rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

Relevant to this thread?
http://storybundle.com/

Dreamcast Worlds by Zoya Street
Kill Screen Issue 1 by Kill Screen Magazine
Blue Wizard Is About To Die by Seth Barkan
Kill Screen Issue 7 by Kill Screen Magazine
The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures by Kurt Kalata
Vaporware by Richard Dansky
Rise of the Videogame Zinesters by Anna Anthropy
A Slow Year by Ian Bogost
Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan

in it for the Kalata and Anthropy books, interested in the playable Bogost Atari 2600 "games" too

indie developer sells 177 copies of their game, asks why
http://www.seaven-studio.com/indies-going-all-in-with-self-publishing-an-ethan-meteor-hunter-post-mortem/

omg i need to stop posting about these bundles and then forgetting to buy them :(

pm me if you want me to send them over, there's no drm and I wouldn't have picked them up without your tip off so I reckon sharing them is pretty much justified.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/2/5264192/dayz-early-access-lessons
Good article. Though I have absolutely zero interest in spending time with this game, I like to know what's appealing about it.

its been the top seller on Steam for almost the whole of the winter sale despite never having a discount. it's the sort of game i'd rather read about than play (see also: Eve Online)

looks like open world mmorpg demons souls

i can't wait for it to come to mac

Ayo, what's a good place to pitch longform pieces on games to? I have a few years worth of writing experience but have never written 'properly' about games before? It'd be based on this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BdTufijCQAAiKz_.jpg:large

Hell, is there a thread in this topic?

sounds like something maybe for game studies, or a relevant gaming conference CFP - i can't see a mainstream video game review magazine being particularly interested in lacan

gamestudies.org

Nice one Mordy, thanks - checking out game studies now.

http://mccaine.org/2013/10/09/dwarf-fortress-a-marxist-analysis/
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/empire-down/

thought this was interesting, guy made a minigame diary using Warioware DIY for the DS
http://tinycartridge.com/post/72792526317/my-warioware-life-four-years-of-video-game
original blog http://microcartridge.tumblr.com/

http://www.dromble.com/2014/01/07/dolphin-tale-story-of-gamecube/

emily short on the failings of gone home:
http://emshort.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/reading-and-hypothesis/

Not quite videogames-related, but Michael Lewis' book The New, New Thing, which that Gamecube article takes a lot from, is well worth reading for an insight into the madness of the dotcom boom days and also one mega-rich obsessive's quest to build a fully computer-controlled luxury yacht.

really belongs on the rolling thread of stuff worth reading on boardgames thread:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/in-the-world-of-role-playing-war-games-volko-ruhnke-has-become-a-hero/2014/01/10/a56ac8d6-48be-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/tecmo-super-bowl/

Has nightmaremode.net disappeared for good? They hadn't updated for weeks and the page is 404ing now.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3025201/most-creative-people/dayz-a-murder-simulator-psychology-study-and-zombie-game-tests-your-emo

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/01/robot_odyssey_the_hardest_computer_game_of_all_time.html

mordy i saw that, and i started playing 'gate' (the more recent one inspired by robot odyssey—which when i looked at it at first, cold, was just incomprehensible and cryptic). it's super engrossing! (i never play games anymore either, so it's weird to just become engrossed in something like that.) i programmed from when i was an adolescent all up through college, have a math degree, studied lots of logic, etc., but never learned about circuits, so just that extra twist is super goading—like, i understand all the right things, but not the language, not the way of organizing things, so the puzzles are all the more challenging. and suddenly i'm feeling the cruftiness of engineering, or of some of the worst code i ever wrote—solving levels in 'gate' with whatever works rather than with the kind of overview of what makes a solution a correct one that i learned from all the years of writing proofs, etc.

: )

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/187601/untold_riches_the_intricate_.php

Jeff Walker (VP of sales and marketing, Capcom USA):

Every meeting we had, the kid would do something bizarre. He'd get really wasted ... He's the kind of guy who would like run up behind you and try to pull your pants down when we were in Japan. Just a nut 24 hours a day.

AkiranishitaniAkira Nishitani (Planner, Capcom Japan):

We often would work really hard, all through the night and into the morning, so during the daytime I would sometimes doze off. One time I fell asleep in a meeting, and Mr. Okamoto turned off all the lights, changed the clock to say 3 a.m. and made everybody leave the room, so when I woke up I felt like, "Oh shit, I slept until 3 a.m."

http://www.polygon.com/a/street-fighter-2-oral-history

Some fans have pointed out that Ken's theme sounds similar to the Cheap Trick song "Mighty Wings" from Top Gun. "I have heard people say that," says Yoko Shimomura. "And I watched the movie before I composed the song, so I can't deny I may have been inspired subconsciously. But I didn't go into it thinking, 'OK I'm gonna make this song sound like Mighty Wings.'"

http://sealedabstract.com/iphone/how-in-app-purchase-is-not-really-destroying-the-games-industry/

ah, sanity

uhh that guy's stupid and so is the thing he wrote

Arcade games use microtransactions I guess but they also let you keep playing based on your merit. Most good arcade games are hard enough to keep you putting quarters in but can still be beaten on one quarter. Freemium games have nothing to do with this model. They're not designed to be beaten, only expanded. Do you want more skins? Deluxe items? Do you want to try non-trial levels? Do you want to unlock the ability to have a high score? In an arcade game you can play the game for a quarter and have a complete gaming experience, without commercials or artificial delays or barriers.

putting a quarter in a game to play it isnt the same as in-app purchases because you were still just paying to play the game, not paying extra to play a cooler Turbo Laser Mach 5 edition

that article was horrible

I don't know, games like Final Fight and TMNT and all those sidescrollers all suffer from bosses that take absurd amounts of damage just so you have to keep putting in quarters. It wasn't always based on merit.

It would be cool if arcade games gave you the first life free, but that's pretty impossible to do, at least with 80s technology.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72805000/jpg/_72805763_dkeeper.jpg

man that pile of green stuff for 70 foreign currency dollars looks GREAT

it IS the Best Value

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10956-Dungeon-Keeper-Mobile-Review-Wallet-Reaper

Ouch.

such a shame. i remember dk1 very very fondly

Always was curious about it, maybe put off a bit by the cover art. Worth tracking down?

Yes on gog atm

definitely one of those oldies i always meant to get around to. i think my PC couldn't run it in the late 90s

Ha, never realized it was Molyneux! That is tempting. Wonder if the ad copy is a subtle joke at his expense: That's right--Dungeon Keeper, Bullfrog's classic dungeon management strategy, gives you no extra credit for having any morals. After all, the underworld isn't black and white!

ugh though, every time i go to gog i'm tempted to spend like $50 pointlessly on games that just catch my eye and look pretty, e.g. "Banner Saga" which I've never heard of, or random shit that won game of the year like fifteen years ago but i never played but it's still $10 and ehh, i could spend that on so many other things...

haha i know what you mean. at least know everything will eventually go on sale at GOG or Steam during a holiday. that said, if they ever ported Planescape Torment to Mac i'd buy it again in a heartbeat

I think dk was out before b&w

It was - I'm assuming here for the sake of my own mild amusement that the ad copy is GOG's.

probably, they like doing that kind of stuff

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/02/gamings-long-con.html

Surprised he didn't mention the fuss about the sub 2 hours runtime that the next MGS has