Hello everyone! Welcome to a new roundup of This Week in Videogame Blogging.
Such Justice. Very NPC.
Let’s start with Austin Walker at Paste, who writes on Watch Dogs and Shadow of Mordor’s nemesis system. His piece is comprehensive and meaty, moving from Mordor‘s approach to failure, its perpetuation of colonial enslavement narratives, and weaving succinct observations of Watch Dogs and both games’ presentation of NPCs, and the violence we perform onto them.
Eric Swain also writes a piece that laments the superficiality of Watch Dogs, surveying the numerous problems with its themes and structures.
Ludology of Hunger
At the blog videogameheart, Grayson Davis twists the connection between meat and health in videogames, and asks what it means for a game to reflect a vegetarian’s way of life.
Kevin Wong traces lines between Sleeping Dogs and his experiences being an Asian American. He examines the struggle of the diaspora prevalent in his and Jackie’s life, and the negotiation of belonging and acceptance in the tug between cultures. It certainly touched into some of my own experiences as a Black Canadian, A rewarding and relatable piece well worth reading.
Nuke It From Orbit, It’s The Only Way to Be Sure
Edward Smith looks our relationship to technology as a conceptual character in Alien: Isolation. Hazel Monforton examines Outlast in the context of surveillance, and Jon Peterson writes a history of war games in the early 20th Century, and the places women have taken in those spaces.
Surveying Gamergate
It’s been about two months since a loose anti-feminist collective known as Gamergate began carrying out harassment campaigns and waves of abuse towards women developers, writers, journalists, critics, and many of those who are active in the indie community and the videogame industry at large. A lot has been written about this already, so I only chose the most enlightening and useful pieces regarding the situation.
But before I mention these pieces, I’d like to express a moment of solidarity, to the women who have been victimized, abused, harassed, driven out of their homes, had their private information stolen, their friends and family put in danger, and their careers and livelihoods severely damaged by groups who saw them as a threat to their sense of power and domination over discourse. We know this is unacceptable, and cannot stand. And all of us, in the blogging community, stand with you, and are dedicated to your well being, and your right to practice your craft safely and reasonably. You deserve better than what this industry gives you.
(Zolani’s sentiments are echoed by all of us here at Critical Distance. It has not been said often enough: we would not contribute to this site if we were not squarely focused on promoting the voices of the disenfranchised and creating safer spaces for everyone in games writing and discourse. We denounce harassment in all its forms. –KL)
So with that, let’s start on Jacobin, where Peter Frase discusses the Gamergate groups in a larger context of how right-wing reactionaries tend to function. Not only does he provide a useful description of what Gamergate is ideologically, but he makes interesting points about how Gamergate reflects larger constructions about industry and consumption. Check it:
So this is not just a story about gamers. And within the boundaries of the games world, it is also not merely a story about a “toxic culture” among game fans, but rather about an industry that is structurally and systematically reactionary, and cultivates the same values among a segment of its consumers. It’s not just 4chan mobs terrorizing writers and game designers, it’s a games business that pushes out workers who don’t conform to its political assumptions and demographic stereotypes.
At First Person Scholar, Katherine Cross uses a slightly different context, examining how the Gamergate groups differ from the typical radical extremism in how they view themselves as an apolitical `consumer movement. It’s a piece with remarkable scope on the situation, and is highly recommended.
T.C Sottek at The Verge writes a hard damnation of the Gamergate groups, emphasizing their role in the waves of abuse and harassment during the past two months. Brendan Keogh does the same, but puts focus on the complete lack of engagement from mainstream games journalists in dealing with Gamergate, calling “the sheer radio silence… nothing short of embarrassing.” Indeed so, Brendan.
BioWare developer Damion Schubert, at his blog Zen of Design, has a longer and more comprehensive roundup of links about Gamergate, as well as a survey of large videogame websites and where they’ve stood. And Patrick Miller writes a list of things we can all do to curb the damage done by Gamergate. It’s a refreshing piece to read, one that will hopefully give you some hope, regardless of all that’s happened.
And some good news: Stephen Beirne of Normally Rascal has ventured into critical curation on his own blog! “This Week We Read” takes up several writers, each with their own pieces to contribute. Take a look if you’ve gotten tired of reading in my voice.
We’re Good!
That’s it for this week! We greatly value your contributions, so if you write something that you want us to see, send us a Twitter mention or an email! And to support the work that we do here, you can help us continue our curating work at our Patreon.
Happy reading! And take care of yourself, friends. Stay strong, and stay powerful.