"Reality, unlike games, is broken." – Jane McGonigal
Many years ago, thatgamecompany released a game called Flower, in which the player plays… a flower. Their first game, FlOw, was available free on the web (and still is, here), although when they were picked up by PlayStation, they added … Read More »
This post is going to address the question of ethics in games writing. Really address it, though, not sealion my way around true problems by waving flags or pointing fingers. This is a problem that isn’t specific to games journalism, … Read More »
Last year, I was lucky enough to be a call-in guest on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU out of DC, talking about diversity in games. Yesterday, I got to do it again, but since it’s summer, I was able … Read More »
In the wake of E32015, it has become apparent to me–even moreso than it already was–that one of the fundamental shortcomings of the game industry lies in diversity and diversification. Yes, this means the inclusion of women and POC in … Read More »
Sometimes, after a lot of yelling, typing, hand-waving, and crying, sometimes the powers-that-be actually listen. Even more rarely, they listen and then act. And when that happens, it becomes clear that speaking out and speaking up really do matter. That … Read More »
Recently, a couple of prominent think-pieces on academia and feelings have been circulating, at least amongst those in academia (I’m not sure what the rest of the world thinks of them). The first has grown in popularity and infamy: “I’m … Read More »
My TLF review of Anita Sarkeesian’s second video in the Positive Female Characters in Video Games series (on Jade from Beyond Good & Evil). A lot of my frustrations with this episode are less to do with the specifics about … Read More »
So a recent (completely civil, polite, and even productive) exchange got me thinking about one of the problems with videogame culture, and, indeed, fan culture more broadly. This is the problem of fan “ownership”–of a game, a franchise, an entire … Read More »
So for those of you–if there are any–who read regularly, I’m taking advantage of this blog to promote the Kickstarter campaign for a new game being developed by a team of former Irrational Games developers (one of whom I happened … Read More »
Over at TLF things have been rather hectic, so there was a brief hiatus from my two As-I-Play series (Inquisition and Borderlands 2). But since things are getting put back together by the fabulous mistresses of the web-o-sphere, I have … Read More »
I have a new post–on an old topic–up over at TLF that discusses the changing mechanics of friendship and rivalry (approval and disapproval) in BioWare’s Dragon Age series as a whole. I’ve written about this before, at length, but it … Read More »
So today’s example of scare-mongering “science” comes to us from Canada (via the Telegraph in the UK), where someone has apparently “proven” that “Call of Duty increases risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” according to the headline. When added to a recent … Read More »
On my way to a conference the other day, I was sitting on the plane reading Estelle Freedman’s No Turning Back, a history of feminism. The young woman in the seat next to me interrupted: “Excuse me, is that a … Read More »
Today a friend asked a very good question, and one that I think is valuable to try to answer for cultural critics and academics the world over. What am I even gonna tell my students today. “Well I know everything … Read More »
Last night, Anita Sarkeesian celebrated being named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year. The piece in TIME was written by Wil Wheaton, an advocate of equality and diversity in geekdom in general, and gaming in … Read More »