Simon Parkin @SimonParkin Twitter profile

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Simon Parkin

1 month

My book, 'The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad', is out Oct 15th in the US and Nov 14th in the UK. It tells the story of the botanists who worked at the world's first seed bank during the 872-day siege of the city.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

This, from Shigeru Miyamoto, on how Nintendo only hires designers who have deep and wide interests outside of video games, to the point where perhaps they don't even play games, is close to the heart of it all.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

🤔

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

4 years

The New Yorker interview: Shigeru Miyamoto. Super Mario’s maker on philosophy, his kids love of Sega, abusive bosses, video game guns, and how he tries to ensure his work adds more to a person’s life than it takes.

Shigeru Miyamoto Wants to Create a Kinder World

The legendary designer on rejecting violence in games, trying to be a good boss, and building Nintendo’s Disneyland.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

2 years

@jennygzhang red text? guess you hate the colourblind, jenny.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

’closeness lines over time’ by olivia de recat:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

(l) 1859: journalist berates young man's chess tournament win, a game that 'robs...valuable time that might be devoted to nobler achievements'. (r) 2019: journalist berates young man's Fornite tournament win, a game 'responsible for so many lost childhoods'. plus ça change.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

Here is a photograph of Kojima's farewell party on October 9th at Konami, which Konami claims no knowledge of:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

Get yourself a girl that looks at you the way George Osborne looks at exit polls.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

Yesterday a Hearthstone tournament winner said ‘liberate Hong Kong’ during his post-match interview. Now the game’s publisher Blizzard, part-owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent, has rescinded the player’s winnings and issued him a year-long ban...

Inven Global

@InvenGlobal

5 years

[BREAKING] Hong Kong Hearthstone player @blitzchungHS calls for liberation of his country in post-game interview: @Matthieist #Hearthstone

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

Recently discovered Götzendiener, a 1994 PC Engine game in which you play as the damsel in distress, whose rescuer dies in the very first scene, leaving her to GET SHIT DONE HERSELF:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

🤔

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

An ex-Konami employee recently told me that the company examined other photographs taken at this event to determine out who took the below shot, and duly disciplined the individual.

Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

Here is a photograph of Kojima's farewell party on October 9th at Konami, which Konami claims no knowledge of:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

Something I think about often is how the 1996 arcade game Art of Fighting 3 would check the date from the system clock and, if it was one of the character's 'birthdays', would make that character super-powerful for 24 hours.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

4 years

As Final Fantasy VII Remake launches today, let's all remember the man who spent two years maxing out Cloud's level without leaving the game's starting area, in order to teach a forum user called 'Dick Tree' a lesson about tenacity:

One Man’s Two-Year Quest Not to Finish Final Fantasy VII

Arcane endurance challenges are an increasingly popular feature of the Web. What draws people to them?

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

There is a growing mental health crisis among YouTubers. Exploring the dark side of a profession that is leaving young people stressed, depressed, lonely and exhausted, in todays’s @guardianweekend :

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

Many giant video game companies claim their work is about politics the same way that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland is about robbery on the high seas. On the sly, disingenuous severing of games from politics:

The Division 2 and the Severing of Politics from Video Games

In recent years, video-game developers have continued to borrow politically charged settings while arguing that their games remain impartial.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

3 years

Roblox became the largest video game company in the world by encouraging children to become game-making entrepreneurs - a laudable aim, fraught with dangers. My story in today’s @ObserverUK :

The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour

Young developers on the platform used by many millions of children claim they have been financially exploited, threatened with dismissal and sexually harassed

www.theguardian.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

Lightning filmed at 7,200 fps (source: ):

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

The 1917 board game “Suffragetto,” where players compete as police or suffragettes to defend their political bases:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

2017 was a spectacular year for Nintendo. I spoke to some of the company's brightest stars to understand the concatenation of reasons why:

Nintendo’s Switch Brings Some Magic Back (Published 2017)

This time last year, the company that made Mario and Donkey Kong household names seemed to have lost its touch. Now, with the new console, it’s on a roll.

www.nytimes.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 months

In 2021 a bartender named Jack Chadwick borrowed an obscure 1930’s novel from a local library, and became obsessed with finding out more about the book and its author. He stuck posters in the pubs around Manchester, asking if anyone had known the writer in decades past.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

