The whole discussion around good videogame writing: a) "We actually have it in spades, as demonstrated by mass appeal at worst and vulgar narratology at best." If you genuinely believe this, there is no hope for you.

I know a lot of you have already heard or read about BDS Movement's call against Microsoft, and felt weird and bad about it all, but decided to move forward as normal because of some degree of ambiguity. "What service is Microsoft providing?" Here it is, clear as day. A direct line to death.

Work is stupid and pissing me off please Play my games (now re-listed!): coleo_kin.itch.io Buy my book: emreed.net/more_bugs Enjoy my cool blog: hotelpaintings.neocities.org

In Search of Lost Time is rewiring my brain so aggressively the state is about to revoke my right to drink, drive, and vote

"Piracy harms small creators" but then a small creator publicly expresses fear over people losing access to their recently censored game and pirates are like "Oh yeah, don't worry about that, we have multiple versions of it available" lmao

Imagine tagging your games as NSFW specifically so that people can easily filter them in/out and then having this very same courtesy weaponized against you to delist your gam

Me, preaching to the biggest choir on Earth: It's okay to enjoy slop. You don't always have to do masterpiece after masterpiece, you know. I mean, there's nothing wrong with turning off your brain sometimes! You are *allowed* to exclusively watch children cartoons. You are valid

Somewhat old game studies books love to do this bit where they bemoan a stunted discipline infested with intellectually grifty literary theorists applying their own medium-specific methodologies to videogames. Like we had Empsons and Auerbachs refusing to discuss the magic circle

"Headcanon" this, "fancanon" that. Both of these concepts are predicated on the same fruitless and misguided mode of engagement with media. Fine if you are a socially deprived teenager; otherwise, what are you even doing, man

Just submitted my undergraduate dissertation on Russian Formalism and the New Criticism (it was good). I was fairly critical of some of their principles/methods, so just know every time I read bad takes about criticism or "media literacy" online now, I am taking extra damage

Puns/pop references in academic paper titles are fine, but I can confidently say none of them have ever come close to the level of gets-me-every-time that results from googling Cleanth Brooks' famous essay on Macbeth

gamers when linear level design: deceitful, condescending, predictable gamers when linear level design but in the shape of an open world with cocomelon-worthy levels of pavlovian escorting: yayy :D

advice to new critics: make sure to comment on the author's irresistible boyish charm and refreshingly oblique proximity to revolutionary politics

Few things as cynical as fans playing house as shareholders, asking who would even buy a "woke game", worried about sending an insufficient offering to a god whose only concern is profit. These game companies can't offer you salvation, only the thirteenth iteration of a 00s game

Gamer whose idea of peak videogame beauty is a crusty hyperrealistic AAA from the last couple of years discussing a genuinely gorgeous altgame: This game sure is HIDEOUS. So much so it makes me want to KILL MYSELF. But, hey, bear with me for a second here: that is *the point*

"The Weirdest Game You've Never Played" sort of coverage is so inconspicuously cynical—a self-fulfilling prophecy predicated on a cannibalistic cultural ecosystem that nonetheless manages to retain a vaguely curatorial, artistically open-minded appeal

Ninja Gaiden (1988)

And here I thought Life is Strange: Double Exposure haters were mostly driven by immaturity and nostalgia! I mean, sure, they are, but for me it went from hilariously bad to excruciatingly terrible way too quickly. Somehow, the series meets new lows

Jameson's prose is to some other theorists' like a desperate sniff of your own wrist when you enter a place that reeks of urine

Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen #PC88 cover art scanned at 1200 DPI archive.org/details/...

