Dynamic Queue: League changed for good.

               Dynamic Queue is down immediately and the churlish cries of the league of legends elite can be heard loud and clear. "Thank God", they exclaim, " how else was I supposed to climb my way into Challenger tier when I had to play like a team. And that's exactly what's baffling about the hostility tossed at Dynamic Queue. Players don't like dynamic queue because they want to maintain some individual privilege. The notion that rank becomes meaningless when dynamic queue is introduced is ridiculous. Ranked became a more pure representation of league of legends the minute dynamic queue went live. Everything about dynamic queue is centered around team orientation. Riot gave players the tools to solve incredibly difficult collective action problems that were often impossible to coordinate on in the past. Now by priming players to think collectively, ranked and games in general feel more team oriented than ever before.
          Before we even address the elephant in the room (duo queue became trio and quadruple queue) let's examine some of the other key changes riot did. First, the ban and champion forecast system. The champion forecast system allows players to send information in a neutral manner about play style. My ability to let you know which champion I'd prefer to play tells you more than the lane I want. Immediately you can begin to see deficiencies in team composition within the first few seconds, making it far more likely to address to issue than the awkward 30 second timer of the champion select screen. Even if three out of the five champions were banned, we can at least see what kind of champions these players like to play. Then you can start reasonably negotiating in the chat. Hey I know they banned Veigar, but maybe you could consider Annie? Hecarim was a good mobile jungle, perhaps a Shyvana would be a good alternative. Suddenly we're not obnoxiously dictating team composition. The ban system fortifies this testament to good will because bans reflect a more holistic opinion of the group. You don't like Zed? Fine, get rid of him, it's your mid lane. You find fizz annoying? Zoink, no more Fizz jungle. While certain bans become a must over time (damn you Tahm Kench), teams are less likely to rage over a distributed ban responsibility.
       The choosing of roles is the only aspect of the dynamic queue that runs counter to the development of league of legends play. Meta is supposed to be ever changing and dictated by gameplay. No amount of flex picks or ambiguous labeling is going to prevent the cementing of a 4 men, three lane, one jungle meta that becomes legitimized by pre-choosing roles. In some ways this could be a sign of maturation in league. What was considered viable in earlier season (season 1 and 2) lanes such as double mid or three in one lane has become outdated. As a company Riot has solidified the customs of the game, which is necessary for the professional gaming scene and for the recognition of the game as a competitive game. Sports such as baseball and football were actually quite unstable in their early years, often following house rules and at times changing drastically from year to year. But as the sports became more legitimate, the rules and expectations in the game became more restrictive. The dynamic queue reflects that same kind of maturation happening in League of Legends. And it doesn't hurt that for the most part "mid or feed" will become a forgotten phrase in the League lexicon.
       Now let's deal with the elephant in the room. "But I like to play alone and I want this prove my individual skills were able to handle any random assortment of challenges thrown at it," says every Platinum player that believes they will make Diamond. Unfortunately the reality is that for the most part this is selfish nonsense. The challenges faced in solo queue were actually a shadow of what league of legends really is intended to be. This could be evidenced by the immediate complaining of pro players, who in the dynamic queue, were paired against a set of random solo queue Gods and found them quite easy to dispatch. That's because while each solo queue challenger player may have been mechanically capable and intelligent, their inability to coordinate as a team made them very easy to counter for professional players who implement strategies according to the team. In the end of the day league of legends is a team game. Anything that facilitates a team oriented mindset is going to make the game more fun to play and far more rigorous. Of course this means that individual is going to be placed in interesting and complicated collective action problems. If you have a 3-2 team (3 premade and 2 solo queue), then you're forced to adapt to what the 3 premade players are going to do. Now if the 3 premade players have a particular strategy or composition they like to run, then good players should be able to play into the strengths of their new found teammates. Suddenly you have more people running orianna mid, yasuo top and malphite jungle, leaving you to decide whether you want to choose and adc that players into the wombo (an MF or Graves) or an adc that will clean up the mess (Vayne or Caitlyn). Either way you're forced to reinterpret your role in the context of the team. Does it get frustrating when you don't have autonomy, sure. But that doesn't mean the game becomes invalid. It encourages you to play with people in a team like environment.
       Anti-social tendencies in gaming are heralded for no particular reason. In MMOs and MOBAs alike, gamers have insisted that their freedom within the game is necessary for any successful gameplay to exist. While this argument might ring true for RPGs and other types of single player games, games that are multi-player by nature cannot be expected to be played within a vacuum. Unnecessary breaches of freedom will certainly be looked down upon, but anything that fosters a more competitive game that provides more options and strategies simply trumps any perceived necessary freedom. Gamer libertarians are often just selfish individuals who believe their happiness trumps every other player's happiness. They mask it under the guise of freedom, when in actuality it's a bout of oneupsmanship. It's time for use to accept it. Dynamic queue changed league of legends and I do believe it has changed for the better. 

Fallout 4 fails as an RPG

                  Yep, you read the headline right. Fallout 4 is an utter failure when compared to both of its predecessors (I'm even including New Vegas). Now the caveat is that the preceding statement is only true when critiquing it as an RPG. When considering it as a general sandbox game similar to the ilk of Minecraft, you might find it to be an exceptional game. One of the most common type of praise I hear about Fallout 4 is that x feature could be an entire game on its own. Which is fine, when the game itself delivers on what gamers expect from it. It's little consolation when I play fallout for fallout just to be given a shoddy doppelganger of fallout with a mine craft mini-game embedded inside. At this point of the review, I'm going to warn you that there will be spoilers. Meaning if you don't want anything ruined don't read any further past this point.


What makes Fallout memorable?
                Before we talk about why Fallout 4 was horrible let's think back to Fallout 3 and NV and ask ourselves what made those games memorable. I don't like reducing games to particular dimensions, but for the sake of pointing out glaring flaws in Fallout 4, the two dimensions I want to focus on are rich narrative story telling and complex world building. Fallout 3 and NV did exceptionally well at both of these dimensions and one will find when they analyze the games, both dimensions go hand in hand. Rich narrative story telling allows the game to better build a complex world with customs and understandings. This is what creates immersion in a game. A lost in another world feeling came from the story lines and general rules and interactions of the wasteland that made both games so compelling. Fallout 4 does little work in establishing that feeling, assuming that since "it looks like post apocalyptic Boston" and " it sounds like post apocalyptic Boston". therefore it must be a post apocalyptic setting. What they don't understand is that we the gamer do not know what that's supposed to look like. The notion that we fill in the blanks is absolutely ridiculous. In the real world we don't go to another country and predetermine what culture and other aspects of the world should be. They're told to us and we're forced to negotiate through them our locus of control. Fallout 4 shamelessly says here's a world do what you want to it, but it isn't giving us a world. It gives us cardboard cutouts of a world we were once familiar with.

