"Where is all the good writing about games?"
What can the most recent games learn from their own predecessors? And what kind of futures do games point us toward? Questions of past, present, and future pervade this week’s roundup of the most insightful games blogging. Pattern-making Three pieces this week…
Resistance, systemic cruelty, and the role of individuals are major themes of writing this week. In addition, we’ve got great stuff on inclusivity and the history of game design, and some engaging ideas about how games meet the art world. First, however,…
This week’s roundup is overshadowed by questions about what happens when we die, as well as what kind of work we do during our short time here. Take a moment for some quiet reflection as we look at some of the most…
The big discussion of the week is loot boxes – also known as gacha mechanics – or, in-game microtransactions with randomised contents. A long-controversial aspect of free-to-play games, these items have featured prominently in recent AAA game releases, provoking a wave of…
What kind of futures can we imagine for game design and storytelling? This week, critics take on the contemporary context of games from a number of perspectives, thinking about how games make us feel, and how it feels to make games. Coordinating…
Sometimes I get nostalgic for the era of “personal writing on games”, “confessional critical essays”, or “gonzo games journalism”. A few years ago, it seemed like the best way to start writing critically about games was to tell personal stories about how…
Games critics are looking closely at messes at the moment – messes that are oddly beautiful, messes in which we get entangled through human relationships, as well as messes that threaten to engulf the world whole and destroy its vital ecosystems. A…
This was a week of controversies. Since one of the most significant issues this week was a famous Youtuber’s racist outburst, the final section of this roundup comes with a general content warning for discussions of harassment, abuse, racism etc. In the…
A critical game, a video essay with limited narration, and in-depth interview pieces – this was a week of experimentation in games criticism, and this week’s roundup is all the richer for it. Burning We start with two pieces of criticism that…
A guilty pleasure of mine is critical writing that takes things to that meta level. Critical writing about criticism. This week, writers came up with taxonomies, heuristics, and semiotic analyses. I’ve had the pleasure of reading many pieces that reveal something about…