The Sunday Papers?

I appear to have gone a bit rhetorical-question crazy today, so today's Sunday Papers comes with an entirely extraneous Daily-Mail-esque question Mark. The idea is that it gathers together a load of slightly more lengthy pieces to read on a Sunday afternoon (or, since I've been slack, evening) for you to have a good old think about, chat about and impress your friends who may get impressed by this sort of thing. I try and do this all before I submit to linking to a mates' mix-tape for his comic or something. Onwards!

• Corporate Paymasters PCG put their hefty piece about Steam online over at mother-site C&VG. It's provocative stuff from the off: ""We're talking about Valve becoming the platform holder and guardian of the PC as a gaming system over the next two years," says Stephen Gaffney, Business Development Manager of Splash Damage." Discuss!
• Tom Kim writes up Steve Fawkner's GDC presentation about RPS-fave Puzzle Quest. Which is fun.
• Ian Bogot writes a lengthy, serious review of serious game I Can End Deportation. He's somewhat critical, and ends up name-checking my old fave, Escape From Woomera as a better example
• Been meaning to link for this for a while. Henry Jenkins on Youth Culture. Particularly interesting on his take on the Wire versus Lost. I can see his point, but I have trouble seeing past the relative quality of the two shows. I'm okay with Lost, but it's not the Wire.
• 1UP on memorably botched videogame launches. Frankly, their five choices don't go nearly far enough for my tastes. A top 100 most fucked up launches is something we probably should get around to doint.
• Good to see Harvey Smith out and writing about games. He talks a little about The Graveyard on his blog, which we wrote about last week. He riffs off the game, imagining how he'd like to do a larger game about death.
• Oh God - this is precious. This Derek Smart interview is one thing, but the comments thread turns into a bloodbath. But most importantly, since he posts in it, it tells me that Francesco Poli is still alive. Who's Poli? Well, his blog was essential reading back in 2006, if only to wonder what on earth he was going to say next. It just disappeared mysteriously one day, leaving only what's left on Archive.org. I've actually been a little worried about him, despite the fact he clearly loathed me. Phew. The Only Serious Student of Videogames still lives and is (er) still working in his unique idiom.
• A couple of quick interviews: Firstly, Robin Ward talking about Launching ForumWarz, and quietly depressed not enough people blogged about him. Hey, we did, and you didn't even hit us up. Oh - and Erik and Kim chat to Gamasutra about Portal. We've decided we're on first name terms, because we always spell Erik's name wrong because we're useless. Sorry, Erik. I do wonder how with all the post-Portal interviews they manage to keep a level of groundedness though. If I'd recieved such a level of of universal love, I'd be declaring myself a God who can't be killed by mortal blows and claiming drinking my urine would gift all life eternal.
• Jamie McKelvie, to tie in which his teen-fantasy comic of underage drinking Suburban Glamour, has done a Mix-Tape for everyone to listen to. Bless him.

Fail.