Meaningful Play Podcast

In this episode we celebrate the release of Sian’s book Video games and gender assemblages: Understanding #Gamergate and beyond. Following a chat about some games we’ve enjoyed lately, including Guardians of Azuma and We Know the Devil, we dive into the question “Why is gender, particularly women, such an ‘issue’ in video games?’. Sian’s attitude […]

We’re back to haunt you! After our hiatus we’re back for our first episode of 2025. We discuss some games we’ve been playing lately, including The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Piofiore: Fated Memories, and The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and South of Midnight. We then move on to discuss haunting in […]

In this episode, Sian and Heather reflect on the past few busy months and discuss their favourite games of the year. From the psychological horrors Mouthwashing and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley to the action-RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard and visual novel STOP BURYING ME ALIVE, BEAUTIFUL!, it certainly has been an eventful 2024. […]

In this episode, Sian and Heather reflect on the complexities of archiving video games. We discuss the way that formal archiving is often difficult and tied up with ideas and judgements about cultural value. We also reflect on the importance of fan preservation, and the discussions around ownership, accessibility, licencing, backwards compatibility, remixing, and more. […]

Queer games? For pride month? Ground-breaking. This episode Sian and Heather chat about queer game design and the growing body of scholarship from writers including Bo Ruberg and Xavier Ho on queer games and the way queer games reimagine and play with the video game form. We catch up on what we’ve been working on […]