Duane Kearns Puryear, holding his panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt. It reads, in block letters: "My name is Duane Kearns Puryear. I was born on December 20, 1964. I was diagnosed with AIDS on September 7, 1987 at 4:45 PM. I was 22 old. Sometimes, it makes me very sad. I made this panel myself. If you are reading it, I am dead..." There are several great resources to learn about Duane, his advocacy, his family, his panel, and the politics of memory and re-creation, especially this one by The Dallas Way: http://www.thedallasway.org/stories/written/2021/9/19/duane-puryears-and-the-quilt-panel Duane Puryear died in 1991.

It's your birthday, Duane.

Yesterday, the Epic Games Store decided at the last minute not to distribute the game, after having previously approved a release build. HORSES is otherwise now available on GOG, Itch, and Humble for $4.99. www.horses.wtf

I wrote earlier about the magic of B-games and @keefstuart.bsky.social continues that perfectly while looking at Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2.

"The game is also a reminder that flawed-but-fascinating games were once the backbone of the industry."

Go read and remember the OK-weird games

Snowy streets, glowing loot, faceless enemies, a hidden federal hand guiding you through wreckage of society. The Division feels like a game about survival, about saving the world after the collapse —but it’s also a rehearsal for something else.

#gamestudies #artzine #gamesandpolitics

I’ve been thinking a lot about the politics hidden inside the media we love. Games aren't neutral: they teach us how to think about power, violence, and community. In this critique, I explore how the game’s mechanics and narrative can quietly condition us to accept authoritarian solutions.

Snowy streets, glowing loot, faceless enemies, a hidden federal hand guiding you through wreckage of society. The Division feels like a game about survival, about saving the world after the collapse —but it’s also a rehearsal for something else.

#gamestudies #artzine #gamesandpolitics

Illustration: Small Boxes - The Silent Poetry of Unpacking

Sometimes the deepest stories live in cardboard boxes.

My latest critique explores how Unpacking becomes one of gaming’s most emotionally sophisticated narratives. No dialogue, no cutscenes, just the poetry of objects telling a life’s story

Link in bio for full critique.

#gamestudies #queergames

Critical Reflection - An artzine on video games as art

For years I've had an idea for an artzine incubating in my mind, and now that the stars are alligned, that idea is coming to fruition. The Critical Reflection artzine is for those who believe games can be poetry and that they carry meaning.

The Beautiful Disaster: Why B-games are essential to gaming as art Somewhere between the pixel-perfect polish of AAA blockbusters and the raw sincerity of indie games lies a forgotten space —the middle space. It’s where ambition meets limitation, where games dare to ...

Between AAA polish and indie grit lies the middle space — where b-games live. Too weird, too sincere, too flawed to fit the mold. Beautiful disasters that stumble toward brilliance. Not perfect, but vital. Not safe, but art.

#BGames #GamesAsArt #MiddleSpace #gamestudies

The Beautiful Disaster: Why B-games are essential to gaming as art Somewhere between the pixel-perfect polish of AAA blockbusters and the raw sincerity of indie games lies a forgotten space —the middle space. It’s where ambition meets limitation, where games dare to ...

Between AAA polish and indie grit lies the middle space — where b-games live. Too weird, too sincere, too flawed to fit the mold. Beautiful disasters that stumble toward brilliance. Not perfect, but vital. Not safe, but art.

#BGames #GamesAsArt #MiddleSpace #gamestudies

It’s disgusting. A small group of open bigots in Australia being favored over an entire medium and at least tens of thousands of people.

This is real censorship. Not the version perceived by the free speech warriors who are silent/celebratory on this. May their phone lines be swamped forever.

The dangers of censorship are real, and we can never trust these institutions to have anything but financial gain as their no. 1 priority.

We have seen the same kind of censorship from Steam itself; just look at the situation with Devotion (Red Candle Games, 2019).

Defend art, defend games!

Some Roads Only Lead Underground - Critical Reflection Games like Kentucky Route Zero and Night in the Woods map America’s emotional terrain—where debt becomes geography and folklore masks decline

“There’s a highway beneath Kentucky where debt becomes geography. A forest in Pennsylvania where communities hunt their own children to keep their dreams alive.”

New on Critical Reflection: how video games map the mythological America better than reality ever could.

#GameStudies

'A Fucking Gut Stab': Game Industry Reacts To Shocking New Studio Closures Game makers look on in horror at the latest round of Xbox cuts

Again we see that it’s the artists and creators that get the boot, instead of the people making ever-increasing amounts of money of the backs of others.

Når går barnas uskyldige spilling over til å bli et problem? For de fleste er omfattende gaming ikke veien til et bedre liv.

Virkelig? Trenger vi å ta opp problemspilling hver gang?
Ibelin er en rørende, personlig og vakker historie om en ung mann og hans alt for korte liv, om hans forhold til dataspill.

Skal vi også nevne fyll og vold i Holmenkollen hver gang noen sier noe positivt om skisport?

Far Cry 5 - Refusing its own politics - Critical Reflection Far Cry 5 gives the series a well-deserved break from tropes about the savage barbarians and the western savior. But because of the politics of Far Cry 5 it is a problematic game, that refuses to refl...

Far Cry 5 gives the series a well-deserved rest from tropes about savage barbarians and the western savior, but it is still a problematic game that refuses to reflect on the political message it sends.

#gamestudies

It Could Take 130 Hours To Really Start Starfield, Bethesda Exec Says Pete Hines says he needed to get past the main quest before Starfield ‘really [got] going’

In my opinion, his kind of statement is not the selling point they think it is. It is a statement that belongs to the intersection between capitalist jingo and gamer bro culture.

And it shows how this way of thinking has been integrated in our understanding of games

#gamestudies

Yelling is not journalism IGN just released a video called “Baldur’s Gate 3 is causing some developers to panic.” The video has gotten a lot of game developers upset, and has gotten a lot of gamers up in arms.

«Put simply, other games cannot be held to that standard because that standard is illusory.»

An important point about how to judge the merits of a game.