"So what happened when you removed collision detection?" "Players started looking for other ways to get more feedback. Helping each other yielded the most feedback so they began to do that instead. It was fascinating." A lovely interview - and great piece of writing fro Simon - with Jenova Chen. The parts on how players regress is particularly interesting, as is Chen's ambition to be _different_ rather than just 'artistic'. I particularly enjoyed the anecdote about collision detection, hence quoting it.

"Kareem, after the game, remarked that he would pay to see Doctor J make that play against someone else. Kareem's remark clouds the issue, however, because the play was as much his as it was Erving's, since it was Kareem's perfect defense that made Erving's instantaneous, pluperfect response to it both necessary and possible—thus the joy, because everyone behaved perfectly, eloquently, with mutual respect, and something magic happened—thus the joy, at the triumph of civil society in an act that was clearly the product of talent and will accommodating itself to liberating rules." This is phenomenal writing.

Mike Darga's blog is a smart, insightful, data-driven look at game design, especially for MMOs. It's very good, and goes straight into my subscriptions.

Tom Francis posits an alternate ending to Bioshock, that makes sense of the Vita-Chambers switcheroo, gives the player the agency they've craved, fixes some of the issues with the original ending, and asks you kindly to DROP THE GODDAMN RADIO.

"I hate the deep breath I have to take before asking if anyone remembers Jumping Flash or Rescue On Fractalus. I hate being the geeky bore who’s more interested in talking about games from twenty years ago than about BioShock 2 or GTA 5. But even more I hate the waste of modern game development, of watching talented teams burn time and energy reinventing wheels previously perfected by men now in their 60s."

"...it turns out that a GBA and a cart isn’t any more use than a GBA on its own. It’s only when you build a machine out of a GBA and a cart and a me that you’ve got a real Rhythm Tengoku Machine. Bolt those three components together and you’ve built an entirely new organism, an extraordinary creature who can shoot ghosts, dance with monkeys, and climb stars like staircases."

"We spend a lot of time talking about games and films, but a much more useful corollary is music. The processes are spookily similar. Creators devise an experience, and commit it to code. The code then sits there, lifeless, until a performer picks it up. Then, through a complex tool which requires substantial manual dexterity to master, the performer interprets the experience the creator devised. No two people will play the code the same way. Some players will perform better than others. Some will get stuck and give up before the end."

"My crystal ball tells me you will hear music - great classic rock tunes - and you will believe, truly believe, that you are playing that music on your toy guitar. And you will feel, truly feel, that you are cool. A hero of the guitar." Lovely.

"But in a game - or, at any rate, in the kind of game you used to get for Christmas - you’re literally the only person in the universe, and literally the only person with the power to fix things. No-one’s going to come and help, no-one’s going to come and tell you off or second-guess your choices: there’s just you and a world that will stay broken unless you fix it. What’s in the box isn’t a frog power fantasy - it’s a vibrant, momentary taster of the glorious pressure of being a grown-up." Margaret, being brilliant (again) on games, Christmas, childhood, and what it means to be meaningfully alone.

"I am a terrible gaming evangelist. Every time I think I’m onto something my mind’s invaded by Marcus Fenix and his sweaty, homoerotic pecs, by Cloud and his implausible sword and cod-philosophy and, most poignantly, by me, in my pajamas aged nine playing Tetris on the toilet and by me, in my pajamas aged twenty-nine, playing Tetris on the toilet." And Simon powers straight into /my/ favourite games writing of 2008. Bravo.

"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.

"And if all videogames could ever aspire to was being big, dumb, blockbusting escapism, does that even matter? Hasn’t every generation that ever lived created make-believe worlds to climb into and take refuge? I don’t know. I don’t know. I just wish we’d asked each other the questions a bit more fifty years ago." Too many quotations to choose from in this; wonderful writing from Simon Parkin.

"...Nintendo understands that while play does involve competition, territoriality and rehearsal for war, it also involves silliness, laughter and fun." Oh, god, can I just marry Stephen Fry now? Oh, there's a queue. Never mind.

"I think, in these fleshed out circumstances, an RPG could be the most remarkable place for getting to grips with matters like abortion and euthanasia. I think _because_ they’re the sorts of subjects it’s completely pointless to talk about in the pub, because it inevitably descends into people entrenching themselves in their currently held position and then hurling stones at the other side, that the RPG would be a space in which the emphasis of thought and consideration would be squarely on you." John Walker on the problem with BioWare's attitude to morality, and some potential solutions.

"...arguments of this exact form have been raised against nearly every distinctly modern art form." Barber's book sounds interesting, if flawed. Pliskin's criticism is, as ever, good. It's getting exhausting linking to him.

Junot Diaz on GTAIV in the Wall Street Journal. Excellent writing, on the nature of good vs. great and great vs. seminal; on what art does to us; on how it needs to go farther. Smart, engaged, written by someone who gets culture and who *plays*.

"“It’s only a game” is a phrase that agrees with all of those who ever looked down their noses at the medium... who want to promote the kind of prejudice that will keep games from ever achieving widespread respect for everything they are."

...and this is why games are great.

"What that means, though, is that when you’re looking at game writing in that way, you’re trying to fix a busted carburetor with an oil gauge and a cheese grater." Some sensible analysis; such a shame we need to write things like this.

"It's not quite a game, and while it does have branching, it doesn't allow the reader to affect the outcome of story - only their own experience of it." Adrian Hon on writing something better than Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. Some lovely visible thinking.

"This is an important game - ... important because it is so ambitious, so detailed, so confident in its originality and inventiveness. It would sort of be an act of cultural irresponsibility not to play it."

Some great points here, especially 1, 2, and 3, which apply equally to many forms of design.

Wow. This looks great. Add to cart...

"The inclusion of Fire and the Flames in Guitar Hero 3 always struck me as something of a cruel joke." A lovely tale of Guitar Heroism.

Rex Sorgatz on his essay in Wired, where he suggests that "gaming has become the prevailing narrative of our time."