Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
When Hotline Miami came out in 2012, I cut it a lot of slack—maybe too much slack. Spec Ops: The Line and Far Cry 3 came out that same year, both capitalizing on a similar theme: a hyper-violent game that took the protagonist (and, by extension, the player) to task for enjoying themselves a bit…
Leigh Alexander, the Gamasutra editor-at-large whose editorial opposing the online gamer movement Gamergate prompted a months-long imbroglio with Intel, is leaving Gamasutra to found a new site with BoingBoing called Offworld. Alexander’s essay, published in August 2014, urged game developers to stop catering to the culture of sexist fans who had harassed and threatened the…
Last week, I’ve had five bowls of chai. I hid on the top floor of the mall in downtown San Francisco, under the dome, which is apparently historic for something I’ve never figured out, except that I could get the best wifi and privacy while in the busiest part of the city. At the cafe…
It was October 2, 2000, and somewhere in the sub-basement of CNET’s popular website Gamecenter, two editors simultaneously inserted their keys into the doomsday machine. They looked at each other, a mix of pain and grim determination on their faces. One nodded. They turned their keys and pressed the glowing red button. It was done….
After the initial cast of Overwatch was revealed, some folks lamented that the female characters in the team-based shooter were all svelte—including feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian. Today, Blizzard revealed two new characters, and one of them is a direct response to those types of criticisms. Meet Zarya. According to Blizzard, she is a Russian soldier…
Why would anyone want to kill Brianna Wu? At Arisia, of all places. It’s a fantasy and science-fiction convention, a festival of make-believe. The crowd inside the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel on this snowy Saturday in January is costumed, countercultural, and wildly diverse–androgynous couples in matching outfits, playful warriors packing “safe-bonded” heat (the barrels are plugged),…
Last year, Unreal Engine 4 switched to a $19/month subscription plan. It was the first in a couple of attempts to coax indie developers away from Unity—and CryEngine announced their own low cost subscription soon after. This year, Epic is going a step further. The studio has just announced that Unreal Engine 4 is available for free, along…
Playing through Homeworld again after all these years is weird. Games are forever changing. Usually, they’re advancing. They progress not just in terms of visuals, but design. Shooters, for example, change the way you take cover and recover damage, while stealth games have developed smoother controls and give the player a greater awareness of what’s…
In honour of Homeworld Remastered’s release — and the game’s enduring style — artist Matt Frith put together this homage to Homeworld 2. Suddenly, I want to play a 2D Homeworld, real bad. Kotaku.
A video appeared recently that that reawakened fears about Gamergate. It caused game developer Brianna Wu to file a restraining order against the man in the video. It was also a factor in her reasoning to pull her company, Giant Spacekat, out of gaming festival PAX East, fearing for her employees’ safety. It scared Wu, it scared other female developers…