm also making my first game, but I have just about no coding experience, so it's mostly been guess and check!

I tweet at @arfeigenbaum

[Greg Brown]

Hi! My name's Greg Brown (@gregbrown) and I'm mostly just active on Twitter. I do frequent the Idle Thumbs forums, though, and read a shitton of books. I like looking at games through a teleological lens, and laid out my approach in a cheeky post on my rarely-used tumblr. I'm trying to expand my exposure to other styles, though, and am really excited about the discussions we'll have.

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 11:17:48 AM UTC-5, Cameron Kunzelman wrote:

[Amanda Lange]

Hello! I'm Amanda Lange. Tweets at @second_truth. Personal games blog at secondtruth.com, but I also write at www.tap-repeatedly.com. I live in Reading, PA. Excited to find the group!

[Brian Taylor]

Oh I forgot I twitter @brianmtaylor

[M.H. Williams]

I am M.H. Williams, staff writer at GamesIndustry International. I tweet at @AutomaticZen. DC Metro area for myself.

[Michael Hancock]

Hi.  Michael Hancock here.  Professional student. I blog at Experimental Progress, and I'm book review editor for First Person Scholar.

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 11:17:48 AM UTC-5, Cameron Kunzelman wrote:

[Michael Hancock]

Oh, and my twitter handle is @PersonofCon.

[Zach]

i'm zach. i have a twitter (@icepotato) and a blog (hailing from the edge) and a tumblr about how food shows up in games. i write as a hobby to blow off steam. 

[Matt]

Hey!

I'm Matt. Right now I work for Trion Worlds, and I do some writing for Anjel Syndicate as well as a podcast with them. I've also done a piece for XSEED, which was lots of fun. And I'm working on a degree (Creative Writing for Entertainment). And I'm collaborating on the start of a web comic as a writer, and I'm doing some other stuff that'll hopefully see the light of day.

I look forward to reading, learning and maybe even participating some!

~Matt

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 8:17:48 AM UTC-8, Cameron Kunzelman wrote:

[Rollin Bishop]

Hi folks. Rollin Bishop. I'm Managing Editor over at Geekosystem, freelance elsewhere, and I do the Twitter at @rollinbishop.

Looks cozy.

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 11:17:48 AM UTC-5, Cameron Kunzelman wrote:

[Johannes Köller]

Hey there,

I'm Johannes Köller, Joe to Anglophone tongues, and I run a new and widely unknown magazine for amateur writers when I'm not trying to freelance. Tweet here and blog here.

Hope I'm using this right. See you around.

[Sparky]

I'm Sparky. I write essays and other things about games at my blog, Ludonarratology, reviews for GameCritics.com, tweets via @sparkyclarkson and sometimes my stuff shows up in other places.

[Ethan Gach]

My name's Ethan, I hail from Philadelphia and don't currently have an Internet home at the moment. When I can manage it I write at Nightmare Mode and Medium Difficulty, and post to my personal blog, gamingvulture.com. Otherwise I'm a contributor at a political blog, Ordinary-Gentlemen.com (which is in the process of a re-design and less exclusionist rebranding), co-produce a weekly pop culture podcast, and tweet @ethangach.

Lovely to meet you all!

[10rdBen]

Hello humans I am Ben Abraham and I am a meat popsicle. twets @10rdBen, blargs @ http://iam.benabraham.net/ and I write most about games and internet culture for my PhD.

Interesting to spot a musicologist in this group, I did a music degree in undergrad and wrote my honours thesis on the music of Halo 2 /plug 

[Cha Holland]

Hello all.  My name's Cha (@shallow_depths) and I'm a hobbyist writer from Melbourne.  My personal game blog is http://www.shallow-depths.com and I write reviews for http://blackpanel.com.au/

I'm looking forward to seeing what discussions this group generates.

[Bobby Hunter]

Hey all,

I'm Bobby. I write the occasional review for Gamer Limit and features at whatever site will have me. I'm also a fiction writer (homepage here) and I'm on Twitter as @rshunter88. Happy to be part of this group!

