Disinformation » Video Games

Media Roots Radio: Video Game Warfare, Covert War in Iran, SOPA & Fair Use

Abby Martin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:51:46 +0000

Abby and Robbie discuss the reality of war: the pre-propaganda that has manufactured consent for the illegal occupations, video game warfare and cognitive dissonance in combat, the Marine urination scandal; Martin Luther King Jr. and historical revisionism minimizing how anti-imperialism was the main pillar of his philosophical platform; the CIA and the US covert war in Iran; SOPA, PIPA breakdown, the difference between copyright and fair use, the threat to net neutrality and websites like Media Roots under this overarching legislation.

Boy Convicted Of Theft For Stealing Virtual Items Within Video Game

JacobSloan — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:30:25 +0000

Well, if the stock market is regarded as real in the eyes of the law, why not an invisible amulet? Via the Chronicle Herald:

The amulet and mask were a 13-year-old boy’s virtual possessions in an online fantasy game. In the real world, he was beaten and threaten with a knife to give them up.

The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the theft conviction of a youth who stole another boy’s possessions in the popular online fantasy game RuneScape. Judges ordered the offender to perform 144 hours of community service.

Only a handful of such cases have been heard in the world, and they have reached varying conclusions about the legal status of “virtual goods” — and whether stealing them is real-world theft.

The suspect’s lawyer had argued the amulet and mask “were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value.” But the Netherlands’ highest court said the virtual objects had an intrinsic value to the 13-year-old gamer because of “the time and energy he invested” in winning them while playing the game.

Iran Calls Video Games Part Of CIA Plot

Good German — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:33:33 +0000

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati

Robert Mackey writes for the New York Times:

According to Iranian state television, a former United States marine who was convicted of spying on Iran and sentenced to death on Monday was also involved in a nefarious plot to brainwash the youth of the Middle East using an unlikely tool: video games.

In a video report broadcast last month, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the former marine of Iranian descent who was arrested during a visit to Tehran in August, allegedly confessed to a career in American intelligence that included a stint at a video game company in New York that was “a cover for the C.I.A.”

According to an English translation of the report published by The Tehran Times, an Iranian state-run newspaper, about one-third of the way through the report, Mr. Hekmati said he had worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, after he left the Marine Corps in 2005. Then, according to the newspaper’s somewhat oddly worded translation, Mr. Hekmati said in Persian:

After Darpa, I was recruited by Kuma Games Company, a computer games company which received money from C.I.A. to design and make special films and computer games to change the public opinion’s mindset in the Middle East and distribute them among Middle East residents free of charge. The goal of Kuma Games was to convince the people of the world and Iraq that what the U.S. does in Iraq and other countries is good and acceptable.

He reportedly added: “The head of Kuma called me and said, ‘I have received your resume from Darpa, and we have a program in which you can help us.’ ” Kuma, Mr. Hekmati explained, “was also a cover for the C.I.A. and only the chief of company knows that you’re working with the agency.”*

(After the verdict against Mr. Hekmati was reported on Monday, his family, along with the White House and the State Department, flatly denied that he was a spy.)…

Google Shoot View

JacobSloan — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:00:43 +0000

The whole world as a first-person shooter game. It’s down at the moment due to the kibosh from Google, but Google Shoot View allows you to traverse Google Street View will holding an assault rifle, and to fire upon anything (to no effect). It’s quite existentially disturbing. Perhaps, visit your childhood home and unload a few rounds, to symbolize releasing and moving on from the burdens of the past:

Violent Video Games Alter Brain Function in Young Men

Good German — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:08:55 +0000

…Temporarily, at least. Via ScienceDaily:

Sustained changes in the region of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control were found in young adult men after one week of playing violent video games, according to study results presented by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.This is the first time the IU researchers, who have studied the effects of media violence for more than a decade, have conducted an experimental study that showed a direct relationship between playing violent video games over an extended period of time and a subsequent change in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control.

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.

Occupy Wall Street As Pong

JacobSloan — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:05 +0000

From MK12, the opening animation for a special Occupy Wall Street screening, curated by Zero Film Festival in NYC. Here’s how to win at life:

Massacre ‘Tea Party Zombies’ Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly

majestic — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:03:43 +0000

Thanks to Stephen Gutkowski of the Media Research Center for alerting us to this interesting new game:

Have you ever fantasized about beating Bill O’Reilly to death with a crowbar or shooting up the offices of Americans for Prosperity with an Uzi? Well, the folks at StarvingEyes Advergaming apparently have and they’d like to share their latest creation with the world. The game is called “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” and, apart from abysmal game play, features several different levels where your only objective is to mercilessly slaughter everyone around you whether they are a Fox News stars or simply Americans For Prosperity employees…

Xbox Gamer ‘Dies From Blood Clot’

HAL9000 — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 08:11:41 +0000

Reports the AFP via Google News:

LONDON — The family of a budding computer programmer have on Saturday launched a campaign to raise awareness about the health risks of playing online computer games after their son died following a marathon session on his Xbox.

