An Open Letter to Kotaku’s Joel Johnson
I remember the post that made me unsubscribe from Kotaku, before the good stuff started to roll in. Another gallery of naked women covered in video game accessories. It wasn’t because that post was SO...
View ArticleAn Escape of One’s Own
I’m often asked why I have to drag identity labels into gaming discussions. Why does it matter that I’m a multi-racial, polysexual, possibly polyamorous, able-bodied transgender woman? Must I trumpet...
View ArticleThose Games Left Off of the “Game of the Year” Lists
Why can't free-to-play games or extremely niche titles be featured on end of the year lists?
View ArticleMass Appeal vs. Accessibility in Video Games
Video games reflect themes and skills found in boys’ styles of play as children, and any introduction of qualities that are different from that (especially if tagged as feminine) are cast out as...
View ArticleOne Day That Wall Is Gonna Fall: Game Design for Everyone
Zia’s song from Bastion wasn’t meant to be a challenge to gaming juggernauts, but it will be on the lips of those leaving GDC this year.
View ArticleFans, Capitalism, and Mass Effect 3’s Ending. Oh My.
How can something like this happen? My finger begins to cramp from scrolling through all the screaming and virtual facepalming over the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle on Twitter.
View ArticleDear Esther, We’re Moving Past Story
Dear Esther critiques games that use innumerable amounts of game mechanics to communicate experience. It achieves much with just one.
View ArticleMust I Say Goodbye?: Leaving Behind jRPGs
The idea of Japanese RPGs vs. Western RPGs seems like a false dichotomy. Rather, it’s just jRPGs vs. everything else.
View ArticleWhat about the men!? re: Tropes vs Women
Let me give you the multiple reasons why “Men have it bad too, why do women have to get all this attention!?” is a shitty derailment of what’s important:
View ArticleStand up for yourself – Concerned victim blaming
We need to talk about victim blaming. It comes in many forms and appears very often whenever minorities speak about experiencing discrimination.
View ArticleThe State of Diversity Criticism and “do your fuckin’ research”
The loudest social justice members, apparently, are histrionic, irrational, and polemic in their efforts to discuss diversity issues within this great art form.
View ArticleSomething tells me you’re offended that I’m offended.
The latest iteration, in response to being offensive, is often a cry out against sensitivity and censorship, that offended parties want a dictatorship with thought police.
View ArticleConfessions of a Fake Geek Girl
Phony. I’m considered a fake in many facets of my identity.
View ArticlePay Up – You are What You’re Worth
The worth of my writing and advocacy is constantly augmented by my relationship to money. In order to keep up with critical conversation, I must constantly buy games. And not the cheaper ones, but the...
View ArticleTake us seriously, but please, none of that highbrow shit
The gaming community, or let’s say the ones with voices- popular developers, media, and maybe celebrities if we have those- have a cake eating problem. We want to be taken seriously as an artform but...
View ArticleTriptychs
We tend to see them as objects. When we talk about games, we’re referencing a thing, either with physical boundaries or digital limitations. Games are objects with qualities, to be dissected, parsed,...
View ArticleGhosts
1987. I really like saying that. Nineteen eighty seven. It was the year I was born.
View ArticleIz Gamez Criticizm Art???
To start off, I am always going to answer ‘Is X Y?’ with ‘sure.’ Mostly, I see something like art as a lens or perspective; you can see something as art, and bring in what you understand of that to...
View ArticleAnd Queerness for All
Two weeks ago, I helped run the Queerness and Games Conference at UC Berkeley, a free, public, interdisciplinary, and inclusive space for people who wanted to talk and learn about the intersection of...
View ArticleEnd the Video Supremacy of Games
What does it mean when critics and creators can’t afford to keep up with the tech race?
View Article
