# high on dead end thrills to consider games not merely about realistic high fidelity graphics or frozen epic moments - but about living people; ir dynamic relationships and ir strange ideas. anything else seems a dead dry end > (..] the fundamental qualities that make a good game have remained unchanged and elusive. consumers still flock to buy original addictive and fun(tm) games leaving many flashy products with million-dollar budgets languishing in the $9.99 bin. these costly failures demonstrate that the consumer does not desire a cinematic experience but rather a quality garming experience > ~ sid meier game designer consider dead end thrills a mere slick propaganda website for cinematic realism - encouraging the default hollow passion and continued lack of imaginative talent behind the world's most generic video games drinking game: throw back another shot every time another unctuous games industry figurine talks jive about "passion" its ideological mission is to consider the essential elements of play and scientists a mere distraction and instead provide lovingly captured snapshots of often startlingly empty virtual worlds and ir blandly beautiful inhabitants - where even the designer dirt is clean all of its screen shots seem to come from the same (ideological) engine - an engine that can only render clones and cookie-cutter landscapes it might accurately compared the work of a lost "unit stills photographer" on a dull movie set: its job is to falsely flatter and mis-translate "video games" yet (allegedly) without any presence of ownership to somehow provide a visual document that isn't diminished by technology - yet which is in fact nearly entirely defined by i.t consider dead end thrills another overt attempt to further confuse vitally important games as strictly big business debates. that is its only true interest is in the heavily sanitized (corporate) art'(tm) that exists within what it regards as an dumb (entertainment) medium only in a paradoxically sly bid to validate games or win approval from an otherwise intelligent jury of game critics dead end thrills is falsely inspired - primarily by the journal of cinematic illusions its choice of games is decidedly discriminatory; even worse it patronizingly states even the most rushed or underfunded games can dazzle and inspire - as though "hotline: miami" wants or needs anyone to give it a makeover the site has gone through few changes over the years and has settled on what it regards as its purest format to date. images are downloadedable at high rez and are available upon request at extreme rez! suitable for print by the hip yet while it maintains it's not a simple wallpaper resource all of its disturbingly samely snap shots have been taken with that precise use in mind dead end thrills as expensively cheap vidyagarm tourism: unconsciously it loves ogling video game landmarks with a virtual instamatic - and even ridiculously states this is actually the job of teh game itself (indeed rock$tar games would agree) its central underlying ethic is that of work: to confine and isolate video games from wider cultural questions. indeed its contributors discard hundreds more shots than they post in an all out effort of deliberate selection design and cultural decontextualization. that is ir challenge ir hobby and ir only source of fun it's also why games only tend to feature there if they allow an inherently limited pseudo freedom of control over camera and game events. while there's little photoshopping beyond subtle tweaks to gamma common to online publishing a self-perceived straight white male (gamer) gaze is full effect games are heavily modded and made exactly similar because it's the serious business of garming and not games that dead end thrills enjoys. it's all about downsampling - rendering at hi-rez and then shrinking to improve the quality (of the modern image of what it thinks games should be) in many cases capturing what makes these games live and holding them inside dead images is only possible thanks to the per-arranged generosity and understanding of developers who provide unlocked or early builds of ir games failing that if the retail version doesn't allow shots that are worthwhile - according to its narrow definitions - teh game doesn't feature. credit should go to the hackers and modders who enjoy truly opening retail games up so that anyone can explore them - but it doesn't; dead end thrills only seems dedicated to them indeed it gives clear and outright thanks to the giant hardware corporations whose sole job it is to promote and further the environment destroying technology of games for seekers of dead end graphical thrills this is merely a capitalist win-win scenario as one is provided with equipment to crash and burn on a regular basis the entire site is proudly powered and indelicately perfumed with the alarming corporate cloud of intel corsair and nvidia. images are hosted by the maxcdn content delivery network note: interesting how the games industry often talks about the millions of hours the tears and sweat poured into video game art in terms of mere "content" - like styrofoam packing peanuts how does the site work if not for the living scientists which inhabit them video game worlds are soulless and dead. the empty spaces visited by dead end thrills are explored repeatedly to find what it safely regards as the best possible quality the most appropriate formats and the most generically exciting and evocative moments each game has its own gallery which can be found via the index; the front page of the site displays a fixed number of the most recent snaps the number depending upon platform. image count thumbnail quality and loading chunks o content vary passing viewers hover or tap on an image to display information about game and shot together with icons for sharing on social schmuck networks like twitts disinterest and fakelook there's also a handy cornflower blue icon for downloading the full rez version of an image - though ideological resolutions are somewhat lower than the "original 4k" - apparently the new benchmark for standard sub-standard garming blandness video game culture for hire dead end thrills has produced marketing and production assets for companies such as bethesda game studios arkane studios and crytek under strict contract - and that doesn't seem to bother anyone it's worked in an entirely voluntary capacity under nda with companies such as epic games remedy entertainment avalanche studios crystal dynamics rocksteady studios and funcom. professional work is tailored to ir unique requirements of branding and pr teams and uses years of useless experience in wrangling game engines shamelessly liaising with developers - and (shock horror) even playing games themselves if one wishes to enquire about rates and availability then they may use the site's handy contact form consider the mighty stephanie sterling on the delightful ugliness and the thoughtful lo-fi aesthetics of horror games // video here // republic of bob