Things I've Done

Coming soon! “Eco-erotic Encounters with and in Videogames,” Media + Environment. 2026. Me n Laura

Incompleteness on Video Game Horizons Me n Phil, 2023

From Spectators to Co-Players: Growing the Language of Live-Streaming Me, Lindsay, n Jeremy, 2021

Post-Procedural Composition: Writing Gameplay Criticism Me, 2021.

So with this article I wanted to complicate the idea of procedural rhetoric. I think procedural rhetoric is useful for addressing the question, "well if video games do have something to say, how do they say it?" The problem is that procedural rhetoric focuses on how designers use games to say things, and the ways that it describes how designers achieve this gestures towards a theory of game design as an authoritarian mode of authorship in which players have no choice but to obey. This isn't the case, and like Galloway, I read games are a co-created media that don't "exist" as anything but code until they are played. Speedrunners, machinima creators, artists, streamers, and even regular players constant demonstrate that code is not deterministic through how they repurpose the rules, spaces, and vocabulary of play to articulate new and unexpected things with video games. And that's not always a good thing! While players can explore these techniques to, for instance, engage in consenual sexual activity within game spaces that do not formally allow for such behaviors (as outlined in my article with Jordan on healslutting), they also use these techniques for griefing and harassment as documented by Gray. TLDR: this article takes a lot of words to express what Bittani has been showing for years with the GAMESCENES blog, but it is my small attempt to advocate for greater acknowledgement of the agency that play has in shaping and expressing the meanings players make with and through video games.

Dear Punchy: Representing and Feeling Writing in Animal Crossing Me, 2020

Girly Game History on Paper Me n Chloe, 2020

Ecocomposition: Environmental Writing in Minecraft Me, 2021

The Pro Strats of Healsluts: Overwatch, Sexuality, and Perverting the Mechanics of Play Me n Jordan, 2019

Reading, Writing, Queering: Active Passivity in Walking Simulators Me n Chloe, 2019

Game Composition: Writing with(in) Digital Games (Dissertation) Me, 2018

Issue 2: Ecoplay, Digital Games, and Environmental Rhetoric Me n Melissa, 2018

Ecomods: An Ecocritical Approach to Game Modification Me, 2017

MissingNo.: Bug Type Pokemon Me, 2017

Issue 1: Digital Animals Inhabiting the Intersections of Nature, Culture, and Technology Me n Melissa, 2016

Ecocomposition: writing ecologies in digital games Me, 2014

How World of Warcraft Could Save Your Classroom: Teaching Technical Communication through the Social Practices of MMORPGs Me n Melissa, 2014