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Denver, 5:57 AM
Wed Jan 6
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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Explaining the Commitment to Duke Nukem — Forever
Why would anyone spend 12 years working on a single game, with no assurances it'll ever be finished. It's called "escalation of commitment" - a classic good-money-after-bad bargain, and a psychologist thinks it explains Duke Nukem Forever. More »For the Goomba, What's Their Motivation, Again?
Boss battles are critically important to most video game genres, providing climactic story points as well as the kind of challenge for which the game was bought in the first place. But what about the minor foes of a game? More »The FPS: Where Freedom isn't Free
As game designers become more like film directors, the paths they lay out for players becomes increasingly scripted and, frankly, downright restricted. Still the illusion of freedom persists in this genre. More »Performance and Mastery: Changing One's Motivation as a Gamer
Faced with a challenge, people are largely motivated by one of two processes - either the opportunity to demonstrate their talent, or the opportunity to improve it. Game genres also appeal to these processes. More »The Straight Story of 'Gay Tony'
Calling it "the straightest Grand Theft Auto ever," largely for effect, PopMatters' G. Christopher Williams says The Ballad of Gay Tony hews to some hetero-driven crime-novel representations of both sexualities, but in the end is about much deeper themes. More »Their Bodies, Our Games
That picture above poses an interesting question to Massively's Seraphina Brennan. Why, she wonders, is the knee-jerk reaction to get bent out of shape about a buxom, indiscreetly clothed woman in a video game, but not a ripped, stripped-to-the-waist man? More »Cooperative Multiplayer with the Devil You Don't Know
New Super Mario Bros. Wii released a week ago, and even its lighthearted cartoon environment and four-player cooperative mode still manage to bring out the worst in multiplayer behavior - if you don't know your partner, that is. More »The Importance of Asking 'Why'
In film or literature, the creation of acclaimed work is sometimes attached to a personal event, or reaction. "That doesn't show up often in game development bios," says one dev. Finding that "why" might save games from a "cultural ghetto." More »The Meta-Narrative That Pulls Back the Curtain for All Games
Was GLaDOS, the artificial intelligence in 2007's critically acclaimed Portal, in fact a game designer? And if so, what does our relationship to the computer, and its abuse of our trust, say about the other games we play? More »Why Games Should Have a Few More Senior Moments
In video games, senior citizens are largely stereotyped NPCs. Rare is the kind of game like Metal Gear Solid 4, with a truly aged, playable protagonist. Can games create more roles for the elderly? Should they? More »Forced to Strip: How Games Might Teach Us More About Sex
The upcoming Heavy Rain features a sequence in which its female protagonist is forced to strip for a disgusting mob boss. It's sex but it's not sexy, and it moves the needle for games teaching us to differentiate the two. More »Achievements, 100 Percent, and Games: Fun or Compulsive Behavior?
Finishing a bad or uninteresting book might feel like a chore, or at least unsatisfying, but it's nothing like playing to the end of a game you don't care for. Why do so many still choose to do this? More »Who's Responsible for the $60 Price Tag?
Just how did we get to $59.99 for the cost of a new game, anyway? Collusion? Happenstance? For a sector that mimics Hollywood's studio model, the answer is about as simple - and clear - as why tickets cost $10. More »Manual Instruction: Two Types of Learning in Game Tutorials
Who reads instruction manuals any more? These days even the most complex console game arrives with just a 16-page booklet. Increasingly, we rely on in-game tutorials, and the two modes of learning they promote both have their benefits - and drawbacks. More »Alignment Error: Even Good Games Can Offer Bad Choices
Few things mar a game, especially a role-playing game, like being sold on creating a complex, even unique character and then being presented with tendentiously noble or evil choices to build out that role. More »Too Much Work or Not Enough Fun?
In an essay for Gamasutra last week, academic Lewis Pulsipher mused that games have become so complex as to feel like work, and the stratification of hardcore and casual gamers puts games in a far less inclusive posture than other entertainment. More »Playing Games as a Form of Travel
In light of the fact this is a holiday weekend, here's a lighter look at how video games are a context for our cultural experiences, and may one day be a substantial basis for them. More »Sex as a Commodity, Women as Achievements
Mass Effect is a sophisticated, acclaimed video game. It took uninformed flak for its sex scene, which gamers defended as a mature portrayal of the act. But it's not that different from the depiction of sex in many other games. More »Weekend Reader: Questions Asked by a Virtual Jihadi
Typically, the controversy over "Virtual Jihadi" - a mod of a skin of 2003's budget-bin jingoist shooter Quest for Saddam - deals more with free speech and abuse of authority rather than what the game asks its players to consider. More »Weekend Reader: The Themes of 9/11, and After, in TIE Fighter
TIE Fighter was released in 1994, a time in which serving as the instrument of an oppressive, corrupt government against insurgent forces didn't raise the kind of uncomfortable questions such a game would after Sept. 11, 2001. More »Dogmeat, the Emotional Center of Fallout
Fallout originally did not plan on having NPC followers at all. But the original game's designer figured out how to make a system work. Thus was born one of the franchise's most iconic characters. More »