A post-mortem revealed that 20-year-old Chris Staniforth — who was offered a place to study Game Design at Leicester University — was killed by a pulmonary embolism, which can occur if someone sits in the same position for several hours.

Deep vein thrombosis normally affects passengers on long-haul flights, but medical experts fear youngsters who spend hours glued to their consoles might also be at risk and have urged them to take regular breaks.

Professor Brian Colvin — an expert on blood-related conditions — said it was “unhealthy” for youngsters to spend long periods in front of their consoles.

“There’s anxiety about obesity and children not doing anything other than looking at computer screens,” he told the Sun.

Can AI-Powered Games Create Super-Intelligent Humans?

moezilla — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 03:31:19 +0000

A technology CEO sees game artificial intelligence as the key to a revolution in education, predicting a synergy where games create smarter humans who then create smarter games.

Citing lessons drawn from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Alex Peake, founder of Primer Labs, sees the possibility of a self-fueling feedback loop which creates “a Moore’s law for artificial intelligence,” with accelerating returns ultimately generating the best possible education outcomes.

“What the computer taught me was that there was real muggle magic …” writes Peake. And he reaches a startling conclusion.

“Once we begin relying on AI mentors for our children and we get those mentors increasing in sophistication at an exponential rate, we’re dipping our toe into symbiosis between humans and the AI that shape them.

Make Video Games Cool Again: The Blue Skies Campaign

JacobSloan — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:00:36 +0000

We want to COLLECT BANANAS FROM MAGIC CASTLES not shoot enemies in unrealistic and shoddy drive-bys! We want to fight WEIRD MONSTERS not drug-dealing criminals!

Sure, video games are art nowadays, but do they have to be depressing art? In light of the preponderance of dark, dull, grey-and-brown-hued titles such as the Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto series, the Blue Skies in Games Campaign is a call for a return to the days when the ascendant video games were happily surreal and bursting with technicolor. In addition to more detailed discussion, a quick-fix series of suggestions is offered:

DEVELOPERS: HOW YOU CAN HELP TODAY!

- Change everything that’s grey into blue.
- From now on, everyone wears red shoes.
- Make everything happen at midday or sunset.
- Replace gun textures with banana textures.
- Turn all cars into pink convertibles that wobble and only do 15mph.
- If you get 100 of anything, a little tune plays.
- Instead of saying “crew” say “your buddies”.
- Instead of saying “hood” say “zone”.
- Make the female characters something other than prostitutes.
- Make the black characters something other than drug dealers.

Blackwater Video Game Now Available For Xbox

JacobSloan — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:00:21 +0000

The game designers have opted to have your gun fire automatically when it hovers long enough over an enemy target. Kotaku Australia reviews the first-person-shooter Blackwater video game, out soon for Xbox Kinect and endorsed by founder Erik Prince:

This week was the first time we heard of publisher 505 Games’ Blackwater, an FPS that would cast you in the role of Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries.

The topic seemed thorny – the mercenary company, now renamed Xe Services, has been at the center of a multiple of controversies and the subject of highly critical Congressional hearings. Blackwater has been linked to the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians, and the alcohol-fueled fatal shooting of a security guard in the employ of the country’s vice president. According to 505, the game was designed in consultation with former mercenary agents, and with Erik Prince, the founder and former head of the hot-button security contractor.

Blackwater is an on-rails shooter that has you alternating between the perspectives of four different mercenary soldiers, each with a certain specialization. In the portion of the game I experienced in the demo, I operated first as a commando, and later as a sniper. The game is a highly exaggerated, concentrated bit of Blackwater lore – it’s more Hollywood than Reuters. Set in North Africa, it concerns a high-tension conflict in which the Blackwater team must rescue a UN envoy that has been taken hostage by the operatives of a malicious warlord.

The coming months will tell how the world decides to regard Blackwater, when it arrives on the Xbox 360 supporting both Kinect and conventional gamepad-controls.

Chinese Prisoners Forced To Play World Of Warcraft

JacobSloan — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:56:01 +0000

Ironic — when I was a kid, being locked up in a Chinese prison and “forced” to stay up playing video games all night would have been my dream. The Telegraph reports:

A 54-year-old prisoner at the Jixi labor camp in the northern province of Heilongjiang said he was forced to play games on the internet in order to build up credit that was traded by his guards for real money, a practice known as “gold-farming”.

In an interview with the Guardian, the prisoner said online gaming was a far more lucrative activity for the managers of the labor camp than the physical labor the inmates were forced to do. “Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labor,” he said. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.”

He added: “If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things.”

It is estimated that 80 per cent of all gold farmers are in China and with the largest internet population in the world there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country.

Navy Turns To Online Gamers In Fight Against Somali Pirates

JacobSloan — Mon, 23 May 2011 18:01:42 +0000

If you have spent the past fifteen years in a dank basement playing video games while immersed in a thin layer of Dorito crumbs, the U.S. military needs you to sort out the geopolitical mess around the Horn of Africa for them, please. AFP reports:

The Office of Naval Research plans this month to launch the US military’s first online war game to draw on the ideas of thousands of people instead of the traditional strategy session held inside the Pentagon’s offices.

