The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for every organ in your body giving up the ghost and lying still, slowly twitching, as an enormous firey orb in the sky mocks you with beams of light. And slowly - ever so slowly - compiling a list of interesting game related reading we collected across the week for your delectation, while trying to not pollute what'll surely be my last will and testament with a link to something music related. I've got to try, even though my will - and, in fact, everything else - is weak.

• From Yahoo Tech, I found this thought provoking - online life and real-world death colliding: "When Jerald Spangenberg collapsed and died in the middle of a quest in an online game, his daughter embarked on a quest of her own: to let her father's gaming friends know that he hadn't just decided to desert them." More here.
• I'm not sure whether I'm relieved or disappointed that the whole Res Evil 5 racial-insensitivity thing is out of our purview. For the record, I think Evan Narcisse's piece for Crispy Gamer is one of the clearest argued pieces on what the actual issues are. Well worth reading.
• Leigh pointed this at me. It's one of the more craft-based Gamasutra features, Marianne Krawczyk (God Of War) and Susan O'Connor (Far Cry 2/Gears of War) talk about game writing "from the inside out". Specifically, problems of protagonist and motivation inherent in the medium, and how they wrestle with them.
• And one from Cliffski, where Jeff Vogel of indie-RPG stalwarts Spiderweb Software starts a multi-part series where he lays down the finances of one of his games - Geneforge 4. I love seeing these kind of maths for indie games - hell, games generally. In a real way, it's stuff like this - i.e. what can be made for what and sold to how many people - which determines the future of the industry.
• Jim was amused by this Eve Mutual Fund site. Specifically because he doubted anyone who came to it without knowing anything about Eve would realise it wasn't a "real" financial site.
• Dev Blog of week: The Night of the Cephalpods chap starts blogging. Woop!
• Charlie Brooker does a column for the Guardian about games. Bless him.
• Eurogamer delve into the state of play on Gold Trading: "Is gold selling like pornography: something more of us do than admit?". No, we admit to using pornography all the time. Hell, get us drunk enough, and we'll probably make pornography. And we will, if RPS financial situation doesn't improve. If you don't want to see Walker working my shaft while Jim cradles the balls lovingly, get donating. Now! Quickly! Before we scar you for life.
• For those of you with Spotfy, Ecko from the forum starts a collaborative playlist for everyone to add tracks to. Of course, if you prefer the DICTATORSHIP OF ALEC AND I, here's the official RPS one.

Failed. But less failed than usual. It was almost relevant.