Bianca: A couple weeks ago, Alisha wrote about feminist game scholarship, and since then, she and I have been talking a lot (and texting a lot) about feminist theory, game studies, and the intersection of the two. That is to say, we’ve been trying to work through, together, how to […]
An Introduction It seems like human nature to seek companionship of some kind. A partner in crime, a friend for the ages, a dog that can’t wait for you to open the door, a diary for you to put your thoughts in. Most of us, from the most outgoing to […]
Trying to get out of a video game slump, I recently picked up Blizzard’s Overwatch despite not finding the beta terribly enjoyable. Perhaps that’s because I didn’t understand the premise of the game, the characters, or even the strategy — I just “played”. After a bit of convincing from Alex […]
Recently, Blizzard announced the implementation of a new policy for World of Warcraft,: players who are frequently reported for spamming and/or abusive chat will receive a 24-hour warning silence, preventing them from using a number of in-game functions. Players who are continually reported after that warning may be permanently silenced. […]
This week I finally finished playing Playdead’s Inside. I started playing the game at launch and had previously written about my reaction to the violence. I found the violence especially disturbing since it was directed at a child. As I was playing through the game I found myself talking through […]
If you live in the United States, this will probably come as no shock: people are angry. People everywhere feel oppressed, targeted, slighted, and unheard. What’s particularly interesting is that people who are in power, who have always been heard, who have not been oppressed as a group are the […]
I’ve been catching up on a lot of reading this summer, and much of what I’ve been reading engages with the complexities of family structures and kinship ties. From Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina to Suzan-Lori Parks’s Getting Mother’s Body, from Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats to Toni Morrison’s […]
Jean Baudrillard had a fascination with the “real.” Is Disneyland real? It’s a physical place, sure. You can pack your family up, get into a plane, land, spend your hard earned money, see princesses, go on ride. But in another sense, it is also a simulation. It is a simulation […]
Pokemon Go is a lot of things. It came out Wednesday and Sam and Alisha quickly pointed out the flaws in the representation provided by the game, with good reason. In a game that was slated to let “us,” the player, be in the Pokemon world, and be the very best, […]
Episode 131: Gamer Classes and Gamer Personalities: What Kind of Gamer Are You? (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we talk about our own personality traits and how they align (or not) with the roles we play in games and how […]
Sometimes, I wonder if video games are fun anymore. It seems a kind of stupid thought, for sure. They are games, after all. And games are supposed to be fun. But I was talking to a friend about games at one point. I think we were talking about Dark Souls. […]
People all over the world love the Pokémon franchise. Fans in Hong Kong launched a protest in late May over a name change in translation. A quick image search of Pokémon tattoos reveals a treasure trove of body ink. Many people have grown up with the franchise, cutting their gaming […]
In 2011, I made the best Xbox Live avatar ever, according to me. That’s because Bastion had come out and they made Kid’s outfit available for all avatars. I shelled out…I guess it was four dollars….got myself the outfit, gave myself some elf ears and spiky red hair and bam! […]
Here’s a question I’ve seen time and again, asked of more mainstream individuals like Anita Sarkeesian, or whenever a new article, study, or book crops up: why are so many feminist academics interested in video games all of a sudden? Unpacking this question means separating the threads and assumptions: first, […]
Last night I had the worst experience playing what will probably be one of the best games released this year, Inside by Playdead. For those of you who haven’t played the game yet I’ll try to be as unspoilery as possible. Inside is from Playdead, the maker of the 2010 puzzle platformer […]
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 […]