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What I’ve Been Playing: Lost Pig & Cabinet Noir
This past week, in my “Critical Analysis of Video Games” class, my students and I played Adventure and discussed the game and interactive fiction more generally. Most of my students admitted finding Adventure a frustrating game, and one summed up the problem as “Guess the Verb.”… Read the rest
Modes that are more realistic than Girlfriend Mode
There has been a lot of discussion about John Hemingway’s flippant use of the phrase “Girlfriend Mode” to describe a beginner-type mode available in Borderlands 2. In particular, David Wildgoose’s piece “‘Girlfriend Mode’ and the Definition of Sexism” is worth a read, and I’m very fond of “Girlfriend Mode vs.… Read the rest
Going Cardboard: Documentary
I was fortunate enough to get to see Going Cardboard, a board game documentary by first-time director Lorien Green. The documentary features interviews with board gamers, including collectors and critics, as well as both well established and aspiring game designers.… Read the rest
THATCamp Games postmortem
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend THATCamp Games. The “unconference” is one of a number of THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp) events held throughout the year.… Read the rest
The Simple Genius of the Gamer Girl Manifesto
I saw “The Gamer Girl Manifesto” (embedded above) by Sexy Nerd Girl Presents thanks to Geekquality. The brief video features a number of young women gamers who identify themselves by their on-screen identities (which range from notable characters like Mario to the more subtly constructed identities from games like World of Warcraft) and by the game systems they use.… Read the rest
I Said Diamonds: the Aubrey Plaza WoW Spot
The first time I saw the TV ad above, which features Aubrey Plaza (best known for playing April Ludgate on “Parks and Recreation”) explaining in her trademark deadpan how she became a World of Warcraft player, I was rather charmed.… Read the rest
Women Gamers as Social Animals in the GameHouse Survey
By now, you have probably seen some of the data from the GameHouse infographic above [source]. Collected by Harris Interactive for GameHouse, the data includes a few particularly sexy statistics.… Read the rest
This Week in Feminism and Gaming: Tits, Chicks, and Casual Sexism
This week saw the publication of two sharp pieces on the casual sexism of much of video gaming culture. At Kotaku, LaToya Peterson responds to comments a Comic Con panel titled “East Meets West, Art Direction for a Worldwide Audience” in “The Tits Have It: Sexism, Character Design, and the Role of Women in Created Worlds.… Read the rest
U.S. Classic Arcades Map
View U.S. Classic Arcades in a larger map
I’ve begun maintaining a map of places to play classic arcade games in the United States. All of these locations have more than 10 vintage video games, with a focus on the period from 1972 to about 1987.… Read the rest
Who Loves Their Gamer
I was scrolling through the catalog over at J!NX the other day when I came across this shirt:
If you can’t quite see it, it is a lavender women’s t-shirt that reads “I love my gamer” with a red pixelated heart standing in for the word “love.”… Read the rest
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