This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Kris Ligman on topics including the market for art games and how to write an objective review. SYSTEMS ALL THE WAY DOWN With the recent court decision ruling that virtual human likenesses aren’t covered under free speech, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has an interesting critique of how the ruling differs from rights afforded to non-interactive media. Meanwhile, Ian Bogost voices the frustration of his fellow Facebook Platform developers in his usual straight-forward fashion:
The Facebook Platform is a shape-shifting, chimeric shadow of suffering and despair, a cruel joke perpetrated upon honest men and women at the brutish whim of bloodthirsty sociopaths sick with bilious greed and absent mercy or decency. Developing for the Facebook Platform is picking out the wallpaper for one's own death row holding cell, the cleaver for one's own blood sacrifice.
CONFOUND THESE INDIES Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander goes out on a limb to present Jason Rohrer in his own words concerning his recently controversial game, The Castle Doctrine. On Edge, Craig Owens provides us with look inside Experiment 12, a game created by 12 independent developers. BUY MY ART Liz Ryerson has a few notes on Corrypt developer Michael Brough's oeuvre and how market saturation is crowding out unique titles. Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman offers up a semi-response to Ryerson, on putting together a personal game design spectrum between 'craft' and 'art.' Raph Koster, meanwhile, puts the discussion thusly:
You can choose an art style that is broadly accessible, or not. You can have training in your new mechanics, or not. You can expect to make money at your art, or not. You can see your art as a business, or not. You can regard player needs as paramount, or not. You can require absolute adherence to your own artistic vision, or not. You can embrace the sordid need for marketing, or not. You can select a populist price point, or not. You can wish for many to embrace your work, or not.
HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE Edge has been outdoing itself with smart retrospectives as of late. Here are two of particular note: the making of Richard Hofmeier's Cart Life and the making of Squaresoft's Final Fantasy VI. DEEP READS On Metopal, Nathan Altice shores up an analysis of Yars' Revenge as a sports game. Meanwhile at Madness and Play, a recently started blog dedicated to depictions of mental illness in media, we have this critique of two L.A. Noire threads involving mental illness. On Kotaku, guest contributor Paul Wallace suggests that games are a way of enacting myths -- an article I link largely to contrast it with this one by Suriel Vazquez on Unwinnable, on the cult-like nature of videogame power fantasies. On Game Church, Mark Filipowich has a look into the complexities of Final Fantasy Tactics's monotheism. On Haptic Feedback, Austin Howe continues his analysis of the Metal Gear franchise and directs his gaze particularly towards the franchise's damselization of Meryl and Emma. Corey Milne approaches BioShock Infinite as an Irishman and a historian, questioning the game's rather nuance-free portrayals of ethnic minorities -- including the Irish. On Ontological Geek, Aaron Gotzon praises the actually quite nuanced portrayal of weight issues through the character of Ellie in Borderlands 2. And, topically, First Person Scholar's Jason Hawreliak contends we need a middle ground with the best of both academic publishing and the blogging world. YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD Magic Hour Cityscape reminds players that "parody" and "homage" are not blanket defenses:
A lot of the recent indie games that invoke the trope also invoke retro games either aesthetically or in gameplay. Castle Crashers, Dragon’s Crown, Spelunky, Braid, Double Dragon Neon, and so on. That they use a retro plot in addition to gameplay or aesthetic aspects is maybe a perceived factor of 'authenticity'. However! That’s not a great excuse for re-instating something that was taken for granted in the past, when it is more openly recognised as sexist now. It’s not something you see in other works adapted from the past. For example, there is a lot of media ba
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