January 2018: ‘Novelty’

Another year done and dusted—it’s time to take the old calendar off the wall, and hang up the new one. Newness being one of the things we value in our daily life. We’re often so married to our patterns and routines that we find joy in getting to experience something brand new. Sometimes that brand new thing can be as simple as a new flavor of chocolate candy that just came out, or as complex as kicking off a whole new lifestyle as a New Year’s resolution.

In gaming, we often have the same elated attitude to the fresh new thing in videogames. We love our new releases, we love games that defy old genre conventions or invent new ones wholesale. We consume our game news quick and move on just as quickly, we’re voracious in our hunger for hot takes, and our conversations revolve so singularly over new releases. We adore newness. So, this month’s we’re shining a light on our weakness, let’s all take a deep breath and examine the way we look at novelty.

Whether it’s the hot new trend or the hot new release, gaming’s jam is very frequently new. Are we too obsessed with the shiny newness? Do we like new things because games are starting to grow into a comfortable middle age and we’re looking for things to help them stay fresh? Do we overindulge in newness sometimes, often jumping on whatever genre or release catch’s the community’s eye? Is the search for something new stifling the long-term conversations? Or are new things precisely what help keep games as popular as they are? Do the new mechanics objectively help genres progress? Is newness something we should embrace more heartily? Tell us how you do you in this quest for new.

In an irony we’re entirely aware of, one month before we move onto something new ourselves. You have until the end of January 31st to get your entries in. We’ll have a new topic coming to you in February. As always, you can email your submissions or tweet them to @NukeLassic or @critdistance with the #BoRT hashtag. Happy blogging!
Suggestions for the Round Table:

  • Blogs of the Round Table is not curated. If you write it, we’ll publish it, as long as it’s connected to the topic and has been written specially for BoRT or up to one month prior.
  • Think of the BoRT topic as a starting point. Connecting your piece to the topic can be as creative as you want. We’re interested in both writing and play, so be playful when you approach the round table!
  • This BoRT post is the home of the discussion. Regular reading of other BoRT participants isn’t required, but highly encouraged. Feel free to browse the #BoRT tag on twitter to see if there are any words submitted already that you could use as a springboard for your own posts.
  • As a knight of the round table we encourage you to leave a comment on a blog to which you respond with a link to the response piece and give the original writer a ‘right of reply’. Keep the conversation going!
  • If your work contains potentially disturbing content, please include a suitable warning at the start.
  • You can submit as many articles as you like throughout the month, and it doesn’t matter if they are commercially published, paywalled or available for free. However, we can’t include paywalled material in the round-up without access to the article text or a transcript.