[TheGameCritique]

Hi, I'm Eric Swain also known as TheGameCritique online. I'm a self-taught video game critic. You can follow me on twitter @TheGameCritique or read my blog TheGameCritique. I also write reviews and a weekly (mostly) column (TheGameCritique - you might be noticing a theme) at PopMatters' Moving Pixel Blog, am a senior curator at Critical-Distance where we do weekly roundups of the best video game writing of the week as well as run the irregular podcast. I also used to write for Nightmare Mode.

[Shane Liesegang]

Heeeeeeey party people.

I'm Shane Liesegang. I'm a designer and writer at Bethesda. I probably won't be so much an active participant here, but I'll actively lurk because, hey, games writing is cool and important and I want to secretly learn all your personalities and secrets so I can.... wait, never mind.

Anyway, I tweet *way* too much (@OptimistPanda) and don't write in my blog (http://blog.shaneliesegang.com) enough.

Looking forward to hearing everyone's brilliance.

[Zolani Stewart]

I'm Zolani! I do freelanc-y writing things at Paste, Nightmare Mode, and some other places. Tweeting at @Fengxii, blogging at fengxibox.blogspot.

[Line Hollis]

Yo I'm Line Hollis! I blog at http://linehollis.com and tweet @linehollis.

[Dan Golding]

I'm Dan Golding. I write at Crikey, and do a bit of work for Australian magazines. I also am in the last six months of a PhD on games and space. I'm @dangolding.

[John Brindle]

Hello everyone! This is nice. I'm John Brindle. I am an American refugee from a large and comically dysfunctional videogaming family (whose brotherly post-diaspora interactions remain to this day more poisonous than an adder hidden in a Game of Thrones DVD box-set), and a Wannabrit who has settled in London, UK. I recently graduated from an MA in Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London, and my day job involves trad ground-pounding reporting and freelance PR for campaigning organisations. I have a blog at www.brindlebrothers.com which I haven't updated in a long time and I twet @john_brindle. I have also written some things for Gameranx, Nightmare Mode and the New Statesman.

[Katie Williams]

Hello! I'm Katie Williams. I contribute to print mags PC PowerPlay and Hyper, have freelanced around for other outlets like Atomic, The Escapist, and Kotaku, and - until this morning - I was a news blogger at GameSpy.

I also have blogs at www.alivetinyworld.com and alivetinyworld.tumblr.com, and I tweet at @desensitisation. Nice to meet you!

[Nick Capozzoli]

Sorry about Gamespy, Katie. Those layoffs were real hard to swallow.

[Tommy Rousse]

Hey gang— I'm Tommy Rousse, and I keep a journal at http://www.ludist.com somewhat erratically and generally when I am getting a grade, and try to Tweet via @ludist but mostly I just compulsively favorite everything @ckunzelman tweets.  I'm one thesis away from a Master of Science in Games Analysis from the IT University of Copenhagen, home to scholars like Espen Aarseth and Miguel Sicart, and former home of Doug "J.S. Joust" Wilson and Pippin Barr. Sometimes I write criticism and do reporting about videogames, but lately I've been so busy applying to JD/PhD programs that I haven't done much writing outside of "WHY I WANT TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL" x10 and variations on "No Really, I Am About to Get a Master's Degree in Video Games, Please Take Me Seriously".  I'm also a game designer and producer; my first title is LAZA KNITEZ!! www.lazaknitez.com but I've got some other stuff in the works and we're about to form our own company.  Email or tweet me for a free full copy of LK.

I study games and the law with a smorgasbord of network analysis, sociology, anthropology, critical theory, and Marxism.  As a journalist and critic, I try to make academic work accessible to a wider audience without dumbing it down.  I'm pretty psyched about this group.

[Zoya]

Hello everyone! What a fascinating and talented bunch.

