IT'S TIME TO GROW UP
Your relationship to games does not have to be governed by platform power.
killjoy. with will butler
Writing on videogames and the ways they break our hearts. I'm Will, a PhD researcher working around the preservation, production, and cultures of videogam...
Latest posts
REHABILITATING GAMERS’ IMAGE: A CONVERSATION WITH GAMER’S VOICE
Gaming is a low trust community.
MAKING MUSIC WITH CHARLES BUKOWSKI
What's the point in performing if no one is there to see it?
A PERSONAL HISTORY WITH POKÉMON
By god, I’m not a romantic, I’m a min-maxer.
GETTING AWAY WITH IT IN MARATHON
Marathon speaks to the classicists in the Old Language of the shooter genre.
WE ARE HAUNTED BY THE GHOST OF 2016 PAST
It’s not as simple as we all want a re-do of the last 10 years, but it’s not far off
JOHN WICK THE MOVIE: THE VIDEOGAME: THE VIDEOGAME
There is no need for an Untitled John Wick Game because the John Wick films are already video games.
JOHN HIGHGUARD HAS COME UNSTUCK IN TIME.
John Highguard has come unstuck in time. John has gone to sleep a consummate gamer and awakened arthritic. He vaulted into a mech in 2017 and landed on a horse in 2026. He has fallen off that horse to find himself escaping an enclosing ring of antimatter in 2019. He has seen his rebirth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the games in between. Highguard is a free-to-play,…
SEIZURES NOT MADE BY VIRTUE OF DUE PROCESS
They may exercise their rights in person or by agent. They may pursue him into another state; may arrest him on the Sabbath; and if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose. The seizure is not made by virtue of due process. None is needed. United States Supreme Court ruling on the rights of independent agents holding suspects, Taylor vs Taintor 1873. We’re all thinking a lot about…
KILLJOY PRESENTS: THE BEST OF 2025
Last August I had a conversation in the sweaty halls of Gamescom with a couple of journalists about the state of the games industry. We were bemoaning the ways in which the corporate presence is gutting our proverbial home for parts and polluting the culture in the process. We also discussed Brendan Keogh’s essential 2023 book The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist . Early on, Keogh posits that we…