December 14, 2008 – This weekend, I finished grading final exams, toted up final grades, went out to celebrate. And, as of this post, I also penned my last words as a Kotaku writer. It has been a wild and pretty wonderful ride (spanning two countries, two coasts, my first year of grad school, and lots of other... More »

December 14, 2008 – The topic for this month's Blogs of the Roundtable has led to some fantastically diverse answers: "What role will gaming play in your familial relationships in 5 years?

December 14, 2008 – There's a really nice (lengthy) article over at Adventure Classic Gaming that takes a look at puzzles in (as you can probably guess) adventure games, and how those forms have seeped into other genres. The in-depth look at a variety of puzzle forms moves from the premise that puzzles are so integral...

December 14, 2008 – Gamasutra's been rounding up the top titles of the year in a variety of categories; up recently were the top five 'indie' games (plus ten honorable mentions). People have been having hissy fits because because some of the downloadable titles of the year (e.g., Braid) weren't on the list, but take... More »

December 14, 2008 – The Majesty of Colors is weird, lovely little game by Gregory Weir that's been making the rounds as of late. There are five different endings, and your (in)action throughout determines the outcome. It's a pretty melancholy day today, and The Majesty of Colors just hit me in the right spot. The Ma...

December 14, 2008 – Gamasutra's Paul Hyman has a gloom and doom look at the used games market and why publishers are very unhappy with the situation; the comments section is surprisingly lively, and it's worth a look. While GameStop (the main player in the used game market) management declined to comment, but several ...

December 13, 2008 – When I saw this comparison between the Final Fantasy and the battleship Yamato (the largest battleship ever made), I was wondering how the comparison would be drawn: More »

December 13, 2008 – L.B. Jeffries over at Banana Pepper Martinis has apparently had it up to here with the 'how to write reviews' debate, and it sounds like the upcoming roundtable was maybe kinda the last straw. Instead of arguing about reviews and criticism, he argues, maybe people should just set aside a little spa...

December 13, 2008 – Played Minotaur China Shop yet? No? Missed the trailer we posted? Well, go look at that, then read the brilliantly funny Minotaur Diary at RPS, then try and resist the lure of the game. In slightly more serious news, the Rock, Paper, Shotgun guys also sat down to talk with Flashbang's Steve Swin...

December 13, 2008 – Chris Bateman (of Only a Game) has a thought provoking article on his new, games only blog on whether or not a game has ever made you cry. The contention here isn't that people have never cried while playing games, but either that it's an irrelevant question or that it wasn't the actual game part t...

December 13, 2008 – There's a nice interview up at Worlds In Motion with Klei Entertainment (Eets) founder Jamie Cheng on the issue of the free to play model, especially in relation to their new game Sugar Rush. It's a pretty detailed look at what goes into deciding to implement a FTP model in a game, how specific mo...

December 13, 2008 – Another weekend, another call for papers! This time around it's the Games+Learning+Society 5.0 conference, June 10-12 in Madison, WI. I'm putting the finishing touches on my proposal for FDG '09 and kind of wish the timing worked out better for this conference, too (damn quarter system). More »

December 7, 2008 – I sometimes feel like discussions on game piracy ought to be shelved alongside scintillating 1960s publications from the Rand Corporation like Counterinsurgency in Manchuria, except the piracy discussions are considerably more engaging. Leigh Alexander has spoken with the ESA and PC Gaming Alliance... More »

December 7, 2008 – We mentioned Pascal Luben's series on the 'megatrends of gaming' back when it kicked off with part one; since then, he's done a second part and is now back with part three. Unsurprisingly, multiplayer gaming is a big trend — More »

December 7, 2008 – Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer has a post up on the issue of dissonance in games; like a lot of these things, it's more interesting if you take it alongside the comments. Abbott's contention is that we quite possibly need more dissonance in our games, not less — More »

December 7, 2008 – We mentioned the somewhat odd BusinessWeek Arcade back when it launched; now Ian Bogost has taken up the whys and wherefores over at the Journalism & Games Project blog. The titles selected for BusinessWeek Arcade had little to do with business, being a collection of seemingly random indie hits. More »

December 7, 2008 – The blog Hardcasual is back with a bang after a lengthy hiatus, channeling the voice of Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games (which, if you can't parse that statement, means Bleszinski didn't actually write this) to discuss some of the current problem with game journalism and reviews. It's pretty damn f... More »

December 6, 2008 – GameSetWatch has a nice essay up from Gregory Weir, who takes a look at why Puzzle Quest was so damn successful at creating a satisfying hybrid. Weir takes a reasonably detailed look at how designers successfully married RPG and match 3 elements, and why Puzzle Quest is the best example of a well d... More »

December 6, 2008 – If you've got some time this afternoon, the Escapist has a nice answer to holiday excess — several pages of free indie gems you probably haven't heard of. Covering a pretty wide variety of games in its four pages, the article has something for everyone — More »

December 6, 2008 – Can you ever get enough Rock, Paper, Shotgun? The answer is no, especially not during the holidays — last year saw the gaming advent calendar, and this year has two new features. The first is their RPS 'Now That’s Why I Love A Best 2008 Ever!', which takes a month-by-month look at '08; More »