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This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2015

…Swain: his analysis of The Charnel House Trilogy as a form of theater, written for PopMatters.

Two members of our team also retired earlier this year: Lana Polansky and Cameron Kunzelman. These changes occurred before work on this list began, so we’ve included them elsewhere in this roundup. We’re thankful for all your contributions to the site, Lana and Cameron!

Blogger of the Year

And now to announce our Blogger of the Year, I cede the floor to Senior Curator Kris Ligman:

It has become customary in these end-of-the-year retrospectives to highlight the contributions of a…

June 24th

…to be harmful, hurtful or destructive. Sometimes we don’t tell our friends some of the less-than-gracious things we may be thinking about them to spare their feelings. Tangible or intangible, we do it to avoid negative consequences for ourselves and for those we care about. So why are we getting so worked up about the effects of strong criticism on a larger scale?

But Lana the Gun isn’t done yet. I dunno what a Tentacle Bento is, but Lana knows what it ain’t– ‘satire’.

In life we all make choices. The Kid makes choices– sometimes tough ones….

February 2nd

Delicious friends, how glad I am to see you! Come closer, take a look around. I have brought you the finest in games writing, hand-picked for your enjoyment.

Try a bite! It’s This Week In Videogame Blogging.

The Formalisms of Discussing Formalism

“Across Worlds and Bodies: Criticism in the Age of Video Games,” Brendan Keogh’s call for more close readings in the Journal of Games Criticism continues to make waves. Lana Polanski and Zolani Stewart discuss the kyriarchal structures of academia at length in this untitled podcast, while Mattie Brice weighs in with her own

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Episode 16 – The Artist Formally Known as Critic

…across the critical landscape — and perhaps a few surprises as well!

This month, Mattie sits down with fellow critic-developers Lana Polansky and Cameron Kunzelman, to discuss how they got involved in game design, why game development interests them, and how becoming a developer has changed how they write about games.

http://www.critical-distance.com/podcast/Critical%20Distance%20Confab%20episode%2016.mp3 Direct Download

CAST

Mattie Brice: Alternate Ending

Lana Polansky: Sufficiently Human

Cameron Kunzelman: This Cage is Worms

SHOW NOTES

Rise of the Videogame Zinesters

Opening Theme: ‘Close’ by The Alpha Conspiracy

Closing Theme: ‘Wishing Never’ by The Alpha Conspiracy

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July 27th

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Let’s Talk

This article by Dan Grilopoulos on Eurogamer delving into the origins of Minesweeper could have gone further into today’s competitive scene, but it is still an interesting piece on the ubiquitous software. In it, he interviews the original developers behind the game and Microsoft’s better-known plagiarism.

Back on Paste, Ansh Patel interviews Arvind Raja Yadav, game designer of the recently released Unrest, a game set in ancient India. (Full disclosure: I am a backer of this game.)

Meanwhile, at Sufficiently Human, Critical Distance contributor Lana Polansky and alumnus Zolani Stewart get into discussion over

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October 19th

…baby out with the bathwater.

Speaking of taking things one level above, here’s Stephen Beirne reviewing an interactive review of Dontnod’s ambitious but flawed title Remember Me.

And here’s a couple plucked from our own contributors. At Paste, Lana Polansky describes her recent venture into card gaming, in particular the simple 1965 game Nuclear War and its critique of the titular subject matter:

But one of the game’s best little touches is that, here, in state of war, there is a nonzero chance that everybody dies. When war is declared, it can’t be undeclared until the

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August 7th

…Self-love spectacle

The uncomfortably intangible economies surrounding leisure are explored this week in a video about Sonic and a stellar essay on gamer identity.

It’s Not Easy Being Blue – YouTube (video: auto-captions) Innuendo Studios riffs about Sonic’s lack of identity, and how it relates to subjectivity in the social media age.
Distraction, Consumption, Identity: The Neoliberal Language of Videogames | Sufficiently Human Lana Polansky calls for mass resistance and coherent labor politics, as an alternative to the divergent identity organising that can so easily be absorbed into the leisure and consumption of games.

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Discover a Critical Culture

…about videogames, opening me up to the possibilities of games and the wonders of a diverse critical community.

Critical Distance exposed me to such writers as Jenn Frank, who revealed to me the beauty of writing intimately and personally about our experiences with games. I first read Lana Polansky, Zolani Stewart, and other critics via Critical Distance, who use insightful interdisciplinary approaches to understanding games alongside poetry, photography, painting, and architecture.

Critical Distance brought me to the writings of countless bloggers and cultural critics who have challenged me to examine the (often uncomfortable and exploitative) relationships between videogames…

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2017

…uses this as a call-to-arms to get serious about the artistic nature of the medium.

Making political videogames may not work. But we have to try | ZAM – John Brindle John Brindle highlights a series of microtalks from GDC that touch on “how and to what extent games can really change the world.”

Politically meaningful games under neoliberalism | Memory Insufficient – Lana Polansky Lana Polansky’s piece engages with video games in our current times, the class politics of digital media, art as a political force and their intersection.

What Happened | brendan vance – Brendan…

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2018

…industry and adjacent industries so we can understand clearly what goals should be aimed for and how.

Stability, Support, and Safety: Small Game Studios Need Unions Too | Waypoint – Dante Douglas Dante Douglas brings up an often-forgotten sector of the industry when it comes to unionization– independent and freelance development–and how organizing benefits these creators as well.

Worse then Scabs: Gamer Rage as Anti-Union Violence | Rhizome – Lana Polansky Lana Polansky focuses on the other size of unionization: the efforts of union-busting. In the 1920s it was the strike breakers, now it’s the frothing masses of…