News & Views
5/2/15-5/8/15
What a big
week for both games and The Impact Factor! I teased a little something in my last
News & Views, and it has come to fruition much faster than I expected!
In case any of you didn’t see it, check out my announcement
post. To summarize though, I started a video game podcast as an extension
of this blog with my best friend and fellow scientist Charles Fliss @thecfliss. I really hope you all like
it! We welcome any and all critical feedback—send any thoughts, suggestions,
and news articles to the podcast’s email: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com.
Now, onto this week’s News & Views!
I found a
bunch of great articles for you all to read through this week. On the editorial
side, I’ve got some great pieces discussing why Silent Hill mattered (especially in light with P.T.’s complete removal from the PSN), the Oregon Trail generation, and the inventor of the ‘Let’s Play’. On
other fronts, I found a superfan that turned The Last of Us into a TV series, what it is like to crunch on a
video game, and more. I hope you all stick with me through the experiment that
is The Impact Factor: the blog, and the podcast. See you all very soon.
Special Spotlight
Alex Samocha and
Charles Fliss
Worth Reading
Leigh
Alexander, Offworld
Frank
Lantz, Game Design Advance
Chris
Kohler, Wired
Anna
Garvey, Social Media Week
Gabriel
Cornish, Gamasutra
Michael
Peck, Politico
And the rest!
Soha
Kareen, Motherboard
The term ‘indie game’ gets thrown
around a lot these days. It started by describing smaller, not-well-known
titles that were published independently. But now, it covers such a huge swath
of the games that are released. Huge
titles like No
Man’s Sky or Shovel Knight? Indie. Perhaps we need a new term to
discover these hidden gems, these games that aren’t talked about or shown at
conferences. The video games ecosystem is getting increasingly interesting.
Emily G,
Femhype
Ugh. There are a lot of parts of the
‘gamer’ community at large that I don’t like. This is certainly one of them.
Sexism runs rampant on YouTube comments, Twitch chat, and even the ‘Let’s Players’
themselves. We always need to work towards games being a safer, more inclusive,
place.
Nathan
Ingraham, The Verge
The Last of
Us is such a phenomenal game, and my
second favorite of all time. I always wish more people could enjoy the game’s
story and characters. Standing in the way of this, for many, is the game’s
punishing survival-horror difficulty. I have recent first hand experience with
this. One of my non-gamer friends played through it these past three weeks, but
got stuck in so many places because the game is tough. This TV series gives people the option to skip those
“frustrations” and get right to the game’s great writing. Worth checking out.
Patrick
Klepek, Kotaku
Klepek does a great deep dive into
the origin of the ‘Let’s Play,’ tracing it back to a person and site of which I
had no idea. It’s fascinating to see where this huge trend in gaming content
comes from, and how it has evolved over time.
Patrick
Lee, A.V. Club
I’m sure I sound like a broken
record at this point, but I love Telltale and I love their take on The Walking Dead. The
decisions you have to make throughout the grueling, personal experience weigh
on you heavily. Tragedy defines so much of what the characters experience, and
make for such a powerful gaming experience.
Jason
Schreier, Kotaku
This article sound familiar? Fliss
and I talked about it on The Impact Factor (podcast)! Schreier takes a
stunningly honest blog post from Couville about the mental, and physical, costs
of game development. Framing it as how we as games writers talk about games is
a refreshing and much needed conversation.
Ben
Kuchera, Polygon
This Kuchera piece kind of goes hand
in hand with the above article. His exploration into what it means to hate a
game, and if anyone can ever truly hate
a game, is fantastic. There are so many factors gamers do not consider when
they write online that they hate a game, or developer.
John
Szczepaniak, Gamasutra
The past month has been a confusing
and sad time for Konami. With Hideo Kojima leaving (the man behind Metal Gear Solid) and P.T. being totally
removed from the PlayStation Network, it seems to be all bad news. Szczenpaniak
goes off the beaten path, and gives a fascinating look into an alternate
dimension: one in which Konami had a games console.
Chris
Priestman, KillScreen
Priestman profiles an artist that
has an unusual, and evolving, take on the synthesis of art of video games. Castaneda
has subverted the flow of game development: taking finished levels and turning
them into unique concept art. He is now working towards completing the circle,
bringing his abstractions into a video game reality of his own.
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