This Week in Videogame Blogging

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November 26th

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This week’s games criticism offers insights with implications that go far beyond game design, touching on how we imagine ourselves, our models of morality,  and how we organize our arguments and ideologies. Plus, critics offer some much-needed clarity on some of the…

November 19th

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This week’s critical writing on games sheds light on the different cultural contexts that influence how games are received – from the problems that arise when showing art games in commercial environments, to how we can process our painful history through interactive…

November 12th

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What can the most recent games learn from their own predecessors? And what kind of futures do games point us toward? Questions of past, present, and future pervade this week’s roundup of the most insightful games blogging. Pattern-making Three pieces this week…

November 5th

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Resistance, systemic cruelty, and the role of individuals are major themes of writing this week. In addition, we’ve got great stuff on inclusivity and the history of game design, and some engaging ideas about how games meet the art world. First, however,…

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October 29th

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This week we continue a look at industry and cultural practices in videogames while several authors offer critical approaches to their favourite games. Visual Essays Let’s start this week with a pair of visually based pieces of criticism about turn-of-the-century JRPGs. Chrono…

October 22nd

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This week’s roundup is overshadowed by questions about what happens when we die, as well as what kind of work we do during our short time here. Take a moment for some quiet reflection as we look at some of the most…

October 15th

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The big discussion of the week is loot boxes – also known as gacha mechanics – or, in-game microtransactions with randomised contents. A long-controversial aspect of free-to-play games, these items have featured prominently in recent AAA game releases, provoking a wave of…

October 8th

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What kind of futures can we imagine for game design and storytelling? This week, critics take on the contemporary context of games from a number of perspectives, thinking about how games make us feel, and how it feels to make games. Coordinating…

October 1st

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Sometimes I get nostalgic for the era of “personal writing on games”, “confessional critical essays”, or “gonzo games journalism”. A few years ago, it seemed like the best way to start writing critically about games was to tell personal stories about how…

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September 24th

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Games critics are looking closely at messes at the moment – messes that are oddly beautiful, messes in which we get entangled through human relationships, as well as messes that threaten to engulf the world whole and destroy its vital ecosystems. A…