"Where is all the good writing about games?"
Between vintage games collections, retro aesthetics, and the increasing interest in games from the museum sector, the position of games in their own time is a topic close to many people’s hearts. Games themselves are a medium that plays with time, inheriting questions of pacing and anticipation from cinema.
Although it’s typical for AAA games to attract the majority of the in-depth writing, in the context of increasing tension around labor exploitation, more critics are considering the power dynamics of big publisher corporations and populist gamer culture. This week in videogame…
This week is an emotional one, with many critics taking on discussions of empathy, trauma, and cruelty toward outsiders. This Week in Videogame Blogging is our rundown of the week’s most important critical writing and video on games. Empathy Three critics looked…
It’s been an intense week for games criticism, with important news stories as well as intriguing and troubling new releases. This Week in Videogame Blogging has you covered, with a roundup of all the most interesting writing and video. Steam A new…
True to fashion, first day on the job and I’m late. Hey everyone, I’m Austin, I’m a new contributor filling in this week for Zoyander, if you wanna know more about me, click on some of this stuff! But we have no…
The history of literature and politics blends with the history of games this week, as a number of critics examine games’ relationships to cultural works from across time. Meanwhile, God of War continues to inspire critical reflections, and developers are finding new…
This week’s writing on games picks up on gendered dynamics, dad games, and religion. Settle in for another roundup of This Week in Videogame Blogging. Ad hoc In writing on games and history, we have on piece on how to keep games…
Responses to the Trump administration’s meeting to discuss links between videogames and violence feature prominently This Week in Videogame Blogging – but this roundup starts with some art history. Bad art Two Unwinnable articles this week argue for aesthetic reclamations of bad…
Games critics are always exploring new ways to talk about digital media, be it genre, narrative structure, architecture or the material thinginess of computers themselves. The latest This Week in Videogame Blogging features artists, journalists, and historians trying out new perspectives on…
This week, critical writers in games were moved by the final moments of Demon’s Souls, disturbed by the empty lives of non-player characters, and concerned by xenophobic portrayals of history. We round up the most original writing of the week in the…
What kind of people do we want to be? What kinds of people do we become when we play games? And how are our gameplay experiences shaped by who we already are? This week, critics, journalists, and video essayists discussed morality, identity,…