games

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms makes a 76-minute argument that selling video games as a service is a form of consumer fraud. He lays out legal arguments that games are goods, covers ownership and programmed obsolescence, and discusses game preservation.

Jacob Geller's video essay examines how architecture in schools and in video games, such as cover shooters, is shaped by violence. It touches on brutalism, campus policing and protests.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms lays out a campaign to stop publishers from permanently shutting down games, using The Crew as the test case. He covers government initiatives and the legal options, and the stopkillinggames.com site.

The video argues that machine-learning-based aimbots, which read the screen and drive the controls externally, could make cheating in FPS games undetectable. It explains how conventional aimbots work, how the new approach differs, and speculates on possible detection.

Razbuten has his wife, who has never played games, try a sampling of titles and shows where she struggles. It highlights unspoken game conventions that experienced players take for granted.

A 70-minute video essay by Jimmy McGee on gambling, addiction and game design, tracing horse racing, slot machines and collectible card markets. It is the first in a series on making money from games.

Chess master Yosha Iglesias presents an analysis of Hans Niemann's games, highlighting a string of 100% engine-correlation games and comparing them with other players. It was published during the 2022 Niemann-Carlsen cheating scandal.

MrBtongue argues that modern theme-park MMOs lost what made earlier sandbox online games compelling, and that MMOs could be saved by returning to sandbox design.

A Jimquisition episode examining the human cost of predatory videogame monetization, focusing on loot boxes and microtransactions. It features testimonials from people harmed by gambling-style game mechanics.

Jacob Geller's video essay on empty cities and what they say about our relationship to places, using games, literature and aerial imagery. It touches on works such as Invisible Cities.

GothamChess walks through AlphaZero's famous games against Stockfish, highlighting its unusual pawn sacrifices and positional style. It is aimed at chess fans rather than ML specialists.

A video essay arguing that the next major real-time strategy game will fail unless it gets the fundamentals right. It covers the playerbase and demographics, what older RTS games did well, and the roles of the engine, spectacle, development tools and player-generated content.

Ross Scott's Game Dungeon episode on Deus Ex, a long review of the game covering its narrative, politics and economic philosophy as well as its design.

A videogamedunkey video essay on video game critics. It argues that a critic's taste and integrity matter as much as their score, and tries to explain why major outlets give such inflated ratings.

A video essay from lawyer-turned-YouTuber Moon Channel on the South Korean gender war, tracing its historical roots and modern origins through the lens of a gacha game controversy. It is the first part of a two-part series.

Joseph Anderson's long critique of Jonathan Blow's puzzle game The Witness, covering its gameplay, its hundreds of puzzles and its philosophical pretensions. He argues it is a great game that he nonetheless advises against playing.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on daily fantasy sports, arguing the sites are effectively gambling operations despite their claims. It mocks their advertising and the skill-versus-chance defence.

Chess YouTuber agadmator reports that YouTube took down his podcast with Hikaru Nakamura as harmful or dangerous content. It was later restored.

Ross Scott's Game Dungeon episode critiques Deus Ex: Human Revolution, looking at its design, politics and visual style. It is part of his series of opinionated game reviews.

Egoraptor's Sequelitis compares Mega Man Classic and Mega Man X, analyzing how the games teach players through level design without explicit tutorials. It mixes comedy with design analysis.

Josh Strife Hayes critiques Diablo Immortal's monetization, arguing it is a gacha game in a Diablo skin with predatory spending mechanics.

Dave2D reviews the Lenovo Legion Go S running Valve's SteamOS instead of Windows, calling it the first true competitor to the Steam Deck. He compares handheld gaming performance and experience across the two operating systems.

A one-minute Fortnite parody of Apple's 1984 ad, released when Epic Games challenged the App Store and Apple removed Fortnite from iOS. It frames Apple as the monopolist.

Innuendo Studios uses Phil Fish, creator of the game Fez, as a case study in internet celebrity. The essay argues that fame online works differently from traditional fame, and shows how audiences turn on the people they have elevated.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas investigates the Mikkelsen Twins and the ghostwritten-audiobook passive-income course industry, even playing along with the scheme. It is a long video essay on get-rich-quick publishing grifts.

The first part of Innuendo Studios' six-part video essay series on the online hostility around Anita Sarkeesian and GamerGate. It lays out the history and the motivations of the people involved.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas critiques Fortnite's monetization, arguing it uses manufactured discontent, such as shop design and skins, to push spending. The video dissects the psychological techniques behind the game's business model.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas spends months in the virtual world Decentraland and delivers a long critique of the metaverse, NFTs and DAOs, and why virtual worlds fail as places.

Modern Vintage Gamer examines the claim from the Super Mario 64 decompilation project that the game shipped unoptimized, and puts it in the context of 1996 N64 development.

SsethTzeentach reviews Space Station 13, the chaotic multiplayer game, by recounting absurd stories of singularities, malfunctioning AIs and plasma fires.

Jonathan Blow's hour-long livestreamed response to a RustConf 2018 closing keynote about entity systems in Rust. He argues that index-based entity systems amount to manual memory management that sidesteps the borrow checker, and he talks about friction for game developers.

Coffeezilla investigates Counter-Strike skin gambling, the role of Valve and the legal and PR response, including effects on minors.

Day9 gives a passionate first look at what his StarCraft: Brood War Remastered series will teach. He argues Brood War is primarily a real-time game and only secondarily a strategy game, making the commander fantasy a matter of mechanics.

The Game Theorists analyze how PewDiePie rose to become the most subscribed channel on YouTube. The video looks at why let's plays and gaming channels thrive on the platform.

FitMC tells how the Nocom exploit let griefers track players across Minecraft's oldest anarchy server, 2b2t, and the fallout that followed.

ArtosisTV's commentary on Game 1 of DeepMind's AlphaStar (Protoss) against top Zerg player Serral at Blizzcon 2019. Artosis analyzes the match with beginner-friendly commentary.

A 10-minute clip from a Jonathan Blow Twitch stream in which he argues that game engines do not really need separate scripting languages. He questions the value of embedded interpreters when the main language can do the job.

A Jimquisition episode by Jim Sterling demonstrating the Copyright Deadlock, where a video includes footage owned by several companies so that competing YouTube Content ID claims cancel each other out. It highlights how absurd the system is.

EmpLemon examines Nintendo's brand-protection strategy, its aggressive legal actions and its relationship with fans and creators.

An h3h3Productions video on the CSGO gambling scandal involving the YouTubers ProSyndicate and TmarTn, who promoted a gambling site they owned without disclosing it.