In the story of the week last week, the biggest story is that the story became its own story. Confusing? Possibly, but this is exactly why it serves as an awesome way to describe gaming culture in a nutshell: nerds debating tiny, insignificant details that make no sense whatsoever to people from the outside looking in and then succeeding in blowing the debate up so thoroughly that real people were definitely injured in making of this video… or news story… or opinion column, whatever.
I’m incredibly saddened to announce the passing of Bill Kunkel, who died suddenly on September 4 at 61 years old.
Bill was quite literally the father of games journalism. He, along with Joyce Worley and Arnie Katz, founded Electronic Games, the first mainstream monthly video game magazine. Best known by his nom de plume “The Game Doctor,” Bill was active in the industry from the late 1970s until the moment of his death. His book, Confessions of the Game Doctor, is required reading for anyone interested in the seamier side of the industry.
One of the many things that make me happy about Tap is that we have no assholes here (except me). Every now and then some no-name will wander by and leave an obnoxious comment, but they never seem to stay for long. Ours is a grown-up site where people treat each other politely, and when they disagree, they discuss and debate. And one of the things I fear is that continued growth may inevitably lead …
Portland, Oregon fiction writer, writing professor, and gamer, Tom Bissell, was interviewed in my local alternative weekly concurrent with the release of his book, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. It’s a long, rambling interview that touches on, among other things, why Portal is so important, why most game reviews aren’t very good and how tedious it is actually writing for a game developer. “There’s this whole world here that is not being written about.” …