by Emma Kostopolus | Jan 18, 2021 | Features, Interviews, Video Games
In the beginnings of Blaseball, the community was fragmented. Bits of lore, worldbuilding, and statistical analysis popped up all over the internet, and while there was a small amount of reporting being done, the vast majority of people being brought into the fold came from word-of-mouth through outlets like Discord and Twitter. And as each week passed and new fans were being introduced, the game itself moved at lightning speed, with canon characters and events being lost to the sands of time. There needed to be a place where people could gather, new fans could get information, and content creators could place their art for public consumption. And thus, the Blaseball wiki was born. I sat down with Steven Carver and Kyle Shockey, two of the current wiki admins, to discuss the site and the undertaking of running a community hub. (more…)
Emma is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition who studies how play impacts learning. Her words have also appeared in Critical Distance and Unwinnable. When not writing, she enjoys passing the controller between friends for runs of Silent Hill. She can be found @kostopolus on Twitter.
by Emma Kostopolus | Dec 30, 2020 | News
Hey, everybody! Emma here with this week’s hot and finger-lickin’ good gaming news. I hope you spent this very weird holiday in whatever way was best for you. I spent my birthday and Christmas painting a very satisfying Van Gogh forgery, but now I’m back and this news has stayed warm and crispy just for me. (more…)
Emma is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition who studies how play impacts learning. Her words have also appeared in Critical Distance and Unwinnable. When not writing, she enjoys passing the controller between friends for runs of Silent Hill. She can be found @kostopolus on Twitter.
by Emma Kostopolus | Dec 2, 2020 | News, Video Games
So, now that we’re (thankfully) in the home stretch of 2020, publications and media conglomerates have started putting forward their votes for that age-old tradition, Game of the Year (GOTY). While yet another delay that I talked about in my last GYGO pushed Cyberpunk 2077 officially out of contention for this year’s awards slate, and the new slate of PS5 launch titles are also largely not in the running, there’s still a lot of buzz surrounding the titles that places like the Golden Joysticks and of course Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards have put up for nominations. Here’s the Game Awards slate for GOTY 2020: (more…)
Emma is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition who studies how play impacts learning. Her words have also appeared in Critical Distance and Unwinnable. When not writing, she enjoys passing the controller between friends for runs of Silent Hill. She can be found @kostopolus on Twitter.
by Emma Kostopolus | Nov 16, 2020 | Essays, Video Games
If you’ve been involved with any sort of political conversation surrounding video games for the last twenty years, you’ve probably heard a lot of people harping on about violence: specifically, that violent video games lead to violent behavior in real life. While that claim has largely been debunked by research, there’s no denying that violence is an integral part of most high-profile titles. A tight and fluid combat system is a major selling point for a major release from an AAA studio, and a game with poor combat is lambasted with bad reviews. For better or worse, combat can be how players define a game: it determines how we view its quality (sometimes privileged over other concerns like graphics and narrative), and how fun the process of violence is in a game is the point by which we decide whether or not to play. (more…)
Emma is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition who studies how play impacts learning. Her words have also appeared in Critical Distance and Unwinnable. When not writing, she enjoys passing the controller between friends for runs of Silent Hill. She can be found @kostopolus on Twitter.
by Emma Kostopolus | Nov 4, 2020 | News, Video Games
Warning: This GYGO contains discussion of death threats and other gross behaviors from entitled people at all levels of power within the gaming community. (more…)
Emma is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition who studies how play impacts learning. Her words have also appeared in Critical Distance and Unwinnable. When not writing, she enjoys passing the controller between friends for runs of Silent Hill. She can be found @kostopolus on Twitter.
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