June 14th

Welcome back readers.

This was neat. Lots of interesting stuff for me to read through over the next few weeks.

Over here on Critical Distance, we’ve got 19 picks for you this week, including two from that jam I just linked. If you like what we do and want to help us stick around long-term, please take a look at our Patreon! If you’re already a supporter, thank you for your indomitable patience as I plug the Patreon every week.

This Week in Videogame Blogging is a roundup highlighting the most important critical writing on games from the past seven days.

Boycott, Divest, Sanction

We open this week with writing on the ongoing BDS campaign against Microsoft’s Xbox division.

• There’s never been an easier time to boycott Microsoft, the most boring video game publisher in the business | Rock Paper Shotgun
  Hard to argue with Edwin on this one (Further Reading: Ian Walker on independent games journalism and BDS).
• I just want people to give a shit | No Escape
  Kaile Hultner elaborates on how, and why, gamers and games media can and should give a shit about Palestine (Further Reading: Autumn Wright on a year as a killjoy).

“I want Palestinians to live. There is no greater moral or ethical imperative I can think of right now. I want them to live. I want their killers to stop killing. I want their friends and relatives on distant shores to be able to come home. And all I have to do to try to help that vision come true is to simply stop paying attention to fuckin’ Microsoft.”

Ten Cents

A bunch of different modes and perspectives on a bunch of different games industries.

• NO-ONE IS GOING TO BUY YOUR GAME by ill omens | itch.io
  Mike Cook ponders the self-imposed creative and procedural roadblocks that come from developing for the market (Further Reading: Stephen on disentangling artmaking and commerce).
• Marathon May Never Be Popular, And That’s Why It’s So Good | GameSpot
  Grace Benfell illuminates the ways in which Marathon doubles down on its niche and its audience (Further Reading: Madeline Blondeau on Marathon and impermanence).
• Drums, cash grants, and bubbling capybaras: How Latin America’s game dev creatives are outgrowing outsourcing | Rock Paper Shotgun
  James Archer examines financing and outsourcing as Latam game studios start moving towards making their own games and telling new stories (Further Reading: David T. Marchand on an aesthetics of Latin American videogames).
• Nurturing games | Laura Michet’s Blog
  Laura Michet muses on transnational genre boxes, power fantasies, the problems with “wholesome”, and the alternatives (Further Reading: Ruth Cassidy on how Wholesome became a brand).

“I genuinely think that the people using this term should discard it. One thing to pay attention to is that “cozy” doesn’t get half the heat that “wholesome” does – because it’s more descriptive and accurate, for one, but also because it doesn’t contain a moral judgement. There are loads of terms which are probably more effective at providing information to players while also reinforcing their sense of self. There’s a great one sitting right there: “nurturing”!”

Collaborative Effort

Next up, different contexts and sites of community.

• Barret Wallace Was Not Wrong | Unwinnable
  Kathryn Hemmann muses on Barret, FFVII, and moving from individual to community action (Further Reading: Janus Rose on FFVII, AVALANCHE, and insurrection).
• Digital Third Spaces: How Games Replaced the Café | SUPERJUMP
  Nate Shearer explores and evaluates the growing function of digital games as accessible and inclusive social spaces, and the new problems these digital spaces expose (Further Reading: Günseli Yalcinkaya interviews Ruby Justice Thelot on preserving digital third spaces).
• Obscurity is a curation problem by Kastel | itch.io
  Kastel meditates on the algorithmic discoverability crisis, obscurity as learned helplessness, and curation as a starting point for community (Further Reading: TIER’s interview with Nilson Carroll on curation, exhibition, and community).

“Obscurity legitimates the unequal status quo and blames the crisis on discoverability on the very people they have disempowered. It points to the charts and says that you wanted another deckbuilder roguelike.”

New Commits

All kinds of stuff this week touching on histories and practices of design.

• Spore: An oral history | Design Room
  Jay Castello unpacks Maxis’ uneven micro/macrocosmic opus in conversation with its makers (Further Reading: Phil Salvador on SimRefinery).
• You Choose, You Lose: The Illusion Of Agency In Dark Hero Party | Adult Analysis Anthology
  MxMorganic examines a subversion of player agency in the NTR subgenre (Further Reading: Julie Veitch on the horror of limited agency in Until Dawn).
• Don’t Nerf Dragon’s Dogma 2’s Dragonsplague, You Cowards | Kotaku
  Rebekah Valentine articulates why Dragonsplague is such an integral part of Dragon’s Dogma 2 letting you make your bed and then lie in it (Further Reading: Dia Lacina on Dragon’s Dogma 2).
• In Cutscenes, You Can’t Double Jump | Gamesline
  Rose takes the playable cutscene to task (Further Reading: Phillip Russell on the limitations of the single-take setup in GoW Ragnarök).

“On the surface, this is the visual and mechanical language we have come to expect from cinematically driven video games, many of which are often free-form and non-linear. Developers, of course, can’t plot a set course with moments of defined strength and weakness if they’re providing you a venue with which to do things in any potential order. At the same time, however, is anything truly being gained from these moments of appropriate tonal resonance amidst a sea of completely untethered gameplay?”

Storied Tellings

Stories told, characters written.

• Communicating Disorientation and Care in And Roger | Gamers with Glasses
  Don Everhart reflects on the challenges and ambitions inherent to telling a story about dementia (Further Reading: Renkon on And Roger).
• Coffee Talk Tokyo: [Empty] Place, Japan | Unwinnable
  Ashley Schofield is disappointed by the shallow cup served up in the latest Coffee Talk (Further Reading: Hiero de Lima on Inkonbini).
• THE HUMILIATION OF JILL VALENTINE | DEEP-HELL
  Skeleton contemplates Jill Valentine’s depiction and construction through the REras (Further Reading: Skeleton’s previous article in this series).

“One game asks us what the last night of your life looks like if all you’ve got is a tube top and boots from the last goth night you went to. The other asks what that last night looks like if a man pursues you the whole way.”

Luigi Ga Gotoku

Critical lookbacks at older works.

• Kurohyo: Ryu ga Gotoku Shinsho (Sega CS3/Syn Sophia, 2010) | exp.
  Mathew Kumar unearths a portable pleasure from the Yakuza back-catalogue that you probably haven’t played (Further Reading: Flora Merigold on The Man Who Erased His Name).
• The Mystery of Marin | Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games
  Drew Mackie invesigates the luigification of Princess Zelda (Further Reading: Alexander B. Joy on Luigi).

“This post will be about an unusual form of luigification in which the character in question, Marin from Legend of Zelda, isn’t gradually differentiated so much as she keeps spawning lookalikes that move further and further away from the identity she had when she was first introduced. It’s weird, but let me explain.”

Critical Chaser

We close out the week with Poetry Corner (apologies for the formatting errors I have introduced here).

• Re-Playing Majora’s Mask, College | Videodame
  Natalie Schriefer spins some verse on coming of age in Clock Town (Further Reading: Jessica Howard on Majora’s Mask).

“The guard          who calls you a child          eventually recants. He stops focusing          on your height          your round baby face and instead sees          your weapons          [the sword] you’ll use          to face threats          beyond the city walls.”