The following content was written and submitted by Spankminister, although I’ve made some minor formatting alterations to it. The headline is mine, though. Clever wordplay, I know.

I’d imagine you’re already aware of Jen Schiller’s response to the backlash at her dismissive article on pro gaming. The responses are far more interesting than the original article, which is a borderline troll for comment clicks, as many Kotaku posts are. Examples can be found here, and here.

But what struck me in Schiller’s response was:

Ultimately, what I’m going to walk away from this with is more information and a small glimpse into the number of people who are passionate about e-Sports that I probably wouldn’t have gone looking for on my own.

And also Joel Johnson, Kotaku editorial director’s comment:

if it takes a dashed off opinion to get pro gamer advocates talking about their obsession of choice, I’m going to take it as a net win.

This is the attitude of Kotaku in a nutshell. The writers that post articles do not need to go looking for information in order to write authoritatively. The editor thinks it’s great that his writers churn out shoddy articles, because it means that critical, eloquent people from elsewhere will be forced to write good articles to contradict them. It’s like they wanted to be a gadfly like Socrates, except they’re going about this goal by being awful writers.

In the meantime, they can enjoy the fruits of all those enraged clicks, hot on the heels of an article by Totilo stating that Street Fighter III singlehandedly destroyed Capcom’s fighting game franchise for a decade. I suppose I have to admit their trolls have worked in getting hits; these are the first two articles I’ve actually bothered to read on Kotaku for months.

There’s no doubt about it - Kotaku, everybody’s favourite blog about Japanese supermodels and online drug dispensaries, has got videogame fever.

Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted the first stirrings of this unusual trend earlier in the week when, quietly tucked away under reports about furries, J-pop songstresses and underage models, they published a brief history of the PlayStation controller. This innocent post stood out among Kotaku’s usual content, quickly giving way to posts about hug simulators. But this was just the calm before the storm.

From there, things got weird. From a shaky article about Transformers games written by someone who, it seems, was ordered to type out his thoughts on the subject mere moments after having been kicked in the head by a horse, to another alleging shady practices at a large development studio. More recently the blog seems to have moved back to its favourite subject matter - jiggly, jiggly breasts - but not before squeezing in one more quick post about a Steam sale (although the content of the post is vague - it may have been about a company selling actual steam).

“Videogames are, I am told, a cultural phenomenon,” explains Professor Hans Q. Twatfudge. “Many people have been exposed to them in varying degrees at different points in their lives. Some may have had a machine dedicated to the running of videogames, or a ‘games console’, introduced to their home by a parent at an early age. Others may have discovered in their teens that the machine that they used to do their homework could also be coaxed into rendering digital monsters and guns and laserbeams and the like.”

More recently, people have been exposed to games by simple, friendly social networking sites like Twitface, MyBuzz and Old Spice.

Professor Twatfudge explains that, “Some people now spend all their time tending to farms, building homes, or interfering in the lives of lesser beings. Presumably they don’t have time for videogames. Ahaha. But seriously, it’s very popular.”

Games like Shibatasoft’s Boiga Bruddas™ are an integral part of gaming culture.

Very popular indeed, and Kotaku seems to have caught on to the fad. But reaction from the blog’s readership has been mixed.

“I usually go to Kotaky to find out what sort of thing Japanese idols like Ai Takahashi are up to,” writes one loyal Kotaku reader, “But if they keep interrupting it with shit about videogames I’ll probably just go somewhere else for my fix.”

Another reader told us, “I have a bowl every morning, and another in the afternoon, and I’ve lost five pounds!”

Since posting the story about succulent, spherical breasts, Kotaku has been walking a fine line between game-related content and their usual pointless bullshit. Recently they posted a story about vegetable sculptures of popular gaming characters Super Mario and Green Mario. They’ve posted a handful of other gaming-related stories since then.

Is this trend likely to continue? Who can say? Next week they may forget about games entirely and resume showing us pictures of porcelain-skinned beauties of the orient, suggesting ways to reducing the cost of our groceries, and posting pictures of ducks with humorous comments underneath.

But one thing’s for certain - Kotaku has videogame fever. Wait, did I write that already? Shit. I mean, for now, Kotaku’s been bitten by the videogame bug. We just have to wait and see if the swelling goes down.

Many thanks to Kristofer Straub, curator of the チェーンソーのスーツ Museum of Gamings in Tokyo, for the rare Boiga Bruddas™ character artwork.

[Corrected minor typos.]