Culture The How and Why. Culture Checking in on my Social Media Predictions 6 months later In a blog post at the end of 2022, I had a little fun making some predictions about the social media landscape for the upcoming year. It’s time to revisit those predictions and see how they’re holding up. Continue reading Checking in on my Social Media Predictions 6 months later Undertale Underlost is not just an Undertale thing The Undertale community loves to create some fascinating pieces of art though. Continue reading Underlost is not just an Undertale thing Culture Social Media Predictions for 2023 I haven’t been on social media for most of 2022, so it’s been fascinating watching bits of news coming out about Twitter and all of the platforms that are quickly popping up. I thought it might be fun to predict what might happen in social media over the next year. Continue reading Social Media Predictions for 2023 Culture Pokemon and Post Malone are Hosting a Virtual Concert Just when I think 2021 can't get weirder, I hear about this announcement. The 25th anniversary also kicks off the P25 music program, featuring a handful of artists creating original, Pokemon inspired songs. Katy Perry was the first artist to be announced as part of the project. Continue reading Pokemon and Post Malone are Hosting a Virtual Concert KFC is making a Dating Sim Sure, fine why not. The developer behind this has some experience making narrative-based games, so it won’t be terrible. Probably. Continue reading KFC is making a Dating Sim Respawn CEO says some developers ‘crossed a line’ pic.twitter.com/j8woV7g9Tx — Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) August 19, 2019 I keep going back and forth between how I feel about the whole situation. On one hand, this is exactly what community managers are for. As developers, it’s not our responsibility (nor do we often have the experience) to interact directly with fans. It’s not really a surprise that some developers resorted to name-calling and poor judgment when they started to receive death threats. But, on the other ha Continue reading Respawn CEO says some developers ‘crossed a line’ Boy Problems - A Carly Rae Jepsen TTRPG It is many years into the future. A wealthy and powerful person (or persons) has claimed a rare and much sought after prize: the “vault” of 200 unreleased (this is real!) songs from renowned Canadian pop artist, Carly Rae Jepsen. Hired by an anonymous sponsor, your team of highly trained individuals will raid a well-defended location to retrieve said item. From planning to set-up to execution, you will see this heist through to its completion, whether that be a success or failure. There will Continue reading Boy Problems - A Carly Rae Jepsen TTRPG Marc Andreessen on VR/AR From Marc Andreessen: I think AR has tons of potential applications, both at work and at home. [But] I think VR is going to be about 1,000 times bigger. On the latest podcast of a16z, Andreessen goes onto explain that while AR works for more “interesting” places in the world (in other words, more densely populated), rural places never get to see the benefits of AR as much. As someone who spent a large portion of my life growing up in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, this makes a lot of s Continue reading Marc Andreessen on VR/AR Reflections on DOOM's Development The inclusion of multiplayer co-op and deathmatch modes changed everything about games. We knew that playing a game as fast and over-the-top as DOOM would signal a new era. I visualized what E1M7 would look like with two players shooting rockets at each other over a large room and it got me more excited than I had been since Wolfenstein 3D’s chaingun audio. Its not to say Doom invented multiplayer, however most games were usually were pretty exclusive to a single screen. There was somethin Continue reading Reflections on DOOM's Development 25 years of Doom The original Doom turns 25 this year, and to celebrate, its co-creater, John Remero made a new chapter to the original game, titled Sigil. Sigil, according to the website, is an unofficial 5th episode to the game: I wanted the levels to feel like they belong to the original game as if they were a true fifth episode. There’s more detail in the levels than episodes 1-4, but not overly so. I believe that people playing Sigil will recognize my design style, but see new things I’m doing becau Continue reading 25 years of Doom Choose your own adventure...with Typeform I love this. I never thought to use Typeform this way. It’s still not as open as something like Ink or Twine, but it’s always great to see services being used for strange new things. Continue reading Choose your own adventure...with Typeform Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees The studio behind Wallace and Gromit will be handing over 75% ownership to it’s workers, assuring the team won’t be in danger of a big company buyout. Continue reading Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees America Is a Dream A great little essay Stan Lee wrote for The Atlantic in 2007, that’s just as important today as it was then. Continue reading America Is a Dream Facebook Fired Palmer Luckey Because He Supported Donald Trump Good. Employers should be able to fire employees based on their political beliefs, no matter what they are. Political beliefs are a chosen ideology, unlike race or gender. If your beliefs do not align with a company you work for, go somewhere else. Continue reading Facebook Fired Palmer Luckey Because He Supported Donald Trump Niantic acquired Seismic Games Seismic Games is best known for mobile game Marvel Strike Force, (something I had to do a bit of searching around to learn). Having a group of industry veterans with experience working on IP based games will hopefully provide a strong boost for Niantic’s upcoming Harry Potter game as well as Pokemon Go. Continue reading Niantic acquired Seismic Games Your precious ‘gamer culture’ isn’t dying. I grew up playing video games. By the age of three, I started mastering my parents’ old Atari 2600. