Ahh, it’s finally October. Days are getting shorter, and the temperature is finally dropping enough that I have to close my windows at night. I’m sure it’ll be blazing hot for IndieCade though! It always is.

Enough about the weather, though. Let’s talk about what’s happening in the world of games discourse. It’s This Week in Videogame Blogging!

I’ll Take My Steak Medium-Rare, Thanks

You may have heard a few rumblings over Twitter about a dispute between Star Citizen lead Chris Roberts and an unsatisfied former backer (and some anonymous former employees, and a news site). Fellow industry veteran Damion Schubert provides a good recap and offers his own (as always, even-handed) take of the situation.

Elsewhere, on the newest Critical Switch, Austin C. Howe argues that the same “immaturity” which stigmatizes games is also common in more respectable media like film and books (audio) — so why do we treat the latter as so much more legitimate?

Down In the Nitty-Gritty

At PopMatters Moving Pixels, Scott Juster digs into how Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain‘s prologue teaches the player the nuances of crawling. Meanwhile, at Kill Screen, Chris Priestman profiles game designer Pippin Barr’s latest work, an anthology of Breakout derivations which reveal the “fragility” of game design.

At his devlog, Lars Doucet slams the shoddy Final Fantasy V port which recently hit the Steam storefront, criticizing its lazy ‘update’ of the game’s original graphics. Doucet goes into detail not just on better methods for upscaling games to HD resolutions, but some of the tools used to do so as well.

Beyond ‘Empathy’

At The Psychology of Video Games, Jamie Madigan explains the Kuleshov Effect, a cinematic device also found in games that leaves players interpreting a series of images. Elsewhere, in Gamasutra’s Expert Blogs, Laralyn McWilliams makes the argument that while multiplayer online games are accustomed to allowing players a range of emotional expressions, single-player games often stunt an emotional response:

Most single-player games start a conversation with players and then leave them emotionally stranded. We handle pivotal character moments in cutscenes, or when they’re in live gameplay we leave players only able to run, jump, or crouch. We’re creating a culture where the expected — and only — response to emotional moments is mute acceptance.

[…]

To that extent, single-player games have a culture of emotional isolation that goes beyond the fact that you’re playing them by yourself. I believe that’s a large part of the popularity of live Let’s Play video feeds: the person playing can finally express the emotions provoked by a game in a setting where someone’s listening — because the game clearly isn’t. Isn’t that a mistake in an interactive medium?

Meanwhile, the newest issue of Well Played is out, via Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press. This issue, which can be downloaded for free, includes articles on The Walking Dead, DotA 2, and an academic study on the limits of “empathy games.”

This is a subject also on the mind of veteran designer and author Anna Anthropy, who decries the term “empathy game” as a facile device to avoid real engagement with oppression:

Empathy Game is about the farce of using a game as a substitute for education, as a way to claim allyship. […] Being an ally takes work, it requires you to examine your own behavior, it is an ongoing process with no end point. That people are eager to use games as a shortcut to that, and way to feel like they’ve done the work and excuse themselves from further educating themselves, angers and disgusts me. You don’t know what it’s like to be me.

The Map and the Territory

On Medium, Rowan Kaiser praises The Witcher 3‘s open world design, contending that the dynamic way it handles quests makes for a far more interesting environment than either Skyrim or Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Elsewhere, on her personal tumblr, Carolyn Petit lauds the road trip game Wheels of Aurelia for furnishing the player an interior life for its women characters:

These conversations are not the stuff of what some might nonsensically dismiss as games writing with a political agenda, but rather an example of writing that acknowledges that life as individuals and as women within social systems is inherently political, and that women actually talk about their lives in ways that recognize this. If you don’t think women actually talk about these sorts of things, you get too many of your ideas about women from movies and television.

Finally, with a more literal take on the subject header, Eron Rauch is back on Videogame Tourism this week continuing his series on demystifying MOBAs, this week analyzing the play maps and tactics in the ‘big three’ of the genre: DotA 2, League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

There were quite a few pieces this week on The Beginner’s Guide, the new title by The Stanley Parable creator Davey Wreden, but I am holding onto them until I play through it myself. I don’t usually do this — I’ve just come to accept spoilers go with the territory in this job — but I’ve tried my darnedest to follow the essays without knowing the content of the game and it’s proven fairly impossible (perhaps intentionally).

So! Until then, I leave you with this short, relaxing montage of empty videogame environments in the rain (video). Ahhh… So nice…

Until Next Time

Thank you to everyone who sent something in this week! These roundups are made better by your contributions. Remember, we welcome self-submissions, and also encourage you to submit on behalf of those who might be too shy to do so on their own! Hit us up in email or by mentioning us on Twitter.

The September edition of Blogs of the Round Table, covering the topic “Maps,” has now wrapped up and is ready for your reading. Be sure to check out October’s prompt as well, “Leadership“!

This past week also brought us a new podcast minisode, featuring Paste’s Gita Jackson. Be sure to have a listen!

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