World of Warcraft and Getting out into the World

Diego N. Argüello

During the summer break of 2010, back when I was a 13-year-old student about to start his first year in high school, I decided to start playing World of Warcraft. I had no prior experience with a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) nor even the basic knowledge to understand the lore of the game. I chose to play in the Horde only because the idea of creating my own Orc seemed tempting, as they were bound to become fearsome warriors or living shields that would protect allies from danger. Continue Reading →

Video Games: The Future of Documentaries

Caio Sampaio

Technology has changed the world. Every year, devices become more powerful and they will continue to do so, according to Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis (10). This reality has changed the practice of many professions (Frey and Osborne 2) and journalism is not an exception (Bogost et al. 8). The digital era has given journalists more options to reach their goal of telling real-life stories, including multimedia articles, interactive content, and hyperlink texts (Pena 183). Although these developments are mostly positive, they also create hardships. Continue Reading →

An Interview with David Brevik – Part 1

Jeffery Klaehn and David Brevik 1 Comment

Jeffery Klaehn: What led you to launch Graybeard Games?

David Brevik: After working at Gazillion as the CEO for several years, I wanted to get away from management and back into making games. When I was a kid I wanted to be a game maker, not run a business. So after I left, the goal was to create a company where I could get back to design and programming. Continue Reading →

FPS Special Issue: Call for Papers

Queer Making and Design

Jess Marcotte, Special Issue Guest Editor & Betsy Brey, FPS Editor-in-Chief
Call For Papers

CFP: In The Queer Art of Failure, Halberstam suggests, “Under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world.” In reimagining what it means to fail and what it means to succeed, queer games can offer rich experiences that move beyond the goals and practices of the hegemonic status quo of mainstream games. Queer design perspectives, particularly when they fail to meet the expectations of the status quo, can bring “difference” to “our discussions of video games and the experience of play” (after Ruberg 2015), and we want to hear all about it. Continue Reading →

The Therapy and Anxiety I Recognized in Celeste

Alyse Stanley 1 Comment

It’s early morning, and I’m trapped by an unlocked door, the front entrance to my home, during a year I’d rather forget. Through the window, a breeze rustles trees heavy with leaves so green and vibrant it pains me to stare at them for too long. They stood bare the last time I stepped outside.

This thought lodges a gag of shame in my throat as I slip on a pair of worn tennis shoes and convince myself that a stroll around the neighborhood is something I do all the time, a decision made in impulse and not in agony. It’s only a door, just a door, I repeat. My anxiety – no, let’s be honest, my full-blown agoraphobia at this point – would not get the better of me today. Continue Reading →

Safiya Umoja Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression

A review

Mark Filipowich 1 Comment

In Vincent Mosco’s The Digital Sublime, the author describes the cult of technology as “cyperbole,” a kind of social fervor toward new methods of communication. Electricity, telegram, television, the computer and, now, the internet all had phases in their development that emphasized the utopian potential of a new and popular technology. But, according to Mosco, the real social influence of technology isn’t apparent until it becomes banal, after the utopian promises are unfulfilled and new technology has been integrated into existing power structures. A consequence of globalized industrial capitalism is that technology becomes the locus of progress that paradoxically weaves so neatly into daily life that it becomes unnoticeable. Continue Reading →

Against Timelines

The Legend of Zelda as Variations on a Theme

Matthew Morris

The chronology of The Legend of Zelda series is a source of great debate among fans, who have created several potential timelines, most involving three divergent realities in their convoluted attempt to incorporate every game. Even articles that discuss the timeline logistics in earnest acknowledge how absurd the undertaking is (Jackson 2017). Nintendo developed each game without planning an inclusive timeline, yet this fervent fan speculation prompted Nintendo to release a “definitive” timeline in the 2011 collector’s book Hyrule Historia (Aonuma et al.). The fact that the most recent release in the Zelda series – 2017’s Breath of the Wild – has no evident place in these timelines draws renewed attention to their inadequacy. Continue Reading →