A New Theory of Video Games

With a Terrible Fate has been quieter than usual lately because, for the past few months, I have been working on a thesis to fulfill part of the requirements for my degree in philosophy. I am now pleased to say that this project is complete, and the result is a new theory of the ontology and metaphysics of video games. The theory comes with some surprising results—for instance, I don’t think there’s any deep sense in which the players of video games actually control or embody avatars.

Thank you to all those who have found this site and engaged me in conversation about video games, whether online or in person. Those conversations are a huge part of how my thinking on video games has evolved over the years. And, now that this project is complete, stay tuned for more new work coming soon (I heard, for instance, that a new Zelda game and Nier game might have been released recently?).

You can read the full thesis here.

Sci-Fi and Real Science: With a Terrible Fate at PAX East (video)

With a Terrible Fate was honored to present a panel at PAX East 2017, in which we spoke to a crowd of about 500 people about how to better understand the science-fiction storytelling of video games using real science. We were also fortunate enough to have the entire panel recorded; we’re sharing that video with you here, so those of you who weren’t able to attend can virtually hear and see what we had to say. You can also read articles that present this same work in a more academic form: Matt McGill’s work on SOMA can be found here, and my own work on BioShock Infinite is here.

Thanks for being such a wonderful audience, PAX East. We hope to see you again next year.