{"id":5677,"date":"2022-05-10T12:36:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T10:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/10\/no-matter-how-hard-developers-try-to-avoid-it-games-are-and-should-be-political\/"},"modified":"2022-05-10T12:36:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T10:36:41","slug":"no-matter-how-hard-developers-try-to-avoid-it-games-are-and-should-be-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/10\/no-matter-how-hard-developers-try-to-avoid-it-games-are-and-should-be-political\/","title":{"rendered":"No matter how hard developers try to avoid it, games are \u2013 and should be \u2013 political"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this week\u2019s newsletter: When the New York Times removed the word \u2018fetus\u2019 from the game out of fear of making a political statement, they did just that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/ng-interactive\/2021\/nov\/24\/sign-up-for-pushing-buttons-keza-macdonalds-weekly-look-at-the-world-of-gaming\">Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The New York Times\u2019s acquisition of viral word game Wordle has not been without its controversies: some players are convinced that the words have become more obscure (remember CAULK? I\u2019m still not over it), and the solutions less satisfying. I\u2019ve felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction with it myself since late February, though I\u2019m not sure how much of that is a natural drop-off from the times of Wordle mania, and how much has anything to do with the game itself. This week, though, there was a genuine controversy when the NYT decided to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2022\/may\/09\/new-york-times-drops-fetus-as-an-answer-to-wordle\">remove the word \u201cfetus\u201d<\/a> as a solution to one of last week\u2019s puzzles. However, the change didn\u2019t roll out properly, so some players got it anyway.<\/p>\n<p>The NYT wanted to change the solution \u2013 which would have been set way ahead of time, because Wordle\u2019s algorithm picks from a preset list \u2013 because of the word\u2019s sudden news relevance. We\u2019re talking, of course, about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2022\/may\/04\/its-a-hell-of-a-scary-time-leading-us-feminists-on-the-threat-to-roe-v-wade\">leaked supreme court draft<\/a> that puts the US on the brink of rolling back abortion rights for millions of women. A NYT Games statement explained the technical difficulties involved in making the change, and said that the paper \u201c[takes] our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>EA is back into making Lord of the Rings games, it seems, with <a href=\"https:\/\/kotaku.com\/ea-lord-of-the-rings-lotr-middle-earth-mobile-galaxy-he-1848903418\">a free-to-play mobile game called Heroes of Middle-Earth<\/a> that will have players collecting and battling characters from the Tolkien\u2019s world. It\u2019ll be out this summer.<\/p>\n<p>In 2009, as part of a marketing stunt, 2K Games made a solid gold Wii to present to the Queen. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CvChVZjgV3k\">People Make Games<\/a> decided to track it down for a documentary a while back \u2013 it\u2019s a fun watch. Anyway, the Queen\u2019s Golden Wii is now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/the-queens-golden-wii-is-up-for-auction\">up for auction<\/a>, if you fancy massively overpaying for a strange piece of gaming history.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned in a previous edition, there\u2019s no E3 this year, but that doesn\u2019t mean no game announcements. The Game Awards host and seasoned industry hype man Geoff Keighley is hosting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.summergamefest.com\/\">a live showcase<\/a> on 9 June as part of his Summer Games Fest event, and he usually has no trouble getting gaming\u2019s big players on board. This might sate the desire for one of those bombastic EA press conferences.<\/p>\n<p>For <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/articles\/2022-05-04-five-lessons-from-reggie-fils-aimes-book\">GamesIndustry.biz<\/a>, veteran journalist Colin Campbell delves into the autobiography of Reggie Fils-Aime, the former president of Nintendo of America, to see what can be learned from the big man and his time at gaming\u2019s most resilient purveyors of fun. Spoiler: it appears that Reggie is not a man who lacks self-belief.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/games\/2022\/may\/10\/pushing-buttons-wordle-abortion\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/ef08d0d783f623cfbdf53530d80eaf639327646d\/0_236_3543_2126\/master\/3543.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=327677c8b2adfa535d10466389097ad1\" title=\"No matter how hard developers try to avoid it, games are \u2013 and should be \u2013 political\" \/>In this week\u2019s newsletter: When the New York Times removed the word \u2018fetus\u2019 from the game out of fear of making a political statement, they did just that<br \/>\nDon\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<br \/>\nThe New York Times\u2019s acquisition of viral word game Wordle has not been without its controversies: some players are convinced that the words have become more obscure (remember CAULK? I\u2019m still not over it), and the solutions less satisfying. I\u2019ve felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction with it myself since late February, though I\u2019m not sure how much of that is a natural drop-off from the times of Wordle mania, and how much has anything to do with the game itself. This week, though, there was a genuine controversy when the NYT decided to remove the word \u201cfetus\u201d as a solution to one of last week\u2019s puzzles. However, the change didn\u2019t roll out properly, so some players got it anyway.<br \/>\nThe NYT wanted to change the solution \u2013 which would have been set way ahead of time, because Wordle\u2019s algorithm picks from a preset list \u2013 because of the word\u2019s sudden news relevance. We\u2019re talking, of course, about the leaked supreme court draft that puts the US on the brink of rolling back abortion rights for millions of women. A NYT Games statement explained the technical difficulties involved in making the change, and said that the paper \u201c[takes] our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news.\u201d<br \/>\nEA is back into making Lord of the Rings games, it seems, with a free-to-play mobile game called Heroes of Middle-Earth that will have players collecting and battling characters from the Tolkien\u2019s world. It\u2019ll be out this summer.<br \/>\nIn 2009, as part of a marketing stunt, 2K Games made a solid gold Wii to present to the Queen. People Make Games decided to track it down for a documentary a while back \u2013 it\u2019s a fun watch. Anyway, the Queen\u2019s Golden Wii is now up for auction, if you fancy massively overpaying for a strange piece of gaming history.<br \/>\nAs mentioned in a previous edition, there\u2019s no E3 this year, but that doesn\u2019t mean no game announcements. The Game Awards host and seasoned industry hype man Geoff Keighley is hosting a live showcase on 9 June as part of his Summer Games Fest event, and he usually has no trouble getting gaming\u2019s big players on board. This might sate the desire for one of those bombastic EA press conferences.<br \/>\nFor GamesIndustry.biz, veteran journalist Colin Campbell delves into the autobiography of Reggie Fils-Aime, the former president of Nintendo of America, to see what can be learned from the big man and his time at gaming\u2019s most resilient purveyors of fun. Spoiler: it appears that Reggie is not a man who lacks self-belief. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this week\u2019s newsletter: When the New York Times removed the word \u2018fetus\u2019 from the game out of fear of making a political statement, they did just that Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here The New York Times\u2019s acquisition of viral word game Wordle has not been without its controversies: &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/10\/no-matter-how-hard-developers-try-to-avoid-it-games-are-and-should-be-political\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No matter how hard developers try to avoid it, games are \u2013 and should be \u2013 political<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}