(I picture a beleaguered dad sweating in the driver’s seat of his minivan: “You kids better quiet down back there or there won’t be cultural legitimacy for anyone!”) Alexander doesn’t explicitly define her idea of legitimacy, but we can get an idea of it from the evidence she presents: I agree strongly with the overall thrust of her piece, but she does frame it by dangling that carrot: “If video games want cultural legitimacy, designers will have to concede it’s not all about fun,” reads the headline. In the column, Alexander makes a solid argument for a more diverse range of voices and artistic intentions in game-making. Take a recent column, “Playing Outside,” by the games commentator Leigh Alexander. Warren Spector, the lead creative mind behind the iconic cyberpunk game Deus Ex, Epic Mickey, and othersĮssays in the vein of “Where’s Gaming’s Roger Ebert?” rarely bother to make much of a case for the importance of “cultural acceptance.” Instead, the concept is dangled out there like a carrot, and it’s assumed as a given that the columnist’s audience of slavering horses will desire it. I have good news, too: It doesn’t matter.

I have bad news for Spector: Gaming’s Roger Ebert is never going to show up. Spector says this will hasten the process of-cue the angels on high-“achieving cultural acceptance.” The Great Journey Toward Cultural Acceptance became a topic of discussion in industry circles again last week when Warren Spector, a veteran game creator, wrote an op-ed for GamesIndustry International with the headline, “Where’s Gaming’s Roger Ebert?” In the piece, Spector pleaded for more game critics in the mold of Ebert-critics who, like the lions of film commentary, write in mainstream print outlets for an audience broader than just game enthusiasts. Still, there are limits to the inanity I’ll tolerate, and the eternal quest to earn legitimacy for games and games criticism is one quest that lies beyond the pale. I’ve scaled buildings to find useless eagle feathers in Assassin’s Creed II, and I’ve endeavored to avoid covering myself with feces in Don’t Shit Your Pants. If you play enough video games, you end up going on some pretty silly quests.

Giantbomb drake of the 99 dragons