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends, and those I did have, didn’t live close by, so video games always helped keep the loneliness at bay. By the time high school rolled by, I was well into making mods and eventually even experimenting with making my own games. Video games even helped me bond with my mentally disabled brother. A bond we both still share today, even after 20 some odd years Continue reading Your precious ‘gamer culture’ isn’t dying. GTA V PC Scam Infects Thousands of PCs World Wide Criminals stealing from criminals, trying to steal a game about criminals. Continue reading GTA V PC Scam Infects Thousands of PCs World Wide Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85 As a kid, I idolized this man. I read Nintendo Power almost religiously. As far as I was concerned, this man was Nintendo. As I got older and read more about him, my perception of him changed somewhat. While I still respect the man, like Steve Jobs, this man built these amazing products by being a ruthless businessman. But despite his business practices, or perhaps because of it, Nintendo created some of the most memorable gaming experiences in my childhood. He put the consumer experience over e Continue reading Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85 An Investigation of World of Warcraft Character Names An interesting look at naming conventions in World of Warcraft. Personally, from an early age, I've found myself becoming prejudiced against people whose usernames began and ended in ‘x’ or included Final Fantasy or Dragon Ball names. Looking at you xX-Sephiroth-Xx69. An Investigation of World of Warcraft Character NamesA story of explorative game analytics and the surprises you encounter when investigating eight million World of Warcraft characters - and a couple of thousand Battlefield playe Continue reading An Investigation of World of Warcraft Character Names Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3 I loved the first parts of Escape From City-17. Out of all the fan made Half-Life inspired films, I always thought this was one of the best produced. I hope it get the funding it needs. Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3The next installment in the Escape From City-17 series. Based on the Half-Life games. | Check out ‘Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3’ on Indiegogo.Indiegogo Continue reading Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3 Rejection, tragedy and billions of dollars - The story of FIFA “EA didn’t give a shit about FIFA.” Rejection, tragedy and billions of dollars - The story of FIFA - MCV/DEVELOPEA didn’t give a shit about FIFA.”Neil Thewarapperuma (or Neil T to his friends) isn’t a man to mince his words. He was the European marketing boss for EA Sports back in 1993, the year the publisher wMCV/DEVELOPMCV Staff Continue reading Rejection, tragedy and billions of dollars - The story of FIFA BioWare writer quits after death threats to family Jennifer Helper was working on sequel Dragon Age: Inquisition but is quitting BioWare this week to go freelance, in large part thanks to threats she and others of the team received in the wake of Dragon Age II’s release. Both of these posts still seam relevent. Even if it comes from some anonymous kid or manchild, who’s only goal is to incite fear to get something to go their way, it doesn’t’ matter. To even post such vile, hateful words, means you probably need some anger management courses Continue reading BioWare writer quits after death threats to family Half-Life 3 – the game that doesn't exist Half-Life 3 has become the gamer’s equivalent of the DB Cooper legend. There are so many hints and speculation over something that could be there. Whether or not the game really exists or not, the real question is whether or not anything produced could live up to the hype thats built up over nearly a decade or waiting. Half-Life 3 – the game that doesn’t existHints, teasing tweets and feverish speculation, the wait for Valve’s next version of the game is like an online soap opera. By Rich Stan Continue reading Half-Life 3 – the game that doesn't exist Xbox Community Level Members participate in Xbox Community Ambassadors or the Enforcement United beta, and on the backend, we track your participation, calculate your XP, and award loot to your Gamertag as you level up. There’s no need to opt in to earn rewards, submit your activity, or create a new profile. We’ll take care of the heavy lifting. Looks like leveling your gamertag was successful enough for Valve/Steam that Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon too. I wonder how long until they add trading cards t Continue reading Xbox Community Level Culture GameBoy Programming Manual A great read if you know how to program. Even if you don’t, it makes an interesting skim through. ScribdScribd Continue reading GameBoy Programming Manual Stop threatening game developers But if the loudest voices in the Call of Duty “community” act like an angry mob instead, guess how the entire world views Call of Duty? While the majority of gamers don’t act this way, they are often times the ones most heard. It’s also why the gaming community can’t be taken as a whole so often. It’s that angry mob mentality that is the first to stand out to any non or even casual gamer. I was turned off of League of Legends for this very reason. While most may be nice people to play with, Continue reading Stop threatening game developers U.S Says eSports Players Are Now Professional Athletes Riot Games eSports manager Nick Allen: This was a lengthy process; we had a lot of people fighting for this and it wasn’t something that happened overnight. This was a constant back and forth of ‘show us more proof… is this realistic?’ and that sort of thing. Eventually it got to the point where they were like ‘we have no reason to say no… okay, this is legitimate’. The U.S. Now Recognizes eSports Players As Professional AthletesTo the general public, the idea that those who play video g Continue reading U.S Says eSports Players Are Now Professional Athletes Dirty Game Development Tricks I love these kinds of anecdotes. Dirty Game Development TricksOne of Game Developer’s most popular features was our “Dirty Coding Tricks” bit from 2009, where we got devs to open up about some of their ugly hacks -- and in 2013 we’re back with nine new from-the-trenches stories, including a few unorthodox tricks from other dev disciplines besides programming.Game DeveloperGame Developer Magazine StaffJune 24, 2013 Continue reading Dirty Game Development Tricks Lobster, a game programming language Unlike other game making systems that focus on an engine/editor that happens to be able to call out to a scripting language, Lobster is a general purpose stand-alone programming language that comes with a built-in library suitable for making games and other graphical things. The Lobster Programming Language — Wouter van Oortmerssen Continue reading Lobster, a game programming language 'Shaqfighter' Trademarked I’m not ashamed to admit how excited I am over the possibility of a new Shaq-Fu game. I just hope this isn’t some crappy IOS game. 12/09/2019 update: There was a new game. And it was bad. The series did not age well. Continue reading 'Shaqfighter' Trademarked World of Warcraft Drops to 8.3 Million Users Looks like its time for another expansion. Continue reading World of Warcraft Drops to 8.3 Million Users An ode to MSN Messenger Today marks the last day of MSN Messenger before it permanently shuts down and merges with Skype. In a way, it signals the end of an era of my life. It’s a service I used for almost half my life since I was 13. It had a profound effect on my life. It was the first real social network I was part of. Years ago, I mostly hid out on IRC or battle.net. If someone wanted to find me online, they knew I could always be found there. I didn’t even have an AIM or Yahoo username for some time. Nothing abo Continue reading An ode to MSN Messenger Woman's call to end video game misogyny sparks vicious online attacks A woman seeking to expose misogyny in video games has suffered a harsh lesson in the extent of Internet viciousness, as a campaign of harassment escalated to a Canadian man creating a game that let people batter an image of her face. It amazes me how someone could raise so much money for a great, interesting concept, then becomes a target of trolling by the same type of people who helped raise the money in the first place. Stay classy, average straight white male gamer. Continue reading Woman's call to end video game misogyny sparks vicious online attacks Penny Arcade Sells Out People don’t like advertising almost as a general rule; Advertising is simply The Way It Is. People who make content learn to like it, because they want to make content, and they also want to eat food and sleep under a roof, and the opportunity to do both at the same time seems like a pretty good idea. Honestly, I thought this was a joke at first. It falls way beyond what Kickstarter was meant for- that is, time-limited projects. Either way, it’s an interesting take on the crowdfunding issue. Continue reading Penny Arcade Sells Out Banned 'Diablo 3' Linux users speak out against being called cheaters If you’re computer savvy enough to figure out how to get Linux installed, and setup WINE to get Diablo 3 playable on an unsupported OS, you should be smart enough to realize Blizzard’s in-game security, Warden will throw off some false positives on occasion. Blizzard is not going to waste time sorting through thousands of bans to verify you’re just playing, and not having multiple VMs open and botting. Moral of the story: If you play an online game, dont complain if you get banned or something Continue reading Banned 'Diablo 3' Linux users speak out against being called cheaters Second Life Didn’t Fail The problem — really the only problem, but a big one nonetheless — is they couldn’t ever find a way to make those numbers grow. Nothing they did worked, and Rosedale doubts that even early Facebook integration would have helped. Right, Second Life didn’t Fail. It just could never figure out what it wanted to be. Continue reading Second Life Didn’t Fail
Culture Checking in on my Social Media Predictions 6 months later In a blog post at the end of 2022, I had a little fun making some predictions about the social media landscape for the upcoming year. It’s time to revisit those predictions and see how they’re holding up. Continue reading Checking in on my Social Media Predictions 6 months later
Undertale Underlost is not just an Undertale thing The Undertale community loves to create some fascinating pieces of art though. Continue reading Underlost is not just an Undertale thing
Culture Social Media Predictions for 2023 I haven’t been on social media for most of 2022, so it’s been fascinating watching bits of news coming out about Twitter and all of the platforms that are quickly popping up. I thought it might be fun to predict what might happen in social media over the next year. Continue reading Social Media Predictions for 2023
