After nearly a year and half of being Kotaku’s San Francisco Correspondent and default token girl*, it’s time for me to say goodbye. GamePro is whisking me away to that fabled land of print journalism I’ve heard so much about.
I can easily say that my time here has been well spent. Kotaku taught me more than Stanford University’s graduate program in journalism ever did and gave me the chance to write about things I really care about. You know, instead of just boobs, Japanese role-playing games and scandals. Not that I mind writing about those things — actually when you combine all three, it can be pretty fun — but the world of video games is a lot larger than that. That’s part of why I went to Stanford; to convince them that this is a subject that deserves the attention of journalism, and yes, being a games journalist is compatible with being a “real” journalist.
*After Leigh Alexander and Maggie Greene moved on, that is.
Here are some of the things I’m most proud of:
Knocked Up: A Look At Pregnancy in Video Games — I’d been pitching this feature idea for years to different publications, but Kotaku was the only outfit that let me run with it. I still find the topic fascinating and I still go out of my way to play games that let you get pregnant in some fashion. It’s very much my “thing.”
Pieces of You: Rebuilding Myself on Consoles — Breakups suck, but my work at Kotaku got me through a really nasty one. I still can’t believe Stephen Totilo let me keep the Jewel song title in the headline.
Kotaku’s Super Huge Pumpkin Patch (Parts One, Two, Three and Four) — I’m a sucker for crafts projects and I find that there’s no other video game blog on the Internet that makes room to post stuff like this as well as shoes, cakes, video game wedding stuff, etc. It took me three hours on Halloween weekend to upload all those images, but it was worth it.
Girls Night With The Most Male Game Of 2009 — Yes, it pissed people off. Yes, I got death threats. But what’s most important to me is that this article got people talking. I’m still amazed when I skim through the comments at some of the genuinely thoughtful discourse that goes on in there. Hope to see more of it where I’m going. And I still hope to see women in Modern Warfare 3.
My Master’s Project, “Writing About Video Games: Journalism, Criticism and Mainstream Media” — I can’t let the full copy of this 7000-word beast see the light of day yet because in my mind, it’s still not “done.” While working on it, I got the chance to interview Totilo before he jumped ship for Kotaku, N’Gai Croal as he was leaving Newsweek, Seth Schiesel from the New York Times, Jamin Brophy-Warren of the Wall Street Journal and Georgia Tech Associate Professor Ian Bogost — it was an all star cast. Kotaku made that possible by giving me access to these heavy-hitters and its articles make up about a quarter of my source list. Here’s a tiny sample of my conclusion:
Time will tell if Schiesel and Brophy-Warren’s editors care enough about video games to move their coverage into a more prominent place either in the print edition or in the online arts and entertainment section. If that happens, maybe their stories with replace the “point and giggle” stories in mainstream media. Time will tell if a vocabulary for talking about games emerges that are integrated into pop culture the way words and phrases like “Western” and “tear-jerker” can describe a movie to an audience that hasn’t seen it. If that doesn’t happen, words and phrases like “gameplay” or “free-look” and “sandbox” used in the reviews that most games journalism produces will remain impenetrable jargon specific to video games hobbyist magazines. Time might also make room for games journalism to grow up a little bit more, to develop into something that can be understood all 228 million American adults instead of just the 114 million who play them.
Well, that about does it for me. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Have a happy, safe, New Year!
Crossing one more game off the Things To Be Moe-fied list is this doujin tribute to Team ICO’s PlayStation 2 classic Shadow of the Colossus, a sixteen strong collection of less furry, far cuter colossi that’s borderline maximum risky.
That’s Valus the Minotaur and Dirge the Sandworm, just with a lot more flesh, the stuff of very bizarre sexual fantasies. But it’s also the stuff of Comiket 77, now sadly closed and far out of reach for someone who might want a copy of this “tan” tribute to Shadow of the Colossus.
