The Week of June 17, 2013

The weekend is finally here! Time to recap some important news buzzing around the game industry.

  • What a week for Microsoft and the Xbox One. You've probably read all you needed to know about the facts of the DRM switcharoo, but our regular broadcaster and writer Chris Davis wrote an excellent editorial about the reversal.

  • Another week, another Twitter controversy. Daniel Kaszor of the Financial Post poignantly summarized the problems of Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik's ignorant comments on trans* bodies. Krahulik's behaviour caused indie game developers Fullbright to pull out of the PAX Prime Indie Megabooth in protest. In response to the controversy, Krahulik has donated $20,000 to The Trevor Project, a tip he probably picked up from Kickstarter's PR crew.

  • Titanfall was one of my personal favourite games shown at E3 this year as I am a sucker for sci-fi shooters. This week Joystiq posted an interview with Respawn Entertainment's Fairfax McCandlish where details about the game's structure and cloud computing were explained. 4PN community member Sean also tipped me to this article by The Verge as a good companion piece to the interview.

  • Not too long ago I wrote about Apple's censorship of games with sociopolitical commentaries, and Tracey Lien of Polygon goes into further details about the obstacles for serious games in the Apple Store.

  • Have you read any of the works on re/Action? As gamers, developers and writers, it is absolutely essential to do so. This week two important critics, Zoya Street and Samantha Allen, wrote articles that are especially important to games media.

  • The Guardian posted an interesting article this week about video games as a way of promoting science. I had to pause reading when it came to the "surgical simulator" headline because it forced me to rewatch our own Brad play Surgeon Simulator 2013. I don't know if this game is what they had in mind in educating gamers...

  • How has your week of gaming treated you? Are you still playing The Last of Us? Have you downloaded XCOM: Enemy Unknown on your iOS device? Or have you picked up any titles from GOG.com's summer sale? Let us know in the comments!
That wraps it up for this week. If a game-related event occurs during the week and you think it deserves a mention, then please contact me and let me know.

Comments

  • theottomatic91 Avatar
    theottomatic91
    10 years, 9 months ago

    Loving the Last of Us and was so happy to hear about the X1 changes, have never heard of re/Action until know will definitely check it out.

  • Absolutely Daft Avatar
    Absolutely Daft
    10 years, 9 months ago

    Travis in the community gifted me Clive Barker's Undying. I really enjoy the game, but it does have its problems.

  • DrGonzo2 Avatar
    DrGonzo2
    10 years, 9 months ago

    I bought 4 games on GOG. Planescape Torment, Baulder's Gate 1 and 2, and System Shock 2. Can't wait to try them out!

  • Mike Avatar
    Mike
    10 years, 9 months ago

    @DrGonzo2. Those are EXCELLENT choices. Between Planescape, BG 1 & 2 I must have put 250+ hours into all those games. For BG 1 and 2 be sure to get the mod that combines both games into one huge epic RPG

  • Boomstick_Chameleon Avatar
    Boomstick_Chameleon
    10 years, 9 months ago

    Well you got re/Action another page view, Soha. I don't know if I'll have the balls to look them up regularly, but I liked what I saw.

    I really like the simple, straight-forward layout of The Weekly.