It’s possible to love a video game. To be devoted to it, to value what it does for you, and how it makes you feel. To want the best for it. Not in the same way you love a person — or at least, I hope not. But take a look at any major fan convention for video games, movies, TV, or almost anything that develops a subculture, and you can see this love is real, active, and powerful. And of course, profitable. And if it’s possible to love a video game, then of course it’s possible to fall out of love. To feel disconnected from what first drew you to it. To realize that it isn’t giving you everything it once did, and you can’t give it what it needs from you. Especially if what it needs is regular digital purchases in order to get a competitive advantage in gameplay. I loved Overwatch once. I don’t anymore. How that happened is, I think, worth examining. This Dear John letter is a broad history of the game Overwatch itself, and its relationship with both its own players and the company that made it. The honeymoon phase In 2016, Overwatch was a big deal. A Team Fortress 2-style team shooter, made by the people who brought us Starcraft and Diablo, with incredible character designs that looked like Pixar had decided to reboot G.I. Joe? Players couldn’t get enough of it. And indeed, for the first couple of years Overwatch was a 600-pound Winston of the gaming landscape, dominating game coverage, showing up constantly on Let’s Plays, and causing an excited... Continue reading at 'PC World'
[ PC World | 2022-11-01 15:51:22 UTC ]
Want to make a digital magazine but Apple's iBook Author app just doesn't offer what you want? Then perhaps Cupertino's latest buy could signal a coming change that'll help you out. The iPhone company has purchased Prss, the digital publishing outfit... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-09-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nine romance writers are distributing an anthology of short stories, "Naught Nine," through INscribe Digital. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The tech giant has agreed to settle a US legal action in which it was being sued over conspiring with publishers to fix ebook prices. Continue reading at BBC World
[ BBC World | 2014-06-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An obscure but fascinating aspect of the Civil War, when hundreds of women disguised as men enlisted in the army as Union soldiers to fight, is at the heart of Neverhome (Little, Brown; Sept.) by Laird Hunt, the author of five novels and a collection of short stories and a two-time finalist for... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We last heard from Elizabeth Spencer more than a decade ago. In 1998 she published a memoir, Landscapes of the Heart, followed in 2001 by a “greatest hits” roundup of her novellas and short stories, The Southern Woman, which was followed by a quiet 12 years. One could be forgiven the thought... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2014-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In 'Creature,' Amina Cain presents personal tales of female characters at loose ends.The peril of reading literary short stories is that one tends to encounter characters who behave not like you or me but like the kind of people one finds only in short stories. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Novelist Scott Turow's 'Identical' is a compulsively readable crime story about brothers, feuding families and a long-ago murder.Over the course of nine novels, Scott Turow's Kindle County has become one the best-known settings in American literature. While fictional locations are not uncommon... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-10-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The first Canadian winner, Alice Munro has published nothing but short stories in a 50-year career. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The first Canadian winner, Alice Munro has published nothing but short stories in a 50-year career. Continue reading at The Sydney Morning Herald
[ The Sydney Morning Herald | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The good news: According to a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts, more than half of American adults read books for pleasure in 2012.The good news: According to a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts, more than half of American adults read books for pleasure in... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Many of novelist Stephen King's books and short stories have found their way to the screen either through a movie or mini-series. Some, like The Shining, have become classics in the eyes of fans, while others...well... This season a King novel has returned the author to prominence on the small... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2013-09-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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China's Douban is experimenting with crowdsourced translations of English literature, including SF and short stories by David Mitchell. Can it help authors enter the market? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-08-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A federal judge ruled today that Apple Inc. conspired to raise prices on ebooks, ordering a trial to decide what damages that the tech giant should pay.In a 159-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple conspired with a group of five publishers, starting in 2009, to... Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2013-07-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon's Little A imprint will release novels, memoirs, and story collections, while Day One will focus on short stories and new writers. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-03-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One collection of short stories and four novels—including Jeet Thayyil’s Narcopolis, winner of the DSC Prize—have been shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Eoin Colfer has been named as the author of the first of Puffin's eleven Dr Who short stories... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Literary events organiser Book Slam is releasing its second book of short stories, with... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Glasgow-based independent Freight Books has bought a collection of short stories by Rodge Glass,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-06-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Science-fiction great Ray Bradbury died Tuesday night in California at the age of 91. He was renowned for his short stories as well as for the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, which cast readers into a Cold War-inspired future of paranoid book burning. Back in 2005, Bryan Curtis argued that,... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A bit buried in last week’s iPad 3 excitement was the news that Apple, along with five major American book publishers, was given notice by the Justice Department that it’s about to be sued for colluding to raise prices. A tech giant can afford to shrug off something as petty as an anti-trust... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-03-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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