exp. game zine
A little while back I wrote an article for Time Extension about folks creating their own video game themed zines. It seemed to me that there had been an upswing in bespoke, limited-run publications in recent years. I wanted to know why.
So I reached out to several people whose publications I liked to get their take.
You can read the article proper here. And, spoiler alert, the people still dealing with print often see it as a response to the disposable, ephemeral nature of the online world. Or, as I put it, “The Internet ain’t what it used to be.”
But if you want to take a deeper dive, and learn more about their respective projects, I’ve republished the full interview with Will Stevenson (Devils Blush) and Mathew Kumar (exp.game zine) on this site.
Here’s Mathew Kumar, talking about exp.game zine.
Let's start with a little background. How long have you been writing about video games and producing zines? What prompted you to get started in the first place?
So, the first issue of exp. ("minus one") was published in 2009. I've been publishing zines since then. I got started writing about video games with the website Insert Credit maybe five years before that, and I refuse to calculate how many years ago that is lest I feel old. I started writing about video games because ever since picking up my first issue of Amstrad Action I was probably more obsessed with video games journalism than I was the games themselves!”
You recently put out a new zine, the first one in several years, what made you get back in the game with a printed publication?
“Honestly? Because of what can only be described as the "enshittification" of the internet. Social media has become absolutely useless for sharing anything meaningful. Good, detailed, video games writing is simply lost in the endless churn, and I think will soon become almost impossible to find as the AI monster that's already putting out incorrect listicles and guides will soon begin eating its own tail.”
“I wanted to put my writing out in a way that for people who *want* to genuinely engage with writing and video games could get a pleasant little object to own to give their full attention to.”
What are the logistics behind of the zine - do you design and write everything, how many copies do you produce, how do you get the word out?
“I design and write the entire thing. I'm currently producing the zine in very limited runs as I try and see if the audience for what I'm doing is still there. Ironically, despite the internet being more-or-less totally useless, I think I'm stuck with it to get the word out via Twitter and my ko-fi, although once I have a few more issues under my belt I'll probably start doing zine fairs and the like again, which is one of the most rewarding ways to get the zine into people's hands.”
What do you hope to achieve with the zine, is it about personal expression, a fun side project, or something else entirely?
“I think writing is one of those things I just *have* to do, and I think going back to zines is a way to make that compulsion a little less lonely. There's something more counter-culture about them than ever, because if I wanted to reach a large audience, I could do tik-toks, but what value am I actually creating? Zines are always going to be disposable, but they're something disposable that the right person is going to value, and that's magical to me.”
“You write about games you've finished, do you have a tally of how many you completed now? Do you have rules around what 'completed' means (or is 'any means necessary' to roll credits?)
I don't keep a full tally, although I've started to keep my backlog properly in a spreadsheet so that's progress. My rule has always been to just roll the end credits, but especially as I've been digging deeper into early arcade titles and the like I've loosened that to seeing all the content (so for example, if Mappy has four level layouts, my goal is to see them all.) I'm forgiving with save states and the like, but I'm always pleased when the game I'm playing is good enough I keep starting it from the beginning again as I'm not in a race to finish anything I'm enjoying.”
“One of the surprising things about it has been that it's actually been an incredibly valuable way to really understand a video game in full. I've become a huge proponent of games being shorter as you become aware of just how much filler developers put into games, especially these days.”
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