Introductions are key
          The introduction to Fallout 3 is possibly one of the best, if not the best, introduction in an RPG ever made. Every second the introduction is devoted to teaching the player how to play game, while simultaneously informing the player about the plot and relationships that should matter to them. Progressing through the annals of time was a risky move that goes against the typical in media res mindset often found in video games, but it works perfectly. I'd compare it most to the story of UP, which had a micro love story in the beginning of the movie that perfectly encapsulated the sheer power and effect a relationship had in a matter of minutes. Fallout 3 does the same by building the relationship the main character had with the vault to the ultimate climatic escape which ushers you into the bulk of the game out in the wasteland. At that moment we feel like a vault dweller with our eyes opened up for the first time. New Vegas decided to go in media res, which was perfectly fine seeing that the residual effect of Fallout 3 would have diminished any attempt at recreating that fish out of water feeling.
        Fallout 4's introduction comes off as misguided and contrived. Every line of dialogue seems forced and out of place. First we need to establish that the husband and wife love each other so they'll say cheesy love lines to each other. Now we need to establish that they care about their child, so let's have them play with the child through aimless clicking. Oh did you see that the child laughed, it should melt the player's heart to have this heartfelt moment with their child. Now let's foreshadow the impending doom with an annoying vault salesman because we don't have time to waste. There are two ways to fix the introduction in Fallout 4: either get rid of it and just start the player in the vault ice bath seeing his wife get killed or truly commit to developing the sense of family that was supposed to be established by having them go through the community untouched. In fact, the latter option would have really served a profound effect. Whereas Fallout 3 was about the rehabilitation of the world, Fallout 4 seems to be more about the destruction of it. The issue is how am I supposed to even care about a suburb I hardly got see. If they had me do some menial tasks (e.g. talk to neighbor x, help child y,) I may have grown attached to the city and felt some sort of emotional connection when I realize all of those wonderful individuals are dead. This harrowing feeling will really hold weight as I sift through their wreckage to rebuild Sanctuary. A part of them remains in the town. This is how you create worlds. The devil is in the details.
     Even after the initial introduction we find Fallout 4 isn't about hand holding and honestly that's a bad thing. In Fallout 3 you will eventually wander right in Megaton and if you play your cards right someone will point you to Moira Brown. Moira Brown is essentially the tutorial guide for playing Fallout 3, hidden in plain sight as you make a tutorial guide for other wastelanders to use. Her quests are sometimes repetitive and dull, but her wacky and naive personality makes up for the fact that she's essentially telling you to do stupid shit. Also, if you want to be a jerk face you can scam her, immediately introducing you to the moral schema of Fallout. New Vegas had a very linear mission path line which I felt was a weaker aspect of New Vegas. It didn't really encourage full blown exploration till you reached the strip and by then you've seen most of what needs to be seen.
   Fallout 4 has one of the most confusing tutorial towns I've ever seen. You enter Lexington and you're immediately confronted with a horde of raiders. Now for anyone not baptized in the way of V.A.T.S. this could prove to be an incredibly frustrating encounter. Fortunately I dispatched them with ease, rattling off head shots left and right, while chugging down the occasional stimpack when finding my health low. Then I entered the main building to find the leader of the supposed minutemen. He was with a ragtag group of people who I thought were also minutemen (hint: they aren't) and they needed my help because those raiders are annoying. As far as difficulty goes this part is pretty easy. Go down stairs. Unlock the door. Get the shit they need. Go back to them. This is where the entire encounter doesn't make any sense. They then proceed to tell you to go into a suit of power armor (by the way, power armor no long functions as armor, but mainly as a vehicle a move I find annoying, but can see how it creates complex gaming situations) and go down there to take care of business with the raiders Only issue is, the raiders aren't the main bad guy. Instead a Deathclaw, the single most powerful creature in the game, is waiting for you. I died a few times, but eventually armed with power armor and a gattling gun, I was able to bring it down. And I thought to myself: roll credits. What's the point of playing the rest of the game if I was able to dispatch the single most powerful creature in the game with the addition of power armor and a gattling gun. Both of which I get to keep. Sure they'll eventually run out of ammo, but not before I could reach a few towns and do a few missions. This was a confusing move on Bethesda's part. RPGs are supposed to give you a sense of accomplishment. I should be able to look at where I started and compare it to where I currently am and think to myself, " wow I've gotten much stronger." I'm around 10 hours into the game and I've only just returned back to the power I previously had in the first 20 minutes of the game. Talk about regression.
  Fallout 3 had a similar situation in its game, but went about it in a completely different manner. For the lucky few who have played Fallout several times (I'm talking 10 to 15 times), you may have encountered a moment in the beginning of the game where you go to SuperDuper Mart and you stumble upon a deathclaw. The deathclaw in this situation is at about 1/3 health and he's already injured. Experienced players would know to go for its leg, successfully crippling it and then widdling it away with a kiting motion. New players foolishly face it head on and get their shit wrecked. The deathclaw serves as a teaser for the player, an indicator that there are far more powerful things out there in the wasteland and if you hope to survive them you need to start bulking up. This creates a sense of urgency, whereas Fallout 4 creates a sense of complacency. Oh I'm already strong enough to take on a full blown Deathclaw? Cool, no point in playing anymore.

this happens in the beginning of the game

There is more to come. I am going to write tons on this topic. For now I'll leave it at this.
 
