Help fly Ben to GDC!

Ben Abraham, the editor-in-chief of Critical Distance, has been prolific through the video game blogosphere for the last couple of years, through his individual work, his discussions in others’ blogs and fora, and his work here on Critical Distance highlighting others’ writings.  Because of this, his absence at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year was sorely felt: it’s the center of in-person discussion of the art of game design, and I’m quite sure that Ben would have dug up discussions and perspectives that I completely missed.

So Michael Abbott and I decided that we wanted to do something about this, and have drafted Ben to serve as a sort of roving correspondent at GDC.  Ben has graciously agreed; in a further happy coincidence, Gamasutra is kindly providing an all-access pass for Ben at GDC 2010 as part of the agreement that allows them to republish Ben’s This Week in Videogame Blogging posts.

That gets the single largest expense out of the way; there are others, however, most notably the plane flight from Australia to the United States.  Which is where you, Critical Distance’s readers, come in.  We need to raise $1100 dollars to pay for that plane flight; if you’ve gotten something out of Ben’s writings here or elsewhere, if you’re as curious as I am to see what he’ll produce after a trip to GDC, please chip in (perhaps the cost of the last video game you bought, but any amount is welcome) and help bring that about.

You can do that by clicking on the widget below.  It’s a bit flaky, so you may not see your contribution show up immediately; I assure you that all contributions are being recorded, and I’ll make sure to e-mail you to confirm your donation.

On behalf of the staff of Critical Distance, I thank you in advance for your support.