Theorycrafting has changed our relationship with video games. Our collective pursuit of the meta – that is, the mathematical study of game mechanics – has pushed us to the point where, as Dan Olson declared, “It’s rude to suck at Warcraft.” Even single-player communities aren’t immune. It’s so pervasive that much of the games media ecosystem depends on an unseen legion of guide writers. But there is more to theorycrafting...

Dead videogames are like catnip for the terminally online like myself. Even a slight dip in a game’s player count is enough to generate countless hours of hasty YouTube punditry, breathless news articles and misguided comparisons. Although these narratives are usually misguided, our terminal obsession with player counts touches on something that is somehow both overlooked and over-commodified. Games die all the time, often by…

When Overwatch launched in 2016, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Its cast was a self-proclaimed mix of “oddities,” whose “soaring ideals of freedom and equality would never be forgotten.” It felt like a video game for everyone. ...Six years later and Blizzard’s slipshod track record demonstrates the limits of this milquetoast, Pixar-ification approach to diversity.

Asian American pop culture has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Music collectives like 88rising and films like Everything Everywhere All At Once are dominating the Western media zeitgeist, something that was almost unthinkable ten years ago. … Despite this collective progress in other media and wider society, Asian Americans are scarcely noticeable…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is having a bit of a moment. For those of you who don’t know, Animal Crossing is a game about collecting bugs for a terrified owl, fishing for a rare fish that just won’t spawn, low-key flexing on your friends, and about once a week, meticulously analyzing famous artworks so you don’t get hoodwinked by a fox who definitely does not…