I played Papo & Yo recently, and, as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about the game’s representation of monstrosity, abuse, and childhood trauma. Sam’s already written about the game’s representation of such things, and she’s noted that the game takes place in an imaginary world in which a young […]
Games and Culture
337 posts
I haven’t played an MMORPG since 2010, when I allowed my World of Warcraft account to lapse, or at least I hadn’t until recently, when I had to spend a week playing for a class. Rather than start a new account, I picked up the subscription where I’d left off, […]
Barbie’s new career was announced earlier this year, and now the new doll has been released: Game Developer Barbie, a doll whose price shot up almost immediately (what was initially available for $13 is now a hundred or more). While the doll is only available in white skin (for now? […]
Gaming mechanics, structures, and tactics are perhaps defined best by their fluidity across various spaces and places. Consider how points are used in the classroom, wagers made in sports, personal records broken in recreational activities, and, with the advent of fitness trackers, weekly and daily step challenges increase competition between […]
A group of children, ranging from 9 to 10 years old, huddle around a boy. It’s 2003, and the boy is telling them all their assignments for recess. Today’s game is Halo. The boy, obviously the leader in one respect or another, has decided he’s going to be Master Chief. […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia lately and I’m not quite sure why, but I’m pretty sure it is a desire for the “good old days”. It seems that I am finally of an age (and the world is in a state) that is old enough to recall utopian […]
A couple months ago, I wrote a post in which I began thinking through some of the implications Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze might have for the ways we think about video games—that is, how it is the gaze might impact the ways we play. I’ve been thinking […]
By and large, constable, the good’s an illusion, a fable folks tell themselves so they can get through the day without screaming too much. –Andre Linoge The concept of morality has been constantly explored in video games since the beginning: protagonist/antagonist, good/evil, light/dark. There is a black and white morality […]
“Xbox, record that.” For Xbox gamers, you have either heard it or said it yourself. This simple phrase is the practice of recording something. “Xbox, record that” cues the system’s in-game DVR, through which a gamer can record, edit, and share clips from actual gameplay. This small but significant tool within […]
Over the past few years, surveys conducted by IGDA have revealed a rising number of female game developers. Since 2009, the number of female developers has doubled, but women still only represent approximately 22% of game designers, woefully low numbers compared to data that indicates women make up half the […]
Episode 129: Gay Farming; On Digging, Dating, and Identity Politics in Stardew Valley (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week Jynx joins us for their first podcast and we have a little fun. In this episode we talk about our experiences and expectations […]
The past few weeks, I’ve been writing a lot about representations of fatherhood and daughterhood, and my preoccupation with such representations stems from my interest in the ways family structures are manifested in game narratives. This week, my mind has turned from parent-child relationships and toward sibling relationships and how […]
Forecast: Not good but getting better. Maybe. I’ve written before about being nonbinary and considering what that looked like in games and why continued strides in representation matters. This week Laytonya Pennington at BGD looked at Kingdom Hearts Unchained X and offered evidence of why better representation is necessary for […]
Obsession is one of the most frightful things I’ve encountered. I’m not talking about how we think of obsession in popular culture: someone counting calories, watching a show over and over, or even wanting to spend most of your time with your puppies (I’ve been known to proclaim that I’m […]
The past couple weeks, I’ve written about patriarchal constructions of fathers and daughters in The Last of Us and Rise of the Tomb Raider, and I wanted to spend some time this week wrapping up these assorted musings. My last two posts have worked to put these two games in […]
This summer, I’m in a class focused on women in games, and it’s exactly what you’d expect: one step forward, 97,000 steps back at every turn. The success stories—of games, characters, girl gaming clubs, industry professionals, more—are both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because we’re starved for them; terrible because those […]