CTRL: Essays on Video Games

This anthology of personal essays explores how video games have shaped our lives, our cultural imagination and contemporary storytelling. From novelists and critics to game designers themselves, the writers in this collection ask the question, 'Can video games truly be art?'

From triple-A, big-budget blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto or Assassin's Creed, to quiet, meditative indie games like Journey or Stardew Valley, video games, like all art forms, offer us insight into ourselves and the world around us. They help shape our identities, introduce us to other ways of thinking, new languages, alternate worlds. They can offer us escape.

They can also offer us control. We reach back into the past to try and recapture the feeling of that first playthrough, the feeling of expanse, the feeling of control. Addiction is also touched on in these essays. Video games can become a replacement for a much more dangerous addiction, and the writers tell us candidly how video games helped; wasted hours in virtual worlds, completing tasks that had no bearing on a real world they couldn't quite deal with.

These collected essays explore the good and the bad sides of gaming; how video games are used as a cipher, as a new way of looking at the world, and indeed the impact they have had on the lives of the writers themselves.

Featuring contributions from acclaimed and emerging writers, both Irish and international - including Rob Doyle, John Patrick McHugh, Una-Minh Kavanagh, Brenda Romero, Sheila Armstrong, Róisín Kiberd, and more - this anthology is an exploration of one of the most influential cultural forms of our time.

Ideal for readers who:

• Appreciate essays that treat video games as culture, memory and art.
• Respond to personal writing about play, identity and storytelling.
• Prefer criticism that takes games seriously without losing the human angle.
• Value collections with varied voices and thoughtful cultural range.

ISBN

9781843519768

Format

Paperback

Publisher

The Lilliput Press, (23 April 2026)

Number of Pages

256

Language

English

Dimensions

215 x 135 mm

Categories:

Literary essays