Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Auteurs records played. Skaven are clumsily daubed. Scripts hurriedly polished. For the RPS readers’ delectation, lists of interesting videogame reading from across the week are compiled (while trying to desperately not include a funny pop song Mer forwarded ). Just another Sunday, peeps.

• Hardcasual returns with a bang, as CliffyB explains how to save games journalism: “How did I, Cliff Blezinski, become CliffyB? Kitchen-squats. And when Cliffy B didn’t bed a dozen women a night, what’d he do? Juiced pheromones out of dominant apes and slurped them like a friggin Diet Soda. Cliffy B takes action. So when folks get upset about New Games Journalism, the Cliffster fixes it. He fixes it because he cares. He fixes it and runs twenty miles to tame his gluts and then he fixes it again.”. Thanks, Cliff! Also, L4D’s Tank on the economic crisis.
• Cheery groupblog The Reticule has made us a little jealous. They scored an interview with Mike “Faith No More/Mr Bungle/MIKE PATTON!|” Patton about his recent load of voice-work for videogames. What does it feel like to be a growling zombie? Find out herein.
• Wired published a large profile of Brock Pierce, concentrating on the decline and fall of the Gold Farming and the IGE. Big, serious journalism from the oft-brilliant Julian Dibbell. Highly recommended.
• This is more WARNING OF IMMINENT AWESOME than PRESENT AWESOME, but Shawn Elliott is arranging an e-mail Symposium on games journalism. Got an interesting selection of writers, critics and journalists from across the field, and we’re going to hack around the big questions. I’d pretty much retired from games journalism journalism – no, really – but this strikes me as something that may actually be useful. Its from the ashes of a previous project, which he’s shown here. Oh – and some people have already answered them. Here’s Troy’s.
• It’s been a spookily active week in games-journalism-journalism. The big blog-melee centred around SnappyGamer’s annoyance that he writes like ramraider annoyance that a cabal of pseudish writers is going to turn reviews into a wasteland where a man can’t find how many levels are in Fist-Bash VI and what button is up (There’s enough straw-men in Snappy’s piece to make me not feel too bad about tying together some of my own). The real meat is in the comments where the blogosphere descends, Snappy steps out from behind the piece’s deliberate posture and people talk. A shame that L. B. Jeffries’ piece over at Popmatters didn’t get as much attention. Starting from the most tired out title in the debate – Do Video Games Criticism Need a Lester Bangs? – he goes on to treat Bangs not as an icon of critical majesty, but as an actual writer, examining his techniques, his writing, what he did. Good stuff. Conversely, I have no idea what this is about.
• Leigh updates sexyvideogamedeveloper land. SEXY.
• When people have a go at the music I end up linking off-handedly in the Sunday Papers, this is what I think they listen to. Then I don’t feel so bad.

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