What is videogame criticism? In the Anglosphere, videogame criticism is a commonly accepted, if not already established, genre (a collective of genres) of writing on videogames. We cannot possibly establish a clear boundary of what we mean by game criticism in this short introduction. So, instead of borrowing examples from prominent English sites such as Critical Distance and Kill Screen, we prefer to start with the indigenous materials. 

As pre-emptively stated in the editorial standard of the Chinese magazine Yóuxì Pīpíng (Game Criticism), “a game software is a ‘commodity’ but also a piece of ‘work’” therefore the criticism of a piece of [art]work is justified. As criticism is often associated with negative meanings in Chinese, the same editorial standard even clarified that “‘criticism’ is a neutral term” and “criticism is supposed to be constructive”. 

In China, game criticism is barely recognized as a literary genre or intellectual stature but it has existed for a long time, in the periphery of zines, fan sites, forums, and blogosphere. In this ongoing collaborative project, we attempt to build a genealogy of Chinese videogame criticism in the past two decades. We aim at collecting intellectually stimulating writings on videogames produced in this period: longer form of review or journalism, theoretical criticism or essay format criticism, creative experimental storytelling, insightful discussions on game design, personal narratives of gameplay and so forth. 

After the preliminary archival and online research for appropriate materials, the product of this project will be a collection of translated and annotated articles written by various Chinese authors from different periods and in different medium, as well as some interviews if we are able to reach some of the authors.

Most entries on this project page will be in English as we intend to introduce these often inaccessible Chinese writings to a global audience. But if permitted, we will link or attach the original Chinese texts. At this initial stage, we have planned several components for this project:

  1. Transcription and translation of selected magazine articles from some key magazines such as Diànzǐ Yóuxì Ruǎnjiàn (Electronic Game Software) and Yóuxì Pīpíng (Game Criticism)
  2. Interviews of key participants of the early nascent scene of magazine writers, critics, and online bloggers.  
  3. Archiving and translating writings collected from forums and blogs. 
  4. Generating a historiography of the collected works when we have collected enough materials.

The selection criteria always end up being subjective and personal. Therefore, we are foregrounding the reasons why these works are selected instead of making the process all the more implicit. As it is stated at the beginning, we hope this project to be a collaborative and community effort. So we welcome suggestions and recommendations from anyone who is interested in participating in the project in any capacity.  



Current Contributors:

Dino Ge Zhang,  translator and curator

Dino Ge Zhang is a PhD Candidate in Media Anthropology at RMIT University, Australia. He enjoys writing about videogames in his spare time. You can find his research at https://rmit.academia.edu/GeZHANG

Qiao Xiaomeng,  researcher and designer

16 May 2017
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Brief History of Early Chinese Game Magazines

Electronic Game Software was important not only because it witnessed the history of Chinese game industry, but also for its role (and perhaps ambition) in making a real change.

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Chinese Videogame Criticism Translator’s notes

This obviously poses a challenge for me to accommodate to the various styles of writing and make them intelligible to English readers while retaining some of the original flavour. Thus it is necessary to outline my key approaches to translation.

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Editor’s notes on the first issue of Game Criticism

First Issue of Game Criticism was published by “Mongolia Culture Press” in September 2000. It was published on irregular basis.