The State of Play: Sixteen Voices on Video Games

Editors Goldberg and Larsson (coauthors, Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game That Changed Everything) gather a series of daring personal essays on the current state of video game culture and the industry it came from. The essayists are both game lovers and game creators. They're deeply involved in the video game industry and they care greatly about video games as art, representing the most significant voices in the controversies currently rocking the fault lines of the video game landscape. Standout essays by Anna Anthropy and Zoe Quinn demonstrate how creating games can be cathartic while highlighting the extreme prejudices and online harassment that marginalized creators face from their peers. Their essays and others paint an alarming but timely picture in the aftermath of the Gamergate controversy, which concerns sexism in video game culture. Additional pieces unpack issues such as violence, faith, class, and more as they relate to games. All of the contributors balance darkness with uplifting accounts of how games have improved their lives.