Sidebar: Now I'm not firmly against the removal of the karma system in Fallout 4. However, since the missions so far have lacked moral consequence it honestly hasn't mattered. Fallout 3 could have been completely stripped of its karma system and it still would have been compelling to play. Fallout NV did not even need a karma system because companions served as an indicator of karma. Fallout 4 desperately needs a karma system because it's often not clear what's good and what is bad. Hell it's not clear what will piss someone off half the time. Here I am trying to get Piper to like me and she takes issue with random shit I say. The point is that karma systems are necessary when there are good stories. Karma systems are necessary when a story is non-existent.

Why Grandtheft Auto V is symbolic of over ambitiousness in video games

                              GTA V is lauded as one of the best additions to the GTA series. And for good reason. On paper it seems bigger and therefore better. Bigger sandbox. Bigger selection of thingies to shoot, drive, fly, blow up. Bigger array of characters. It's bigger. But unfortunately the core gameplay suffers due to its over ambitious nature. GTA V is supposed to be your normal sandbox shoot em up, but instead it's four games in one. The first game is a narrative driven piece, exploring how criminals weave their everyday lives into their enterprises. The second game is a niche heist based game, where the joy of the game is derived by choosing creative ways to rob targets and following through with those plans for the eventual pay-off. The third is our normal sandbox shoot em up we all know and love. And finally the online play can be viewed as its own entity. To say that a game can't achieve all of these modalities in one game would be presumptuous. Nothing is inherently mutually exclusive on this list. Unfortunately GTA V does not pull of any of the game modes particularly well, creating a game experience where you're constantly left wanting more.
                           Let's start with the story. The pacing of the story early on works very well. The opening sequence setting up the eventual long term conflict between Michael and Trevor work perfectly as an impetus for the player to keep moving along. Unfortunately there's so much unrelated material in between we never get to sink our teeth into the story. Enter Franklin who exists merely as a foil for both characters, preventing any huge emotional pay day. Furthermore, aside from Michael, Franklin and Trevor have static story lines. Franklin and Trevor are each given some opening "character building" missions, just so the player can get to know them as characters, but once the fun is done you are scurried right back to the main plot which really centers around Michael. Unfortunately Michael also has his host of side projects (the movie) and personal issues (his family) that seem to get sucked into the narrative at random. The result is a cluster fuck of narrative ties that don't seem to make any sense. Why didn't Franklin get angry at Michael when he stole those cars and received no payment, while Michael was clearly compensated via the director connection? Also, I know Trevor is a psychopath, but why is it that his sudden interest in his fictional company diminishes? What happened to the Grove street gang and why aren't there others in the gang who are outraged at Franklin's blatant turn of the back?

Yea grove street for life, until I get enough money, then fuck that shit

These are all questions that should have been explored, but instead the narrative was married to this romantic notion of the "thief." It was through the recreation of the daring con-man tale that GTA V was going to develop its narrative gravitas. But when you rely on another aspect of game play to establish narrative, it needs to come through.
              The heist gameplay in GTA V was a refreshing change in the series and one I genuinely enjoyed. Even though the options were near linear (A or B), the prospect of me creating a master team of hackers, gunmen, and drivers excited me. I wanted to create the A-team. Unfortunately with the game having only a handful of heists, I found myself spending more time drudging through pointless missions just to get to heists. Most of the time the game followed a fire fight, fire fight; heist, fire fight, fire fight; heist gameplay timeline. The issue was everything seemed to pale into comparison to the heist. Nothing feels better than walking out of a bank in full body armor with a gattling gun at your side.

