The debate over depictions of women in video games has basically boiled down to “big boobs bad, small boobs good!” A few developers hope to change that.
Rowan Kaiser
Rowan Kaiser is a freelance pop culture critic currently living in the Bay Area. He is a contributing writer at The A.V. Club, covering television and literature. He also writes about video games for several different publications, including Joystiq and Gamespy. Follow him on Twitter @rowankaiser for unimportant musings on media and extremely important kitten photographs.
Posted inArticle
There’s No Fighting in the War Game!
Civilization V: Brave New World, Europa Universalis IV, and Total War: Rome II show how grand strategy games are focusing less on battle and more on the myriad other elements that make up an empire.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Zombies, Zombies Everywhere
How the video game The Last of Us fits into the growing catalog of post-apocalyptic media.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Triple-A Games: Pretty and Brain-Dead
Why are blockbuster games like Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider so high on style but middling on ideas?
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
How the Patriarchy Screwed the Starks
How last night’s shocking deaths reveal Game of Thrones’ biggest theme
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Thinking Outside the (X)Box
There was soul-searching to spare at the Game Developers Conference, as attendees had some warranted stress over diversity—but they should be sure to remember to work on improving the world outside the industry too.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Urban Playing
The new Sim City looks fantastic, but the video game’s political and economic context remains … absent.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Saving Private Gamer
Why are violent video games popular? Let us list the reasons.