Panhandling for World of Warcraft
From the Examiner:
Today, March 6, 2010, a student from Plant High School found himself on the unseasonably cold streets of South Tampa begging for money. It was at the corner of Howard and Swann that young Alec paced back and forth panhandling, along with his unnamed friend, who seemed to be present more for moral support than for panhandle assistance. Within the first hour Alec’s pan, or rather, small cloth basket was filled with nearly $20. Put into terms of a career, at 40 hours a week, that’s $41,600 before taxes. Of course, that’s luck, and those numbers wouldn’t always be that successful, even in the affluent area of South Tampa, and especially not for a homeless person.
So what for has forced the two South Tampa teens onto the streets? …
Real-Time Movie-Quality CGI for Games?
Evan Newton writes on h+ magazine:
There aren’t very many games today that, graphically, give one goose bumps. While movies like James Cameron’s Avatar or Peter Jackson‘s Lord of the Rings have graphical effects that appear absolutely real, many wonder if games will ever achieve that level of detail.
Now get ready for Project Offset. This little-known development team, owned by Intel, is building a game engine that may make you believe that the richness of reality in the virtual world is not so far away.
Videos posted on their website show a variety of graphics engine experiments. You will find video footage that ranges from the detailed facial expressions of an ogre to a meteor shower blasting through ancient stone pillars.
Hugo Chavez Says Playstation Is “Poison”
And who would argue with him? As reported by Yahoo News/AFP:
CARACAS (AFP) – Sony’s PlayStation video game console is “poison” and leads children down the capitalist “road to hell,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.
Chavez, in his weekly radio-TV show “Alo Presidente,” called on Venezuelan manufacturers to make “educational” toys and dolls with indigenous peoples’ features to replace capitalistic counterparts like the Barbie doll that “have nothing to do with our culture.”
In expanding on his dislike of western toys and games — he already slammed Nintendo for promoting “selfishness, individualism and violence,” Chavez Sunday took on the world’s top selling game console, Sony’s PlayStation.
“Those games they call ‘PlayStation’ are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, ‘you’ve got to find Chavez to kill…
Online Games Turn Work Into Play
A Stanford professor advocates World of Warcraft or Second Life in the workplace to hone skills like teamwork, leadership, and data analysis – and even suggests putting online gaming experiences into your resume! “There’s just so much that gets done [in a virtual world] that’s just right on target with what happens in real business.”
And meanwhile, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt now claims that multiplayer gaming also provides good career training, especially for technology careers. “Everything in the future online is going to look like a multiplayer game. If I were 15 years old, that’s what I would be doing right now… It teaches players to build a network, to use interactive skills and thinking.”
Maybe this article asks the ultimate question. “Is the corporate world beyond Google and IBM ready for legions of dwarves, gnomes, night elves, orcs, and trolls competing for leadership roles…?”
The Secret War Against Afghanistan’s Space Invaders
If only it was like a video game…
Lauren Davis writes on io9.com:
Adam Richardson has added pixelated alien invaders to actual war photos from Iraq and Afghanistan. And when the Space Invaders descend on a war zone, they find that they have more to contend with more than laser cannons.
I Knew I Had to Stop When I Wanted to Kill Real Grannies
Fay Weldon for TIMESONLINE:
I have a confession to make. I am a secret videogame enthusiast.
Ask around and you find you are not alone. Many of my fellow writers do it: work until we hit a difficulty, switch to the familiar game, play for a while, and then back to the manuscript, and lo! — the unconscious has used the time miraculously to solve the problem.
However, the games can have strange and troubling effects on one’s perception of reality. I once had a flirtation with a game called Carmageddon, in which one scored points for running down little old ladies. But I stopped, appalled, when I realised that I was beginning to feel the urge to do exactly that in real life. I would feel my hands twitching on the steering…
Doug Rushkoff’s New Alternate Reality Game
Douglas Rushkoff, longtime friend and collaborator of disinformation, writes about his new videogame Exoriare at BoingBoing:
I’ve written and even taught a whole lot about interactive narrative over the years, but rarely have the chance to play with this stuff. So last year, when a Canadian games company called to see if I’d be interested in collaborating with them on developing stories for a giant, multi-dimensional gaming universe, I jumped. It was like I was being given the chance to live out Jack Kirby’s dream of world-building with Robert Anton Wilson’s vision of multiple and overlapping perspectives.
The early results are finally making it online as the preview of a graphic novel, which spills out into the trailhead of at least one Alternate Reality Game, and also comprises the back story of the…
