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Machismo and the Marketing Masculinizing of the Video Game Hobby

NOTE: I would like to preface this essay with a few things. I'm a cishet white guy which will color my observations, though I am trying to be observant of something I consider to be unnerving about the medium I love. I would also like to make clear that this is a U.S. centered analysis since that's the marketing I saw. I am not an expert but hopefully for anyone who reads this this essay can act as a piece of the puzzle on how the marketing and culture of video games became what it is.

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The Term Collectathon is Terrible

Let's talk about something light. Something that is entirely within my own wheelhouse of video game inside baseball. Have you heard the term "collectathon"? If you care about old 3D platformers you will and what better place to get up on a soapbox and just say, please stop using this term.

Okay that's contextless. What's a collectathon? Honestly it's kind of hard to say. Many kinds of 3D platformers have been tarred with this brush. To the best of my knowledge it would be "any platformi...

VR is the Wii for Self Described Gamers

Were you paying attention to the video game enthusiast press when the Wii launched? It's an odd time to go back to. There's some mild excitement based on overestimating the technology but the second the thing actually launched there was an immediate cry of, and this is almost a direct quote from a mainstream game podcast, "if that's the future of gaming than I'm out." The reaction when it became a success was immediate and viscerally defensive. It helped reinforce roots that had been planted ...

Press Turn and Encouraging a Gameplay Loop

System design isn't something done in a vacuum, the way a system functions usually involves building around what will encourage the game to be played in a way that fits what the developer wants, or at least that's the hope. The Shin Megami Tensei series and its Press Turn combat system are a reasonable illustration of this point. The contrast between how the series combat and progression was designed before and after them can help elucidate how the way the interlocking systems work helps to t...

The Insomniac Platformer Level Design Paradigm from 1999 to 2016

I want to talk about one of the first forms of consistent design I ever noticed growing up. Probably about 2003? That'd be when Ratchet and Clank 2 came out (Going Commando in the U.S. may have been changed to Locked and Loaded in Europe unless my recall is faulty). While Insomniac's games had never been my favorites they were solid polished games that I'd play every year as they came out. By this point though I began to notice a pattern, the level structure was templated enough that as a chi...

Design Trends and Dead Ends: Melee Combat with the Analog Stick

The early 00s standardized the idea of having two analog sticks on a console controller, with the Dual Shock such an anomaly in the late 90s almost nothing used the right stick. The industry ultimately standardized that the right stick was really best saved for camera movement but there are definitely some evolutionary dead ends. Notable in the mid 00s was the attempt to make the right analog stick the method of directing melee attacks. I want to reminisce about this weird evolutionary dead e...

Oddworld, a political appreciation

I want to talk a bit about a franchise that's near and dear to me. A daring little series that really went against the grain some 20 years ago and which, whenever it does release, is still respectable for wearing its heart on its sleeve. So let's talk Oddworld.

For those who never played it (and thankfully that is still rectifiable unlike many games of its era) Oddworld is a series of games that started in 1997. Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee was a puzzle platformer, sort of what you'd get if ...

Audio accompaniment...

A quick heads up, a few people who have been supportive of this idea were also encouraging the notion of audio versions of these posts to go up alongside the essays themselves, so I'm experimenting with that. The post going up at 7 pacific will have a narrated version attached and I'll try to do that going forward with the first three posts getting narration in the future. My mic isn't great and I'm mush mouthed and prone to trailing off at the best of times, but I'll do my best to at least m...

My relationship with Suda51's games, an overview

One of my favorite kinds of game directors is the kind that clearly are capable of drawing those in their team into a production that goes against conventional design wisdom. I dislike the term auteur because video games are made by huge groups, but the kind of person who is able to consistently pull a team in a direction that shows a consistent vision. This is particularly true if  it is one that is against the grain. Few people are more infamous for this capacity than Goichi Suda.

Complexity and Complication in Devil May Cry

Did you ever notice Devil May Cry games really don't like having you just play Dante anymore? It's a bit odd when you think about it. Dante's popular, he's the face of the franchise and few people really seem to want him to go anywhere. I think because of that the common refrain, especially circa DMC4 about 12 years back, was "why can't I just play as Dante." It makes more sense though when you think about the games in terms of complication.

For those unaware, Devil May Cry is a series ...

The Great Ace Attorney and Adaptation

So, after years of Japan exclusivity the Great Ace Attorney games came to the west about a month ago. As a big fan of the series they've been on my mind a lot. I think they're brilliant, but that isn't what I want to really talk about right now. I want to talk about adaptation, truly transformative adaptation.

For those not aware, Ace Attorney is a series of games that are basically short mysteries wrapped in a plot about being a defense attorney. Through the course of successfully defe...