I'm Zoya Street or @rupazero. Pronoun "they". I'm a game design historian and journalist, recently moved from the UK to the SF Bay Area. I'm writing a book called Dreamcast Worlds (almost finished!). I work as Deputy Editor at Gamesbrief and also write for The Borderhouse, pocketgamer.biz and whatever doesn't fit there gets dumped on zoyastreet.com. So I sort of do 50% businessy stuff, 50% designerly stuff.

[Dan Cox]

Hi, I'm Dan Cox. I often joke that "I do things" because it's simpler than writing out places where others have been nice enough to feature work I've done. At the moment though, I'm primarily known in association with the Radio division of Indie Game Magazine where I interview independent developers, as the audio editor and producer behind the shows as part of the Video Games and Human Values Initiative, and with my own blog Digital Ephemera. (I also contributed fairly regularly to Nightmare Mode throughout most of 2012.)

While I still pay attention to the community of bloggers and writers, I've been slowly making a transition into being an active developer myself. After making my first dozen Flash games last year, I've been spending a large amount of my free time this year trying to help other make their own games through videos, tutorials, and posting code. I am a strong advocate for the idea that everyone can make a game as part of One Game a Month.

Oh, and I’m Videlais on Twitter, but I mostly use the account to post various things and occasionally complain.

[psepho]

Hi, I'm writing at www.psepho.me. Twitter: @psepho

I am a lawyer in the City of London by day and a zookeeper/counsellor for the juveniles of the species by night. In between the diurnal and nocturnal phases I spend a lot of time on the train (almost an hour each way) which is a nice slice of time for writing some thoughts about games -- so I started about six weeks ago.

I am also making a couple of games (again on the train) but they are a bit rubbish -- really an excuse to learn about programming (which turns out to be a lot like like law...)

[Nathan Altice]

Hi all, Nathan Altice here. I finished up a doctorate in Media, Art, and Text this summer and I'm currently wrapping up (please God) a book on the Nintendo Famicom/NES platform. 

I write about games at metopal.com and do the twits @circuitlions. I'm in some bands. I think that covers it.

Seem like a great crew here.

[Mollusk Gone Bad]

Was going to lurk, but I started posting so I'm Charles MacMullen. I tweet at @molluskgonebad and sometimes blog half-assedly at http://thefailedmollusk.blogspot.com/

[Brendan Keogh]

I should probably actually introduce myself here. HI. I am Brendan Keogh. I write about games in a variety of ways, usually in a way that would probably more fall under 'criticism' than 'journalism' but also academically as I'm doing a PhD at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. I'm on Twitter at @brkeogh but I tweet so much crap you really probably don't want to follow me. I also blog at http://critdamage.blogspot.com and write monthly-ish at Unwinnable and Gameranx. 

[Lana Polansky]

Hullo. I am Lana Polansky. On twitter I'm @lanathegun. Here's where I keep the things I do http://lanathegun.wordpress.com/. I'm a critic and writer and some other stuff. I'll probably post here sporadically but anyway it's cool to be invited. I'll probably lurk a lot. Later. 

[Todd Harper]

I'm Todd Harper. I'm a researcher at the MIT Game Lab (formerly Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab). I hold a doctorate in media studies from Ohio University where I was a student of Mia Consalvo's. I split my research time between competitive communities and cultures/e-sports and representations of gender and sexuality in games.

I tweet a lot at @laevantine so do not follow me if your first impulse when you wake up every morning is UGH SO MANY TWEETS TO GET THROUGH

I blog highly infrequently about games (and sometimes non-game media studies) at http://chaoticblue.com/blog

I suck at keeping up with mailing lists and forums so please don't be offended if I drop off the radar mid-conversation and please do contact me if there is something here you want my opinion on.

[Brendan Keogh]

I feel really bad when people who tweet far less than me apologise for tweeting too much :-/

Hi Todd!

