"Where is all the good writing about games?"
Welcome back, readers. So a delightful trove of documents and materials have surfaced this week detailing the early development history of the The Sims and how queerness was an integral–and subversive–inclusion from the beginning. And of course, it largely comes down to…
Welcome back, readers. Friends, I am in my element this week. People are writing about old JRPGs, queerness, accessibility, inclusivity, and bad toys from the 90s. Oh, and writers are taking the Mordhau devs to task for some wildly bad messaging that’s…
Welcome back, readers. This week sees the launch of the inaugural issue of ROMchip, an open-access, history-oriented journal of games. I, umm, think this is pretty cool? And it’s amazing to see so many of games crit’s finest writers in one place….
Welcome back, readers. Sorry, I can’t answer the phone right now (what’s a phone. . . ?). Mario Maker 2 is out, and I am in deep. Pride Month draws to a close today, and we’ve got a selection of great queer…
Welcome back, readers. First of all, if you haven’t already checked out Gilles Roy’s stellar Critical Compilation on Assassin’s Creed III, I can’t recommend it enough! After so many sequels, III remains a sort of critical flashpoint for the series, so there’s…
Welcome back, readers, and happy Father’s Day to y’all who celebrate it. E3 has come and gone, and readers and especially writers are no doubt in recovery mode after the annual avalanche of coverage on all The New Games. While many of…
Welcome back, readers! E3 is next week? I guess? We’ve got a very timely piece this week on the damaging effects of hype, which I enjoyed a great deal and which you can find below. On the academic circuit, it’s also conference…
Welcome back, readers, and happy Pride Month! Many of this week’s selections can be related back to the notion of inclusivity in some way. The decisions you make as a designer to include (or not include) accessibility and/or difficulty options affects who…
Welcome back, readers. So, gaming disorder, huh? That’s a thing this week. I’m interested to see what kinds of critical responses emerge on this topic over the coming weeks, and how that influences (or doesn’t influence) the turn by big publishers towards…
Welcome back, readers. While there has been no shortage of bad press about crunch in games development over the last several months (and rightly so), it seems that there are still large studios who haven’t fully committed to acknowledging that there’s a…