This week, our editors recommend notable features and essays by Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Justin Heckert, Gloria Liu, Sharon Levy, and Mychal Denzel Smith.
video games
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Loneliness of the Junior College Esports Coach
After a year of loss and grief, Madison Marquer signed up to lead a team of gamers at a community college in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Brendan I. Koerner chronicles the journey. By early 2021, Walsh had gathered ample evidence to prove that esports could bring in as many as 20 student-athletes per year and boost the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Meet the Obsessive Role-Players Who Live Inside the World of Grand Theft Auto
“Renegade developers co-opted this controversial video game’s source code to build a complex alternate universe where breaking character is the cardinal sin. Millions tune in to watch.”
Posted inReading List
Deeper Than Pixels: A Reading List on Video Games
Five longreads on the culture and creativity that games have spawned.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Sid Meier and the Meaning of “Civilization”
“Like many talented programmers at the time, he preferred to disappear into a fugue of coding and return with a gleaming piece of software.”
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
Sam Lipsyte on ‘Mental Archery,’ the Quest for Certainty, and Where All the Money Went
“It’s difficult to say what you really think. You’re too aware of the traps, the dead ends, the cul-de-sacs of utterance: all the ways we let cliché steer us in a certain direction, force us to say not quite what we mean…”
Posted inNonfiction, Story, Uncategorized
Every Mission is a Suicide Mission
Accompanying a contestant to a pro-level Galaga tournament to discover how many digital space bugs you have to destroy to find renown, community, and a modicum of inner peace.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Universe Has Been Outsourced
The production of big-name, high-budget games increasingly relies on outsourcing (or “external development,” if you prefer) for the creation of 3D art, level design, and other game assets. Michael Thomsen visited one of the firms that provides this work, the Shanghai-headquartered Virtuos Ltd. Thomsen draws out the tension between the demand for such work and […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The $5,000 Decision to Get Rid of My Past
After a series of painful losses, Ben Kuchera learns that when your games become your ghosts, it’s time to clean house.
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Nonfiction, Quotes
We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Screen: On the Addictive Escapism of Video Games
In Vulture, Frank Guan, an avid gamer himself, digs deep into the appeal and addictive qualities of video games in an effort to understand the psychology that undergirds hard-core gaming — and whether it has an impact on or can predict our politics.