I’ve had a long relationship with games. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the characters in them. Of all of the space aliens I’ve banged, of all the Bioware characters I’ve courted and successfully romanced, not one of them was gay. Some were bisexual, sure. Some had gay romance options. But none of them…
Essay
Consumerism and the Endurance of Pokemon
by Patrick Anderson •
Pokemon is inescapable. Pikachu has become one of the most recognizable characters the world over, and is even speculated to be able to surpass the current king, Mickey Mouse.1 The franchise, initially starting out as an understated title on the original Game Boy, has grown to include seventeen feature films with one soon to release,…
Jim Thorpe
by Skye •
In a world where the wasting of millions of dollars on people whose main talent is hitting, throwing, catching, or “dunking” a ball into some hole or open space. Walls are polluted with posters of these athletes in their stereotypical athletic poses. Nevertheless, the tearing and throwing of these posters will happen and be replaced…
No White Flags
by Skye •
It is hard to find anything positive about American football. “Grown” men are beating and breaking each other for points. Points that have no meaning, really, accept the winning of a game. Violence wins games, violence wins the super bowl, and violence gets endorsements and money. The image of football is difficult, it is violent…
On Skill and What Skill Means
by Patrick Anderson •
We’ve been spending a lot of time discussing what games are and how to define them, but I think a conversation equally worth having is the definition of what elements constitute games. Probably the closest thing we’ve talked about to this are Callois’ classifications, but we debunked their validity in equal measure, because of their…
