Presentation on Robert What's Work

1. Robert What
Taking Games Back

2. Intro
Robert What is an internet avatar, and describes himself as an “amateur
postmodern theorist”
He pokes fun at a lot of internet culture and video games, such as with his Twitch
username, robertwhat420

3. Robert What’s Goal: “to consider a fictional, near future Letsplay / online public
roleplay performance of imaginary “Research & Development” via visionary fellow
researcher avatar Robert What – amateur postmodern theory / experimental
literature, altgames /critique (philosophy, design, narrative, industry trends), virtual
photography / digital archaeology”
Basically, to reimagine video game and internet culture through popular video
games

4. What’s work includes CS:GO, Mass Effect, and Mirrors Edge
One of them, CS:GO NoClip Exhibition, involved taking the map of Counter Strike:
Global Offensive and let you fly around the map, seeing views normally you would
not be able to see normally, and get to view a lot of the “unfinished map”.

9. What wants to see game engines shift away from being used to create deliberate
and restrictive games shipped as products, and towards facilitating accessible and
more immediate expressions of play.
If anyone is familiar with Team Fortress 2 and Gary’s Mod, What is asking for
something very similar

10. “Imagine being able to position oneself anywhere in a game map and witness cool
strange events occurring while you customize the immediate area with art objects,
even adjust the ambient tone to fit your mood,” What writes. “That is, to move
away from static maps to constantly moving systems of artistic expression, where
how you play–ie. aesthetic style–becomes far more important and interesting.”

11. Mirror’s Edge

12. Mirror’s Edge

13. Mirror’s Edge
What’s Thought’s as he worked through Mirror’s Edge
If only that hooded hipster Icarus fell to his accidental death while trying too hard to be cool
– Cutscenes must die; besides, the story was so laughably po-faced and embarrassingly self-serious. I
wanted to slap that surly look off Faith’s face
– A distinct lack of deafening high altitude wind noise
– The weird feeling in your virtual balls felt whenever you jump into the electronic void while reaching for a
metal pipe

14. cont
– In which there should be a particular name given for the sound of expensive running shoes on shiny
surfaces – a squeak which somehow signifies the hyperreal near future
– Rich mannequins with dead soulless eyes, standing around and pretending to live
– The irony of building sites in an unfinished megacity
– What would be interesting is a feminist reading of Faith as she travels (and repeatedly falls) through a city
based on rich pinkywhite skinned male power / structure