Gold_Skulltulla

What's your favorite genre/style? - I'm all over the board on this: ambient, house, techno, bass, footwork, IDM, DnB, etc. There's good and bad music in all of those genres. I'm partial to dance music I suppose, seeing as I'm always on the lookout for DJ-able tracks, but some of my favorite artists never struck me as "danceable" until I became more clued-in to the scene. I'm not really into the bigger EDM stuff, but I do love that mainstream American music has basically turned into Euro-trance.

How'd you get into/introduced to it? - Probably through The Prodigy and "Firestarter," which made for a smooth transition from the heavy angst-rock of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Rage Against the Machine, which were very popular in middle school. Later I basically went through the Wipeout XL soundtrack and a "best electronic music albums" list on the now-defunct CDnow and used them as guideposts for expanding my listening.

What's a recent release/song you've been enjoying? - This year I really adore the new Basement Jaxx album, the new Danger EP, new Caribou LP, and the Lockah album, among many others. I'm very excited about the new (final!) Royksopp album, and love their Robyn collaboration. Also, more obscure, but this teaser for the new Koudlam album is exhilarating. Oh, and the stuff coming out of PC Music is super interesting.

Favorite Artists/Labels? - Too many to mention, but Orbital is probably tops for me. Labels I'll at least check out everything on: Warp, Modern Love, AUS, Tusk Wax, Brainfeeder, Hemlock, Livity Sound, Hotflush, Planet Mu, Tek Life, Hyperdub, DFA, Kompakt, Night Slugs, Bromance, R&S, Italians Do It Better, Marble, Turbo, 50 Weapons, and more I'm forgetting.

Do you buy physical releases (vinyl/cassettes/etc.)? What was your most recent purchase? - I stockpile digitally and buy a bunch of my favorites on CD like once a year. I listen to a lot on YouTube and Soundcloud mostly though.

One really interesting thing about different genres of electronic music for me is that sometimes certain ones don't make sense to me until I hear it in its ideal or native setting. I didn't get footwork until I saw dance battles. Minimal techno took on a whole new meaning when I went to clubs in Berlin that never close. It's cool, and while the appeal of some of this music is universal, I like that there are certain edges that carry a specificity or local community flavor. Been finding that stuff more intriguing lately; learning about stuff like batida in Lisbon.

These really nail Shinkawa's style. Drew and Dan are good, but Tracksuit is phenomenal. Hope you do more of these.

I think it's worth reading the piece Jenn Frank wrote on her blog before "On Leaving" as an interesting companion article. It's called "You have to protect yourself" and it's about how difficult her experience has been as a freelance writer trying to work in game coverage. You can all point to harassers and say "those awful people," and you'd be right to do so, but the deep-seeded, more depressing truth of the matter is in the systemic devaluation of the sort of work Jenn Frank was doing. If anything, I almost feel happy for her that she got out of an industry that took her love and dedication and offered so little in return.

That's why so many people who write games coverage are so dismissive of gamergate's claims of unethical journalism, which while not always unfounded, show such a tremendous misalignment of priorities, that responding to them can end up dislocating the priorities of publications and writers themselves. Not saying that legitimate ethical issues shouldn't be addressed, but none of the issues I've seen presented via gamergate come anywhere close to the severity and pervasiveness of the issues Jenn Frank brings to the forefront in her "You have to protect yourself" article.

My guess is that if the deal goes through, Microsoft still publishes Minecraft on the non-Microsoft platforms, where it already exists, but probably slows that train down as far as new gaming devices go. Macs are outside of this bubble, I think, and can't imagine Microsoft pulling support for Minecraft on Apple machines. I mean, they publish Office over there, why not Minecraft too; they're equally pervasive.

Holding our for Galaxy Gear Xrd Sign

I agree with Ian Bogost here:

@thatpinguino: Maybe if I made lists on a regular basis they'd start to feel a bit redundant, but I don't so the GoT list really did take as much time and effort as my other work; I couldn't produce a list of that quality 5 days a week or anything, which is what is asked of Buzzfeed editors (and why they're so hit-or-miss). As to which I'd rather see get more attention, I don't have a preference save that it's much easier to find an audience when your subject is already something incredibly popular, so if a profile of an obscure game dev got a lot of attention, it would be a more substantial feat, I suppose.

I think it's more that lists are mostly comedic in nature, and not a good format for substantial criticism or reporting (unless in a hybrid format like something closer to what Vox does). And honestly most lists are bad lists that display research and fact-checking standards that would not fly in a real newsroom (obviously the stakes are lower but the nonchalance still rubs me the wrong way). There's a reason so many comments on my GoT post are shocked that what they clicked on didn't turn out to be terrible.

I'd love it if my writing got more attention, but at this point I'm seriously considering delving deeper into video production.

While you're right about the prevalence of lists and their surge in views, let's not lump all lists as clickbait. Some lists are really great, and can be funny and even insightful. And depending on how carefully they're put together, they can take a great deal of time and effort. I posted the Game of Thrones Characters as Video Game Consoles list on Giant Bomb last year, which currently has about 250,000 pageviews and over 180 comments, not including all of the other sites that reposted it (no one asked permission btw). Technically I couldn't have made the list without watching dozens of hours of the TV show and spending even more time with the book series, coupled with what I already knew about video games. Actually building the images and writing all of the one-liners took several hours. I think this effort really shows through in the post, which I'm still quite proud of, and I have a hard time believing sites like Buzzfeed actually allow enough editorial space for rich humor to breathe (at least not on a regular basis; there are always exceptions).

The GoT list is the most popular thing I've ever put on the internet, but I do wish some of the other articles I've written (I freelance for Kill Screen semi-regularly and keep an off-site blog) were half as popular, to say nothing of actually getting paid a living wage for this stuff. My point is that it's not necessarily the list format that perpetuates the downward spiral, but the posting cycle demanded by the ad-revenue model that makes it so.

Of course I'd watch, but I wonder if this would be the best use of Drew's time...

@hailinel: Polygon laid off their head features editor, no less. I don't think it can get more explicitly clear that big sites are not looking for writers unless they're writing video scripts. And even then...