Because pornography typically has straight male consumption in mind, its politics leak into games by highlighting how they look at women and other men in porn. We would have to look to pornography made for women and gay men and apply how the camera looks at the performers for a holistic approach to sexualizing characters.
Category Archives: Criticism
Why I Don’t Feel Welcome at Kotaku
I’m part of the gaming community, but Kotaku doesn’t see me as a gamer. No, instead I’m a multi-racial transgender who-knows-sexual possibly-feminist woman gamer.
Speaking in Accents and the American Ethnocentrism in Video Games
The cultural politics that voice acting implies, however, often escape analysis.
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 offensive to me, but because I was TIRED of seeing articles like that over and over again.
Why You Should Give Dragon Age II a Second Chance
It’s possible that gamers haven’t figured out a use for criticism. But one of its uses is the possibility for encouraging new perspectives and second chances.
The Fantasy Cyborg: Reading Passing Narratives in Dragon Age
Topics about social minorities in video games typically manifest in the relationship humans have with other sentient characters of their world or universe.
Ludonarrative Resonance
Games and narratives seem to have a contentious relationship within gaming discourse; what is a game and should we read them as a narrative? What is a narrative and when does it belong in a game?
An Apology for RPGs
I’ve been rather grouchy with gaming lately. This new console generation hasn’t produced anything to wow me and I butterfly from one Steam sale to the next, forgetting the vast majority of games in my library. Probably because I grew into a gamer through RPGs, specifically J-RPGs, and the climate for said genre is rather… underwhelming.
It’s Time to Talk About it: Atlus, Naoto, and Transphobia
So let this be an ode to Naoto, as he deserves a critical analysis, but also my questioning of and challenge to Atlus about their representation of transgender characters.
Diversity Watch: Bastion
As a sort of closing thoughts on my time with Bastion, I’m curious as to how I can further my agenda of promoting diversity in games, or seeing how games are an artifact of a culture’s stance on diversity.
Creation vs Destruction in Bastion’s Narrative
A lot of what has the gaming community chattering about Bastion is the role of its narrative in the gameplay. Many critics of the relationship between story and games see them as one slapped onto the other, rather than having an organically joined structure.