"Where is all the good writing about games?"
…televised storytelling.
“the heightened stagecraft of streaming culture have elevated the performative aspects of PUBG, no doubt helping to make it the phenomenon it has become. Individuals form and break alliances, pull off dramatic plays, and chart their own underdog stories online for hours and hours every week, weaving a collective narrative[…]”
Plugs
This week, critical writers in games were moved by the final moments of Demon’s Souls, disturbed by the empty lives of non-player characters, and concerned by xenophobic portrayals of history. We round up the most original writing of the week in the latest post for This Week in Videogame Blogging.
Three critics consider the role of time in storytelling and game experiences, with perhaps a particular focus on how things come to an end.
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…continuity to reflect the pitfalls and pundits of contemporary social media.
“Being a 23-year-old living in 2018, the game’s version of Spider-Man has his own official account on the game’s in-universe Twitter stand-in, tossing online quips around with the same ease that he hurls bad guys across the battlefield. Said social media platform is absolutely filled with Jameson’s online fans and detractors, discussing his show, arguing with each other, and, in one memorable case, offering up a good old-fashioned fake account mocking him at every turn.” Four articles this week look at …
Time Trials
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A specific focus this week is on the social dimensions of the ways we play. Three pieces this week weigh in on the dynamics of competitive multiplayer, the gradual shift to streamers for game promotion, and how one set of social skills can be unexpectedly mapped onto unforeseen game contexts.
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…avenues.
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…they’re not stepping back from them. They’re supposed to like, guide every single communicative act online or every single physical action.
Emilie: Yeah. And that’s kind of the opposite of what you pointed out about the kind of aesthetic element of games only really occurs when you’re reflecting on them. So, if you’re always in the value system, then you’re never really thinking about it. Weirdly…
Thi: In some ways, like, if you think that the best way to interact with games is to cultivate playfulness, gamification is like the death of playfulness, right?! They’re, like the collapse…
…Kaile Hultner makes the case for why, in a game that takes roughly five million years just to get through the main quest of the first campaign, it’s worth it to stop and explore the sidequests.
“It takes a lot of guts to say out loud these long-worn patterns of online behaviour aren’t acceptable, to listen to people…
…website, it’s the benefit of being a full-time academic, it’s your profile is public and so is your email. It’s xavier.ho@monash.edu, you can easily find me. I have a personal website with a portfolio, that’s jtg.design and whenever people see it they’re like “Oh! You’re doing artwork and installations and you do what now? I thought you were just like a researcher or I thought you were just a designer”. I’m like, no, I also do art installations and stuff. So, the portfolio is quite interesting to look at and if people are interested in interactive media art like, I…
…swearing at the screen, and of course the knowledge that if it all goes to shit then, hey, you didn’t do it…The problem with reading about someone playing a game is that it’s not as immediately gratifying.
When it comes to telling awesome stories based on gameplay, it’s hard to go past the stories generated by MMO’s and the online interaction of real human beings. Destructoid ran a piece this week written by a former GM for Ultima Online in which he recounts a number of entertaining anecdotes of dealing with player transgressions.
A good way to…
…Chris Dahlen, points out that everyone writing online is like an ARG. He writes, “We all have to become such characters in order to fit ourselves online: a little smarter, a little funnier, a little brasher or moodier than we are in real life. The fictional properties we love are doing nothing more than meeting us right in the middle.” Speaking as someone who took inspiration from writers who used pseudonyms in the past, I can’t help but agree. L.B. Jeffries, as a character, is a combination of numerous styles and writers that I channel into how I want my…