It was a good run but, alas, the YouTube sleuths are finally on to me

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

Difficult to imagine a more 🔥 arrangement of facts:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

PaRappa the Rapper concept art to brighten your day:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

2 years

In January Sega sold its last arcade, an industry the company first entered in the 1940s. In this month's @edgeonline I visited Tokyo to talk to those hoping to save these businesses, some of the last remaining places where digital play is represented in public spaces:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

Marie Spénale, Untitled, 2015: http://t.co/sqBXwdD21u

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

The prototype Steel Battalion controller required you to *break glass* to expose the ejector button that ensured the game file wasn't erased

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

13 years

Turns out 3DS doesn't work if you close one eye. Guess Nintendo really is serious about clamping down on pirates this hardware generation.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

Jilted Towers

The A.V. Club

@TheAVClub

6 years

Fortnite has now been cited in more than 200 divorce proceedings

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

Includes Shigeru Miyamoto, once again, being brilliant:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

10 years

The last 'man walks into a bar' joke that need ever be written: http://t.co/oQ13mnUfKC

Guy Walks Into a Bar

What do you want from the genie in the men’s room? A twelve-inch pianist or world peace?

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

An executive reportedly described Future Publishing's magazine staff as "lazy" at its annual conference this week. An astonishing, abusive claim at a time when editorial teams half the size of their forerunners produce work of equivalent quality, and to equivalent deadlines.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

1 year

First the game makes you a god. Then off you toddle. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is not so much an evolution of the blockbuster video game as a counter-proposition:

The Open-World Genius of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Unlike other blockbuster games, Tears of the Kingdom allows for improvisation, tinkering, and fantastic feats of engineering.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

if hokusai was on twitter

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

4 years

I’ve interviewed Miyamoto a few times over the years, but always in contexts that preclude this kind of wide-ranging, reflective conversation. What a treat to have the time and space to speak properly.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

'go home lara, the club has been shut for, like, seven hours'

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

It’s the night of the first literary E3. Salman Rushdie strides onto stage in Britney head-mic, fingers steepled. “It’s time,” he smiles, “to come out of hiding.” The lights thud out, the screen lights up. A thirty foot logo: The. Satanic. Verses. 2.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

8 years

As Trump moves to ban Syrian refugees from entering US why not make a donation to a refugee charity if you're able?

The New York Times

@nytimes

8 years

President Trump has officially ordered a Mexican border wall

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

Front cover of the only known surviving copy of the game:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

'From a height of three meters, porcelain figurines are dropped on the ground, and the sound they make when they hit trips the shutter release.' -

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 months

Daughter has a new thing where, whenever I give her any advice she replies: ‘ok TED talk’

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

The lonely city:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

I love this question/ observation from the novelist David Mitchell in conversation with Brian Eno:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

8 years

Last year E3's organisers hired crates to block @devolverdigital 's unofficial stand from the public. So this year...

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

“All shooting games are inherently political, because they all put forth a vision of violent force being an acceptable catalyst for change.” I spoke to Tom for this piece close to a year ago now, and I think about this line all the time.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

David Lynch teaches touch typing:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

“Tencent is not a business as you know businesses in the West. It is essentially an extension of the official Party. They are beholden to stakeholders but the line between the board and government is thin. Some of Tencent’s stakeholders are high-ranking officials in the party.”

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 months

I spoke to @jasonschreier , an investigative journalist for Bloomberg, about the complexities of covering the games industry, where workers often sign lifetime NDAs, where credit is often withheld, and where the consequences of speaking out can be severe:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

8 years

This skylight to a lava flow looks like a scene from Dante (source:):

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

Footage of abandoned Sega arcade inside the red zone at Fukushima:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

On the joy of being a horrible goose in this time of deep moral crisis:

The Joy of Being a Horrible Goose in a Time of Moral Crisis

Untitled Goose Game, which has become a viral sensation in the weeks since its release, arrives at a time when it’s pleasing to exact interspecies revenge.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

Ori Toor, 'Avalanche', 2015.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

2 years

Incredible.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

'Snake this is getting out of hand.' http://t.co/ARNSYnM4gP

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

3 years

I feel despondently sure that NFTs are going to be widespread in blockbuster games within 2/3 years, but also they absolutely won’t be called NFTs. (See ‘freemium’ etc)

