A little love letter to the WASD (and videogames)

ChatGPT was used in parts for the translation of this article from German to English.

With its 18th issue, the WASD came to an end in the summer of 2021. It was a video game bookazine that was published semiannually, each time focusing on a specific theme. Featuring contributions from various authors in the German-speaking video game journalism scene, each issue presented a delightful collection of opinions and ideas. I will miss this project a lot.

The end of WASD of course doesn’t mean that the creative discourse around video games will disappear, but it does mean that a great meeting point of authors is lost. A meeting point that you could actually hold in your hands! Because it was only published in print-form. This was particularly special for me, as I had never subscribed to any gaming magazines. Why would I? By the time I developed a real interest in video games, there were already more Let’s Plays on YouTube than I could ever watch in my lifetime. And all the “classic” video game magazines were already online by that time. The question of “Why would I ever buy a magazine?” was one I never even asked myself. My entire news consumption had, basically from the beginning, been online.

Just to put things in perspective, you could certainly label me a “digital native,” even though my first phone didn’t have a touchscreen. However, that didn’t mean I read print magazines. In the year 2012 when the WASD first came to be, the internet already was a natural and undeniable part of my world. All this to say, print felt kinda “cool” and “different” to me at that point. And so, the WASD was probably the first print publication I ever subscribed to. But the format wasn’t the only thing I liked about it.

Why the WASD was particularly special and important in my eyes can be explained with one word: passion. Passion defines the development, consumption, and discourse of and around video games. We enjoy playing, and we sometimes develop absurd passions for gaming, which drive video game culture out of pure self-conviction. This was even more crucial in the early days of the medium, as there were few other incentives. As Christian Huberts describes in the text “Missbrauch von Heeresgerät” (Misuse of Military Equipment), games were initially developed as a byproduct of boredom in a technical and military environment, not because the idea of using new technology for entertainment or art projects seemed incredibly lucrative. Making money came later. It took passion to believe in video games as a new medium and to withstand criticism. It took passion to secure more resources for video game development. And it took passion to write about a niche medium and to build entire magazines and websites around it. You can still see this passion everywhere in video game culture, and it’s also the reason why the much-criticized number rating scales (in German lovingly referred to as “Stiftung Warentest” coverage by Robert Glashüttner) felt somewhat one-dimensional. Passion is part of games, but also part of the people involved, and the connection is inseparable. Putting all this into numbers has always been an impossible task. And the more games diverged from norms, the more difficult it became. The range of games has become as diverse as the people who develop, play, and discuss them.

You can also see this when trying to summarize video game culture, which has become increasingly difficult in recent years. More people, more subcultures, and more different games are now the norm, and the one unified gaming culture (if there ever was one) definitely no longer exists today. When I look at the wonderful advertising events in movie-length (so-called “press conferences”) from E3, Gamescom, and similar events, I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of games presented, to the point where I’m just glad if I can remember even a handful of them by the end. When I first became interested in this coverage, it felt like I could remember almost all the games that were presented, regardless of their relevance to me, because the scope was simply much more manageable. But I definitely prefer today’s situation. When people talked about gaming reaching the mainstream, hopefully no one thought that suddenly everyone would start playing Call of Duty, but rather that the offering would be so vast that there would be a game for everyone. And we are slowly but surely reaching that point. So perhaps the word that best describes the WASD is also “diversity.” It viewed the colorful world of video games through equally colorful lenses and highlighted and celebrated the diversity of this culture. But passion and diversity do not exist in a vacuum, and neither can fully explain my fascination with the WASD and, by extension, with video games. Yet it’s really quite simple.

“Games are beautiful when they feature people”, is a quote from the interview with Papis Loveday. It’s a sentence that has stayed with me since I read it in the WASD 15. Because in every game, there is also a piece of humanity, sometimes more, sometimes less obvious. And that’s what I loved so much about the WASD, and what I love about games. And other forms of artistic expression. The people.

It sounds a bit sentimental, and it probably is. But the WASD illuminated the people behind the games for me and expanded and helped define my understanding of video game and media journalism. For that, I am very grateful, and without the WASD, this text might not exist. Although I should also mention some other German publications, channels and podcasts like: „Gamestar“, „Stay Forever“, „Auf ein Bier“, „Insert Moin“, „Games ’n‘ Politics“, „SuperKreuzBurg“ and „Hooked“. All of these projects have contributed to my interest in the discourse surrounding video games and media. In the end, a big thank you to everyone who made the WASD possible or contributed to it. <3