Author: Jay Castello
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Happy Birthday Overwatch: A Look Back
On May 24, Overwatch celebrates its first anniversary. And it’s been a hell of a year. The game has been front and centre in major industry talking points without pause: sexualisation, diversity, harassment, fan culture, Doing It Right™ versus getting away with its continued failures, and, of course, a deluge of memes. In short, Overwatch has…
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Narcissa Wright sets Breath of The Wild World Record
Narcissa Wright is one of the people who made speedrunning what it is today, famous for her work with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, co-founding SpeedRunsLive, and accumulating tens of millions of views on her Twitch channel. Unfortunately, wrist injuries began to prevent her from speedrunning, as well as ending her high level…
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Let’s Talk Historical Accuracy in Games
The new Call of Duty, poetically titled Call of Duty: WWII after its setting, will allow players to play as women in its multiplayer mode. It will also allow them to mow down waves of zombies. Guess which one of these has players up in arms about historical accuracy. COD: WWII will likely feature any…
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Dear Gamedevs : Long Hair Doesn’t Work That Way
Hair has always been a problem for game developers. The Witcher 3 managed to make Geralt’s mane grow in real time, yet it, like the hair from so many games, is constantly clipping through his clothes. And of course black games critics like Evan Narcisse and Tanya DePass have spoken at length about the important…
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Fighting The Stigma of Depression and Anxiety With Games
Though approximately one in four people will experience a mental health issue in their lifetime, there is still far too much stigma and misunderstanding surrounding them. By creating games about depression and anxiety, two of the most common mental illnesses, developers have been demonstrating openly their own experiences in a way that helps both sufferers…
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Racist Rant Demonstrates Deeper Problems of Toxicity in Overwatch
Two weeks ago I wrote a long, long article about toxicity in Overwatch. This week, Matt “Dellor” Vaughn, formerly of Toronto Esports, destroyed his career by spending 30 widely publicised seconds screaming the n-word at a player who had upset him. (Content warning for racism the video within the link.) In doing so, he demonstrated…
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Sony Must Not Fear the Female Protagonist
Recently, the Playstation exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn became the best selling new IP on the platform, shifting over 2.6 million copies. In fact, it’s the second best selling Sony exclusive of all time, after only Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Yet at first Sony’s head of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, was worried that having a…
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Peacecraft Brought Kindness to YouTube When It Needed It Most
Griffin McElroy’s Peacecraft series saw our sweet gnome friend Raandyy set out on a quest to end the fighting in World of Warcraft. In the process, it reminded us what YouTube’s gaming segment – and games culture as a whole – ought to be. Here is a secret: the part of my bio at the…
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How Can Overwatch Deal With its Toxic Players?
If you’re playing any online game, you’ll run into toxic players. This is an accepted inevitability. But it shouldn’t be. Overwatch in particular is intentionally welcoming and joyful. It’s about hope and heroes in a colourful world that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Plus, Blizzard has intentionally focused on inclusivity through its characters. And so it…
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Resist Jam: Games about Non-Violent Resistance
Resist Jam took place recently; dedicated to “creating games that resist oppressive authoritarianism in all its forms.” With over 200 games submitted, it’s impossible to get a handle on just how creative and diverse the projects were, so we’ve taken a look at just a few. Firstly we talked about public protest; and now we’ll…
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Sheri Graner Ray: 25 Years of Improving the Industry
The conversation about encouraging, supporting, and catering to women who play and make games is old. Really, it’s as old as games themselves. And women like Sheri Graner Ray have been working towards making the industry fairer for over 25 years. Graner Ray joined the industry as a writer in 1989 and has gone on…
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Games Need To Provide Escapism for Women, Too
Horizon Zero Dawn starts with such promise. It seems to give a breath of fresh air for those of us dealing with sexism every day. In the starting area, women and men are considered equally able to fight or sew. They wear similar clothing. There are female military leaders, traders, and explorers. Ladies are allowed…
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Resist Jam: Games about Protest
Resist Jam took place recently; dedicated to “creating games that resist oppressive authoritarianism in all its forms.” With over 200 games submitted, it’s impossible to get a handle on just how creative and diverse the projects were in one article, so instead, here’s a series! Each will examine the cultural context of one theme found…
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Inclusivity in Overwatch Continues to Improve
At his recent DICE Summit talk, director Jeff Kaplan mentioned again the importance of inclusivity in Overwatch. This has been a continued rhetoric of the Blizzard team, and, most importantly, one that has been built upon significantly in the game’s post-release lifetime. That lifetime has been a rollercoaster. Overwatch has not only been one of…
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Diversity in Virtual Reality: The Next Step?
I love VR. I’ve loved being a bird soaring over post-apocalyptic Paris in Eagle Flight, getting up close and personal with a shark in Ocean Descent, and scoring very much over par as a massive robot in 100 Foot Robot Golf. But I also love exploring crafted stories about a wide range of characters. So…
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Gender Representation at the Game Developers Choice & IGF Awards
Diversity can’t just be a numbers game, and certainly isn’t limited to gender, but having facts and figures can be crucial to addressing further examinations. How, then, has gender representation in the games nominated for the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival awards changed numerically since their inception – and how do they…