The Cultural Gutter

dumpster diving of the brain

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde

Neverwinter Diary: Tales from the Sword Coast

Rock Paper Shotgun‘s John Walker has been playing Neverwinter, and he’s been playing with other people–and he’s formed a RPS guild. “And for the first time in an online game, I don’t feel like the interfering hanger-onner, muddling my way through with the people who know what they’re doing. I mean – that absolutely still [...]

The State of the RPG Union

At Functional Nerds, J.T. Evans discusses Open Game Licensing, Paizo the Old School Renaissance and the future of Dungeons & Dragons. “’D&D Next’ might very well be ‘D&D Last.’”

LEGO Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad as a Lego Adventure Game.

“Tits or GTFO”

“We make an awful lot of assumptions about big-tittied people – assumptions like she’s somehow ‘asking for it’ or that her endowment in this arena means a lack of competence in others – and that is mean and unfair, and it is also just the world we live in, and some people with big tits [...]

“The Extraordinary, Mischievous, Too Short Life of Sean Smith”

Kotaku remembers Sean Smith, an Information Management Officer for the US State Department killed in Benghazi, Libya. He was also Vile Rat, a famous/infamous high level player in Eve Online.

“First Person Perspective and The Untroubled Gaze”

Kaitlin Tremblay examines why she prefers first person perspective to third person perspective when gaming: “If female characters have typically existed only to be looked at, then removing them visually and collapsing them in gamer/character removes this gendered aspect of the gaze. There is no gendered complication between playing as Salvador or as Maya, but [...]

The Dragonlance Chronicles: Innovative, Ubiquitous and Terribly-Written

At Pornokitsch, Jared takes a look at The Dragonlance Chronicles’ influence on contemporary fantasy: “[C]ool or not, Dragonlance has done more than almost any other post-Tolkien property in influencing fantasy. Its narrative and conceptual tropes can be found in every nook and cranny of the genre, and much of the modern low fantasy resurgence can be traced [...]

The Rants of GDC 2013

Games Industry International is publishing transcripts of this year’s rants at the Game Developers Conference. The first rant is from Tiniest Shark founder, Mitu Khandaker. “I’m 100 per cent able and willing to identify with white male characters – I don’t need characters to look like me to identify with them. That would be really [...]

Join The Literary Resistance!

The Gutter’s own Founding Editor, Jim Munroe talks about creating an alternate reality game based on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 for the Toronto Public Library.

Deciding Not To Repel Women

“As nice as it must be to be that [18-25 year old male] demographic—when you’ve got everyone banging on your door, trying to court you, it must be very pleasant—what’s it like for someone who isn’t in that demographic? We know they play our games. We can see that they do. OK, there’s support for [...]

“Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Damsels in Distress”

The first episode of Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women in Video Games is live. Watch “Damsels in Distress” here.

Gender Cues and In-Game Harassment

In a new study, written up at The Mary Sue, researchers look at gender and harassment in multiplayer online games, in this case, Halo 3.  “[T]he use of gendered insults and the tripled rate of negative comments, regardless of skill level or win percentage, indicates that something more than just a proclivity for trash-talk is [...]

New Game In Berlin

In Berlin, gamers score points for destroying CCTV surveillance cameras.

News from the EVE Frontline

Tor.com reports on one of the largest space battles in the history of EVE Online: “A space battle kicked off entirely by accident. A space battle so big it could not be simulated, it had to be crafted and pushed forward by human ego, so big it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yet [...]

What’s New At No Media Kings?

CG Co-Founding Editor Jim Munroe and Matt Hamill have a new text game, Guilded Youth. Meanwhile, Jim’s latest movie, Ghosts With Shit Jobs, is now available on Xbox.

“There are reasons I don’t talk about video game violence much”

Patricia Hernandez talks about the reasons she doesn’t talk about video game violence much. “They’re recollections of things, sometimes games I know for certain go together somehow, amount to a small piece of some puzzle that’s supposed to help me understand where violence and death fit in my life.”

Soviet Boardgames

Retronaut has a gallery of Soviet Era children’s board games. (via @wfmu)

The Dark Tower, Videogame Soundtrack Edition

Speaking from recent experience, I don’t recommend getting a cold/cough/(something virulent and archaic, like consumption?) that sticks around for 4-5 weeks. It kinda sucks. With reduced brainpower, I’ve been watching a lot of Rifftrax (“There can be only one?? You should have mentioned that earlier!”). Fun, but not much to say, except that, yup, Highlander [...]

“But Do You Play Shooters?”

““Do you play PC games?” he asked, frowning. One of the publications on my media badge was listed as PC PowerPlay. It shouldn’t have been necessary for him to ask such a question, but I answered. “Yes.” “Well, OK.” I sensed a disbelief in the guy’s voice. “But do you play shooters?” At Kotaku Australia, [...]

“Thinking Beyond Difficulty”

“Title screens make difficulty look awfully simple; easy, normal, and hard should live up to their names, shouldn’t they? But when you start thinking about the details of how a game is going to be easier or harder, it gets much more complicated.” At Gameranx, Andrew Vanden Bossche writes about the implications for game development [...]

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    Corrigan Vaughan writes an open letter to “Fans of Geek Things“: “I appreciate that you think I have a nice rack and that some of you even find my friends and I to be pretty. That’s very kind. I’m not, however, super in love with the fact that having a rack at all seems to preclude me from being considered a ‘real’ fan.”

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    The Black Girl Nerds Podcast discusses Black girls and women in the Heavy Metal industry with author and journalist Laina Dawes and Ursula “She-Wolf” Parson from Hear Evil News.

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    The Hollywood Reporter interviews director Takashi Miike about his new film, Shield of Straw: ” In Japan now, films are very safe. When I was young and went to old cinemas, they had a distinctive feel, an adult smell about them. As you got in your seat and the lights went down, there was a feeling of excitement: What if the film is scarier than I thought it’s going to be? You’re taken into that world. Nowadays, you can sit in the theater and know it’s going to be safe. That’s good for business, but not for filmmaking.”

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    The Atlantic profiles Spectral Motion, creators of monsters, “effects, and other mechanical grotesqueries that have since become household nightmares, if not names.”

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    A novelist takes revenge on writers he doesn’t like via wikipedia. Slate has the story. “Qworty’s edits undermine our trust in this great project. Qworty’s edits prove that Wikipedia’s content can be shaped by people settling grudges and acting out of spite and envy. Qworty alone, by his own account, has made 13,000 edits to Wikipedia. And Qworty, as the record will show, is not to be trusted.”

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    Diane Dooley writes about Mars’ need for women and ways to subvert it.

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