Month: August 2009

Why I don’t play games

When Lewis Denby asked me to write an answer to the question “Why I play games” for a three part feature in his excellent Resolution magazine, I wasn’t planning to participate. Because I don’t play games. I try often enough. But videogames just don’t amuse me any more. Then I realized that this hasn’t always been the case and I started wondering what has changed. So I ended up writing an answer to the question “Why I don’t play games”. And they published it. :)

Have a read and let me know what you think. Am I crazy? Do you feel the same? Is there still hope? Or should we just move on to something else? Or are the other writers right? Are their reasons for playing games more pertinent than mine not to? Oddly, it seems that several of them feel the same about the scarcity of really good games and the lack of evolution, but this does not lead them to stop playing as it does me.

What big eyes you have, Salome!

I am amorous of thy body, Iokanaan! Thy body is white, like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judea, and come down into the valleys.
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Suffer me to touch thy body.
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Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper.
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It is of thy hair that I am enamoured, Iokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes, like the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites.
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Suffer me to touch thy hair.
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Thy hair is horrible. It is covered with mire and dust.
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It is thy mouth that I desire, Iokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut in twain with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate flowers that blossom in the gardens of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red.
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Suffer me to kiss thy mouth.

I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. I will kiss thy mouth.

– from Oscar Wilde’s play Salome