New Game Plus

Hey everyone, Meghann here.

I think most of us know how huge the Harry Potter books and movies are and the widespread mania over each of them. It took me a couple years, but I finally surrendered and read all the books (available at the time) about a year and a half ago. With my induction into the world of Pottermania, I was excited when I found out there were Harry Potter games. I had played the first one with some kids I babysat, but beyond that I hadn’t experienced much else. To my delight, I found Harry Potter and the POA (Prisoner of Azkaban) at blockbuster for an unbeatedly low price. Being the cheap and frugal person that I am, I hurriedly bought it and brought it back to school with me.

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Sorry I haven’t been blogging lately. I always have one excuse or another: school, work, no time to game, etc. Now it’s savoring the last bits of summer outside and even getting out and traveling. I just got back from a bike trip to Vancouver Island, and in a week and a half I’m going to Nicaragua with my brother’s bike time. I’m not even giving you all much to miss, since I’ve been so quiet on blogging lately.

The submission deadline for the September issue of Cerise Magazine is August 20, 2007. I know I always say it, but Cerise is a great opportunity to get your writing out there to the gaming world with something as simple as a review or gamer story, and we can work with you on your writing if you need it. And this issue’s theme:

Theme: Blue is for Boys, Pink is for Girls

When you bring up the word “gamer” the image is almost always a man. Women, though they make up the majority of gamers in areas such as online games and show a serious force in games like Vampire: The Masquerade, are still seen as “casual”, “not serious”, only interested in “girly games”. Men are the console gamers, the Warhammer players, the “serious”, the “hardcore”.

This issue is devoted to exploring and deconstructing the dichotomy inherent in the idea that “blue is for boys and pink is for girls”: casual vs. hardcore, masculine vs. feminine, online games vs. console, real gamers vs. fake ones… How do these things translate to gamer culture? The industry? What does it say about women’s place in the gaming world?

There you go!

The August 2007 issue of Cerise Magazine is out. I think that the whole issue reeks of awesomeness. Check it out, yeah? And don’t forget to submit for the September issue by August 20.

I would have posted this sooner, but I was camping over the weekend at Lake Wenatchee with my mom and her sister. I remembered after I got there that I brought my laptop last year because a local sundries shop has wireless, but I still can’t get it in my head that I’ll find free wifi in rustic Eastern Washington.