You can see more of fan artist Shigatake’s work at the very, very not-safe-for-work Sankaku Complex, the artist’s personal site or his Pixiv account. Any Comiket goers happen to grab a copy of this?
Do I need to get my eyes checked? Did Final Fantasy XIII, one of the most advertised, hyped games of the past four years, just get outsold by New Super Mario Bros Wii, LoZ: The Spirit Tracks, and that God damned “Miis make friends on the DS” game in only it’s second week of release in Japan?
That’s nuts.
Now, I know that Final Fantasy games aren’t known for their long legs, but to see the mega-budgeted, mega-advertised game get outsold so quickly by three games that likely cost one tenth of what Final Fantasy XIII cost to produce just confuses me. All this time, I secretly thought that the PS3 and Final Fantasy XIII would end up conquering all of Japan, and they defintiely did… for a week. To see the game almost get outsold by a months old Pokemon remake teaches me how little I understand about Japan.
Hit the jump for the rest of the Japanese numbers for the week of Dec 21st. After checking them out, riddle me this; does it make sense for Square Enix to spend so much more money to produce the Final Fantasy games that they used to if they don’t start selling more than they used to?
It’s the last day of 2009 and of the Double Os as well (unless you’re pedantic), but more importantly it’s the last day you can enter to win a spectacular Zelda prize pack.
How spectacular you ask?
The grand prize is a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, a Spirit Tracks t-shirt, a $1,000 Nintendo World Store gift card, a Zelda’s “biggest fan” trophy and a white Nintendo DSi system personally signed by longtime Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma.
You’ll have to live in any of the Americas (North or South) to enter. If you’re interested and have the day free then go check out the official rules.
Quickly browsing through the entries page I notice that there seem to be 11 entries for the 11 finalists that will be choosing, so your odds are pretty good.
Steam isn’t the only PC game download site offering sales deals on main of their titles. GamersGate is also cutting prices on a number of their titles they have in their library of downloadable PC games. In fact two of the game’s sales end today. One is Torchlight which can be downloaded for just $9.95. The other is for Borderlands which is on sale for $34.95.
Other games on sale until January 5 include Stormrise for just $11.98, Dark Sector for a mere $9.95, Cryostasis for $6.49 and a Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3/Red Alert 3 Uprising combo for just $24.95.
After nearly a year and half of being Kotaku’s San Francisco Correspondent and default token girl*, it’s time for me to say goodbye. GamePro is whisking me away to that fabled land of print journalism I’ve heard so much about.
Pieces of You: Rebuilding Myself on Consoles — Breakups suck, but my work at Kotaku got me through a really nasty one. I still can’t believe Stephen Totilo let me keep the Jewel song title in the headline.
Kotaku’s Super Huge Pumpkin Patch (Parts One, Two, Three and Four) — I’m a sucker for crafts projects and I find that there’s no other video game blog on the Internet that makes room to post stuff like this as well as shoes, cakes, video game wedding stuff, etc. It took me three hours on Halloween weekend to upload all those images, but it was worth it.
Girls Night With The Most Male Game Of 2009 — Yes, it pissed people off. Yes, I got death threats. But what’s most important to me is that this article got people talking. I’m still amazed when I skim through the comments at some of the genuinely thoughtful discourse that goes on in there. Hope to see more of it where I’m going. And I still hope to see women in Modern Warfare 3.
My Master’s Project, “Writing About Video Games: Journalism, Criticism and Mainstream Media” — I can’t let the full copy of this 7000-word beast see the light of day yet because in my mind, it’s still not “done.” While working on it, I got the chance to interview Totilo before he jumped ship for Kotaku, N’Gai Croal as he was leaving Newsweek, Seth Schiesel from the New York Times, Jamin Brophy-Warren of the Wall Street Journal and Georgia Tech Associate Professor Ian Bogost — it was an all star cast. Kotaku made that possible by giving me access to these heavy-hitters and its articles make up about a quarter of my source list. Here’s a tiny sample of my conclusion:
