Articles

SOS from Japan!

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The following is an email I received yesterday in my shiny new lamer mailbox.

In the beginning, I am sorry to write suddenly long sentences.
As victims’ representative of it, I dare to write that here.
… to inform lots of people all over the world about that …

The consumption cultures of Japan are facing a serious crisis by The PSE Standardization (Electrical Appliances And Materials Safety Law) now to
prevent the ignition accidents of consumer electronics, it is enacted.
Though RoHS looks like this, there are large problems in ruining the
Japanese economy!

Buying and selling consumer electronics with built-in power supplies
which were made before the year 2001 (3DO・PC-FX・Sega Saturn・Dream Cast・Play Station 1000-9000・Neo-Geo CD etc. correspond in the game machines) will be impossible by this law in April 2006!

 →  I am become game, destroyer of words.

Gold Farmers: Destroying the Fun (and economy) of MMORPG’s

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If you have not read Billy’s take on gold farmers, you may want to now.

Anyone who plays World of Warcraft knows them: they often have strange names (Ihugirls, Jobsister), but they may also have a name unnoticeable from others. Their guild tag might be your average WoW lore fluff, or it could be something along the lines of “Knightsofthepiratekitty.” They play as much, if not more, as any hardcore addict: 8-12 hour days. But rather than roaming about the game’s many dungeons and zones, you find them in them alternating between the auction house and the same hot spots: Winterspring hunting herbs, camping elites in Tyr’s Hand, or patrolling Burning Steppes for rich thorium veins. Every hour of the day. →  NiGHTS into REaDS

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Girlfriend of a gamer

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Game Rush
Game Rush may be in Blockbuster, but only in the way the Confederacy is "in" the Union.

Do you or does someone you know have a partner who is a gamer? Well I imagine if you are reading this uber nerdy site that you do or you are one. For many gamers, gaming is not just a habit but a way of life. Gamers eat, sleep and breath video gaaaaaames. I learned this lesson the hard way when I fell in love with a fan boy. Being in a relationship with a gamer is not easy. There are the long hours spent waiting while your gamer guy/gal looks through piles of used games hoping to find that hidden gem, or the times when your partner totally ignores you because they are completely immersed in a game. →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

Games as Art I

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Munch
Art

I obviously cannot possibly settle the debate on what art is, but I believe video games are art. To me, it comes down to how much of something is alterable and how much is set. For example, a dish washer basically has to be pretty similar to most other dish washers; besides some of the visual design and new technology now and then, a dish washer is a dish washer. I would not consider dish washers to be art. The same goes for most objects, like pens, staplers, monitors, tires, shoe horns, etc. More room for variation in design, however, leads to a more artistic thing. A car, for example, has specific visual properties, as well as spatial and internal layout amongst other variables. →  You’re tearing me apart lamers!

A call for womanly arms

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Any group put together by a company, whether it be New Kids on the Block or the Frag Dolls, should be highly respected.

Despite the Microsoft announcement at last E3 that women were going to be brought into the fold and the introduction of higher fines for scantily clad booth babes, women are still on the fringes of gaming. Slowly we approach equality, moving through the same motions as any fight for equality in any area.

First, there are the radical few. Small groups of women band together, screaming out that they are better than the boys. Thus the Frag Dolls and other such groups are born.

Next, comes the insistence that women are different and need games catered to them. →  Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.

The Ethics of Farming part II

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Continued from yesterday’s part I…

  • If you buy gold, you support Chinese sweatshops.

You’d think people on computers made in Chinese sweatshops would catch the irony of their argument. They don’t though, know why? It’s because they don’t want Chinese people on their servers period. It isn’t about keeping the game servers clean of trouble, it’s about keeping out people who don’t speak English or live in a country they like. Here is the truth though. There are no gold farming Chinese sweat shops. I have spoken to gold farmers in person and in the game. I was curious about the way they operate so I am always asking questions. Here’s what I have learned. There are no sweatshops; the majority of the gold farmers are college students. →  Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Post

The Ethics of Farming part I

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As someone who once used to rent the old school NES “cheats” videos (it’s how I learned to beat Castlevainia 2) I am not sure if I am the right person to talk about what is ethical in the gaming world. I will anyway though, so take that!

Anyone who has ever made it beyond level 10 in World of Warcraft knows that there are people in places usually not the US that grind away all day in game collecting items and gold (in game currency) to sell for real world currency. Big deal, right? Well here is what I think… No, it isn’t a big deal. Blizzard, in one of their more incandescent moments, decided to combat this by making the best in game items BOP, which means Bind on Pickup. →  Devil May Read 2

Diablo Musings

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For the most part Diablo fans figured the series was dead, considering that the talent behind it had left for greener pastures.

Then BAM!

A Diablo 3?

Which is interesting, considering that Diablo wasn’t made by the standard Blizzard department that created Starcraft or Warcraft. In fact it was made by a separate Blizzard office, Blizzard North. Originally named Condor, Blizzard bought them out and renamed them to Blizzard North in 96, even though they had been contracted to start building Diablo a year earlier.

The three head honchos left Blizzard North due to strife with the parent company Vivendi over financial crap, typical corporate dicks screwing with the artists kind of thing. So they split and formed a new company which put out Guild Wars. →  Words are the towns and cities of letters.

Idol Worship: Bo and Ippo

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An extension of the Best Game Ever column, this new space allows me to not just love and gush over my favorite games, but caress and manhandle some of the people who made my favorite games. An obvious first choice would be someone like Shigeru Miyamoto, Yuji Naka, Sid Meier, or Will Wright, but that wouldn’t be very exciting and where’s the elitism and snobbery in picking someone everyone already knows? Their days may still yet come in the pages of Idol Worship, but for now we will examine two little known composers who worked for Sega in their golden age, Tokuhiko Uwabo and Izuho Takeuchi, better known as Bo and Ippo (well, to me at least).

Sega, like Atari, refused to give credit to their staff well into the 90’s. →  Article Kombat

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Dear Brady Fiechter

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I can’t figure out why women characters are so shallow. Incidentally, here is our newest issue.

Dear Brady Fiechter,

In the January issue of Play magazine, you penned an article titled “A simple request, really…” In this wish of resolutions for the gaming industry, you called for female characters to receive “breast reductions” and character to be “written into our characters.” I share your hopes, but I do not go about the matter in the same way.

I employ more than your magazines current zero women, for example. I do not work for an editor who is portrayed as having women draped all over him with a smirk on his face, nor does my editor write reviews in which he names “breathtaking female lead,” or “ultra-hot leading lady” as one of only a few positive points. →  The only thing we have to read is read itself.