Games: September 2008 Archive Page

Pew Internet:

Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day. Game playing experiences are diverse, with the most popular games falling into the racing, puzzle, sports, action and adventure categories.

Game playing is also social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time and can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life.

Kotaku reports:

Is it finally game over for Florida lawyer and violent video game opponent Jack Thompson? Judgment has been entered in the case that started last year and came to a head when Judge Dava Tunis recommended permanent disbarment for the bombastic, showboating law man. The court has approved the report and has ordered that JT is officially disbarred as of 30 days from today.

During the Great Depression, Americans flocked to the movies to escape the harsh realities of their daily lives. As the stock market tumbled and loved ones went off to war, Americans disappeared into dark theaters, where Shirley Temple sang and tap danced her way into their heavy hearts.

Now, as the nation faces arguably the worst financial crisis since the Depression, video games may be playing the role movies once filled in hard economic times. (NPR)

At the beginning of last semester, when I called roll in a class that included a student with the last name "Gearhart," I have been telling steampunk bedtime stories to my kids (Peter, 10; and Carolyn, 6). 

Each night, after my daughter has finished the tooth-brushing and prayer-saying, in total darkness I try to advance the plot for about ten minutes, then give the kids some "interactive time," where they role-play various characters.

Tonight, Captain Rod Gearhart, having been prodded by his older brother, the banking tycooon Maximillian Gearhart, finally decided he will declare his love for Miss de Meaner, the science officer from a rival blimpship (the Dark Blimpship of Count Catastrophe). After a quick visit to his quarters to freshen up, he strides down to sickbay, where Miss de Meaner is recovering from an injury received in a pirate attack. She is asleep, so he sits on the edge of her bed and declares his love for her (in an appropriately stiff-upper-lip, stuffed-shirt, all-work-and-no-play kind of way).  When he finishes, the figure in the bed sits up -- it is not Miss de Meaner after all, but one of her biobot crew members (artificial humans, picked up in an earlier adventure).  The biobot says that the devious Solomonder told him to load Miss de Meaner into an escape pod and then lie down in her bed and pretend to be her.

I heard the children gasp, and Carolyn -- who loves the romantic subplots as much as Peter loves the etherpunk technology -- fumbled for my hand in the darkness.  All week I was planning that twist, even having Solomonder snicker under his breath "Heh, heh heh!" after he requested permission to leave the ship, and establishing that one of the biobot crew members is missing.

A wonderfully expressive, almost wordless essay on language, problem-solving, and code.
The Synonym Problem  (See also Jono DiCarlo's "These Things I Believe" -- a humanist manifesto about computer code.)

Most gamers have never heard of Braunstein. Sad but true. In the hierarchy of self-awareness you'll find the circle of gamers who know what D&D is (a very, very large circle), then inside of that is the circle of gamers who know what Greyhawk is (large but smaller), and inside that the circle who knows what Blackmoor is (smaller still). And then in the very center, vanishingly small, are the people who've heard of Braunstein. Which is a pity, because Braunstein is the granddaddy of them all. (Metafilter)