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This week, our partnership with games blogging curation site Critical Distance brings us picks from their Senior Curator Zoya Street on sport, pervasive games, and how we respond to the knowledge others are watching us.
The public sphere is where we act in full knowledge that others are present, where we make choices about how we engage with the world as a whole, and where we arrange ourselves into large social collectives. It matters to anyone working in pervasive games, because it affects how games are used, how people respond when they know others can see them playing, and how people talk about what they and others are playing.
Pokemon Go has inspired discussion about the public sphere because of how it puts people into physical proximity to each other with a different kind of awareness of each other, but other topics in gaming address the public sphere too.
What an Ingress battle in Hong Kong tells us about the future of Pokemon Go | ZAM - The Largest Collection of Online Gaming Information
Robert Rath considers the possible social futures of Pokémon Go.
Pokémon Go Is Bringing New Yorkers Together
Cecilia D'Anastasio highlights a short video documentary about the Pokémon Go phenomenon which praises it for creating a sense of commonality between people, while also showing the darker side of fantaticism.
Jocks without Borders | Real Life Mag
A compelling essay about the imaginaries of sport and e-sport. Side note: the illustration at the top of this article is rad as hell and I want it on a shirt.
"There is a deep-rooted tendency to associate sports with moments of courageous overcoming, with displays of physical strength, grace, and beauty. E-sports contain literally none of these, which means they are particularly well positioned to reveal all the other things that actually make up sport: the reification of competition, victory, and glory; patriarchal nationalism; and the formation of hierarchal social groups anchored in the protocols of spectatorship."
Critical Distance is community-supported. You can pitch in with Patreon or Paypal. Got suggestions about some pieces we should feature next week? Send them through Twitter or by email.
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