"Where is all the good writing about games?"
Many have said this week that all public discourse seems to be about one of two topics: on the one hand, viral anger, collective outrage, and bigotry; and on the other hand, Pokémon Go. No man’s land Much of this week’s writing is in some way…
After a troubling set of weeks, it seems a lot of games critics are thinking about how escapism is more than it appears on the surface. A major theme of this week’s blogging is how games can provide a sense of release…
I am spending a few days staying in a cheap Bed and Breakfast in an run-down Victorian seaside resort in the North of England. It is a spooky place where nothing seems to make sense. At one point I saw a white…
It is hard, in the context of this week, to feel able to do justice to many of the themes that come up often in these roundups: queer liberation, decolonization, safe spaces, and of course, the fraught relationship between violence and media….
This week, I’m at Doc/Fest Sheffield, watching documentary films, trying out some exciting new VR projects, and listening to people talk about truthful storytelling in screen media. So far I’ve seen software allowing a holocaust survivor to keep answering people’s questions long…
This week there has been an upswing in articles about mental health and gaming, in no small part because of an excellent series run by Not Your Mama’s Gamer. I’m very glad to see this conversation gaining traction, and it sits well next to…
This roundup comes a little bit late, as I was kept busy this week by a conference about care and technology. As it turns out, the topic of care is not a bad lens for looking at this week’s blogging! Stardew Valley…
This week sees some fantastic thoughts on role-playing. Which roles are represented in narratives, what it would have been like to play a particular role in its historical context, and how we deal with the pressure to perform in a particular role….
Welcome back! I’m filled with determination after spending three days running a small exhibit of games, talking with artists who are more familiar with work in other mediums about some of the things that make this form critically interesting. I did most of the…
This week as I read games blogging from around the web, I’m thinking about how games criticism reflects the many uses of software as tools and contexts for cultural practices. A game can be like a pair of shoes that you slip on…