April 19th
byWelcome to the first week of This Week in Videogame Blogging for Critical Distance – for the week to 19th April, 2009. Let’s get into it. This week the gents from Eegra wrote a critique of the body of work of a…
Is Legitimacy Irrelevant?
byLeigh Alexander, News Director at Gamasutra, has an opinion piece which attempts to mellow out the masses. As the influence of video games continues to grow, so does the desire for cultural acceptance. She quotes Ian Bogost’s thoughts on the topic, who…
No More Feminism: Post-Feminism and No More Heroes
byMatthew Gallant wrote to me the other day and said, “Argh! Exams! I’m freaking out, no time, so hard, need sleep! HALP!” and apologised for not being able to do a proper summary himself up for this link-out. Actually, he didn’t say…
Amnesia Alternatives
byI was searching my long list of bookmarked webpages earlier today and came across this entry from Corvus Elrod’s Man Bytes Blog. In ‘Amnesia Alternatives’ Corvus outlines two ways that a storyteller (read: anyone setting up their game) can overcome the initial…
Limited by design: history through games
byLuke Plunkett, Associate Director at Kotaku, wrote a Feature column discussing how video games present history. He spoke with Dr. Cliff Williamson, who teaches Modern British and American history at Bath Spa University in Britain – as well as communications manager Kieran…
Narrative Synthesis at Girish Shambu
byA piece at Girish Shambu’s blog dealing with film criticism for the 21st century raises the issue of there being two separate crowds who consume writing on cinema and looks for examples of critics who can build bridges between the camps: For…
Cory Doctorow’s Observations on Real Money Generation in Games
byIn his column at The Guardian today, blogger, novelist and technology activist Cory Doctorow claims that the ability of a player to make money from the time they invest in an MMO has become not only a key marketing point for the…
Example Post 2: Critics are necessary for your art
byKhoi Vin has written an excellent post calling for more criticism within the field of graphic design. The entire piece is surprisingly relevant to the current state of video game criticism: Like it or not, you can't have a serious discourse about…
Example Post 1: Critics are good for your game
byJason Della Rocca, outgoing head of the Independent Games Developers Association, wrote a mini-rant for the GDC developer's rant which he then posted to his blog. While it's been described as a 'back-handed apology' he addresses an issue that is very relevant…