Racial Architecture: Building the FGC

To celebrate the release of Issue 4 of the VGA Reader, we will be featuring one article from the new volume with every zine for the foreseeable future. Click through to see the second article, currently hosted by Amherst College Press and available open source on fulcrum.org.

“This essay seeks to trace the historical articulation of Blackness in the FGC against the meritocratic principles of and the demand for hype spectacles. In this, I hope to contribute to understandings of articulations of racial identity and how they are altered in the spaces surrounding fighting games. It is important to understand exactly how Black Americans may engage with fighting games; how gamers and, to a certain extent, games understand racial identity; and how race factors into constructing a competitive space based on a meritocracy.”

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Issue XXII: January 2023Uche AnomnachiVGA Reader, Uche Anomnachi
V Rising: the Sunlight Mechanic and Empathy
V Rising: the Sunlight Mechanic and Empathy

The recent hit game V Rising offers plenty of unique and exciting mechanics. After all, as a vampire, you take on the various different strengths and weaknesses inspired by folklore of your mythological kin. Of course that includes the ability to suck blood, the potential to shapeshift, and an aversion to garlic. So what is there to speak of, then? Mechanics are mechanics, after all, and each game has its own gimmick.

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Issue XXII: January 2023A. KoA. KoComment
Thank You, Bit Bash! + 2022 Recap
Thank You, Bit Bash! + 2022 Recap

The recent hit game V Rising offers plenty of unique and exciting mechanics. After all, as a vampire, you take on the various different strengths and weaknesses inspired by folklore of your mythological kin. Of course that includes the ability to suck blood, the potential to shapeshift, and an aversion to garlic. So what is there to speak of, then? Mechanics are mechanics, after all, and each game has its own gimmick.

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Issue XXII: January 2023VGA StaffVGA Staff
Artists as Assets: Labor and Capital in the Unity Asset Store

To celebrate the release of Issue 4 of the VGA Reader, we will be featuring one article from the new volume with every zine for the foreseeable future. Click through to see the second article, currently hosted by Amherst College Press and available open source on fulcrum.org.

“The Unity Asset Store sells amateur designers and artists a promise of being able to participate in an idealized, rationalized vision of how the game design industry operates, riffing on a dream to distinguish themselves as artists. Yet in order to sell this vision to aspiring game designers, Unity and the Asset Store depend on marketing the content created by amateur artists in ways that require the artists to essentially package their work as labor and to mask their unique identities as artists.”

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Issue XXI: July 2022D’An Knowles BallVGA Reader
Exponential Backlogs, or a Short Game Manifesto

To celebrate the release of Issue 4 of the VGA Reader, we will be featuring one article from the new volume with every zine for the foreseeable future. Click through to see the first article, currently hosted by Amherst College Press and available open source on fulcrum.org. This piece is by our own Director of Exhibitions Chaz Evans:

“The combination of an increase in game production and increased gameplay time per title results in a staggering number of options for how players of video games spend the finite budget of gameplay time they may have. The problem of gameplay surplus has led to some novel approaches for consumers to manage these options.”

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Issue XX: June 2022Chaz EvansVGA Reader
VGA QUESTION ZONE: Barnaba Mikułowski
VGA QUESTION ZONE: Barnaba Mikułowski

“I think that many people associated with fine arts still associate games only with a new form of entertainment. And it is true that most of the games released on the market are just for entertainment and de-stress after school or work. Fortunately, many people have noticed that games can also be a great carrier of content and provoke important thoughts. And this is the domain of contemporary art.”

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Issue XX: June 2022Barnaba MikulowskiVGA ZINE QUESTION ZONE, Barnaba Mikulowski
A Word About Wordle
A Word About Wordle

Wardle has many things to thank for the game’s sudden popularity. It has a simple, unassuming design, only asks for a few minutes out of your day, and doesn’t pollute your vision with ads and banners. Wordle provides a break in your busy life when you don’t need to think about anything else except what today’s 5-letter word of the day is going to be.

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Issue XIX: April 2022Stefanie LuthinStefanie Luthin
Simple is Best: An Ode to Monkey Ball
Simple is Best: An Ode to Monkey Ball

I think it’s fair to say that “all a video game needs to be fun is for you to have fun” is a relatively tepid take at this point — I don’t personally read a lot of video game news and reviews, but I can say with confidence that every time a studio does something state-of-the-art, groundbreaking, or particularly creative, someone at some publication somewhere espouses that age-old quote. And I get the sentiment! Fancy schmancy mechanics or fan-accelerating graphics aren’t always what makes a game good, (though they’re certainly welcome when done well): sometimes, simple is best.

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Issue XVII: February 2022Adam LeifAdam Leif
Assassin’s Creed’s Bayek is a Subversion of Traditional Masculinity
Assassin’s Creed’s Bayek is a Subversion of Traditional Masculinity

Over the course of this past summer, I played through the entirety of 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins. It’s an excellent game—mechanically satisfying, with a solid story and gorgeous views of Ptolemaic Egypt (I’ve easily spent several hours in photo mode alone). But by far one of the best parts of Origins is its protagonist, Bayek of Siwa, who defies a lot of conventional ideals about how men should be portrayed in media. The result is, put simply, just a really good character.

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Issue XVI: December 2021Chris LiChris Li Comments
VGA Fireside Ep. 10 feat. Xalavier Nelson: Interview Highlights
VGA Fireside Ep. 10 feat. Xalavier Nelson: Interview Highlights

“One of the big moments I realized is I thought I was making a game about, you know, you pursuing a relationship across the stars […] I realized I was creating a game about pursuing myself as like, yeah, as this career oriented person who nonetheless had a deep emphasis on the people in their lives and wanted to help them understand why this happened…“

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Issue XVI: December 2021VGA FiresideVGA Fireside HIGHLIGHTS, Xalavier Nelson Jr.