Polygon

@Polygon

3 years

NFTs are coming to Ubisoft games, starting with Ghost Recon Breakpoint

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

4 months

I spoke to Masaya Matsuura, musician and creator of PaRappa the Rapper, about how sampling experiments with the cartoon character Pingu led to the first rhythm action game, why he cast the rapper who missed the audition to play PaRappa, and the faulty car that begat Vibribbon:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

2 years

Josh Widdicombe became a father while shooting. One day he arrived at his dressing room to find a task addressed to his newborn daughter. He opened the envelope and broke down in tears. The task read: “Have the best life. Your time starts now.”

Alex Horne on the secret to his cult show Taskmaster: ‘It must be offbeat but not wacky, off-kilter...

How does the comedian and creative genius come up with the show’s endless stream of inventive challenges?

www.theguardian.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

some p̰̞̼̭͉er̰̯̰̼̭̺̕s̘͓̳̬̦̼͝ͅo̵͚̗͞n̨͕̟̭̖͙̳̺ͅa͠͠҉͚ͅl̤̹̼̫̺̟̬̀͝ ̥̝̣̝̀͠ n̴͜҉̱̘̘̮͍è̢̡̛͓͉̥̣̼͕̞̼͖͈͜w̧̧̛̪̜͎̥̝͇̱͇̪͔̬̹͝s͢҉̥̠͇͇̖͎̯̝̼̗͍̞̞͝

The Hollywood Reporter

@THR

6 years

Exclusive: Amblin picks up true-life naval war story 'A Game of Birds and Wolves'

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

10 years

'Hardcore' and 'casual' refer to one's approach to a video game, not a game type. There are casual Dark Soulers & hardcore Candy Crushers.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

Video games don’t cause mass shootings. But the conversation shouldn’t end there. When there is a mass shooting in America most days, it usually does.

No, Video Games Don’t Cause Mass Shootings. But The Conversation Shouldn’t End There

We should talk about gaming culture even though the games don't cause shootings.

time.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

2 years

‘Rare’s management asked all development staff to sign a waiver relinquishing themselves from EU legislation that sought to limit overtime. Every member of the team signed bar one.’ 25 years later - on the joy and cost of making GoldenEye 007:

The game’s Bond: the making of Nintendo classic GoldenEye 007

The beloved shooter proved movie tie-ins didn’t have to be mediocre. Twenty-five years on from its release, its creators tell how they put Pierce Brosnan into 8 million bedrooms

www.theguardian.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

asked my kid if he wanted ketchup with his bacon sandwich this morning and he replied ‘ketch-yup’ and honestly it’s my proudest moment

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

This is the UK cover for my new book, which is about a group of young women who helped devise a game that enabled the Allies to defeat the German U-boats that were attempting to blockade the UK during the Second World War:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

Autumn is the best season, in all realities:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

1 year

An interviewer once asked Amis why, in 1982, he wrote a non-fiction book about arcade games. Amis replied that he had needed to find a way to get paid for all the time he had spent playing them. As well as everything else, he was a quintessential freelancer.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

The use of the online review as political weapon, whereby internet mobs attempt to materially punish artists for their creative choices, continues to spread:

Game Maker's Toolkit

@gamemakerstk

6 years

Total War: Rome II is currently getting review bombed on Steam. Despite positive reviews since launch, its suddenly had a huge influx of negative reviews in the last couple days.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

The institution of the comedy double act marriage is in crisis. Why do comedians split-up, and what does it take to stay together? With @Baddiel @Herring1967 @Glinner and more:

'Fame proved toxic for the relationship': when comedy double acts split

David Baddiel, Andy Zaltzman, Richard Herring and other comics on fame, failure and friendship

www.theguardian.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

3 years

the fact that the couple who “married” in the “metaverse” work for the company that also makes the software should have nixed publication of the story imo:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

Ivan Chermayeff's 1974 poster for the stage production of War and Peace is *chef's kiss*:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

10 years

Don't trade mom jokes with Sigmund Freud (by @linguisttrick ): http://t.co/QMe8OrYZai

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 months

A woman approached and offered him an address for one the author's drinking buddies. So began a quest that has culminated in the news that, next month, @vintagebooks will republish “Caliban Shrieks” for the first time in more than eighty years:

