It's your birthday, Duane.

Yesterday, the Epic Games Store decided at the last minute not to distribute the game, after having previously approved a release build. HORSES is otherwise now available on GOG, Itch, and Humble for $4.99. www.horses.wtf

I wrote earlier about the magic of B-games and @keefstuart.bsky.social continues that perfectly while looking at Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2.

"The game is also a reminder that flawed-but-fascinating games were once the backbone of the industry."

Go read and remember the OK-weird games

Snowy streets, glowing loot, faceless enemies, a hidden federal hand guiding you through wreckage of society. The Division feels like a game about survival, about saving the world after the collapse —but it’s also a rehearsal for something else.

#gamestudies #artzine #gamesandpolitics

Snowy streets, glowing loot, faceless enemies, a hidden federal hand guiding you through wreckage of society. The Division feels like a game about survival, about saving the world after the collapse —but it’s also a rehearsal for something else.

#gamestudies #artzine #gamesandpolitics

Sometimes the deepest stories live in cardboard boxes.

My latest critique explores how Unpacking becomes one of gaming’s most emotionally sophisticated narratives. No dialogue, no cutscenes, just the poetry of objects telling a life’s story

Link in bio for full critique.

#gamestudies #queergames

For years I've had an idea for an artzine incubating in my mind, and now that the stars are alligned, that idea is coming to fruition. The Critical Reflection artzine is for those who believe games can be poetry and that they carry meaning.

Between AAA polish and indie grit lies the middle space — where b-games live. Too weird, too sincere, too flawed to fit the mold. Beautiful disasters that stumble toward brilliance. Not perfect, but vital. Not safe, but art.

#BGames #GamesAsArt #MiddleSpace #gamestudies

Between AAA polish and indie grit lies the middle space — where b-games live. Too weird, too sincere, too flawed to fit the mold. Beautiful disasters that stumble toward brilliance. Not perfect, but vital. Not safe, but art.

#BGames #GamesAsArt #MiddleSpace #gamestudies

It’s disgusting. A small group of open bigots in Australia being favored over an entire medium and at least tens of thousands of people.

This is real censorship. Not the version perceived by the free speech warriors who are silent/celebratory on this. May their phone lines be swamped forever.

The dangers of censorship are real, and we can never trust these institutions to have anything but financial gain as their no. 1 priority.

We have seen the same kind of censorship from Steam itself; just look at the situation with Devotion (Red Candle Games, 2019).

Defend art, defend games!

“There’s a highway beneath Kentucky where debt becomes geography. A forest in Pennsylvania where communities hunt their own children to keep their dreams alive.”

New on Critical Reflection: how video games map the mythological America better than reality ever could.

#GameStudies

Again we see that it’s the artists and creators that get the boot, instead of the people making ever-increasing amounts of money of the backs of others.

Virkelig? Trenger vi å ta opp problemspilling hver gang?
Ibelin er en rørende, personlig og vakker historie om en ung mann og hans alt for korte liv, om hans forhold til dataspill.

Skal vi også nevne fyll og vold i Holmenkollen hver gang noen sier noe positivt om skisport?

Far Cry 5 gives the series a well-deserved rest from tropes about savage barbarians and the western savior, but it is still a problematic game that refuses to reflect on the political message it sends.

#gamestudies

In my opinion, his kind of statement is not the selling point they think it is. It is a statement that belongs to the intersection between capitalist jingo and gamer bro culture.

And it shows how this way of thinking has been integrated in our understanding of games

#gamestudies

«Put simply, other games cannot be held to that standard because that standard is illusory.»

An important point about how to judge the merits of a game.