The Sunday Papers

We've had relatively small Sunday Papers the last two weeks. This one's a bit heftier. The idea, as always, is to present a list of some reading to absorb on this lovely Sunday afternoon, and to definitely NOT link to some piece of indie nonsense that caught my eye this week. Onwards.

• Firstly, congrats to the Darling Brothers for their CBE. The founders of Codemasters, which has come a long way since their Advanced FILLINHERE Simulator days. Alas, the old Amiga Power running joke of Sir Geoff Crammond is still a way off. And thanks to the many people who mailed us about this ton too.
• Erin Hoffman writes about Audition Online for the Escapist. I've played a little of this MMO rhythm action game, and went away a tad depressed, but Erin goes completely native in an entertaining fashion. I'm probably alone in my wish for an actual game-of-the-film Audition though, in a kirri-kirri-kirri kind of way.
• A little Games Journalism Journalism courtesy of Kyle Orland's lovely Press Spotting column. This time it's about Bias, which is always an interesting topic. Especially with the whole current lynching of anyone who doesn't give MGS4 a 10 - and, as an aside, bless Penny Arcade. As much as Kyle's piece is fine, that his questions are asking about whether you're biased towards a console manufacturer kind of reveals a bit too much of his own bias. But I would say that.
• Actually, let's go crazy and do some more games journalism journalism. Pat over at videogaming 24-7 does a top ten list of the most influential games journalists in the UK. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell comes top. We can say that Tom is enormously influential to the writers of RPS. When he offers us money, we'll write pretty much whatever he tells us, which is about as influential as it gets.
• A couple of interviews! Crispy Gamer interviews Randy Pitchford about the forthcoming Brothers In Arms game, which I only now realise we've never mentioned at all. Secondly, Mathew Kumar has a nice little chat with CCP about Eve over at Gamasutra.
• A point/counterpoint. A few weeks back, Ex-Star Wars Galaxy guy Dan Rubefield - who we may be blogging about some more in a bit - rolled his eyes a lot at MMO developers, including castigating them for treating the PC as the primary platform. Joe Ludwig, Producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, explains why, and why it's going to continue.
• I'd seen this discussed a fair bit around the web, but only when Js Ilvonen dropped me a line pointing to a full PDF did I realise Chris Milner's full thesis about forum pressure on Bethesda and similar issues. Stay clear if you're the sort of person who thinks it's intrinsically funny if anyone calls a videogame a "Text".
• Some sad news. Erick Wujcik passed away this week of pancreatic cancer. There's a mass of tributes here. Jim and I especially have fond memories of his games. Jim talked to me that, as eleven, reading Wujcik's Palladium RPGs he had an awareness that this is the sort of imagination he wanted more of in games, and that he'd loved to had known the guy who wrote it. I personally had two of my favourite RPG campaigns of all time in his Amber RPG system, whose no-dice system influenced my thinking on games enormously. He'll be missed.
• Bill Harris pointed me at this. The Arcade Fire playing in an elevator, followed by in the middle of the crowd. The bit where the clapping starts is about as magical as pop music gets.

Failed.