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"Instead of creating games for people to play, we have begun creating games that play people"
-Developer Jeremy Alessi in Gamasutra today, on the rise of games as revenue delivery functions. Essential reading.
So this is what it’s like when an MMO dies
Massively multiplayer games promise epic, persistent experiences, but in a very significant way they are less persistent than the copy of Tetris you have stashed in the basement: once developer and publisher support ends, you simply can’t play them anymore. So it goes for City of Heroes, the charmin
Pac-Man in the moon… of Saturn
The NASA Cassini-Huygens robotic spaceship caught this thermal signature of Tethys, and it looks like, well, it could eat a cherry and mess up some ghosts. Scientists theorize that the Pac-Man thermal shape on the Saturnian moons occurs because of the way high-energy electrons bombard low latitudes
Putting on a show with single-player games
Media takes on a whole new dimension when you share it with other people. Discussing or analyzing it is one thing, but experiencing something as a group can make it so much more enjoyable. Caitlan Oram writes about the pleasures of playing videogames with an audience: A person’s reaction to somethin
The Hitman marketing campaign that encourages you to threaten your small-breasted friends
Dear god. Rock Paper Shotgun has the goods again today, this time about a Square-Enix Facebook promotional campaign for the new Hitman game, in which you can “target” friends for a “hit” and identify them by things like, I”m serious, having “small tits” or an undersized penis, or RED HAIR. It’s alre
Introducing Guardian, the great new game about saving the dolphins
After graduating university with a chemistry degree, Ajit Singh went to work as a graphic designer for a soccer company, designing uniforms for clubs across the United Kingdom. He dreamed of making a game, though, and he found his inspiration in The Cove, a 2009 documentary about dolphin hunting in
Metallica’s downfall reimagined in a game of XCOM
Metallica (The Black Album) was the beginning of the end for the band. It marks the start of their “sellout” phase, which you may disagree with, but you can’t dispute their change in sound (ostensibly due to producer Bob Rock). Releasing back to back albums entitled Load and Reload is bad enough, bu
World of Goo co-creator Ron Carmel on indie success, patent infringers, and "saving gamemakers from publishers."
Earlier this year, the fine organizers at Portland’s XOXO Festival asked me to interview Ron Carmel, principal of the Indie Fund and co-creator of World of Goo. Ron was a lovely intervieweee and the piece above is a great overview/origin story from start to finish of a successful indie title. We tal
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