Desert Bus: Abusive Game Design, The Martyrdom Effect, and Fan Activism on Twitch.tv

Abstract

Desert Bus began as vaporware. A decade after it was initially shelved, it was rediscovered and became a way for gamers to show off their insider knowledge of rare and hard-to-find bits of gaming history. A few years later, its reputation for being one of the least fun video games ever made it the centerpiece of a long-running charity event. In this essay, I will conduct a textual analysis of Desert Bus and argue that the uniquely painful gaming experience that the game provides players makes it a perfect vehicle for charity streaming, providing both a sense of gamer authenticity and credibility to the Desert Bus for Hope event and an emotional incentive for viewers to give. This research stands to benefit scholars working on cult media, a field in which work on video games is relatively rare in comparison to work on television and film.