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Remember how back when I posted that it was hot I said I was busy in real life and that was totally interfering with my usual schedule of being around on the site I should arguably be responsible for maintaining? That was totally true, yo. So true in fact that it’s not even hot any more and I’m still too busy to, you know, pay attention to Tap. I’m really sorry about that.

Luckily I have many fine contributors and the ability to recycle my own content from other sites. Thus do I give you the latest installment of Culture Clash, which is a little incoherent on account of the busy – something about hearts breaking, and I think childhood. Harbour Master is mentioned in there as well. I dunno. It made sense when I wrote it. Enjoy! I’ll be back in like three months.

Typically I don’t publish my Culture Clash columns here until they’ve been run at the IGDA website, but honestly, in the last few months I’ve had no fucking clue what’s going on over there. So I present to you my latest – sort of, in that it was filed on June 10 and I haven’t heard anything from an editor yet, which is uncommon because my editors there are apparently of the opinion that I have no professional writing experience whatsoever – with all hopes that it pleases you.

This one comes on the tail of a column that… well, it caused some chaos, let’s put it that way. And while its final published form didn’t spark any particular controversy, it was quite an adventure for those behind the curtain. As such I went for a more innocuous, if not entirely cheery, thesis this month. Enjoy!

Well, it’s been a long time in coming, folks, but here’s the latest installment of my “monthly” feature column for the IGDA.

I had a weird experience with this column. Beyond weird. One might even call it… surreal. And it’s still going on; still hasn’t been fully resolved. May not be. Despite a strong desire to explain I think it might be best to leave it at that; suffice to say that what you read below is not the original version of this column, and while I’m perfectly satisfied with what’s there, the whole “road not taken” dilemma does resonate. Anyway, it’s a story that’s probably only interesting to me, so consider yourselves lucky to not be regaled with it. Enjoy the piece!

My schedule over at the IGDA has been a complete mystery. I used to stick very rigidly to a next-month’s-column-is-due-by-the-30th-of-the-previous-and-earlier-if-possible approach, but in the last year it’s been getting harder to do that. Responsibilities pile up and I’m not good at fulfilling them. So it’s nearly the end of April (and entirely my fault), that the April installment of the series is now online. As promised in the previous one, I skip morbid subjects and go for something a little more easy to stomach.

And lo, Steerpike reappears on the front page of his own website. I’ve been super-busy! Thank heavens for Lewis and Mat and Gregg keeping stuff alive in my absence.

This month’s IGDA Culture Clash column was whipped up in a hurry. I had a whole other one done, but realized it wasn’t really going anywhere. And as it happened I’d just read an article I wanted to comment on. So while I had no intention of discussing the Dead Island trailer, I did. I do. Here.

Special Bonus Content! Just now a good friend of mine wrote a beautifully crafted email to me, reacting to the trailer. I’m including that at the bottom of this, because it’s worthy of discussion. Check it out!

Here’s a Culture Clash column I wrote for the January 2011 edition of the IGDA website. I’m happy with it, but less pleased with the fact that our theme does not allow ~ symbols above an N in post titles. So if you were to read it out loud you’d have to say “pinn-nnnnnnaaaaahhtah,” like Winston Churchill.

Who was a great man. No busting on that dude. Won us WWII!

Still, though, tildes would be nice. Also: this is the last old Culture Clash I’ll publish on Tap’s front page (I’ll post the new ones here); the rest I’ll be back-dating so they’ll appear if you look at older posts or if you visit the Content -> Editorials -> Culture Clash section in the main menu (or just click here). This article is actually older than the previous one here on Tap – The Beauty of a Living Thing – and the rest will be older still. Thus, to prevent confusion, the back-dating. You may also note subtle differences between these (my originals) and the one on IGDA (which they sometimes edit slightly). Either one can be considered Canon. In any case, click to read on!

I’ve written Culture Clash for the IGDA website for over eight years now. I’ve always meant to start posting my monthly columns here as well, but never got around to until now. As time permits I’ll post the older ones and back-date them, so give me a couple days, then be sure to check out the Culture Clash category archive here at Tap to read more.

This one’s about… hell, click the button and you’ll see.

Let’s talk about price.

No, let’s talk about price and perception. No, let’s talk about price and misperception. Let’s talk about price and arrogance. Let’s talk about the difference between cost and value. Let’s talk about it in real world terms.

I know a guy who has a business-oriented product, a training product. It sells for $4,500 per person. My acquaintance is convinced that this price is fair – cheap, even. Having seen the product, I actually agree.

But.

This is a true story. It really happened this way.

Free speech doesn’t mean what it used to here in the United States, but we’ve so far been able to maintain reasonable confidence that at least our choice of entertainment won’t be silenced or penned. Now, however, with Terminator vs. EMA wending its way toward the country’s Supreme Court, everyone who harbors even a smidgen of faithlessness in the process is getting… well, not panicky, but concerned. It is conceivable, despite massive precedent, that videogames will be denied the level of retail protection afforded to most other entertainment media: that the industry will, in essence, be confined high on a shelf behind the counter, naughty bits covered in cardboard, while Maxim magazine and Hostel III titillate below.