Disclaimer: This article covers the hyperbolic ranting of an entirely fictional (and very foul-tempered) stick figure thing. As such, we reserve the right to label this article as satire and advise you to take any of Angry Joe's advice in good humour and high spirits. Whether or not he happens to make any valid points is entirely up to you to decide.

As a follow-up to his recent report on common game development myths, Dev.Mag correspondent Angry Joe has contacted us to rant about the state of the industry, and why he thinks that people are caring too much about things which don't really deserve any attention.

What follows is an unabridged and uncensored interview in which Angry Joe explains why the gaming industry's focus on several contemporary issues makes him want to hurt small animals and punch babies in the face. Needless to say, Angry Joe's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of anybody on the Dev.Mag staff. Even if it totally looks like they do. Heck, just stop reading right now if you're easily offended or frightened, because this guy's not in a habit of mincing his words.

Don't say we didn't warn you.

Issue #1: The "games as art" debate

No shit, Sherlock. Why else would I be here?

Aside from you? My gears are being pretty damn well ground by the fact that we have an entire society of game developers who claim to be enlightened creatives, but who still somehow manage to get caught up in inconsequential trash such as whether or not videogames really are art.

I don't care if an art game explodes from my birthday cake wearing a freaking g-string. My point is that too many people are asking the same stupid questions over and over again. "Are videogames art? How do we make them into art? Why can't I be the cool kid at school? Does this dress make me look fat? Bluh bluh bluh waaah!"

Oh, sorry, I was just degenerating into a list of your top ten insecurities. My point is that we have two types of people in the art games arena: those who are making the damn games, and those who feel some strange need to lean back and blow a bunch of hot air about some inane semantics that don't actually have an impact on how a product is delivered or even played.

I don't need to know about your online surfing habits, and your point about Passage is moot in any case. Even people who know about art games can't magically tell which ones are going to be artsy from the word go. The author usually puts that sort of thing into context on their Website, in a readme file or inside the game itself. I know that The Graveyard is an art game because – shock and effing wonder – it's described as such before I even play it!

Holy crap, enough about Jason-freaking-Rohrer already. Do you know any other game designers out there, or do you just like hearing yourself talk about his stuff? Look, his advice in no way justifies what's happening right now. In fact, I don't even think it applies to the sort of discussions we're actually seeing. I'm sick of seeing uninspired journalists like you jumping onto the "are games art" bandwagon and rehashing the same damn words that were uttered by yesterday's Bringer of Truth. I'm sick of self-aggrandising little shits whoring out blog posts entitled "wot i think about art games 'n stuff" when clearly they just enjoy masturbating to cheap ideas and the look of their own writing. I'm sick of evangelists coming up to me and telling me that it's a big issue when they themselves can't explain it to me in a way that I haven't already heard a HUNDRED TIMES before.

AND MOST OF ALL, I'm tired of seeing these questions being deliberated at the cost of discussing something that actually could be of value to us. Regardless of whether or not these really are art games, I'd like to see some different questions being asked for a change. Like, how do we improve the player's experience? What advice does a dev give to others who which to express themselves artistically? And instead of seeing endless impotent arguments about definitions and semantics, how about just once we see a piece trying to deconstruct the game's message instead? Man, it just pisses me off. The subject of art games is a whole damn jungle of cool stuff to explore, and idiots around the world are huddling around a random anthill situated at the arse end of the foliage because they somehow think it's the only bit worth exploring.