The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for waking up on the floor of Comrade Rossignol's rural domain, stumbling around blindly until you find both tea and an internet connection then compiling a list of the fine (mainly) games related writing that caught your eye across the week, while trying not to include a link to some piece of pop music. Go! Slowly, while sipping tea.

• This is great. Midlife gamer interviews 3 MPs about their beliefs and plans for policy about games. Good work.
• Splendid piece by Leigh about people working on a game and not getting credit for it. As in, an actual credit. Of course, if you think about it for a few seconds, the problems become obvious. Look at the 5 year megagame cycles. Look at your own job. Do you have the same job title now as you did five years ago? Are you even at the company still? It's an enormous issue, certainly, and the IGDA's standards are required. And, no, I'm not bitter about not getting a credit for my work on Chaos League's script back in the day. Main reason I did the job was to get on Mobygames. Sad emoticon.
• This is quite the thing. A Derek Yu interview over at Gamasutra. No biggie, you may think. But the comment thread goes somewhat glorious as indie creators butt heads and swap meme-worthy lines.
• Point/Counterpoint. Mark Kermode doesn't know anything about videogames and but thinks those who don't should listen to people who do when judging their critical merits. Jacqueline Hunt thinks videogames are rape simulators because of Rapelay. Not really point/counterpoint, you may think. I'd agree, but the Guardian seemed to think the pieces had something to do with one another. Despite her argument not being an argument, I've got quite a bit of sympathy for Hunt here, though I suspect her actual point is "The worst goons shouldn't be allowed e-mail access".
• Overland has Darshana Jayemanne's Australian perspective on the games as art debate. Of course, in a country that's as ban-happy as Australia, that's not merely a parlour debate but a matter of actual cultural importance. No, really.
• There's quite a lot of this stuff going around at the moment, oddly. SugarFreeGamer has a list of 10 indie games you should play. They've mostly been covered on RPS, but always worth a reminder.
• Meanwhile, over at Indievision Mark Morris writes about what he thinks makes a good Indie Game.
• Over at the Reticule Thomas Senior writes about the Dwarvish society in Dragon Age. Free Orzemmar! indeed.
• Tom Ewing has a think about the future of charts - or, at least, a future he'll like to see.
• The Mindless Ones on Death's Head Versus Shockwave. This was the Ali/Foreman fight of 80s robot-biff-fans.
• The year in pictures. Good stuff.
• I mentioned I was at ATP a few weeks back. Matt Sheret writes about it over at Global Comment.
• Alex De Campi's serial-comic for Iphone Valentine launched this week in all the languages in the whole world. Alex is smart, talented and well worth paying attention to - at least go and have a nose at the first episode which is available to read for free online here. Oh - and I've a couple of comics out this week. The final issue of Dark Avengers: Ares and a new one of Thor.
• Oh! Alec is homeless in January and is flat-searching. Brighton or London, basically. Help find a home for Alec and his cat.
• I've returned to the xx a few times this year, and each time loved them more. Here's Infinity. It strikes me that if I were 19 in 2009, the xx would fill the same musical-niche as Portishead's Dummy did in 1994. As in, a record if it's actually put on basically means "People are about to have sexual intercourse".

Failed.