the sims

Insisting on the centrality of character (in literature no less than gaming) Ken Perlin responds to Victoria Vesna and Will Wright.

Illustrating Perlin's "Can There Be a Form between a Game and a Story?"

J. Yellowlees Douglas adds more titles to Eskelinen's catalog of limnal games.

Espen Aarseth holds that gameplay, not Lara Croft?s physique, should command the attention of an evolving game studies.

"Playing with play," John Cayley sets ludology on an even playing field with literature, but without literary scholarship's over-reliance on 'story,' 'closure,' and 'pleasure.'

Eric Zimmerman modifies Gonzalo Frasca's game strategy with a strategic patch.

Do violent games train us for violence? Drawing on social psychology and cognitive science, Simon Penny examines the "ethics of simulation."

An essay by Tara McPherson (and a conversation with Anne-Marie Schleiner) concerning patch mutations, opensorcery, and other explainable gaming offshoots.