This week’s picks from Emily includes stories from The Guardian, Kotaku, Leigh Alexander, Polygon, and Kill Screen.
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The Culture of Video Games: A Reading List
Videogames fascinate me. I’m not very good at the majority I’ve tried to play, but, like kickball and baking, I still play, because they’re fun, and I don’t have to be good at everything. (Except Pac-Man World 2 for PS2. I rule that. Especially the ice-skating levels.) Friends have helped me play Bioshock Infinite and introduced […]
The Virtual Swindle of the New Breed of Video Games
When pay-to-play becomes pay-to-win, the classic model of video games—paying for time or access to the game—turns into something much more insidious. In The Baffler, game designer Ian Bogost asks us to consider which extracts a higher social cost: the explicit violence of Grant Theft Auto, or the addiction and sly financial drain of Candy Crush? […]
The Family That Would Not Live
What can haunted houses and their history tell us about American history and culture? Writer Colin Dickey sets out across America to investigate America’s haunted spaces in order to uncover what their ghost stories say about who we were, are, and will be.
Truther Love
Uncovering the dating habits of conspiracy theorists and the challenges they face.
Canada’s National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List
Below is a guest reading list by Eva Holland, a writer and editor based in Canada’s Yukon Territory, whose work we’ve featured on Longreads many times in the past. * * * Canada’s magazine industry recently threw its biggest party of the year: the National Magazine Awards. The Canadian event differs from the American Ellies, with […]
The Virtual Swindle of the New Breed of Video Games
When pay-to-play becomes pay-to-win, the classic model of video games—paying for time or access to the game—turns into something much more insidious. In The Baffler, game designer Ian Bogost asks us to consider which extracts a higher social cost: the explicit violence of Grant Theft Auto, or the addiction and sly financial drain of Candy Crush? […]
Truther Love
Uncovering the dating habits of conspiracy theorists and the challenges they face.
Why I Hate My Dog
In this lighthearted portrait of his family’s rescue dog, author Richard Gilbert explores the larger bond between human and animal.
The Walkable Multiverse According to Charles Jencks
On an abandoned mining site in Scotland, an architectural theorist attempts to bring the mysteries of the cosmos to life on Earth.
