"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.

"Videogames are systems, not themes, but dress a system in the right theme and you can catch the attention of someone who would not otherwise be interested. So it is for my father, who, in these awkwardly rendered moments, catches a glimpse of what I'd been seeing my entire childhood." Lovely, lovely piece of writing from Simon.

"But in truth you don’t get to choose the games that make you. Rather, these are the ones that time and circumstance pair you with. You don’t get to pick your DNA." I think Simon's short fragment was my favourite by a mile of the RPS "Gaming Made Me" features.

"Unknown games are always the best ones... They are always stronger, funnier, cleverer and better-executed than their realities and so that walk home from the store, when the game is tangible in your hands but still imagined in your mind, is oftentimes the most potent moment in the videogame experience." A lovely piece from Simon on what the end of a certain kind of retail experience will really mean.

"...while almost all of the game’s residents are free to go as they please, heading off to new towns and lives on a whim, once you step off the bus and choose a house in which to settle, you’re here for good.... you are the local constant, the hick who’s never left its borders and there is some comfort in the knowledge that the places the other animals leave for can never be known by you." Simon's original version of his Wii Animal Crossing review; some lovely analysis of the series to date.

"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.

"Still, it’s 110 days (or 2,663.18 hours) that I’m sort of responsible for taking from a girl’s life. Phileas Fog circumnavigated the globe in less time than that." A lovely piece of writing from Simon Parkin, tracking down a digital life he sold long ago.

...and this is why games are great.