The links between sexism and the gaming industry are as plentiful as they are depressing. Images of hypersexualised women are everywhere, with little to no contrasting male representation. An employee at Meteor Entertainment recently decided she’d had enough with a particular picture of a scantily clad woman…
I’d like to take some time to talk about programming. Now that’s the most enticing sentence you’ve ever read. You’re dying to read more, I know, I feel your excitement. Honestly though, programming is everywhere; it’s a field and practice that grows every day. Everything on a…
If you’ve ever wanted to set things on fire with your mind, your lucky day might be coming soon. Son of Nor is a single player or cooperative adventure game currently in development by stillalive studios. In the game you have a range of magical powers at…
For years, Allie Brosh has been publishing hilarious story-comics on her blog, Hyperbole and a Half. Her over-the-top humor, plus the wealth of stories she had to tell from her childhood, earned her a broad network of fans. However, in late 2011 she began a long hiatus…
Downton Abbey is one of my guiltiest pleasures. A period drama about Edwardian first world problems, it chronicles the decline of a great house during the early 20th century. It features an ensemble cast full of aristocrats and their servants—including an excellent gay character, Thomas Barrow, who…
Most of us have been lectured by our parents about how we are spending too much time on the computer, talking to our friends online more than we do in person. As internet usage soars among youth, so does the parental anxiety over the e-risks that their…
Today I spent my afternoon giggling and clapping my hands together while coding in Java. Now, I’m not a complete novice when it comes to code; I’ve always enjoyed the coding I’ve done for my classes, but I’ve never been delighted by it. The reason that my…
A recent ad campaign by Dove, called Real Beauty Sketches, puts the focus on women’s perception of beauty—specifically, their own. The women in the ad campaign describe themselves to a forensic artist, who sketches them. They are then described by strangers to the same artist, who sketches…
K-12 education has struggled for many years with the lack of female involvement in science and technology. Everyone’s talking about it. Now, the Girl Scouts of the USA is doing something about it by introducing a game developer badge as a way to encourage participation in the…
A group of diverse filmmakers are undergoing an ambitious attempt to celebrate and document the diversity of the gaming world on film. The folks at Gaming in Color state that “For too long gamers have been painted in a very specific light, and the mosaic of gamers…
After the release of the first game in 1996, Tomb Raider became a game industry household name and launched a franchise that has spanned sequels, tie-in novels, movies, and comic books. However, the series has suffered a decline in ratings and popularity over the last 15 years….
Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you the truth: I’ve got it bad for Korean pop music. Among my friends I’ve become sort of a Kpop evangelist: unable to shut up about it, always pushing it on others, and occasionally speaking in tongues. I can’t…
There’s a certain piece of advice I see offered to writers when they worry about how to portray gay characters without offending anyone. It’s not bad advice. Just write a gay person like you would write a straight person, they say. Don’t try to write a Gay…
Check out the first episode of my new series, Fireside with Khader! In this episode, I’ll be breaking down my opinion on the top-ten best selling games of 2012. Enjoy, and look forward to new bi-weekly episodes! Click Here to watch my first (way longer) version of…
Cosplayers are taking to the internet to speak out against convention harassment with the rallying cry “Cosplay =/= Consent”. The movement follows events at PAX East where a member of the press made inappropriate comments to women in Lara Croft cosplays (some of whom were underage), then…
On Friday, April 5, the Center for Serious Play was home to a Microsoft workshop geared towards producing apps for the new Windows 8 App Market. The workshop provided a series of informative lectures and instructions on how students could make apps based on their interests and…
Danah Boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft, responds to a study by Pear Analytics on the kinds of things people tweet—specifically the part where they announced that (according to their research methods) approximately 40% of tweets are “pointless babble”. Interestingly enough, they included a separate category for…
Unfortunately, harassment is a regular part of any online gaming atmosphere, but a recent study has shown a significant link between verbal abuse and gender cues. Jeffrey H. Kuznekoff and Lindsey M. Rose used online multiplayer in Halo 3 to try to establish links between player skill…