I love it when great shows reference the MMORPG worlds. The Simpsons is no exception. Just from the beginning when Marge has to accept a dodgy EULA I started to laugh. Bart’s attitude at the end is just precious. It reminds me of all the people I’ve talked to who have become hooked but one day just say “Ah – whatever!”.
Tag Archives: gaming
Top 25 Video Game Cinematic Moments
Ooooh! GameSpy’s got a list going of the Top 25 Video Game Cinematic Moments! And they’ve even included the clips – just in the wonderful way we’ve come to know GameSpy as excellent game journalists!
I’m not such a big fan of lists – don’t ask me why – I’m just not! But presented this way is just wonderful! Specially for me who hasn’t played all these games! Pure joy!
Bogost finds the words
Just stopping by to share this amazing quote by Bogost in Gamasutra’s ‘Are Games Art? “Here we go again.”
“Film can be used for deeply charged emotional expression, or it can be used to show you how to use the oxygen mask in case of cabin depressurization. If video games are indeed a medium, then they too will speak on different registers. “If you look at the world of ‘serious games,’ a lot of those titles are much closer to the airline safety video than to ‘Citizen Kane,'”Bogost adds. “And like film or TV or painting, there will be different modes of video game craft. There will be pop-art games and self-referential postmodern games and exploitative games and games made solely to cash in on intellectual property like Sponge Bob.”
Naw – I haven’t actually read it – but found the quote at Water Cooler Games and I’ve been thinking about it all day! So much so that I’m getting very distracted from work. But I suppose I knew that would happen eventually!
Women game bloggers
Every now and then a ‘battle of the sexes’ discussion comes up in the gaming blogosphere which always stirs up a loud debate. Personally I think these debates can be healthy because I’m always introduced to new voices, which I enjoy. I may be getting old because I really don’t get provoked by the sexist comments – instead they just make me chuckle.
Recently Crecente from Kotaku wondered why there aren’t more female gaming bloggers. Apparently Kotaku’s looking to expand their repertoire and want to include a female voice in their writing staff – well good for them.
The shocker, however was:
‘But despite my digging around and my somewhat overt nosing around at GDC, I was hard-pressed to find the same sort of, for lack of a better term, job pool that I usually find with male writers.’
My experience coincides with ‘Always Makes Me LOL’ Amber Night:
‘This seems a little strange to me, since my own experience has been that there is fairly large pool of female bloggers in the gaming space’
I find it incredibly odd. And I have to admit that a thought passed through my mind wondering if Crecente posted this piece just so we could point him in the right direction so he didn’t have to bother looking.
So yet again ‘the battle of the sexes’ discussion has produced something wonderful. One Hundred Little Dolls has written a list of female gaming bloggers and I’m sure we’ll see it growing too! A joy to see some locals on the list: Jill Walker, Hilde Corneliussen and Torill Mortensen – I’m so proud! I can’t wait to go on a little link adventure and explore these blogs! Wouldn’t it be precious if T.L. Taylor started blogging?!
flOw
I remember reading small tidbits of information about this game – but hadn’t tried it until now. It’s absolutely stunning!
flOw is a masters in fine arts thesis by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark at the University of Southern California. From what I understand, they’ve used Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow to investigate why some games are more mesmerising than others. I haven’t read the thesis yet, but the game is just luscious and beautiful!
I can’t help but feel like I’m meditating while playing! So play!
What is machinima?
If you pay attention to my del.icio.us, you’ll know that I’m hung up on machinima lately. I don’t really want to get into the details of why right now – but thought I’d share this little gem by mrfleef.
It’s an attempt to explain what machinima is, specifically using Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a backdrop. Every once in a while a figure comes up screaming political comments about how games are bad for, I’m not sure, is that supposed to be Hillary Clinton?
"Storytelling in the online medium"
Raph Koster has released yet another excellent presentation slideshow from one of his talks. This time it’s five years old – but I agree with him when he says “…the examples are dated, I don’t think the state of the art has moved forward in most of these areas”.
“Storytelling in the online medium”
Would be such a joy to experience one of these talks like someday!
Rune Klevjer – Congrats!
Rune Klevjer presented his PhD thesis on Friday – sadly I had to work, so missed it! But I’m so looking forward to reading
What is the avatar! Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Computer Games.
I’m sure it’s absolutely amazing! No doubt!
Interactive Australia 2007
The Centre for New Media Research & Education (which looks really cool, by the way) at Bond University in Australia has published a report that:
“…provides data on who is playing games in Australia, what their attitudes and behaviours are like compared with non-gamers, the nature of the games market, the importance of games in the family experience and the role of online access in game purchasing and play.
The study is based on a national random sample of 1,606 Australian households who responded to more than 75 questions and over 300 data points in a 15-minute online survey run by ACNielsen Surveys Australia in late September 2006. Two units of analysis are explored in the study: the household and the player individual within the household.”
It’s interesting data. Nothing that really surprises me – but nice to see such reports finding nice little heartwarming details such as:
“Parents and children are increasingly playing together. 35% of gamers are parents.”
I would really like to see the questions asked though, because it seems just a tad too optimistic – too good to be true, in a way. But then I’ve always been skeptical to such things as I’ve done my fair share of phone surveys. ;)
Kinaesthetic Mimicry in computer games
I can’t stress enough how unbelievably great Chris Bateman‘s blog is for anyone wishing to look into what games are!
He’s got a great post about Wii and Kinaesthetic Mimicry in video games! He’s so generous with sharing his knowledge, experience, thoughts and time! I know some readers of this blog are thinking about writing about games for their thesis – subscribe to the feeds of this blog – you’ll be so much richer for it!
Oh dear – I feel compelled to write a list now – seems unfair to just mention Only A Game – but my list is long – and that should be designated to another post, I think!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 