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racism

May 15th

…violence and history. For me, a particular strength — although this is by no means their sole focus — is that they challenge the whiteness of the dominant historical narratives that act as benchmarks for whether or not a subject is valid material for action-oriented mayhem.

  • Exploitation is not Awareness | Medium Amr Al-Aaser calls out the denial and defensiveness at work in games industry discussions about violence, rape and racism.
  • Crackdown’s cartoon police state feels more real in 2016 · To The Bitter End | The A.V. Club Toussaint Egan argues that the violence of this

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June 5th

…into a philosophy of player agency that prioritises free will.

  • The Weird Science of Bloodborne | The Ontological Geek (Spoilers for Bloodborne) Adam Krantz looks into Victorian horror themes and the relationship between science and religion.

    • “Through its role in atrocities like colonialism, ‘scientific’ racism, nuclear weapons, and environmental pollution, science has gone from revealing horrifying truths about the universe to perpetrating them. Bloodborne first links this explicitly to its Victorian setting, referencing breaches of medical ethics closely associated with that period in the popular imagination. Victorian doctors infected children and prisoners with diseases like syphilis,…

    June 12th

    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 after he passes on, a black British comedian fighting racism by dressing as a Roman centurion in central London, and a robot child asking to be “caressed” by its engineer-cum-caregiver. This odd menagerie is well matched by some strange, creative approaches to games criticism featured in this week’s roundup.

    “The Wild West of technology”

    Let’s

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    September 25th

    …the history of policing and racism in California.

  • The Tomorrow Children would fail a history exam – Kill Screen Chris Priestman is unimpressed with the use of Soviet kitsch as a narrative prop.

    • “In the end, it’s kitsch. It’s a Soviet-themed Lego set that renders a monumental socio-political phenomenon into little else but a toy. And an exceptionally boring one at that. This would all be harmless enough if the aesthetic it borrowed wasn’t one of paranoid violence and a complex unraveling of a utopian dream for all humanity, but, that’s what the USSR was.”

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    This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2016

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    Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

    • ‘Real world issues’ in games like Deus Ex are there for marketing reason, not for art | ZAM – John Brindle That title there is John Brindle’s argument. He sees the theme as ways to get hype without the responsibility of dealing with the issues.
    • Futurism, Realism, Racism: Deus Ex & The Quest for Credible Science Fiction | Medium – Steve Wilcox Similarly, Steve Wilcox wants good old fashion science fiction that is able to make their take on the science AND the social issues credible.
    • A Closer Look At

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    February 26

    This week’s roundup asks where violence fits in political discourse and how to care for yourself in a troubled environment.

    Interesting Times

    (Content Warning:discussions of violence and racism) View content

    • On mortality and Mario Odyssey | Eurogamer Ellie Gibson muses on death and Mario Odyssey, wondering in equal parts humorous and sinister what kind of weird circumstances led Mario into the uncanny simulated New York and its resemblance to all the real version’s problems.
    • The transformative violence of Yakuza | Pshares Patrick Larose compares Yakuza with a number of literary works in a discussion

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    June 25th

    …Robert Yang presents an illuminating reading list and personal evaluation on cultural scamming, translation, and exchange.

    “If I had to sum up all this conversation, I’d say it feels like talking about cultural appropriation is ultimately a bit of a trap, but at the same time, it is necessary for us to fall into it. The alternative is to fall into a much worse trap, full of unchallenged racism and ignored pain and hot molten lava. Compared to that trap, this one isn’t so bad, right? And then when we eventually figure out how to crawl out…

    November 5th

    …On Me – Waypoint (content warning: transphobia) Jennifer Unkle accurately calls out South Park’s transphobic writing, giving a thorough rundown of how The Fractured But Whole treats a transgender protagonist.

  • Suraya Hawthorne: Destiny 2’s token human | ZAM – The Largest Collection of Online Gaming Information (content warning: racism, colonialism) Yussef Cole argues that Suraya Hawthorne’s role in Destiny’s story is full of intriguing tensions, due to her unique position in the narrative – drawing parallels to colonialism and the first human ascent of mount Everest.

    • “All power structures require people at the bottom to support…

    November 12th

    …“[I]s it really such a surprise that a book about human obsolescence and our increasingly half-hearted whimpers of protest doesn’t easily make for a blockbuster videogame – particularly within the more established genres?”

    The counterculture

    The following two pieces concern racism in gaming; one article looking at ethnic stereotypes in a Nintendo game, the other looking at community building in the face of oppression.

    • The Uncomfortable Racial Stereotypes in ARMS and Videogames | Unwinnable Khee Hoon Chan summarises the racial stereotyping issues with character design in ARMS, while also highlighting that the pain of these…

    November 19th

    …to deal with. The New Colossus is interested in what it would take for either of these to fall apart.”

    Conflicted past

    In more writing that looks at gaming’s relationship to the history and contemporary state of racism, three pieces consider games that portray the past.

    • The All Too Prescient Assassin in ‘Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate’ – PopMatters Nick Dinicola looks back at the 2015 entry in the Assassin’s Creed lineage, and is surprised by how well it anticipates the particular expressions of authoritarianism that the US is currently experiencing.
    • “War is Hella Fun in…