The Bartender and the Lost Literary Masterpiece

How a Manchester native rescued “Caliban Shrieks,” Jack Hilton’s working-class opus.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

4 years

Absolutely beyond fed up with this journalistic complicity.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

White supremacist groups target young male video game fans on the internet in the same way they targeted young male football fans in the '70-80s. The hooliganism -- the slurs, mobbings, and racial violence -- has just moved from the stands to the forums.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

2 years

Excited to share with you a new audio project, 'My Perfect Console', a series of interviews with interesting people from video games, film, music and comedy. Each week I ask a guest to pick the five video games they want to immortalise on their very own fictional console.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

'NOT BORING'

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 months

imo, the Monopoly film Margot Robbie should be making is a biopic of the game's inventor, Lizzie Magie, who, after the game was taken from her, recorded her vocation in the US census as “maker of games” and her annual income as “$0”:

How Monopoly Became America’s Cruellest Board Game

In “Ruthless: The Secret History of Monopoly,” we learn how a game meant to critique capitalism came to embody it.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

8 years

The Last Guardian's Fumito Ueda once had a fistfight on Sony's rooftop that left him with lifelong neck pain:

Fumito Ueda’s Slow Route to Perfection

The Japanese video-game designer discusses his third major work, The Last Guardian, which took nearly a decade to complete.

www.newyorker.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

10 months

I spoke to Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of Scott Pilgrim, about quitting college to live with artists he met online, how Edgar Wright asked to adapt the graphic novels before most of the story was written, and the creative impact of a having a huge hit.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

1 year

I spoke to @RonanFarrow , the investigative reporter who, throughout his life, has been drawn to video games as places to exercise his interest in—and talent for—unravelling mysteries:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

When snow falls on a cabbage field (via: ):

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

This seemingly disproportionate response s more understandable when you consider the relationship between Tencent and the Chinese government. Last year, while reporting on Tencent's moves to dominate the Chinese PC games market, a developer told me the following:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

are you absolutely certain that saying’s yours, sonic the hedgehog?

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

11 years

"We cannot guarantee interesting video games just through the use of better technology." Hiroshi Yamauchi, 1927-2013

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

still got it

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

8 years

The full transcript of my recent interview with @fumito_ueda , on his childhood, his art, his injury and his legacy:

Fumito Ueda: Colossus in the Shadow

Fumito Ueda, the Japanese creator of the video games, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, is one of the best-loved but…

medium.com

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

7 years

So after all the Troy crowing about Corybn's IRA links, they've made a deal with a party supported by voter-threatening paramilitaries?

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

9 years

you know you've been playing too much MGSV when... http://t.co/5JToTyxsfM

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

10 years

Game of Thrones death threats for unruly Belgian schoolchildren (Via @aliceingameland ) - http://t.co/gUZNvfyOEb

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

8 years

That lucky shot you made in Peggle? May not have been so lucky after all. How game designers fake luck to flatter:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 years

gamers: “pls remove these women from my period war game their presence is ahistoric” Women of World War 2:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

This story, about the trail of a matryoshka-style chain of cowardly, subcontracting hitmen, reads like farce:

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

3 years

Thanks for the plug, er, hideo kojima!

HIDEO_KOJIMA

@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN

3 years

1/2 "A Game of Birds and Wolves" by Simon Parkin. The little bird-like girls of the Women's Royal Naval Service; an illustrated exercise (wargame) to predict the wolfpack of U-boats.

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

5 years

Spent the day with a 99-year-old lady, still so bright and so witty, who told me she hopes she dies at some point this year because going at 99 feels “romantic”, while going at a 100 would be “common.”

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

6 months

I spoke to Yoshinori Kitase, producer of @finalfantasyvii , about the challenge of holding an artistic vision when faced with millions of conflicting opinions, his choice to remain at @SquareEnix after the departure of his friend and mentor, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and the comic book

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Simon Parkin

@SimonParkin

4 years

ah yes, TLOU2, the extended parable on the futility of pursuing reprisals

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Simon Parkin

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1 year

I spoke to @kelslewin , co-director if the @GameHistoryOrg , about rifling through boxes in people’s attics in search of video game treasure, preservation work that once helped Disney out of a tight spot when it came to re-releasing some lost titles: