March 3rd

Welcome back readers.

I think somewhere around here I’ll stop apologizing for occasionally taking until Monday to put out an issue. It’s a good problem to have, as our community grows and I’m put in touch with more and more writing I might not have seen otherwise.

If you haven’t seen already (I’m told it got some attention), Critical Distance is organizing a fansite creation jam through the month of March! Yes, really! Check here for the details, then come join the server and tell us what you’re gonna build a shrine to.

This Week in Videogame Blogging is a roundup highlighting the most important critical writing on games from the past seven days.

People in Games

While I’ve tagged this as the “industry” section, in truth our first three sections this week all encompass different topics and issues in the games industry. We’re starting off here with a focus on layoffs and their continuing impacts.

• ‘I Stopped Believing in Myself’: Game Developers Share the Human Impact of Over a Year of Mass Layoffs | IGN
  Rebekah Valentine shares stories of loss amidst the latest round of deep industry layoffs.
• How Mass Layoffs Devastate Disabled Game Developers | IGN
  Grant Stoner focuses on health care access among laid off developers in a country with no real public health care coverage.
• Riot is cutting off its most inviting entry point to League lore | Polygon
  Cass Marshall laments the losses in storytelling and worldbuilding that also accompany the layoffs of creatives.

“As a longtime fan of League, I’ve followed the specific creators who create champions, story arcs, and other bits of fiction. The recent round of layoffs has removed some of these people from Riot, leaving their creations behind. I worry about how sustainable the current approach is, and I can’t help but look to comics, where the people who have created iconic characters often end up making a fraction of a fraction of the profit corporations make using them in movies and shows. I care about League of Legends because of its lore, and the people who write that lore. Riot moving away from prioritizing these things is, in my eyes, a bad sign.”

Seats at the Table

Our next section looks specifically at Black visibility and representation in games, both as a medium and an industry.

• How Riot makes their Black characters | Team Liquid
  Nick Ray talks with Riot designers and creatives about building meaningful Black representation in ways beyond just filling out the roster.
• The power in granting access to the gaming industry | Black Voices Progress Report | GamesIndustry.biz
  Malindy Hetfeld talks with narrative designer Adanna Nedd about finding and making space in the industry for Black creatives.
• The ‘Killmonger Cut’ Is Everywhere In Games, Here’s Why the Industry Needs to Fix This | IGN
  Trone Dowd chats with a variety of industry creatives about getting past moving from one stereotype to the next towards more nuanced representation.
• Xalavier Nelson Jr: “If You Don’t Want to Deal with the Gatekeepers, Use a Different Gate.” | Inverse
  Robin Bea sits down with Xalavier Nelson Jr to talk about Strange Scaffold’s approach to good representation and good storytelling.

“Nelson has said before that, while El Paso, Elsewhere is based on some of his own experiences, it’s not autobiographical. Touching on issues as volatile as abuse, addiction, and racism is tricky no matter what, and they can be even harder to approach with respect when they’re not your direct experiences. But Nelson says that shouldn’t be used as an excuse not to try.”

Text to World

Let’s shift focus now to a couple of pieces about how games–again as both a medium and an industry–are created and consumed in changing and challenging societies.

• Subscription services are changing our relationship to gaming | The Verge
  Diego Nicolás Argüello talks to Argentine players about access, ownership, preservation, and piracy when buying games outright costs more than ever before.
• The Unbearable Weight of Worldbuilding | Medium
  Hannah Nicklin weighs the responsibility of worldbuilding in the world that we have, for both creators and the medium.

“But that’s part of being a practitioner in games: you don’t always get to plant every seed. But as a practitioner I will also continue to carry that seed with me. Maybe I’ll get a chance to plant it somehow in the future. Or maybe it will grow in my heart as I tend to other people’s story worlds, and the shape of it will surprise me in a different way.”

Sickos’ Corner

Now let’s look at mechanics and design with both interviews and analysis.

• Balatro wants you to break it | Polygon
  Nicole Carpenter checks out a new-and-popular card game that absolutely has The Juice.
• The making of Cobalt Core: how Tabletop Simulator and Inscryption were the secret catalysts behind this clever deckbuilding roguelike | Rock Paper Shotgun
  Katherine Castle chats about the inspiration, genesis, development, and tactics of Cobalt Core with its designers.
• What Time Loops Mean to Me | Unwinnable
  Emily Price investigates the critical returns of time loop storytelling beyond plot and trajectory.
• Cobalt Core is wonderful because it’s actually Pong | Rock Paper Shotgun
  Edwin Evans-Thirlwell proposes that–look, I’m gonna level with you, this is the third piece about Cobalt Core that’s been sent my way in a week and the more I read about it the less certain I am I could tell you what it is.

“It was while beholding the scrambled slab of my spaceship during my second run that certain aspects of the presentation and mechanics alchemised behind my eyes, and I came to a Sudden Realisation. Of course: this isn’t a spaceship. It’s a paddle. I am customising a paddle. And by extension, Cobalt Core is not a roguelike deckbuilder. It is, in fact, one of many, very creatively concealed homages to Breakout and Pong.”

The Boys Are Back in Town

Characters and themes take precedence in each of these next three picks.

• Square Enix won’t let us play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PC yet, so my consolation prize is finally playing Final Fantasy 15 | PC Gamer
  Emily Price kicks back with the boys to revisit the scrappy, flawed, and charming game that maybe laid some of the groundwork for the FFVII Remake series.
• The Surprising Horrors of Frictionless Romance | Unwinnable
  Ruth Cassidy wants all these romanceable companions to have lives beyond living to please the player character.
• Transhumanism and ideology in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance | Medium
  Ashley Schofield contemplates Buddhism, justice, and the self in a posthuman story setting of swords and cyborgs.

“Raiden’s ever-changing, ever-improving cyborg body lines up with annat?’s doctrine that there is no single ‘essence’ that a person is tied to and cannot be changed — in this case, Raiden’s human body is being left behind as he embraces his changing existence. His continual look towards the future also accompanies the philosophy of annica — he is always trying to bring the world forward, while Desperado attempts to maintain the status quo and keep the world as it is.”

Critical Chaser

Et tu, Zacny?

• Pivot to Decimation | Remap
  Rob Zacny shows some executive leadership.

“Before I go, I wanted to add two notes about the future of the 9th, one personal and one administrative. First, it has been the honor of my life to lead you these last years, but the time has come for me to return to my estate in Italy.”