Index

Contents

Introduction: Nobody Asked for a Toaster Critic vii

1  > The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird             1

2  > A Portrait of the Artist as a Game Studio   10

3  > The Blue Shell Is Everything That’s Wrong

     with America                                22

4  > Little Black Sambo, Fm Going to Eat You Up! 28

5  > CanaGobblerHaveltAll?                       34

6  > Racketeer Sports                            44

7  > The Haute Couture of Videogames	         56

8  > Can the Other Come Out and Play?            63

9  > A Way of Looking	                         71

10 > Free Speech Is Not a Marketing Plan         78

11 > Shaking the Holocaust Train                 89

12 > The LongShot                                96

13 > Puzzling the Sublime                       103

14 > Work Is the Best Place to Goof Off         111

15 > A Trio of Artisanal Reviews                117

16 > What Is a Sports Videogame?	        129

17 > The Agony of Mastery                       142

18 > The Abyss between the Human and the Alpine 150

19 > Word Games Last Forever	                172

20 > Perpetual Adolescence	                181 

Conclusion: Anything but Games	                181 

Notes	                                        189