If you play a videogame and you avoided or never met a particular queer character, did they exist in the game for you?
Tag: Videogames
The Healing Power of Virtual Cuteness
Violence underlies the whimsical colonizing of an island in “Animal Crossing.” But perhaps it holds promise for political repair, too.
Like a Viking
According to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Vikings aren’t like the stereotypes you’ve heard. Nonetheless, the game lets you play as those stereotypes. Why?
Why Play at Orientalism?
Games like Crusader Kings III build feudalism into their code, and in so doing assert the supremacy of the modern global North.
Why Play to Regret?
Videogames that demand female protagonists commit—and receive—violence may be captivating, thoughtful, and moral. But they are not fun to play.
“Echo” and the Problem of Chess Problems
When looking at both art and life, we recognize patterns and then we learn what those patterns signify.
Public Picks 2020
Each year around this time we send our readers into summer with a thoughtfully curated list of the titles appearing over the past 12 months that dazzled, moved, and challenged us most.
Public Thinker: Ian Bogost on Games, Doorknobs, and General Readers
Particularly with the advent of the handheld device, digital games now seem a ubiquitous part of our culture ...
Quit Playing Games with My Heart
Robert first catches my eye from across the coffee shop. New to the neighborhood, I’m looking for a friendly face. But Robert—glaring back at me from over his mug ...
Public Thinker: T. L. Taylor on Gamergate, Live-Streaming, and Esports
The qualitative sociologist T. L. Taylor is a professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and cofounder and director of research for AnyKey, an organization dedicated to ...
A Ouija for the Apocalypse
It is no easy feat to establish a cult and herald the apocalypse. I learned this firsthand while playing the card-based videogame Cultist Simulator, set in ...
The End?
The apocalypse—for all the questions of when and where and why and how surrounding it—will actually be a rather straightforward affair. At some point in time, after a particularly grueling winter ...
Games for a Fallen World
Last year, Nintendo released its latest gaming console, a nimble and versatile product appropriately named the Switch, which transforms from transportable LCD tablet to a standard controller with a simple click. Released alongside the ...
Ghost in the System
It’s fitting that a videogame about novels and their authorship manages to marry two media long thought to be polar opposites. Aaron Reed and Jacob Garbe’s The Ice-Bound Concordance, available for ...