Why couldn't I have more opportunities to do that? The obvious answer is that GTA isn't intended to be that kind of game, which is fine. Then don't even put it in the game. I wish the dev team would have realized early they had a great game concept that could stand on its own without the GTA brand. Then those working on GTA could focus on what makes GTA so fun, the sandbox experience. I don't have a stinging condemnation of the heists in the game, more so I believe there wasn't enough. Not enough heists. Not enough options to broaden my team and its skills. Not enough gattling guns. And as I alluded to in the previous paragraph, the narrative was dependent on the player being immersed into a romantic notion of thievery.
         The sandbox existed in GTA V, I just never compelled to explore it. And that's a problem. Sandbox games should be centered around exploration. If you want to go for broke on narrative, that's fine, but it must be understood that it will in some way hinder the narrative. If it ain't broke don't fix it is an adage that comes to mind for this flaw, but I also can't get too critical of an attempt to redefine the power of a sandbox game. The vastness of a world can be used as a narrative tool, but due to the natural limitations of game, its impossible to add the narrative flair and detail necessary to make a sandbox feel like a unique story. Eventually you get Elder Scrolls syndrome, where every cave is the like the last cave you plundered; every random town you run away from the cops in becomes like the last time you ran away from the cops.

So much to see, so much to explore, except for when I have a mission that requires me to go to the same 4 locations

And that's fine. It gave GTA replayability. Sometimes all I want to do is turn on my xbox and begin sniping people from the top of the ferris wheel. But in a game that seems to be pushing me in other directions, I never get around to exploring why this world was so fun. This critique slightly bleeds into a larger critique of the GTA series' push into realism and abandonment of humor and satire, but even when refraining from that vein of criticism I found myself oddly disinterested with the open world of Los Santos.
          GTA online is GTA online. It's neither bad or good. I don't particularly enjoy it, but I'm sure some people do. I'm just not one of those people. I consider it separate from the game proper anyways so moving on!
        So should we rage at Rockstar? No because at the very least they're creating unique material that had ambitious intentions backing up the game. Rockstar could have created Vice City 5.0  over and over and over and still make millions. Instead they decided to push the bounds and limits of their game. It just turns out that this time it didn't work out. The game was too big. Unfortunately the GTA brand is too big to fail, so its sins won't be fairly taken into account. We will still by GTA 6. And you know what I'm ok with that. I'd rather support triple A games that are willing to take risks, then a slew of Call of Duty clones.

Fallout 4 and mindless speculation!

                       Time for me to pretend to be a video game blogger again! If you don't know my massive love for Fallout, then you should return to my incredibly long post about why borderlands is a bad game ( I rave about Fallout for a bit in it). But now I finally have a new Fallout and I can ignore how buggy New Vegas was merely an appetizer, teasing my palate for the main course. And with any new trailer it's time for me to speculate and bullshit until the point where I go back to this post a year from now and remember how much of fool I am.

                        First thing I noticed about the Fallout 4 trailer is how it begins in a very similar manner to the teaser of Fallout 3. I often thought of the accompany songs as setting the theme of the game. For example, "I don't want to set the world on fire" is a song about a lover who is set on finding some sort of happiness, but does not want to engage in a systematic destruction of the world to get it. Comparing this to Fallout 4, the lyrics are selectively muffled. We hear the beginning of the song, " it's all over, but the crying." This opening lyric can signify a tone switch in the games. As opposed to a story of finding resolution, instead this will be game punctuated by constant loss, possibly due to the subtext of the impending nuclear war that keeps breaking through in the game. Perhaps the game exists to reconcile the difficult history that created the apocalyptic nuclear
wastelands. If that didn't sound like an over analysis, then you might be interested in the selected omission of lyrics via muffling or back dropping. The first omitted lyric is the mention of everyone else not crying, which is a classic fallout move. Fallout is very much a game of isolation and loneliness and how one copes with a horrible reality essentially alone. By returning to the line "crying but me" it emphasizes the sorrow felt by the individual. Again a beloved is set forth in the song as a desired individual, but instead of becoming focused on the beloved as what is insinuated in Fallout 3, the song suggests that the goal is to ignore the beloved. At that moment the game shifts to the confirmation of a nuclear strike. Now that is a tone shift that is being played out vis-a-vis the intertextuality of the song and the game. What it indicates is that this is a game that explores immense loss and as opposed to a sanctimonious solution such as Project Purity, we might come to far more depressing and deflating realization about human nature and the wasteland through the lore uncovered about the nuclear strike.

