Acid for Blood

After I started my new job a couple of months ago, I was going to respond immediately to the bigoted, ignorant, and narrow-minded views of several people in various gaming communities. Since then I’ve been busy at work and at home, and frankly I haven’t been in much of a mood to blog, nor have […]

Phoenix Wright:

Guild Wars Monks:

These Monks won the Guild Wars costume contest. Their prize pack contained a Logitech gaming keyboard and a Logitech gaming mouse. The male Monk wore his costume in response to a dare from Gaile Gray, ArenaNet Community Relations Manager, yesterday.

One of my pet peeves of gaming culture (and I guess culture in general, since I’ve heard non-gamers use the word this way) is how gamers use the word ‘rape’. I recently read a blog post which explains that:
To some people rape is just four letters put together to make a monosyllabic sound… To others […]

One of the interesting things about the whole set of issues associated with women gamers is that women, unsurprisingly, have different views on these matters — if they choose to consider any of this as at all important. Some of them claim that there shouldn’t be a ruckus about women and gaming, but they still […]

Priceless quote from a commenter on a recent Joystiq post about Gaymer.org (emphasis mine):
I’m sick of hearing about gay gamers and female gamers. When 90% of their audience is straight men, why would any developer care about any of you? I know that trying to segregate yourselves is a lame attempt at getting a bit […]

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have recently given Old Grandma Hardcore gifts a plenty:

From Microsoft: One more year of Xbox Live Gold
From Nintendo: A DS Lite and some games
From Sony: A PSP and a lot of games

These offerings demonstrate that companies recognise Barbara St. Hilaire as a unique and influential voice in the gaming public (at […]

This month’s IGDA Culture Clash article calls for a reform of the ESRB rating system. Amongst Sakey’s reccommendations are:

Don’t hold publishers responsible for the actions of modders
Don’t re-rate games so quickly
Content descriptors should be more prominent than the ratings
Don’t separate sex and violence
Enforce the ratings
Enforce policy wisely

In other words, “demonstrate that the industry can police […]

This month, Matt Sakey writes about the role of the games academic and why scholars are important to the industry:
The fact of the matter is that contemplative navel-gazing has led to some pretty amazing advancements in a wide selection of disciplines, which is exactly why pure scholarship exists. Simple experimentation, research and study often gives […]

In his monthly article on games culture, Sakey argues that one of the problems with the games industry is partly due to games makers and the environment they create in the market. He cites the example of Psychonauts.
Gamers buy what the industry makes. If the industry suddenly started making nothing but ground-breaking games, I guarantee […]

In this month’s Culture Clash, Matthew Sakey writes a thank you letter to Jack Thompson:
If you weren’t the spearhead of the anti-video game movement, someone else would have to be. And that someone else might be charismatic, rational, well-spoken and deft with the press. Instead we got you, and you’ve done more for us than […]