Gamers do love playing house as armchair stakeholders, don't they? While barely able to articulate half an aesthetic argument, when it comes to confabulating the dumbest market analysis possible, they will rarely disappoint

It's always funny seeing the nuance warriors who believe value judgments about art invariably represent an objectivist, mercenary approximation to art commentary making endless category errors when they appeal to those same value judgments in order to sustain their definitions of TRUE art

Some important context laid out in the comments on the PMG video. Not only are western capitalists profiting from the abuse and exploitation of workers in Indonesia, but western imperialism destroyed their local labour movement and created the conditions for the abuse to persist.

with all due respect, i have been keeping track of this guy's movements in my notebook for years and i'm pretty sure he did say that

My favorite uni semester is about to end. Incidentally, it asked of me to put an unprecedented degree of creativity into it so here I am, having just finished an essay about Russian Formalism and videogames. That shit's getting adapted into a script in the future for sure

A big challenge for games history for the next 10 years will be decentering both the "Indie Darling" histories and AAA console histories, as consoles (hopefully) become less relevant and we realize conversations shouldn't be dominated by which indie or AAA game sold 5,000,000 copies

I feel like a nuanced understanding of how the material conditions of countries such as China or South Korea has historically informed the monetization practices its gaming industry depends on should not lead to a patronizing laundering of predatory F2P business models

She's in there, somewhere.

Sharing a random blog post by some Japanese guy: Glad we could get the Japanese perspective on this topic!

Remember those high school losers who bully others extra hard so as to avoid getting bullied themselves? Reminds me of the visual novel fans who insist on the difference between VNs and novels by exalting the former's "interactivity". Bro do you have any idea of how gamers talk about VNs

48 hours left to back 868-BACK! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m... it really helps me to be paid now rather than in some months time, so if you’re going to buy it anyway and can afford it now, please do!

Believing that conservatives can't make good art—what a nice thought to have. The liberal imagination works in intriguing ways

As in Tennessee, this ban does not apply to cis children, because the drugs themselves are not a safety hazard. The only thing at risk is a society’s discomfort with allowing young people to make their own decisions about their own bodies.

Gnosia anime? I don't even know what to do with that. Bless them tho

Fun fact: If someone quotes a post of yours in a way that is unwelcome (as is commonplace on Twitter/X) there is a tool to combat the unwanted attention. Simply click the three dot menu on the quote post & click "Detach quote". This removes your post from their quote post. Useful to know, do share!

It's far too common to hear from people at any level of familiarity with the medium that videogames are more active or involved compared to other art forms. Maaaan I don't even know where to start with this shit (probably Paleolithic art)

This semester I have the sort of course that could launch a thousand culture wars in the US. Like drag story hour but about marxist theory. It is pretty great and the readings are predictably unmatched

Increasingly alienated by this chauvinistic, histrionic, "this fucks"-like shift in some game critics I used to like. I can't wait for this brand of twitter sensibility to die out. Third-rate "John Romero's About To Make You His Bitch" corny ass humor

blog post - crowdfunding: 868-BACK mightyvision.blogspot.com/2024/11/crow...

Hey! I've announced my next game and I am asking for money already so I can finish making it. :) www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...

One of @headfallsoff.com's greatest truisms is that most video game stories, even many of the ~really~ good ones, are the kind of thing you'd get from a novel you'd buy in an airport.

100 Japan-exclusive PS1 gems! In 2018, I browsed the entire list of the console's releases. In 2021, I described my favorites in a twitter thread. Today, it's time to move this thread to Bluesky before deleting my twitter account.

Must read on the current state of videogame criticism breakingarrows.substack.com/p/monthly-on...

An aside, with no paywall, about something very important to us.

Let's be honest, most of the people who use the word "pedantic" are either intellectually insecure underthinkers incapable of articulating specific critiques without projecting or quirky self-deprecating appropriators who forget the disguise needs to be convincing to qualify

HELP the kids think of "ludonarrative dissonance" as "game design jargon" lmao

Sharing this piece by Ed Smith over here because it was just so real bulletpointsmonthly.com/2024/10/28/b...

Germs: Nerawareta Machi's machi is NOT a walkable city. One of the clues we get of the game taking place in the US, as well as an extravagant choice for an open-world videogame, made before those were even a thing. That is precisely what's interesting about it

hey what's up, new underreallife.neocities.org update! ♱