Culture Pokemon and Post Malone are Hosting a Virtual Concert Just when I think 2021 can't get weirder, I hear about this announcement. The 25th anniversary also kicks off the P25 music program, featuring a handful of artists creating original, Pokemon inspired songs. Katy Perry was the first artist to be announced as part of the project. Continue reading Pokemon and Post Malone are Hosting a Virtual Concert
KFC is making a Dating Sim Sure, fine why not. The developer behind this has some experience making narrative-based games, so it won’t be terrible. Probably. Continue reading KFC is making a Dating Sim
Respawn CEO says some developers ‘crossed a line’ pic.twitter.com/j8woV7g9Tx — Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) August 19, 2019 I keep going back and forth between how I feel about the whole situation. On one hand, this is exactly what community managers are for. As developers, it’s not our responsibility (nor do we often have the experience) to interact directly with fans. It’s not really a surprise that some developers resorted to name-calling and poor judgment when they started to receive death threats. But, on the other ha Continue reading Respawn CEO says some developers ‘crossed a line’
Boy Problems - A Carly Rae Jepsen TTRPG It is many years into the future. A wealthy and powerful person (or persons) has claimed a rare and much sought after prize: the “vault” of 200 unreleased (this is real!) songs from renowned Canadian pop artist, Carly Rae Jepsen. Hired by an anonymous sponsor, your team of highly trained individuals will raid a well-defended location to retrieve said item. From planning to set-up to execution, you will see this heist through to its completion, whether that be a success or failure. There will Continue reading Boy Problems - A Carly Rae Jepsen TTRPG
Marc Andreessen on VR/AR From Marc Andreessen: I think AR has tons of potential applications, both at work and at home. [But] I think VR is going to be about 1,000 times bigger. On the latest podcast of a16z, Andreessen goes onto explain that while AR works for more “interesting” places in the world (in other words, more densely populated), rural places never get to see the benefits of AR as much. As someone who spent a large portion of my life growing up in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, this makes a lot of s Continue reading Marc Andreessen on VR/AR
Reflections on DOOM's Development The inclusion of multiplayer co-op and deathmatch modes changed everything about games. We knew that playing a game as fast and over-the-top as DOOM would signal a new era. I visualized what E1M7 would look like with two players shooting rockets at each other over a large room and it got me more excited than I had been since Wolfenstein 3D’s chaingun audio. Its not to say Doom invented multiplayer, however most games were usually were pretty exclusive to a single screen. There was somethin Continue reading Reflections on DOOM's Development
25 years of Doom The original Doom turns 25 this year, and to celebrate, its co-creater, John Remero made a new chapter to the original game, titled Sigil. Sigil, according to the website, is an unofficial 5th episode to the game: I wanted the levels to feel like they belong to the original game as if they were a true fifth episode. There’s more detail in the levels than episodes 1-4, but not overly so. I believe that people playing Sigil will recognize my design style, but see new things I’m doing becau Continue reading 25 years of Doom
Choose your own adventure...with Typeform I love this. I never thought to use Typeform this way. It’s still not as open as something like Ink or Twine, but it’s always great to see services being used for strange new things. Continue reading Choose your own adventure...with Typeform
Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees The studio behind Wallace and Gromit will be handing over 75% ownership to it’s workers, assuring the team won’t be in danger of a big company buyout. Continue reading Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees
America Is a Dream A great little essay Stan Lee wrote for The Atlantic in 2007, that’s just as important today as it was then. Continue reading America Is a Dream
Facebook Fired Palmer Luckey Because He Supported Donald Trump Good. Employers should be able to fire employees based on their political beliefs, no matter what they are. Political beliefs are a chosen ideology, unlike race or gender. If your beliefs do not align with a company you work for, go somewhere else. Continue reading Facebook Fired Palmer Luckey Because He Supported Donald Trump
Niantic acquired Seismic Games Seismic Games is best known for mobile game Marvel Strike Force, (something I had to do a bit of searching around to learn). Having a group of industry veterans with experience working on IP based games will hopefully provide a strong boost for Niantic’s upcoming Harry Potter game as well as Pokemon Go. Continue reading Niantic acquired Seismic Games
Your precious ‘gamer culture’ isn’t dying. I grew up playing video games. By the age of three, I started mastering my parents’ old Atari 2600. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends, and those I did have, didn’t live close by, so video games always helped keep the loneliness at bay. By the time high school rolled by, I was well into making mods and eventually even experimenting with making my own games. Video games even helped me bond with my mentally disabled brother. A bond we both still share today, even after 20 some odd years Continue reading Your precious ‘gamer culture’ isn’t dying.
