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‘A Gift to Humanity’
A Sense of Wonder
Whether you are Christian or not, Christmas is a good time for renewal of innocence and wonder. The common sights of people excitedly opening gifts, decorating homes and public streets in lights, retelling stories of miracles and merriment — such experiences can rekindle in us a joyful pursuit of the good and the beautiful.
Cyberpunked
How does a game publisher lose over a billion dollars of value in a week? How does one of the industry’s most popular companies become its whipping boy overnight? Why might a product receive rave reviews at launch and disastrously critical reviews only a few days later? And what does it suggest about the industry at large?
Even to someone very familiar with the video games industry, the past week has been surprising and mystifying, but let me try to untangle the mystery based on public knowledge so far.
What if Frodo was not the lead protagonist of The Lord of the Rings? What might the story be like if told through only one character’s perspective? The same fictional world. The same setting of time, over-arching threats, characters great and small, etc. How might the events change if you guided Frodo’s decisions? Then start […]
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If the USA and the USSR let loose with the ICBMs, what would the world look like after? While I’ve read plenty of post apocalyptic literature, the game ATOM RPG constitutes the first serious study of what life might be like in the burned remnants of the old Soviet Union. (And if you were hoping […]
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Culture War in Video Games
More than half of American adults — yes, adults — play video games. Many of those “gamers” are playing Mahjong, Sudoku, or crossword puzzles on their phones; so it’s fair to say the statistics are often exaggerated (like calling golf or darts a sport). But since PC and dedicated console gaming picked up in the 1980s and have flourished into an industry rivaling Hollywood revenues and productions (indeed, Hollywood actors now commonly perform in video games), entire generations have grown up with the medium.
Games are just another option beside TV and novels as a way for responsible parents to wind down at night or share entertainment with the kids. And I don’t mean Pac-Man.
While winding down before Christmas celebrations begin in earnest, I have been playing a park simulator. Jurassic World: Evolution is among this month’s “free” games on Xbox Live. It’s basically like designing and operating a zoo, only the exhibits are more likely to break free and eat the guests. After learning the ropes at the […]
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Originally, I only intended to share this video providing an overview of updates to the physics simulations of Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s impressive how far both graphics and physics in virtual environments have come. Preview Open
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It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom…. But enough is enough. I stand with Hong Kong, and I oppose Blizzard’s obvious and laughably transparent fear […]
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We live in an age of information overload (however muddled by misinformation). With each decade, the potential for individual persons to learn about distant things improves. Books, radio, telephones, automobiles, television, internet, and many other innovations combine to provide access to pictures, stories, and people around planet Earth. Among the most recent technological advances are […]
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I present to you the Minecraft Cat Fountain. Preview Open
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Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion in [California Governor] Brown vs Entertainment Merchants Association in 2011. [….] The State’s evidence is not compelling. California relies primarily on the research of Dr. Craig Anderson and a few other research psychologists whose studies purport to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects […]
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It was the best of games. It was the worst of games. This week E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) — the video game industry’s biggest annual gathering and press event — is spinning out a flurry of announcements in Los Angeles, like it always does. New platforms and services have been scheduled for release next […]
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Google’s presentation of its impressive new game streaming service began with images of boardgames, arenas, sports stadiums, and concert halls to show how entertainment has provided a social glue throughout history to bring people of different backgrounds and beliefs together in joy. Hence the name, Stadia. “Create + Scale + Connect” are the three goals […]
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In a Young Americans first, Jack and co return to a previously-addressed topic: video games. But we’re not just running out of ideas; rather, inspired by the release of Kingdom Hearts III, which recovering gamer Jack is tempted to relapse to buy and play, the panelists discuss whether it is possible to game responsibly or if obsessive playing is inevitable.
A beautiful imagining of the Kingdom of Zeal (The original was 16-bit graphics) Let us turn the clock back a few decades. A much younger OmegaPaladin turns on his Super Nintendo with the cartridge labeled Chrono Trigger inserted, to immerse himself in a story of heroic deeds across time. After a challenging boss battle, he […]
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This month, the gamer known as “Ninja” became the first “esports” “athlete” to grace the front cover of ESPN Magazine. As “esports”–i.e., playing video games in a professional competitive setting–grow in popularity, the Young Americans debate whether this portends ill for their cohort, and wonder if video games are taking over society as a whole.
In 2009, Microsoft brought the game show format online through Xbox Live. Every owner of an Xbox 360 video game console had a cartoonish avatar to represent the player in a variety of virtual interactions. In the trivia game show 1 vs 100, these avatars could fill a virtual crowd of a hundred players competing […]
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