Dear Joseph,

Your brief blog letter was a welcome surprise, and raises two interesting questions. Your primary interest is in what qualifies someone as a ‘game expert’, which is a fascinating enquiry in itself. But in addition you tangentially ask what justifies someone as being involved in what I have called the Republic of Bloggers. I shall tackle this implicit question first.

I need to make it clear that when I talk about the Republic of Bloggers, this is categorically not about games. Certainly games is something that is being talked about within the ‘republic’, but I view it as a far wider activity – one covering politics, philosophy, media studies, and far more beside. In short, the Republic of Bloggers is any intelligent discourse that occurs on the internet between blogs (whether or not those conversing consider themselves as 'blogpublicans'). This last point is key, as it stresses that what I am calling the Republic of Bloggers identifies a particular and peculiar means of discussion, and indeed, precisely the means of discussion we are currently pursuing here. It is the form of an exchange of letters, rather than the form of forum comments or similar bite-sized discourses. And this is key because the letter format carries with it a certain intent, a degree of politeness, and a desire for an exchange of ideas between specific individuals. That is what I hope we are doing right now. It is not something that I see, for instance, on Facebook or Google+, and certainly not on Twitter with its water-cooler mini-quips and barriers to substantial discussion.

What I value about letters, and what I find that forum discussions and social media abjectly fail to deliver upon, is convivial discourse – which is to say, it is friendly, cordial, and a meeting of minds in the best sense of the term. It is not a flame war or a pig-headed argument, the stubborn inability of two strangers protected by the mask of anonymity to communicate, as the internet all too easily devolves into. On the contrary, it denotes an intent to commune and convey, to share thoughts, ideas, and queries. I value this kind of discourse immensely.

Which brings me to the question of what qualifies someone as an expert. You ask about expertise in games, and raise a number of worries: do you need to have played EarthBound? Final Fantasy? Or BioShock? Do you need to have read Foucault? Hegel? Or the Speculative Realists? The answer to these specific questions is definitely no! You want to tag me as an expert but I haven’t played any of the games you mention (although I’ve studied them), nor have I tackled Hegel or Foucault in any depth, and the closest I come to the Speculative Realists is roping them into my collective term ‘secular animists’ in Chaos Ethics (although I have met and had good discussions with Ian Bogost, and exchanged short emails and comments with a few others under this umbrella).

On the whole, ‘expertise’ is a fascinating concept – and particularly because I, like most ‘game experts’ am self-proclaimed as such. I was arrogant enough in my youth to think that my tiny corner of knowledge was brilliant enough to make me an expert and just started writing as if I was one. In later life, I have had this ‘officially certified’ by claiming a bckdoor doctorate (a PhD by Publication), which is a nice endorsement of my smugness – but it doesn’t really change the fact that my expertise is only really my willingness to be identified as an expert. Honestly, it is quite difficult to ground the concept of an expert in any other way these days!

Particularly in games, the breadth and depth of the material that would have to be learned in order to have total knowledge (accepting this rather ridiculous term at face value!) is physically beyond the ability of anyone to acquire. There are more games being released in a year now than in the entire first twenty years of the digital games industry – or for that matter, the first few millennia of designed games. So none of us purported ‘experts’ can possibly know everything about our field! The most we can do is recognise our own expertise in some aspect or area. For me, this has come to mean the aesthetics of play – but when I first started exploring this area, I just called it ‘game design’ (another word, like ‘expert’ that turns out to have little meaning when closely examined).

Expertise, if it is a viable concept, just marks a willingness to become deeply involved in a particular subject area – and in so doing, it ought to require a willingness to recognise that authentic expertise means understanding other people’s perspectives in that area, and not just blowing one’s own horn. I see slightly too many self-proclaimed experts whose only interaction with others is to shoot them down: such people are, in my estimations, second-rate sages and cut-price cognoscenti who are hoodwinking themselves and everyone else into buying into a singular point of view as if it was universal and inviolable. Truth, in so much as I have any faith in this term, emerges only when an issue is examined from multiple perspectives, so to have access to expertise is partly the capcity to synthesise divergent viewpoints. It does not require perfect knowledge – such hallowed grails are impossible. Rather, experts are just those people willing to get involved in a subject at a level beyond a mere dalliance or hobby. My suspicion is that you may already be well on your way to achieving this.

It seems that you seek the conditions for expertise in games and are wondering what you would need to do to attain to that status. You say “I’m not sure what an expert in games even would be or how to become one.” Well as far as I’m concerned you’re already a step ahead of most game experts because you recognise the utter ridiculousness of the concept – even though you still buy into it because you want to tar me with the brush of expertise! If indeed I am an expert, it is only because I’ve continued to study, to watch, to read, to learn, to talk, to listen, to play, to watch people play, and, above all else, to think and to write about those thoughts. If you wish to become an expert about games, I can only advise you do the same.

With unlimited love,

Chris.

Joseph has not replied (and need not feel it is necessary to do so).

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