GTA V PC Scam Infects Thousands of PCs World Wide Criminals stealing from criminals, trying to steal a game about criminals. Continue reading GTA V PC Scam Infects Thousands of PCs World Wide
Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85 As a kid, I idolized this man. I read Nintendo Power almost religiously. As far as I was concerned, this man was Nintendo. As I got older and read more about him, my perception of him changed somewhat. While I still respect the man, like Steve Jobs, this man built these amazing products by being a ruthless businessman. But despite his business practices, or perhaps because of it, Nintendo created some of the most memorable gaming experiences in my childhood. He put the consumer experience over e Continue reading Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85
An Investigation of World of Warcraft Character Names An interesting look at naming conventions in World of Warcraft. Personally, from an early age, I've found myself becoming prejudiced against people whose usernames began and ended in ‘x’ or included Final Fantasy or Dragon Ball names. Looking at you xX-Sephiroth-Xx69. An Investigation of World of Warcraft Character NamesA story of explorative game analytics and the surprises you encounter when investigating eight million World of Warcraft characters - and a couple of thousand Battlefield playe Continue reading An Investigation of World of Warcraft Character Names
Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3 I loved the first parts of Escape From City-17. Out of all the fan made Half-Life inspired films, I always thought this was one of the best produced. I hope it get the funding it needs. Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3The next installment in the Escape From City-17 series. Based on the Half-Life games. | Check out ‘Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3’ on Indiegogo.Indiegogo Continue reading Half-Life: Escape From City-17 Part 3
Rejection, tragedy and billions of dollars - The story of FIFA “EA didn’t give a shit about FIFA.” Rejection, tragedy and billions of dollars - The story of FIFA - MCV/DEVELOPEA didn’t give a shit about FIFA.”Neil Thewarapperuma (or Neil T to his friends) isn’t a man to mince his words. He was the European marketing boss for EA Sports back in 1993, the year the publisher wMCV/DEVELOPMCV Staff Continue reading Rejection, tragedy and billions of dollars - The story of FIFA
BioWare writer quits after death threats to family Jennifer Helper was working on sequel Dragon Age: Inquisition but is quitting BioWare this week to go freelance, in large part thanks to threats she and others of the team received in the wake of Dragon Age II’s release. Both of these posts still seam relevent. Even if it comes from some anonymous kid or manchild, who’s only goal is to incite fear to get something to go their way, it doesn’t’ matter. To even post such vile, hateful words, means you probably need some anger management courses Continue reading BioWare writer quits after death threats to family
Half-Life 3 – the game that doesn't exist Half-Life 3 has become the gamer’s equivalent of the DB Cooper legend. There are so many hints and speculation over something that could be there. Whether or not the game really exists or not, the real question is whether or not anything produced could live up to the hype thats built up over nearly a decade or waiting. Half-Life 3 – the game that doesn’t existHints, teasing tweets and feverish speculation, the wait for Valve’s next version of the game is like an online soap opera. By Rich Stan Continue reading Half-Life 3 – the game that doesn't exist
Xbox Community Level Members participate in Xbox Community Ambassadors or the Enforcement United beta, and on the backend, we track your participation, calculate your XP, and award loot to your Gamertag as you level up. There’s no need to opt in to earn rewards, submit your activity, or create a new profile. We’ll take care of the heavy lifting. Looks like leveling your gamertag was successful enough for Valve/Steam that Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon too. I wonder how long until they add trading cards t Continue reading Xbox Community Level
Culture GameBoy Programming Manual A great read if you know how to program. Even if you don’t, it makes an interesting skim through. ScribdScribd Continue reading GameBoy Programming Manual
Stop threatening game developers But if the loudest voices in the Call of Duty “community” act like an angry mob instead, guess how the entire world views Call of Duty? While the majority of gamers don’t act this way, they are often times the ones most heard. It’s also why the gaming community can’t be taken as a whole so often. It’s that angry mob mentality that is the first to stand out to any non or even casual gamer. I was turned off of League of Legends for this very reason. While most may be nice people to play with, Continue reading Stop threatening game developers
