“The Ethical Game: Morality in Postapocalyptic Fictions from Cormac McCarthy to Video Games” is my first published essay. It’s right here https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/the-ethical-game-morality-in-postapocalyptic-fictions-from-cormac-mccarthy-to-video-games.
Of course, being a professional journalist and all, this is not my first published article by a long shot. But, at the age of 41 (then; my 42nd birthday was this past July, the 14th if you must know), this was just one of my first cracks at writing an essay about something other than politics and finances, my bread and butter.
Unsurprisingly enough, this essay really came out as an outgrowth of my previous reporting for a Journal story http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/10/24/in-zombie-fighting-game-dayz-boredom-is-built-in/on DayZ, a zombie-themed game. I didn’t get as much space in the Journal as I would have liked, and had tons of extra material I couldn’t use. So I wrote the essay, and got it published in LARB, which is a new review that is getting very good very fast.
If you care at all about ethics, computer games and/or weddings, you can also watch this video in which prominent DayZ player Mr Moon takes care of security for an in-game wedding in DayZ:
Neotenianos 
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