# high on dead end thrills to consider garmes 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 garme have remained unchanged and elusive. consumers still flock to buy original addictive and fun(tm) garmes 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 garme 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 garmes drinking garme: throw back another shot every time another unctuous garmes industry figurine talks jive about "passion" its ideological mission is to consider the essential elements of play and players 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 garmes" 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 'garmes 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 garmes or win approval from an otherwise intelligent jury of garme critics dead end thrills is falsely inspired - primarily by 'the journal of cinematic illusions' its choice of garmes is decidedly discriminatory; even worse it patronizingly states 'even the most rushed or underfunded garmes 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 garme landmarks with a virtual instamatic - and even ridiculously states this is actually 'the job of teh garme itself' (indeed rock$tar garmes would agree) its central underlying ethic is that of work: to confine and isolate video garmes 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 garmes only tend to feature there if they allow an inherently limited pseudo 'freedom' of control over camera and garme events. while there's little 'photoshopping' beyond subtle tweaks to gamma common to online publishing a self-perceived 'straight white male (garmer) gaze' is full effect garmes are heavily modded and made exactly similar because it's the serious business of garming and not garmes 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 garmes should be) in many cases capturing what makes these garmes 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 garmes failing that if the retail version doesn't allow shots that are 'worthwhile' - according to its narrow definitions - teh garme doesn't feature. 'credit' should go to the hackers and modders who enjoy truly opening retail garmes 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 garmes 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 garmes industry often talks about the millions of hours the tears and sweat poured into video garme art in terms of mere "content" - like styrofoam packing peanuts how does the site work if not for the living players which inhabit them video garme 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 garme 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 garme 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 garme culture for hire dead end thrills has produced marketing and production assets for companies such as bethesda garme 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 garmes 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 garme engines shamelessly liaising with developers - and (shock horror) even playing garmes 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 garmes // video here // republic of bob