Hi there and welcome to game-ism.com. I’ve started this site so I have a safe place to rant about my thoughts on game design, and more importantly, other games.

There’s been a lot I’ve wanted to say about games over the past few years, but couldn’t because of my job in the games industry, and my company’s penchant for not wanting its employees to publish works in, on, around, or about the gaming industry. So, I decided to start game-ism.com, a place where I could voice my thoughts and opinions without fear of a gag order or losing my job. Both I and my employer have plausible deniability. That’s win-win. Win.

So what’s a game-ism? It’s anything in a game that needs to be “that way” in a game due to design constraints, technical, art, or animation limitations, or by intentional design. For instance, if a character in a game swaps guns in their hands by the gun just popping in and replacing the gun that was in their hand previously (without playing a swap animation or showing the old gun stored on their person), and it doesn’t look exactly real. That’s a game-ism. A better example might be where a character who can carry 5 guns at a time puts his rocket launcher, grenade launcher, carbine, and assault rifle when he’s got a pistol equipped. Don’t see them all on his back? Game-ism.

So I figured naming the site after all of the little annoying things that seemingly need to be in a game in order for it to still be a fun and engaging game and not get slowed down by real life expectations would be a proper name for this place. I’ll be tearing games new holes, praising others, nitpicking, or just generally talking about design challenges and where games meet, exceed, or fail at such tasks.

It’s my hope you’ll be entertained along the way.