"Where is all the good writing about games?"
…Games Tauriq Moosa makes the case for game critics taking the labor context of games into consideration in their reviews.
“Why have video games emerged in this moment, growing as the earlier visual media forms have stagnated, losing audiences and drifting toward the margins of culture? What has the medium’s material role been under capitalism? How has it reflected or shaped the specific ways capitalism has developed since 1973, when the series of crises that…
…– Waypoint Cameron Kunzelman traces the lines of genre, and looks to today’s irreverent indie titles to divine what’s next for first person games.
“Video games have, by and large, avoided or brushed past the question of labor rights for years, yet somehow, 2018 was the year where the nucleus of change began to form.” More and more indie successes are making space for underrepresented voices …
From the Margins
…release, the AAA industry neglected to learn from The Last of Us in favor of a paradigm of “open-world bloat.”
Meanwhile on Grantland, Tom Bissell praises The Last of Us as a “model of subtlety” for the medium and for its elaborate attention to detail, before briefly reflecting on the human costs of the game’s achievements: worker suffering in the form of labor exploitation.
I have no doubt that to make this game, hair was grayed, health was ravaged, friendships were tested, and marriages were strained […] What I’m saying is that these glorious games
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…Frank offers up some pretty harrowing stats on representation in recent fighting games.
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“At the halfway point of the game, after every Woman has died, the Abbott has revealed himself a coward and the vampires finally bare their fangs, I finally realized: Lords is a game for Serious Men.
Men can be sad and
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…learn from playing games.
“In truth, there’s a lot of punditry going around in the world of games criticism. There’s not so much critique of labor practices going around as there is opinions on them. Who should do what, and when – but solutions offered only appeal to the barest audience of people that are already reading…
Critical Distance is proud to present this Critical Compilation of Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero, written by Nicholas O’Brien. Nicholas is an artist and researcher that makes video games, digital animations, and installations addressing civic history, urban infrastructure, and overlooked narratives of technology and labor. He currently lives in Brooklyn and is Assistant Professor in 3D Design and Game Development at Stevens Institute of Technology.
When Kentucky Route Zero, the episodic magical realist point-and-click adventure from Cardboard Computer (Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, and Ben Babbitt), first reached players in 2013, critics were struck by its intricate narrative, distinct
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…towards form that emphasize materiality and intimacy.”
There’s been a bump in discussions of labour in games over the last few weeks for. . . a few reasons. Here’s a pair of quality pieces, alternately examining labour-as-mechanic and the ongoing out-of-game labour of media preservation.
…themes and others:
On January 4-10,…
…Moving forward, here’s two deep, crunchy critical dives on games past and present.
“Outside of that very last sentence, video game analysis as it has existed (including my own) bears no resemblance to music theory. Rather, it takes after literary theory.”
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