Blog Post 3: Grab Bag

So in this post I will finally refer to myself because this will be a grab bag post. I won’t focus on one particular element from class but I will try to string together in somewhat of an order. I will start with Diablo 3 which came out of no where this summer as the game every journalist was playing. This concept of the “lost” games is interesting because when the game first came out the audience for it was so full of anger that the changes to the game got lost. Now the PS4 has a simple share system turning any game that comes out on PS4 something that will most likely have video. Then the couch multiplayer sport game genre became popular last year but doesn’t seem to be catching on with the major populace of game players. Sportsfriends launched and went, Towerfall and Samurai Gunn were too similar to catch on, while Goat Simulator sold 100,000 copies on mobile platforms in a week. A WEEK!

Speaking of games that got lost, The New Yorker article about Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest is the perfect example of lost games that matter in new context. In light of recent events and other developers exploring their feelings through the medium, the article crafts that story very well. I was able to give this article to friends who don’t really know much about the recent troubles with games and the audience and then they finally have a context to the scenario. The extra step would be for them to actually play the game but it is a good start.

I wish I could say voxels are starting as well as this new genre of games, most games that use this aesthetic have not caught on. 3D-Dot Game Hero is the first one I can think about but I really became aware of this idea when I worked with Polygon. One of the editors worked on a piece about a group of people in New York that are working on the first playable voxel display. I believe this could get big by using events like BabyCastles or Waka Waka to display these games as more of an art piece rather than actual games.