Game Studies Watchlist #53

AHOI there, game studies operators!

Well, sometimes these things happen in life. You turn around once or twice too often... and suddenly the opportunities and possibilities disappear. Sometimes in the form of entire games! Of course, as ludonauts, we are familiar with this radical market practice: anything that can't be monetised (anymore) gets thrown out! But weren't things a little different in the case of Anthem? Well, it's worth taking a look, and that's exactly what we get this week from Austin Eruption in his essay Anthem was a Video Game.

Bioware's Anthem is one of the more notorious video games to come out in the last decade. Despite being a big AAA PS4 console no nonsense powerhouse blockbuster, it totally failed in most metrics. Now that the servers are completely offline and the game is rendered unplayable, I wanted to take a look back at it all.

I chose this video since the disappearance of Anthem from the commercial and cultural landscape represents a potent case study in the instability of the "games-as-a-service" paradigm and the consequential redefinition of a game's lifecycle. Anthem's very trajectory, from its launch as a visually ambitious, triple-A "live service" looter-shooter to its eventual abandonment and the cessation of all development, challenges the implicit promise of perpetual updatability central to the service model; the game's core fantasy of powerful exosuit traversal was ultimately undermined by systemic design failures and a fragmented core loop, leading to player attrition. I might add, that the case illuminates the material and discursive finality of "sunsetting," a process where a digital artifact, despite remaining partially accessible, is formally consigned to a state of non-futurity. This act transforms the game from a dynamic, social text into a ... yeah, basically static, historical object, prompting scholarly reflection on preservation, player investment in ephemeral platforms, and the ethical dimensions of selling inherently unfinished products predicated on an uncertain, contingent future. A close friend of mine would put it this way: "Anthem’s vanishing act serves as a kind of critical nexus for examining the lifecycle, legacy, and very ontology of digital games in the post-retail era." Now, of course, I had to cross out all the swearing, but you get the idea.

On Bluesky, I came across the following invitation by Philosophy in Review: "Critical hits, collaborative worlds, and the rituals that bind us—Albert R. Spencer’s The Philosophy of Role‑Playing Games brings philosophical depth to the tables we gather around. PiR is recruiting reviewers for this title. Step into the party. Mail to: pir@uvic.ca" So, why don't you follow this kind cry for support? 

The UNCG English Gaming Outreach Network, with support from the Videogaming and Esports Studies Network, invites you to our second annual game studies conference. This year's theme, "Give and Take," explores dynamics of exchange and transaction within gameplay, the discourse surrounding play, and the communication between gamers, media, and creators. They seek to examine gaming as a co-creative experience that distributes responsibility, raises questions, and demands responses from its many interconnected participants.  

Today, is the final deadline for submitting entries for the German Computer Game Awards (Der Deutsche Computerspielpreis | Der DCP), the most important award in the German games industry, with total prize money of €800,000! 

btw I am SOOOO overjoyed to hear that FROG, Austria's legendary game studies conference, has been SAVED from disappearing! It's getting a glorious new life, completely free from the university that closed its home base. The amazing Natalie Denk, who ran it for 14 years, is teaming up with the brilliant Jogi Neufeld and Subotron to make FROG 2026 absolutely UNSTOPPABLE! 

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Cheers and stay healthy, Rudolf