March 22nd
byBefore I get going, I just want to stop and give a big shout-out to Connor, who has been working to deliver thorough and really valuable roundups on games crit on the video side of things on a monthly basis. The latest…
mentality
February 23rd
byWelcome back, readers. I speak sometimes of the overarching themes and narratives that pull together each week’s selections over and above the explicitly delineated categories I come up with here. This week that theme might be games of the 2000s, which by…
July 28th
byWelcome back, readers. I’m in the middle of my first summer doing this Senior Curator thing, and truth be told, I was a little worried that critical games writing would slow down a bit in these months. I’m used to an academic…
July 21st
byWelcome back, readers. So a delightful trove of documents and materials have surfaced this week detailing the early development history of the The Sims and how queerness was an integral–and subversive–inclusion from the beginning. And of course, it largely comes down to…
January 27th
byOkay, so to start with–and not especially related to this week’s roundup–this. Moral of the story: when developers engage in queer erasure, push back. It works. Live your gayest life, Kassandra. With that out of the way (and with my spirits raised),…
January 13th
byWelcome readers! Last week I was delighted to present a whole bunch of writing on queer game studies, but since no amount of queer games writing is too much (or let’s be real, enough), this week’s roundup opens with a section focused…
December 16th
byAs we approach the end of the year–err, the Western colonial calendar year at any rate–the discourse of critical games writing naturally makes an annualized turn toward reflection on the bigger picture–be that via industry trends, communities of play, genre shifts, or…
October 21st
byThe conversation on labour in games continues with undiminished momentum, in part because Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has volunteered himself to be the one to really step in it this week. There’s no positive way to spin 100-hour weeks, period, but I’m…
September 30th
byI want to begin with a confession: I’m tired. It’s been an emotionally draining news week pretty much regardless of what interests and channels you follow. I say this bearing in mind the privilege I enjoy in passing for straight, white, and…
September 1st
byThis week I have enjoyed a wealth of fine criticism concerning the relationship between games and the recent past as authors explore “retro” trends in titles new and old. Great writing is also being done on the nature and role of criticism itself,…