Issue 358

Dialogue

Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins a 12-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership

Leave them all behind

The first two letters in E358, about abandoning fandoms and losing saves, got me thinking about what we really take from our attachments to particular media. If we can walk away from a ubiquitous corporate media entity because one or more of the important people turned out to be a shit, were we already looking for an excuse to let go? I too know the mind-emptying thud of realisation that you’ve just lost a precious game save, and the peace that follows. Was I ready to find a new fixation and just hadn’t realised it?

As series, franchises, episodes and new content updates stretch off into infinity – not just in games, but in TV, film, and books – it might pay to stop now and then, and   wonder what we’re sticking around for. If it’s the friends we made along the way, then maybe there’s a dignity in moving on to greener pastures, and beckoning them to follow.

''I frequently choose to purchase games because I want to support the developers”

  Alex Whiteside

Sugar for the pill

Jake Mellor’s letter in E358 got me thinking about my own consumption of computer games. For me personally it does matter who makes a game and how. Rather than punitive, I see this as positive. Look at it the other way: I frequently choose to purchase games because I want to support the developers. I bought Hades on day one of release because I had followed its development in the wonderful Noclip documentary and had come to know and appreciate Supergiant as a profoundly ethical and good company. I recently bought Dicey Dungeons after listening to a fascinating interview with Terry Cavanagh on the Eggplant podcast, and Signs Of The Sojourner after a feature in this very magazine. One of the things Edge does well is to peel the curtain back a little to reveal the people and companies who make these games. Edge shows us time and again that these creations are inherently linked to their creators. So if I choose to buy games to support people I respect and value, I guess it cuts the other way too. I choose not to buy games – and indeed other products – not because everyone who was involved in it is bad, but because the weight of evidence tips me into wondering if this is a largely unethical offering which I should probably skip.