Sep 5, 2023
There are over 50 million players over the age of 50 in the USA alone and those numbers will only continue to grow for an activity that’s too often viewed as “kids’ stuff”. How and when do older players engage with online gaming communities? Do designers need to be concerned about monetizing techniques that...
Aug 22, 2023
Games are particularly fertile grounds for extremist recruitment. Why is that? What’s special about games and gaming culture that might make them attractive spaces for recruitment? How does extremist recruitment work in games? What is being done about it right now? And what can be done to help prevent the spread...
Aug 1, 2023
When game companies simulate cultures in their games they usually focus on the tropes that their intended audiences have about those cultures and then design their game around those tropes. Is there anything wrong with that? If so, what? What can game designers do to present cultures – present and past –...
Jul 18, 2023
Gaming and game development work differently for the developed global north than the developing global south. What are those differences? How does the global south play and pay differently? Why is it so hard to start a game development company in the global south? How can the gaming world better take these things...
Jul 4, 2023
In a couple of recent episodes guests have mentioned concerns about battle passes. So, in this episode we decided to explore how they work, how they differ from traditional subscription models or microtransactions, why they’re so popular today with game companies, and whether they raise any serious ethical...