Welp that's just an eighth glance look at the trailer. I'm sure I'll be back to revisit some other aspects of the trailer. Hope you enjoyed my baseless speculation! 

What I expect from the new Star Wars and what I don't want to see

               So the second trailer has been released and put me down as intrigued and slightly excited. You have to understand as a Star Wars fan I have been conditioned to disappointment. The prequels were awful and recent changes to remastered versions of the movie were obnoxious. When I heard J.J. Abrams was directing I fell into despair. I'm not a huge fan of what he did to Star Trek. He made Star Trek fun some please exclaim. Yea, well maybe the sole purpose of Star Trek wasn't supposed to be action packed suspense with each moment. Oh well, back to Star Wars. The first trailer was interesting, but did not tell me much. This second trailer suggested a lot. So it got me thinking to create a wishlist of things I definitely want to see in the new movie and things I don't want to see at all. 

Things I want

1. A black main actor- It has been made clear that Finn (John Boyega) is going to play some integral role in the movie. The trailer seems to be heavily hinting to him as one of the leading main characters and that makes me just giddy. When was the last time you can remember a leading actor in a sci-fi movie being black? I honestly couldn't tell you. It's about time black representation in sci-fi become more diversified. Star Wars is the ultimate stage for that to begin. 

2. A strong main female actor that doesn't play the constant support character- While Leia was a strong character her damsel in distress role in the movie often made her an afterthought in skirmishes. I want a female actor that has similar ability of prowess in the movie to all the male characters. What I mean is I don't want them donning the blaster and making sly quick shots when no one is looking. I want them to fuck shit up. Honestly the Jedis were a bit of a boys only club, time for change. 

3. A passing of the torch moment-  We need to acknowledge that the main characters from the original trilogy are going to be making appearances. Notice I say appearances and not resuming their main roles. That's because their job in this movie isn't to be the action pack go lucky group to save the galaxy. Time to let the youngsters take charge. Of course there's going to be that moment where the old crew shows them how it's done, but in the end I want there to be a passing of the torch. My guess is Han Solo is going to be killed and passes the millennium falcon to the hotshot pilot in the film. 

Things I don't want to see

1. A swan song- I don't want to see the old crew relive their glory days the entire film. I loved their old characters and seeing them in an older state attempting what really should be left to the new generation would just be cheesy. I mean he looks like he's ready for a space skirmish, but is at risk to dislocate his hip at the moment of any strenuous physical activity.  I don't want to see a middle age Luke recreating his light saber scenes with the next sith goon. 

2. Do not copy the original trilogy- Remember Star Trek into the Darkness? Remember Wrath of Kahn? Remember how J.J. Abrams stole scenes verbatim from several Star Trek movies and passed it off as a tribute? Well he better not do that with Star Wars. Sure some scenes need to be hinted at and the movies should be a shared cultural capital that allows true fans to appreciate new material. However, do not try to stick in contrived references to the old film. Meaning, I don't want Han to shoot first at the first guy that wriggles his eye brows wrong at him. Do not, I repeat, do not try to recreate every iconic scene and squeeze it into the next three movies. Develop new material. J.J. Abrams has the opportunity to etch himself into sci-fi lore forever. The best way for him to make this film forgettable is by sticking to the script and play a non-stop fan service. 

