Secret Adventure
Hi. I’m Carolyn Petit. And this here Tumblr, Secret Adventure, is my new dedicated online space for my writing about games.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of games-related writing since being let go from GameSpot some months back, but on my existing Tumblr, A Game of Me, it’s mixed in with all sorts of more personal, exploratory writing. And that was sort of intentional on my part. What with all the rather heated discussion about the idea that reviews of games should be “objective” and “unbiased,” I was trying to make a kind of statement. I was trying to let my work reflect my deeply held belief that all of us carry our subjective experiences as people on this planet–experiences that are heavily influenced by our gender, race, class, and other factors–into our relationships with the media we consume.
What people usually mean when they say “I want unbiased game reviews” is “I want reviews written from a sociopolitical perspective that meshes seamlessly with my own so that the politics of the review are invisible to me.” As someone whose very existence within the world of games media was attacked by some readers simply because I am a trans woman, I was interested in calling attention to and challenging the politics present in much of gaming culture that establish white male experience as a kind of default, neutral starting position from which other experiences represent a kind of deviation. I’m also interested in challenging the very notion of compartmentalization and categorization, since I can’t entirely separate the Carolyn who plays and loves and writes about video games from the Carolyn who is trans or the Carolyn who is a feminist or the Carolyn who is looking for a job or the Carolyn who loves movies or the Carolyn whose heart aches.

These were luxuries I was afforded in being let go from GameSpot. I was free to essentially write whatever I wanted, without any concern for an audience. I could explore and experiment. If something resonated with people, great. If not, no big deal. And I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to write things about games that I never could have gotten away with at that job. Even though I was accused of being a feminist crusader in the comments of almost everything I wrote on GameSpot, I actually only very rarely mentioned issues of representation or sexism in my work there. After leaving GameSpot, I reasoned, “If people see me that way already whether I let that manifest in my work or not, why shouldn’t I incorporate my political perspective into my work more frequently?"
Some of my favorite things I’ve written since being let go from GameSpot include:
this piece about the thrilling but underutilized narrative potential of Destiny’s characters and places
my contribution to the discussion about whether or not Bayonetta is a "feminist” character (she’s not)
this piece about why political engagement with games and gaming culture is critical to games journalism, and this piece which uses reactions to Grand Theft Auto V to argue that there is no such thing as a politically neutral position on games
this piece about how the xenomorph in Alien: Isolation became a terrifying manifestation of some of my deepest real-world fears
my recounting of how the real story of Dragon Age: Inquisition for me wasn’t about how my character helped save the world from an unfathomable evil but was instead about how she got her heart broken
my list of my favorite games of 2014
You can visit the archive page to find some other things I’ve written about games in the past few months, too.

But I decided it was time to create a dedicated place for my writing about games, because sometimes people ask me where they can find that writing, and it’s probably a good idea to give them a place where they can find that and only that, if that’s what they’re looking for. My other Tumblr, A Game of Me, isn’t going anywhere, and I will probably reblog stuff from here to there, since the writing I do about games speaks to who I am as a person, but I probably won’t reblog stuff the other way around. And I don’t intend to stop writing about games from a very personal perspective that draws on the other facets of my life, at least sometimes.
As I look to the future, things are still uncertain, to be honest, and kind of terrifying. I’m weighing a few different options. I love writing about games, and I’m excited about a lot of what appears to be on the horizon in 2015, so I’d like to be able to write about it in some fashion. And I’m pleased to say that you should be seeing my work in some more places in the coming months. (I’ll definitely post links from here if and when that happens.) Ideally, I’d like to get back on the editorial staff of a publication at some point–I could really use both a steady paycheck and solid health benefits. I guess we’ll see what happens. It’s…kind of a scary adventure.

I’m trying to find a kind of value in the uncertainty and scariness of it all, since it’s often a sense of uncertainty and adventure that draws me to games, too. I’m increasingly tired of games that lay out their worlds for you like theme parks, a series of events and activities plainly designed for your consumption. I’m glad that even as games that do this are becoming increasingly commonplace, there are also more and more games that give me the same feeling of magic and potential and uncertainty and discovery and life that I so often got from games when I was younger. I’m more excited about games now than I have been in a long time, so I don’t think I want to go anywhere just yet, if I can help it.

Thank you so much for reading. I’m really glad to have you with me. Here’s to the road ahead, whatever it may have in store.
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