U.S Says eSports Players Are Now Professional Athletes Riot Games eSports manager Nick Allen: This was a lengthy process; we had a lot of people fighting for this and it wasn’t something that happened overnight. This was a constant back and forth of ‘show us more proof… is this realistic?’ and that sort of thing. Eventually it got to the point where they were like ‘we have no reason to say no… okay, this is legitimate’. The U.S. Now Recognizes eSports Players As Professional AthletesTo the general public, the idea that those who play video g Continue reading U.S Says eSports Players Are Now Professional Athletes
Dirty Game Development Tricks I love these kinds of anecdotes. Dirty Game Development TricksOne of Game Developer’s most popular features was our “Dirty Coding Tricks” bit from 2009, where we got devs to open up about some of their ugly hacks -- and in 2013 we’re back with nine new from-the-trenches stories, including a few unorthodox tricks from other dev disciplines besides programming.Game DeveloperGame Developer Magazine StaffJune 24, 2013 Continue reading Dirty Game Development Tricks
Lobster, a game programming language Unlike other game making systems that focus on an engine/editor that happens to be able to call out to a scripting language, Lobster is a general purpose stand-alone programming language that comes with a built-in library suitable for making games and other graphical things. The Lobster Programming Language — Wouter van Oortmerssen Continue reading Lobster, a game programming language
'Shaqfighter' Trademarked I’m not ashamed to admit how excited I am over the possibility of a new Shaq-Fu game. I just hope this isn’t some crappy IOS game. 12/09/2019 update: There was a new game. And it was bad. The series did not age well. Continue reading 'Shaqfighter' Trademarked
World of Warcraft Drops to 8.3 Million Users Looks like its time for another expansion. Continue reading World of Warcraft Drops to 8.3 Million Users
An ode to MSN Messenger Today marks the last day of MSN Messenger before it permanently shuts down and merges with Skype. In a way, it signals the end of an era of my life. It’s a service I used for almost half my life since I was 13. It had a profound effect on my life. It was the first real social network I was part of. Years ago, I mostly hid out on IRC or battle.net. If someone wanted to find me online, they knew I could always be found there. I didn’t even have an AIM or Yahoo username for some time. Nothing abo Continue reading An ode to MSN Messenger
Woman's call to end video game misogyny sparks vicious online attacks A woman seeking to expose misogyny in video games has suffered a harsh lesson in the extent of Internet viciousness, as a campaign of harassment escalated to a Canadian man creating a game that let people batter an image of her face. It amazes me how someone could raise so much money for a great, interesting concept, then becomes a target of trolling by the same type of people who helped raise the money in the first place. Stay classy, average straight white male gamer. Continue reading Woman's call to end video game misogyny sparks vicious online attacks
Penny Arcade Sells Out People don’t like advertising almost as a general rule; Advertising is simply The Way It Is. People who make content learn to like it, because they want to make content, and they also want to eat food and sleep under a roof, and the opportunity to do both at the same time seems like a pretty good idea. Honestly, I thought this was a joke at first. It falls way beyond what Kickstarter was meant for- that is, time-limited projects. Either way, it’s an interesting take on the crowdfunding issue. Continue reading Penny Arcade Sells Out
Banned 'Diablo 3' Linux users speak out against being called cheaters If you’re computer savvy enough to figure out how to get Linux installed, and setup WINE to get Diablo 3 playable on an unsupported OS, you should be smart enough to realize Blizzard’s in-game security, Warden will throw off some false positives on occasion. Blizzard is not going to waste time sorting through thousands of bans to verify you’re just playing, and not having multiple VMs open and botting. Moral of the story: If you play an online game, dont complain if you get banned or something Continue reading Banned 'Diablo 3' Linux users speak out against being called cheaters
Second Life Didn’t Fail The problem — really the only problem, but a big one nonetheless — is they couldn’t ever find a way to make those numbers grow. Nothing they did worked, and Rosedale doubts that even early Facebook integration would have helped. Right, Second Life didn’t Fail. It just could never figure out what it wanted to be. Continue reading Second Life Didn’t Fail