Weekly 5 2/15
Hey friends, welcome to another Weekly 5! You know, just some links hand curated as a gift from us to you!
The east coast version of IndieCade is this weekend in New York City. Rumor has it, it is not to late to get tickets to events, so if you are in the area, or can get down to NYC for the weekend, we strongly encourage you check it out. A number of us have attended the IndieCade held every year in California, and it is a truly welcoming conference for independent games. While there are some great talks and lectures, the highlight is usually the opportunity to roam around and play many unreleased indie games.
This one is an unfortunate, but curious story about layoffs at Valve, the company behind many hit games like Portal and Half-Life as well as the game distribution platform Steam. It is interesting because turnover at Valve is characteristically rare, and the company prides itself on its collaborative and open corporate structure. Not surprisingly there are not a lot of details about the how or why of these firings, but the story certainly made waves around the game world.
Proteus is a very unique game. Or maybe it’s not a game. But rather than get into that tired argument, let’s look at Proteus for what it is. Over at Gamasutra, lab friend Ian Bogost offers a unique review for such a unique game.
Do We Need More Star Wars Videogames?
With all the hubbub surrounding the development of a new, J.J. Abrams directed Star Wars film, and the sale of the franchise to Disney, the folks over at Wired wondered what a bunch of noted game developers would do if they could make their dream Star Wars game. Ranging from light saber Playstation Move games to tower defense games, there were a lot of different answers, but perhaps no answer was better than Frank Lantz’s:
“I never want to make, or play, another game or see another movie, cartoon, or lunch box set in that desiccated husk of a universe.”
This is not explicitly game related, but this morning a meteorite exploded over Russia. Unfortunately many were injured from the shockwave that followed the massive explosion. Amazingly, the dramatic event was captured on video. Unbelievable.
Abe Stein is a Research Affiliate at the MIT Game Lab and recently completed his SM in the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, writing about sports videogames. He has authored a number of articles about sports and sports media and is co-editor of the book Sports Videogames. He currently works as an Associate Director of Communications at Wheaton College, in Norton, MA and as a researcher with the eSports company Azubu, and have studied and written about sports media.