After this Madden Ultimate Team shit, plus a Call of Duty beta I played with Keek and Glamdring every possible second, our descent into performative masculinity is complete. The only question now is whether or not this constitutes our final form, or if this is a kind of moist, pupal proto-bro scenario that ultimately results in something more firm. We'll see.

It's sorta like when World of Warcraft introduced Eternium Ore; it was like, hey. Don't paint yourself into a corner here. You gotta make a bunch more mystical ores! You don't want to get to Forever-ite until you absolutely have to.

I should emphasize for those of you reading this from out of town that University Bookstore is actually a very specific bookstore, and not more of a general concept as it might first appear. But! It's all true: At 5pm pn August 18th, I will be doing a reading at the aforementioned University Bookstore (this one) of my "if Shel Silverstein was your Dungeon Master" book of poetry Lexcalibur. We'll also have a small allotment of the physical book available there, if that's something you missed out on last time. There's also a Facebook event? Do you want that? I was told to link it.

Obviously, there has to be a way to digest the dSports you haven't consumed; some mechanism by which we may obtain chelated versions of these prized materials for easy absorption. That's DiceCenter.

I feel confident that the dSports league I inevitably found will suffer the same grim setbacks shared by every other attempt to yoke incredibly competitive young men toward some decorous, public expression. Don't these violent sociopaths know I'm trying to establish dominion?!?

Michael was headed to some primeval forest, and I was headed to Spokane, so we put together a couple strips furthering the whole "dSports" concept because we can't stop thinking about it. Then we sat down to write Monday's strip and it's all we wanted to write about. So there are a couple more strips on this theme, not bound into any particular storyline or anything, simply premised thus: that we live in a world nourished by something called "dSports," and even the drama surrounding this form of entertainment is sufficient to sustain a man. It also allowed us to engage in some Wish Fulfillment, because even after the expansion for some reason Seattle still doesn't won't have an OWL team.

When I got back into the game of No Man's Sky I was playing with Mulk, I thought it was very novel at first that there was an frozen-ass hell planet called Teeko. How novel, I thought. That's sort of like my handle! Everything else progressed precisely as it did in today's tender strip.

I was going to say that I don't know why a brand as massive as Blizzard would court the mainstream with this type of horseshit, but it's a dumb question with an obvious answer. Though I suspect there are two answers: the first one, that the mainstream has a lot of money, is relatively straightforward. The second, that there is something in the soul that cries out for recognition, for transmutation, to cease being the settled for wooden simulacrum of a boy and to instead be made real.

I think my first notes for the game that would eventually become Thornwatch are from 2011.

Gabriel's family is apparently the only force that mitigates him, because when they left last week for a few days he reverted to the creature I met twenty years ago - a kind of mad-eyed urban forager who is deeply confused about what constitutes food. Once he drank Sprite for months - I mean, like, in lieu of water - and his urine became thick and rich, like Mrs. Butterworth's. If left alone, I have no doubt that tiny crystal cities would rise from the thickest part of the puddle.

It's too much fun to depict the operation of a Fantasy Roleplaying Esports League. I mean it. I want to blow this thing out, like… do livery for every team in the league, simulate a tournament. Model the necessary and inevitable romances. Ultimately sell the property to an animation studio that produces a season anime.

When Hasbro's CEO was discussing the topic of "eSportz," I suspect he was primarily talking about the million people who watch Magic played online per month as opposed to Dungeons & Dragons, but conversation around the latter tended to dominate the social channels I frequent. That concept is too D&Delicious to pass up.

Fortnite's first Summer Skirmish faced unique challenges, but the one I can't stop thinking about was the fact that the game's quirky, slapstick vibe gets perforated a bit when the stakes increase.

We salute those who are now serving their fandom in San Diego.

The only reason I authorized this hateful, anti-Ballard propaganda is that it is deeply true.

As is known to all, but polite to reiterate, since time immemorial PAX has offered succor to the indie developer with the power of PAX 10. If I had been smart when I was naming it, maybe I would have tried to work in something about "PAX to the Tenth Power" or something. In any event: Here are your winners! Be sure to track them down at the show, and investigate this game garden curated by a phalanx of industry professionals.