This weekend I ran across this article, which says among other things “Vita owners are serious game buyers.” This seemed a strange and almost elitist comment to me; one that suggests Vita owners are the most hard core of the hard core gamers. I’m a Vita owner, but I don’t […]
Featured
1444 posts
I realize this post is far shorter than the norm, and I apologize. I am just finding it too difficult to string words together. Trust me, I did you a favor by making this short. I defend my dissertation tomorrow. I have to admit, it’s a little hard to concentrate […]
At the turn of the twentieth century, the thoroughly modern children of angst ridden-upper-and-middle-class parents wore feathers and slept in tipis and wigwams at camps with multi-syllabic Indian names. Their equally nervous post- World War II descendants made Indian dress and pow-wow-going into a hobby, with formal newsletters and regular […]
I haven’t been gaming a whole lot lately. The reasons are typical: end of semester madness combined with writing and defending my prospectus. When I first started grad school, it was unusual for me to game at all during the semester. Not gaming during the semester was not a policy, […]
As if it was a bit of foreshadowing, I talked about the hours that I spent playing little puzzle games like Bejeweled on consoles when Pea was an infant because I had figured out how to play while feeding her and holding her upright afterwards (severe acid reflux made that […]
Episode 75: If Not Points and Badges, Then What: On Gamification (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) The episode where we talk about gamification and the future of games based learning. Definitely a fun way to learn more about games and learning.
Virtual reality: the Sims had it long before I was aware that it was something that was possible outside of kitschy sci-fi movies. It was the best and most efficient way to give a Sim some much needed entertainment, if you could afford it anyway. Once the Sim had strapped […]
This week Amazon released its Roku-like media-streaming device, the Fire TV. According to Amazon, the Fire TV is more than just a streaming device, it’s also a (sort of) gaming console. I’ve been having a lot of problems with my Roku’s lately, and have been shopping around for alternative solutions, […]
Now for all of you youngin’s who don’t know what Tuesday Cafe was let me start with a little story. As a new-ish grad student and a budding technorhetorician I entered Connections MOO on a Tuesday evening for the first time almost 20 years ago. The place was full of […]
Below is a post that follows in the vein of arguments I have made here and here about procedural ethics. Where many theories of games, and ways of analyzing games, start at the code and move forward, procedural ethics starts at the code and moves backwards. Rather than see code as something […]
We spend a lot of time justifying the work that we with games by looking at them not only as educational, but as cultural artifacts. Unfortunately, there are times when games show us a side of ourselves as a society that we might not want to see or want others […]
For me Mario Party showdowns begin long before the actual competition, at least in the early editions anyway. It doesn’t begin the first time we enter a mini-game or a lost duel. No, it begins at the character selection screen where, as long as I’m playing with at least one […]
Yesterday, NPR ran this story on the history of pink. I imagine that the actual history of pink as gendered and non-gendered is no surprise to the audience of this particular blog, but, in the comments, the story sparked a discussion about how IMPORTANT it is to many, many people […]
The Yoshis are back and their fixing a mix up from the stork. Having never played a Yoshi game before, the new 3DS version seemed like a good opportunity to jump into the franchise. The 3DS has done wonders for catching me up with the old school Nintendo platformers so […]
Like everyone else, I was hyped for the release of Infamous: Second Son (Sucker Punch, 2014) after seeing the trailer at E3 last year. A new infamous with a young Native American character on a next-gen system that looked absolutely beautiful. Kinda grungy, all flashy, and starring a minority character. […]
Episode 74: Failing (in Order) to Win: The Role of Failure in Games and Game Studies (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) The episode where we talk about failure in gameplay and game studies. We are joined this week by guest co-host, Jennifer Lynn. A fun […]