Instead of another dreaded year-end "best of" list that most folk love to hate, I decided to take some time to go over some of the important trends and news stories from the game industry. Gaming turned 40 last year -- and with this progression the claims that it has "grown up." In my opinion, the growing pains have just begun.
2012 was a wild year for gaming as a global community. As a whole, the entire business of thinking about video games has been in the process of upheaval from all corners, regardless of how slow actual progress may seem to be. There were also a lot of painful, awkward incidents that (hopefully) helped teach universal lessons to developers, writers, PR execs and gamers alike.
In my own opinion, one of the biggest things that happened to the gaming community in 2012 was the corrosion of the powerful hold that shitty, racist, sexist and sophomoric people have on our electronic entertainment. Part of this beautiful corrosion was a result of the continued blossoming of games writing sites that encourage thoughtful discourse about the tenets of game design and the issues surrounding it. For example: BrainyGamer, Gamasutra, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and even Kotaku all had some wonderful posts.
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| Geoff Keighley being dead inside is a pretty good way to sum up how weird last year was. |
In my own opinion, one of the biggest things that happened to the gaming community in 2012 was the corrosion of the powerful hold that shitty, racist, sexist and sophomoric people have on our electronic entertainment. Part of this beautiful corrosion was a result of the continued blossoming of games writing sites that encourage thoughtful discourse about the tenets of game design and the issues surrounding it. For example: BrainyGamer, Gamasutra, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and even Kotaku all had some wonderful posts.
