Recent Posts
I tweeted about this a couple nights ago but in the last couple weeks Play the Past surpassed the 200,000 all-time view mark, a huge milestone for the website. I believe that the success of this site and other sites like it are indicative of the growing interest in history in video games. In that same light, while academia has...
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I have taken a particular interest recently in user created histories within video games. My first post on this was on the created history of EVE Online and now I will turn to the interesting case of DayZ.
DayZ was a mod for ARMA 2 (2009) and its expansion pack ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead. The mod was extremely well received and...
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This is the second in a four-part series that reflects on a Composition II course taught in Spring 2013 called 20th Century PC Games. You can read part 1 of this series here.
Here’s the thing about teaching games as text: it works. But, interestingly, it seems to work better for students who aren’t already invested in...
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There has been a recent blooming of games that place players in narrative-free survival situations (often called “survival sandboxes”). There’s something about the thrill of living when you should be dying. Often, much about these games are taboo in the classroom- hopeless violence, unacceptable language. But games can be...
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The largest battle in the history of EVE Online took place last month on January 27, 2014. EVE Online is a game built on war and destruction but this battle (dubbed the Bloodbath at B-R5RB) was so massive in scale that it caught the attention of mainstream media outlets like Forbes, BBC News and CBS News. Why such interest for a...
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Welcome to Assassin’s Creed Week presented by Play the Past, where for a whole week, Play the Past will push content on the most popular historical video game series ever. Part I introduced the Week and asked why Assassin’s Creed mattered, Part II examined slavery and native relations in the series, Part III explored...
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Welcome to Assassin’s Creed Week presented by Play the Past, where for a whole week, Play the Past will push content on the most popular historical video game series ever. Part I introduced the Week and asked why Assassin’s Creed mattered, Part II examined slavery and native relations in the series and Part III explored...
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