sex

…thereof) in Civilization: Beyond Earth.

Over at GameSound, Kenny Young shares an email conversation he had with the late Ralph Baer about the development of game audio.

So technically this is more about child development than game development, but bear with me, as this week Andy Baio details his experiment in child rearing in which he had his son play through video games in chronological order beginning with the Atari 2600 to see whether (and how) it would alter his son’s perception of contemporary games.

Sex, Sexuality, Gender, Performance and the Political

Responding to art with…

…their voices recognized AT ALL when they have often been silenced in favor of others. Never mind the fact that gaming — particularly video gaming — has long been a bastion of racism, sexism, and hatred of queer people with significant class and SES-related problems (such as the cost of home PCs).

To put it bluntly, many of the people who take issue at the notion of “ludocentrism” (a term I use under duress, for ease of understanding) are not simply targeting what they see as a problematic rhetoric in the ontology of games. They take issue at what…

…industry isn’t all that exciting.

Sebastian Standke has been interviewing Ludum Dare contestants for a series of 21 profile pieces. Also on Superlevel, Josefiene Pertosa translated the third part of Magnus Hildebrandt’s comprehensive guide to the inspirations and cultural reference points of Kentucky Route Zero.

Nina Kiel wrote about the FEMICOM game jam challenging the supposedly masculine history of games, and has also been continuing her column on sex games.

Oh, and there’s an interview with the director of a Monkey Island theater production, which is the second most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.

Until Next…

…a game, you’re basically looping over those same 2 choreographed steps over and over.

What’s totally missing is a logic of transformation. When do our bodies change, and why?

(Content Warning: Yang’s article includes some discussion of sexual topics — and a few gifs which might be considered unsafe for work.)

At Fusion, Patrick Hogan pays a visit to some of the abandoned virtual colleges left over from the Second Life hype train. It’s strangely nostalgic — I actually had a class on Second Life back when I was studying for my bachelors — and that…

…as the prime example of how feminine sexuality is either neutral or monstrous with no compromise:

A fear of female sexuality runs throughout Bioshock Infinite; Elizabeth’s first outfit infantilises her; she’s locked away from the public who think of her as nothing more than a holy infant; her powers (which are supposed to reach their height after her first period) are seen as frightening. It’s significant, therefore, that after she kills, as she becomes a character who acts through violence, a cold self-assured woman determined to get revenge and exercise the full extent of her powers unrestricted, she

…