It’s no secret that Journey is one of my all time favorite games, having extensively written about its brilliant use of silence and its characterization of landscapes. Though it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I find the entire experience to be relaxing and fulfilling. Whether it’s the cool blues of […]
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This post is a write-up of a talk I gave recently at the Games+Learning+Society conference in Madison, WI. Enjoy! The GamerGate explosion in 2014 had far reaching implications that spidered across many areas: industry workplace practices, how gaming communities function, and how people view video games and gamers. Scholars have […]
“For girls” has always been somewhat of a cringe-inducing term for me. When combined together, these two seemingly innocuous words form a concept that is loaded with a long history of stereotypically gendered marketing and the perpetuation of gender norms. It dredges up the distinct childhood divide between the “boys” […]
Episode 107: A Conversation with Dr. Kishonna Gray (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes or Stitcher). We don’t always get to sit down with other academics who care as much about games as we do, but when we do, we talk for hours… and that’s […]
Recently I have found myself having lots of heated discussions about racial representation in video games and the importance of paying attention to the history behind these representations (*cough* Cuphead *cough*) and in some cases it has been a bit of an uphill battle, but it’s not new. It’s the […]
Right now and for the next few weeks, I’m under a self-imposed ban on LEGO building. I’m moving, so instead of building, I’m dismantling my LEGO models. It’s horrible. Not that I mind the dismantling process, it’s still gives me something to do while watching TV, but dismantling does not […]
“Outspoken women, especially non-white women like Pao, are instant targets if they publicly acknowledge the existence of prejudice, worse still if they purport to do something about it.” –Katherine Cross Ellen Pao, now titled as the *former* CEO of Reddit, has faced it all. Death threats, harassment, abuse– oh wait, […]
This past week, I’ve been catching up on reading Adrienne Shaw’s book Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture, and a series of questions that Shaw asks in the second chapter (entitled “Does Anyone Really Identify with Lara Croft?: Unpacking Identification in Video Games”) […]
In the last month or so there has been lots of discussion going on about and around the confederate flag here in the United States. Ultimately, the flag has been removed from most state government buildings and is no longer being sold in a number of big box and online […]
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the cliché of the grizzled, brown-haired hero, wondering just what it is that keeps them at the top of the game-protagonist heap, and what encourages designers to keep on designing them. I’ve been thinking about these men, so similar, and about Lee Everett […]
Episode 106: This Ashly Burch Interview Is Strange (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes or Stitcher). Or maybe it’s just awesome! Who knows, really? What we do know is this: we talked Life Is Strange, Adventure Time, voice acting, writing, mental illness, and we even got to […]
Back in May Electronic Arts announced that it would feature female soccer players in its popular FIFA game series, starting with the upcoming FIFA 16. According to the release statement, the game will feature 12 international woman’s teams. Many were also excited to learn that the women would not be […]
I spent most of last week at an annual academic games conference and have spent a lot of time processing and digesting what went on there. The thing that I love about these conferences is that I get to sit and talk (and drink beer) with other academics who often […]
No More Heroes, created by the enigmatic Suda51, is arguably one of the most entertaining action-adventure/hack-n-slash franchises to ever hit the Wii. The game follows Travis, an aspiring assassin whose dream is to fight his way through the United Assassins Association until he is number one. Admittedly, I was a […]
At a party a few weeks ago, I ran into a guy who was in UCSD’s undergraduate literature/writing program at the same time I was, and, in the course of our conversation that evening, we found ourselves eventually turning from the typical small talk (Hi! How are you? What are […]
When I first heard about Pley.com, a LEGO rental service, I had mixed feelings. As the “Netflix” of the LEGO world, Pley.com offers a similarly styled rental service. You select your desired LEGO sets and add them to your queue, and as the sets come available, they are sent to […]