"The tragedy of Nico Belic is that, narratologically and in terms of the game mechanic, he can never stop using people as a means rather than an end."

"Instead of aiming to elevate the medium by making games that are more socially responsible  – which by my estimation reduces quickly down to a feature driven approach that ultimately offers little more than cheap didactic moralizing, our aim should be instead to empower our creative visionaries to explore the human condition through their work." In a nutshell: rather than explicitly trying to make 'worthy' games, why not just let people make games about, you know, the human condition - ie, what every other artform does - than just about shooting dudes? (Disclaimer: sometimes, shooting dudes is fun. But I like Clint.)

"Psychologists know that torture causes, among other horrid things, lasting mental-health problems. But 24's frantically violent fairy tales are typical of what passes for mass-cultural debate about torture. We're not encouraged to think about what happens next, so we don't. It is a massive failure of the public imagination. Which is why we need more torture in videogames." Clive Thompson responds to Richard Bartle's issues with that WoW quest, and he makes some sensible points, although I still have some issues with the Blizzard implementation.

"On this definition, obediently following a game’s narrative or challenge-reward structure is nothing but work. Only when the player does something that isn’t mandated by the system can she be said to be playing." Some good writing from Steven Poole on games and chores.

"This week’s 1UP FM is a fascinating round table/interview with Jonathan Blow, David Hellman, Rod Humble, and Sean Elliott and Nick Suttner from 1UP... If you’re at all interested in Braid, experimental game design, or the ethics of games you should go listen now." In the meantime, Ben Zeigler has provided some excellent annotation for us all.

Disney are shutting down VMK despite its continued success and large userbase; as a "promotion", it's run its course. Some of the comments are very affecting. Lessons to be learned about the implicit contracts you create when you build worlds.