Keith Stuart, The Guardian:

The grievance many Minecraft fans had was simple: although these terms had always been present in Mojang’s Minecraft EULA, they had never been enforced over the three years since the game’s launch. Mojang had always fostered a laissez faire sensibility; it had pushed Minecraft as an open platform, freely customisable by both players and server providers. But now it was tightening the leash. And people were angry.

Never say never. Mojang is in the right. If you are going to build a business under a given set of rules, comply and seek community-fueled change with the first-party for the future. While many will ask for Mojang to target the bad apples, the scale of a piecemeal crackdown would be nigh impossible to complete given the global nature of the greater Minecraft server spread. Their EULA was built with this in mind.

Tracey Lien, Polygon:

When it came to the factors influencing society’s negative view of games and the people who make them, 68 percent of respondents said reports of the industry’s working conditions were a contributing factor. Sexism in games followed closely at 67 percent. 62 percent of respondents named the perceived link to violence as a factor. 51 percent said sexism in the workforce was a problem, while 49 percent attributed the negative perception to the perceived link to obesity. 42 percent of respondents blamed the lack of overall diversity in the industry.

Excerpt from “Console Wars” by Blake J. Harris:

[Peter] Main’s approach to sales and marketing coincided with [Minoru] Arakawa’s overarching philosophy of “quality over quantity.” As Nintendo exploded, there were plenty of opportunities to make a quick buck (hardware upgrades, unnecessary peripherals), exploit the company’s beloved characters (movies, theme parks), or dilute the brand by trying attract an audience older than Nintendo’s six-to-fourteen-year-olds. But these kinds of things didn’t interest Arakawa. He wasn’t driven by making money, at least not in the short term. What propelled him, what kept him up at night, was a desire to continually provide Nintendo’s customers with a unique and flawless user experience. As proof of this never-ending obsession, he set up a toll-free telephone line where Nintendo “Game Counselors” were available all day to help players get through difficult levels, and he initiated the Nintendo Fun Club, which sent a free newsletter to any customer who had sent in a warranty card. Both programs were very costly and could have been offset by charging small fees or obtaining sponsorship, but Arakawa believed that doing so would compromise Nintendo’s mission.

Not a whole lot has changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETSKGdtrMK8

Should be a fun look back if nothing else.

Arun Rath, NPR’s All Things Considered, experiencing ADR1FT using Oculus Rift at E3:

Honestly, I don’t care about the goal of the game. I was just so excited to be in outer space. I could happily spend hours just exploring the environment. But here’s the weirdest part of the experience - I had this deeply emotional feeling of being transported, an intensity I’d never felt before in a game. [Adam] Orth says he wants to set a motion to take gamers beyond the standard, violent, action games.

Orth:

And there’s nothing wrong with those games. They’re great. I love them, and I have made them, and I play them. But I don’t want to make them any more. And I want to tell emotional stories. And that device is allowing me to tell them in a way that I was not able to do it before.

Simulation.