This Week in Video Game Criticism: From Man Caves to Tropes vs Women

This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Kris Ligman on topics including core player "Man Caves" to reactions to Anita Sarkeesian's most recent Tropes vs Women in Video Games installment. ONLY CONNECT No less than Janet Murray herself has weighed in on the conclusion of Peter Molyneux's Curiosity, with a few ideas on why it was such a draw anyway. Porpentine and Merritt Kopas come together in a tangle of radical game dev limbs with a co-written essay toward an erotics of videogames, and play as political, subversive act. (Content warning: abstract nude figures, sexual subject matter.)

CHEW ON THIS XBONE It's unusual for something like NeoGAF to feature on these roundups, but this reply from faceless007 in a discussion on Xbox One’s potential effects on the used game market is a whammy.

On PopMatters Moving Pixels, Scott Juster opines that the Xbox One addresses the living situation of only a global privileged minority-- a "first world problem," as the kids call it (note: don't call it that). Meanwhile, on Kotaku, Leigh Alexander presents us with a satirical take on the Xbone's dead paradigm. DESIGN MATTERS On the original and still very best Brainy Gamer, Michael Abbott offers some much-needed perspective on the so-called creatively limiting trappings of genre. Specifically, that genre can also be a format by which to creatively flourish. The second Tropes vs Women in Games video is out, continuing Anita Sarkeesian's analysis of the Damsel in Distress trope. On Medium, Jenn Frank expounds on Sarkeesian's statement that we can still enjoy problematic media, talking schlocky games, slasher films, and still being a feminist. And over on Gamasutra's member blogs, JJ Wang throws in their own two cents about the Tropes vs Women in Games series, to whit: even if you totally, utterly disagree with Sarkeesian's charges of sexism, these tropes are still lazy and a sign of bad writing. Jordan Rivas has been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and noted some unfortunate implications with shortcuts taken in the worldbuilding:

On GameInformer, Liz Lanier takes a look back at Grandia's End of the World. Responding to the Mises Institute article we linked last week, Craig Bamford maintains that often enough, game economies like Diablo 3 aren't meant to function like real-world economies:

Problem Machine answers the question: what's the difference between rules and mechanics? And UnSubject offers up a bit of chartporn analysis on how Metacritic’s weighted metascore differs from unweighted averages. ALL TOGETHER NOW Back on Gamasutra's blogs, developer Jen Whitson points to one way in which developers continually select for a particular kind of work culture (read: bro culture). Also in the Gama blogs, I Get This Call Every Day dev David Gallant argues for a more inclusive independent scene as well. AUF DEUTSCH On Videogametourism, Robert Glashuttner takes a look at erratic horror. And Sebastian Standke and Christian Huberts have put out a bilingual (German/English) call for interviews on the subject of atmospheric games. MISCELLANY David Surman has put together a collection of work from one of Christian McCrea's classes, showing off conceptual hard case covers for thatgamecompany's Journey. I don't often list my own work here, but this is one subject I can get pretty passionate about: on Let's Plays, their history, and why they're worth preserving. I've saved the best for last, of course, and this roundup's sign-off goes to David Sirlin, who has announced his exciting new game, Chess 2! Thanks for reading! We heartily encourage you to continue sending your submissions in by email and Twitter.