I spend a good deal of time watching, thinking about, and analyzing anime. Prior to the start of each anime season (which is broken up into fall, winter, spring, and summer), I meticulously comb over the list of upcoming premiers and choose those series I believe have potential to be […]
Miscellany
1089 posts
Recently, LEGO rejected a LEGO Ideas submission featuring the women of the Supreme Court, citing LEGO’s rule of not engaging with current politics. On one hand, I see their point; I don’t really want political LEGO sets, and I can certainly think of more than a few politicians that I […]
I’ll never forget the moment, years ago, when I mentally “picked” a flower while walking into a Blockbuster Video. I glanced at their sidewalk planter, which had a number of beautiful pink and purple flowers in it, and I swear I saw a hand icon in my vision and heard […]
This is not your usual NYMG post. I’ve been talking about the Good Game Autoblocker a lot lately. Everyone has; it’s a hot point right now, with talk of blocks as censorship, as people shutting off lines of discourse. I talk about it, I defend it, but I don’t use […]
This week, over 3,000 academics gathered in sunny, warm Tampa, Florida to talk about writing and language and consume every bit of coffee the unprepared Mariott hotel had to offer. It was the 66th meeting of the Conference of College Composition and Communication (affectionately known as Cs), a hub for […]
Episode 97: Let’s Talk About Let’s Plays (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we talk about Let’s Plays and their potential as critical media.
About two weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend the 2015 Game Developers Conference (GDC) through an opportunity at work. For those who may not be familiar with the annual gaming conference, GDC is the largest gathering of professional game developers. But rather than the industry trade show feel […]
The term “serious games” is problematic. We play for fun and enjoyment, yes, but the idea behind serious games is that they are somehow more impactful…more real…than other games. But these games also try to fill a void that is lacking in the world of AAA titles and platformers. Serious […]
This full game review comes courtesy of guest writer Carol Hood. Welcome, Carol! The best-worst thing to ever happen to my Vita was Hotline Miami. See, no one can convince me there was a better old school beat ‘em up than Streets of Rage (1 and 2, we do not […]
Last week, as Offworld was launching, we created a partial list of sites, podcasts, and resources that feature women and/or gamers of color, or that explore cultural issues of interest to those groups. We’ve since updated the list, through our own efforts and some help from friends and fans, and have […]
I don’t know how I end up playing horror games for the site, but here we are again, this time with OSome Studio’s White Night. Then again, I’ll play almost anything with an intriguing art style and I’m a huge fan of noir, so the minute I caught a glimpse […]
The ways that I see my seemingly divergent areas of scholarly study constantly coming together still continues to amaze me after years of doing game studies work. This week in my Minority Rhetorics graduate seminar we had a great conversation about Gloria Anzuldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera and blaxpolitation. To keep it brief […]
Social media hubs around GamerGate — both sides — have been in rare form this week, with much discussion ignited anew. It’s not surprising, really; a lot’s happened lately, with controversies around Reddit and GamerGate-related subs, GDC and PAX East and the relaunch of Offworld. Yesterday, however, things took a […]
This week at GDC’s #1ReasonToBe panel, as we excitedly discussed on our podcast, Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson announced the relaunch of BoingBoing’s Offworld as a site focused on women’s and minority voices in gaming. Longtime critic and author Alexander will serve as Offworld’s new editor-in-chief, and Laura Hudson, Senior […]
Gamers face a number of stereotypes that have negative impacts. You have the gaming addicts, the basement dwellers, the overly sexualized gamer girl, and much more. It’s sad and unfortunate but the term gamer can have bad connotations. Stereotypes do nothing but generalize a grouping of people, robbing them of […]
There has been some interesting news coming out of GDC this year and it makes me sad that I wasn’t able to swing a visit to SFO, but next year…. Now that being said Todd Harper (Univ. of Baltimore) gave a talk at GDC yesterday where he talked about how […]