3. No convoluted explanations of the force or over the top light saber fights-  Fuck midichlorians. I don't need a scientific explanation for the force it is clearly a physical manifestation of spirituality. It's supposed to be elusive. Don't explain it. Luke said " the force is strong in my family" not " my midichlorian count is over 9000.  Also, don't get stuck into Lightsaber hysteria. Lightsaber fights should be far and few between. They're intended to be metaphorical rather than just blunt tools for action in the movie. Your lightsaber isn't your life. It's a form of expression in the Star Wars world. 

Feel free to disagree :D. 

The issue with male video game stream watchers.

                    Female Streamers and their "inability" to cover up have been the new trend these days in the video game world. Sky Williams posted a few tweets and videos suggesting that female streamers who happen to show cleavage/skin/etc. are. in essence, degrading female streamers everywhere. This problem was something that I considered the other day as I was on a female streamer's twitch channel. I found the channel incredibly boring (and the title was misleading). When I voiced my opinion in the chat, a horde of angry followers rose up in defense. It seemed pretty clear that her following comprised of mostly men, many of which seemed to be projecting their own social outcast in the dating world onto her. And that just rubbed me the wrong way. But I realize now that the fact that men decide to use streams for purposes other than the intended purpose of the stream is a problem for only men.  But Raymond! Obviously if a streamer like Kaceytron has her cleavage showing, hordes of male viewers are going to watch her play not for the games, but for the cleavage. Ok. So what? That's Kaceytron's choice and any other female streamer's choice. Just because they are showing cleavage doesn't mean their intent is seduce men. They may not honestly give a fuck about whether men come or not. Maybe they just enjoy playing videos games in what ever their wearing. Even if women outright made it clear that they were going to use seduction to entice men to watch their streams that doesn't change the fact that men could simply ignore the streams. But what men cannot and should not do is demand women streamers to change their attire and shame women for not adhering to what they want. Stop it. I'm tired of crap like that happening. If you find her stream superfluous, then don't watch it. If you think it has great and riveting content, keep watching, cleavage or not. In the end of the day, women streamers don't have an issue, male viewers do. 

Tear down Gamer Gate!

      The mess that has become gamer gate has gone far enough for me. With the announcement of Movie Bob Chipman from the Escapist, I now realize that what I thought was a foolish and misguided mens right reddit internet torch and pitchfork session has become a bonafide movement that now is being supported by institutions within the gaming community. I saw Escapist as a website that rivaled Kotaku as a source of information for gamers. For a long time I thought I could look the other way, but now I realize that those who fight for social justice need to be heard in the video game community.
          So let me make this clear. I don't blog as much as I used to, but now I will and the goal of this blog changes today. Instead of reviewing old games, I will be doing cultural dissections using critical race theory as a lens for games and geek culture as a whole. I will be an incessant voice that constantly brings up issues of class/race/gender/sexual orientation and any other targeted identity that finds itself often shunned in the community. I will actively call out gamer gate and I may even create a reddit just to combat those who so far have a "louder" voice in the community. If you are a gamer and you believe gamer gate has become a racist and misogynistic parasite in the gaming community, then join me in voicing your opinions. Let's create our own materials. Our own games. Our own reviews. Our own discourse about what it means to be a gamer. Let's rewrite stereotypical characters and use the medium to make meaningful progress in the gaming community. You might think "pssh, I just wanna play my games." And I understand where that's coming from, but there are so many people who don't feel they can have a voice in the community because of the horrible actions of gamer gate. Geek culture has always had a mark of the outcast. Geeks by definition are unpopular and therefore confided in each other for community. Where will the outcast go if they are outcast by their own people? I will no longer be silent and I hope you are not either.

Note: Before I get lambasted by the technical nay-sayers, I'll make my own correction. Bob has stood fast that his leaving had nothing to do with his politic. I don't believe it and many others don't believe it. I certainly believe his leaving was planned, but the sudden removal certainly leads me to believe that politic was involved. Regardless, I got rid of the portion that suggested that was the main reason.