Why Kill Screen?
A name explained, defended, and heralded.
“Game designers are obsessed with the money shot”
– Jason Rohrer
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So this may be premature since I hardly know you, but let me tell you a secret. This magazine was supposed to be called something else.
Kill Screen stemmed from a (I presume) drug-infested dream that a certain Tom Bissell says he experienced at some point earlier this year. It must have been sometime between when we broached the idea over tikka masala in San Francisco in March, and one of our numerous nighttime sessions of Left 4 Dead – a game that I would gladly contend is a communications facilitator on par with Gmail or Instant Messenger. But the point is, I thought Kill Screen was a swell name that encompasses all the kinetic and visual energies that emanate from its pages.
(To be all technical about it, taken from Golden Age of Arcade terminology and refers to the “end” of a game forced by a programming error such as the unplayable 256th level of Pac-Man.)
