patrick miller writes about videogames

Well, that was exciting! I wrote a long-ass post yesterday about where I see the future of games journalism going in the post-1UP era, and a whole bunch of generally high-profile colleagues and such read it and passed it around on Twitter and Tumblr and such. Somewhat hilariously, I wasn’t able to easily track many of these conversations. I guess that’s the downside of trying to talk to people on such a decentralized platform. Oh well!

Over the last year or so, I’ve really started to put myself and my writing out there a little more (particularly on Insert Credit, which is where that last post would have gone if it weren’t for that stupid Google malware blacklist), and whenever my stuff gets linked a lot of people say it’s “cynical.” Which is funny, because I don’t think I’m an overly cynical guy at all. At least, I’m pretty happy with my life and how things are going, and while I may have a rather sarcastic streak, I think I tend to be a rather optimistic person overall. The thing is, the perspective I am inclined to adopt in these editorials (I write them usually after a major games event, like a GDC or an E3) is one about analyzing how institutions shape the way we do our jobs making games and writing about them, and I guess that is depressing to some people.

Anyway, now I have a few more people reading this tumblr and following me on Twitter, and I imagine they’re probably expecting a whole lot more insightful observations about games journalism. Joke’s on you, folks! I will probably continue to write things about games journalism from time to time (things that are “cynical” or “realist” or “educational” depending on whether you manage to pull in a steady paycheck from this gig or not, I guess), but I mostly use this blog to write about fighting games and stuff. Which is what the rest of this post is about.

I just got back from a Marvel tournament at the MADE that had like 18 people in it or so. Won my first few matches, then lost a close one to some guy, then played my good buddy Bihn and lost to him 3-0. I’m 0-2 against friends in tournaments now. Fantastic.

I’m slightly disappointed with my performance, but each loss was one I could have won (I was never outclassed like I was against Falcomist) and I am quickly discovering that Nova is my problem matchup, so I’m paying extra attention to that. Better to find that out now, than to find that out at Evo.

On the plus side, even though I barely hit any of my Zero combos (for some reason, the more I practice lightning loops, the worse I get at actually doing them), and I made a whole shit-ton of stupid mistakes, I still managed to squeak out a few wins. If anything stands as a testament to how awesome my team is (see the posts about team design from a few days ago), it’s that it can win despite my best intentions.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day, and a new tournament! I’ll be heading down to Fremont to slug it out this time. I’m making a conscious effort to re-enter the world of competitive fighting games, and I feel rather lucky that I can now hit up the MADE every friday, perhaps stop by a San Leandro session on Tuesday, maybe check out the Freedemonia El Cerrito sessions on weekends, etc. and really level up.