News
& Views
6/27/15-7/3/15
Darn. Vacations always go by way too fast. I am pretty such I could be a
beach bum for another couple weeks, easily. Ah, well. As promised, The Impact
Factor never takes a break! I’m back here as always with your weekly dose of
video game news & views! Check out below for great pieces about Japan’s
culture of fear, what games can learn from kid’s books, how to deal with a
highly toxic online community, and why everyone should stop writing rape
scenes.
One quick note, for all of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, my
vacation will delay the podcast. But only slightly. Instead of Friday
(its usual release day) the episode will be up on Sunday! Keep an eye out on my twitter (@alexsamocha) and the
places it gets posted each week: SoundCloud, iTunes, and YouTube!
Spotlight
Peter Brown, Gamespot
Worth
Reading
Keith Burgun, Polygon
Sidney Fussell, Offworld
Anna Anthropy, Offworld
Alex Hern, The Guardian
Philpp Zupke, Gamasutra
And the
rest!
Laura Hudson, Wired
Hudson’s
piece about rape is fantastic. Stop including rape scenes. Please. They’re
problematic through and through and, as Hudson brilliantly argues, are lazy
writing to boot.
David Scammell, Videogamer
It’s sad
that this is good news, but good news it is. Battlefield 4 launched with catastrophic problems,
functionally broken for a huge percentage of the playerbase. With such a tight
deadline for Battlefront’s release
(one would assume it needs to be out before the movie in December), it’s good
to know EA (at least in word) isn’t going to release a broken game. We’ll just
have to wait and see if they deliver on their promises.
Patrick Klepek, Kotaku
At first,
I didn’t think I could be all that excited for Dark
Souls 3. It marks the third Souls game in as many years. Well, I guess I was
wrong. Klepek goes through what he thinks we can expect from the story/world in
this ‘final’ installment. Now, I’m back on the hype train. Thanks a lot,
Patrick Klepek!
Maddy Myers, Paste
I’ve moved away from more traditional online multiplayer games recently,
but I can remember how toxic and verbally abusive online competitive
communities can be. It’s not fun. I am so glad games like Hearthstone don’t allow any player-to-player
communication. Heroes of the Storm allows
one-click muting. I stand by Nintendo not implementing voice chat in Splatoon.
Jamie Madigan, Psychology of
Games
What great idea of a website and podcast. Give this episode, Toxic
Behavior, a listen. Madigan talks to a community manage for League of
Legends, a game known to have one of the
most toxic communities out there.
Chris Morris, Fortune
It’s good to see Nintendo finally talk about the Wii U’s failure. After
E3 2015 especially, it’s as clear as ever that the console is dead in the
water. Miyamoto shares his insights on why he thinks the console did so poorly.
I think he’s right, but there are so many other reasons why the console bombed.
No big first party games, too high price point and, in my opinion, a confusing
and terrible name.
Jamie Madigan, Gamasutra
This is something I’ve been wondering for quite a while. I really
enjoyed my time with the Mass Effect series. Mass Effect 2 was
phenomenal. Mass Effect 3 was a great
game too, ending aside. In some sense I ‘get it’: the whole franchise had been
building up to this climax and, in a series where player choices are supposed
to have such a substantial impact, discovering the sum of your actions came
down to one of three bizarre choices was a bummer. Still. There’s a lot to love
about Mass Effect and I’m tentatively
excited for the new one.
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