# how game criticism is nothing like cooking a roast chicken dinner > if slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian > ~ linda mccartney a polite call-and-response to stephen beirne's considered bizarre "how game criticism is like cooking a roast chicken dinner" metaphorically game criticism only remotely feels like cooking a roast chicken dinner if you're a slavering meat gobbler who easily ignores the plight of animals killed in the name of arbitrary gastronomic taste preferences - that is games critics too often have very little to say about the games they study or they say too much about nothing much at all if you're the chicken being killed and roasted the situation looks quite different; ironically stephen's chicken still appears some apparently mythical giant seed pecking "other" that must be respected and deferred to what video games are or how they are defined is never directly addressed in stephen's talk - perhaps because what they are andor represent still feels contested confusing up for grabs. this is one slippery chicken mass we're attempting to capture and examine // video here indeed the act of critique as it relates to diverse phenomena labelled games often feels deconstructive. "deconstruction" considered as a philosophical approach and method of literary criticism questions traditional assumptions of knowledge based certainty suggesting that words only ever seem to refer tautologically to other words - that statements about texts subvert ir own meanings. it suggests that meaning does not come fully constructed but rather needs actively constructing through careful critical thinking / philosophy consider one reason most modern game developers - whoever they are - aren't interested in games critique: because the instant all-too practical hands-on need to make games (ie. cultural fame recognition and professional legitimization via hard cash) easily outweighs thinking critically about games as socio-cultural systems. or maybe they imagine games can say something critically insightful about themselves as systems (insert good example here) games criticism is only like cooking a roast chicken dinner in that it's too often a load of unnecessary fuss - takes too long usually goes unappreciated is generally unhealthy for you and leaves a lot of cold dry undigested leftovers that go to waste better perhaps to make chickens one's finely feathered (living) friends than pick at ir dead existentially unfulfilling bones like a ghoul // republic of bob