[Cara Ellison]

Hello! Thank you for inviting me Maddy. I am Cara, I write for Rock Paper Shotgun fairly regularly now and UK PC Gamer when I can. I started off on Unwinnable, where all of my mad 'experimental' stuff goes and it is dear to my heart.

I sort of fell backwards into writing about games when I got a bit skint (which is weird because most writers are skint because they are writers). I am primarily entirely in love with the writing process, with words and language, and I hope to use them to bring people together, celebrate shared experiences, and talk about communities and community building via games. It is my fondest wish that people regard games as a way to be together and to celebrate our humanity (eeek! cheese) because I think we're all made by what we experience.

I am super happy to be part of this group because I left academia a long time ago, and my critical language isn't what it used to be.

You can find me overtweeting as usual at @carachan1 and a list of my work can be found at hardconsonant.com.

Cara x

[Cameron Kunzelman]

Glad you're here, Cara.

We've sort of gotten off into long tangent threads about doing criticism, but this is still intended (psssht) to be a discussion place for all forms of games writing. I absolutely want to know more about the kind of writing that you do and why you do it that way; I think more than most of us you are really pushing games writing into lots of directions at once. I know that's really vague but I'm trying to communicate a very complex and envious feel here.

[Cara Ellison]

Heh. Thanks, I am very surprised about the positive reactions I get when I just write what I like, so I was even a little shocked when people started analysing my voice: I've always written this way, but only recently has it gained any attention. I guess you just have to keep writing, no matter what.

If it's of any use, the root of my personal education lies in adolescent readings of Charlie Brooker's offhand PC Zone manner that he used in the 90s. I'd urge anyone unfamiliar with his work to seek him out! He's my favourite critic: he never feels like he has to sacrifice a critical attitude to have a sense of humour, and that's why he's so compelling. His humour about things sort of embosses his point on your mind, which makes for an impact that you can't get from anyone else. Also this one time he called our Prime Minister David Cameron a lizard. (He is.)

[Nick Capozzoli]

Twitter list updated: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As6QwMA9AO8jdEgyaG5DR1dtWEZCV3hhZUpvZFl0TGc#gid=0

[Sylvain L.]

Hi, all!

I'm Sylvain Lavallée from Montreal. I'm a film critic for the magazine Séquences, where I used to blog in French (http://www.revuesequences.org/category/blogue/), and now I have my own virtual spaces, here (Du Cinématographe), in French also, mostly on cinema, and here in English, on films and videogames (Postcards from the uncanny valley).

Since my favorite writing subject is, well, writing, I'm looking forward to these discussions!

[Alan Williamson]

Hi everyone,

I'm Alan - I have no idea where you know me from, if anywhere, but I hope it's from Five out of Ten Magazine where I'm the EIC. I also edit Split Screen, curate 'Blogs of the Round Table' at Critical Distance and I contribute infrequently to the New Statesman and various other outlets.

Looking forward to the ensuing discussions! 

[Austin Grossman]

Hey everyone.  

I'm Austin Grossman, I'm mostly a writer and story designer for video games - most recently for Dishonored, but the list stretches back - I started at Looking Glass with Ultima Underworld II and System Shock. 

I haven't done as much journalism as I'd like but I have a second career as a novelist. I have a novel called YOU about game developers which deals with lot of the same questions that are coming up here - the challenges of close description of the gameplay experience, issues of representation, and so forth.  (It comes out in April - for anyone genuinely curious I can probably snag you an advance copy)

So far just I'm lurking but really enjoying (and impressed with) the debate.

[Andrew Walt]

Hi there! My name is Andrew Walt, and I suspect that I'm by far the least impressive person in the room. I used to be an editor for various campus newspapers at U of T in Canada, but now I'm just finishing up my undergrad in Classics before heading off for my MA in August.

I do design work for Johannes Köller here, I've nervously set up a wordpress for myself here, and I occasionally use Twitter here. And if I'm know for anything, it would probably be for my write-up of Pipe Trouble originally posted here, which Joe informed me had somehow made its way to this group.