“Piracy off the Horn of Africa has been an enduring problem that has many stakeholders. We selected this topic for the pilot scenario,” Schuette said.

The game will have three rounds over three weeks, with players in the first stage faced with a piracy scenario and asked to propose brief, Twitter-length solutions. Players will be presented with boxes labeled, “Innovate” and “Defend,” with questions such as: “What new resources could turn the tide in the Somali pirate situation?” In the second round, there are more scenarios to grapple with and then in the third, players are grouped in teams and will come up with a more detailed “action plan.”

The precise details of the war game scenarios are being kept under wraps for the moment by the game designers, the Institute for the Future, a non-profit group based in Palo Alto, California. In true Pentagon fashion, the gaming platform has an unwieldy name, the Massively Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet, or MMOWGLI.

Video Games Now Legally Considered An Art Form In The U.S.

BananaFamine — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:50:44 +0000

Paul Tassi writes in Forbes:

Roger Ebert’s Twitter has informed me this morning that the government has attempted to prove him wrong in the seemingly endless “games as art” debate.The famed critic got many riled up when he said that no, games were not art, and in fact, they never possibly could be. He was hailed by some as an old man out of touch, but more pressingly, one who didn’t PLAY the games he was critiquing, which is rather essential to the experience.

But gamers have now found themselves an unlikely ally in the debate, the National Endowment for the Arts, which for 2012 has reclassified their definition of “art” to the following:

Projects may include high profile multi-part or single television and radio programs (documentaries and dramatic narratives); media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within an existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and interactive games. Short films, five minutes and under, will be considered in packages of three or more.

For more information, see original article.

Bin Laden Operation Featured In Two Video Games

HAL9000 — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:21:26 +0000

This didn’t take long … Stephen Johnson reports on G4’s The Feed:

This Saturday, Kuma games released their Osama Bin Laden chapter in Kuma War. There’s also a Counter-Strike map so players can relive the glorious victory of the U.S. over the terrorist leader again and again in their homes.To be fair, the Counter-Strike map is simply a recreation of Osama’s hideout, not a full fledged, “let’s kill Osama” game, but it’s still interesting, both in terms of how quickly the game and map appeared, and in terms of what they say about how we feel about war.

World Bank: MMORPG Gold Farming Is A 3 Billion-Dollar Industry

BananaFamine — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:52:15 +0000

Via BoingBoing:

A research arm of the World Bank has produced a comprehensive report on the size of the grey-market virtual world economy in developing countries — gold farming, power-levelling, object making and so on — and arrived at a staggering $3 billion turnover in 2009. They go on to recommend that poor countries be provided with network access and computers so this economy can be built up — a slightly weird idea, given how hostile most game companies are to this sort of thing.

From The World’s Bank Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy (Available in PDF here):

“Jobs in the virtual economy include micro-tasks like categorizing products in online shops, moderating content posted to social media sites, or even playing online games on behalf of wealthier players who are too busy to tend to their characters themselves. The study estimates that the market for such gaming-for-hire services was worth $3 billion in 2009, and it suggests that with suitable mobile technologies even the least-developed countries could benefit from this emerging virtual economy…

[continues at BoingBoing]

Homelessness: The Game

Haystack — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 05:50:31 +0000

Zachary Sniderman writes on Mashabe.com:

It’s one thing to feel bad for homeless people; it’s another to be forced into their shoes. Advertising agency McKinney has teamed up with Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD), a non-profit based in North Carolina, to create SPENT, an online game that guides users through what it feels like to be homeless.

Here’s how it works: If you accept the challenge to play, you enter a simple point-and-click game, navigating multiple choice questions about your livelihood. The site says you have been stripped of your savings and are currently unemployed, asking, “Can you make it through the month?”

You’re given simple choices with varying consequences. Do you want to try working in a restaurant? A factory? If you live far from the city your rent will be cheap, but, as you’re informed through pop-ups, you’ll have to pay more for gas or transportation.

The game’s integration with Facebook is its best feature. When faced with some choices, (like your landlord raising your rent) the game will ask you to decide whether to ignore the claim, pay it or ask a friend. The last option opens up a pre-written statement in Facebook where you can email one of your actual friends for “help,” bridging the gap between virtual reality and the real uneasiness of having to ask a friend for assistance. This simple act also helps spread awareness for the game by attaching a logo and small description to your request.

[More at Mashable.com, or play it at playspent.com]

A Military Supercomputer Made From 1,700 PlayStation 3 Gaming Consoles

phunkychic666 — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:43:50 +0000

Dave Tobin writes in the Syracuse Post-Standard:

Rome, NY — Computer scientists just up the Thruway at Rome’s Air Force Research Lab have assembled one of the world’s largest, fastest and cheapest supercomputers — and it’s made from PlayStation 3s.

By linking together 1,716 PlayStation 3s, they’ve created a supercomputer that’s very good at processing, manipulating and interpreting vast amounts of imagery. This will provide analysts with new levels of detail from the pictures gathered on long surveillance flights by spy planes.

The PlayStation 3 is a video gaming console that originally sold for about $500. It was developed by Sony, released in 2006 and is known for its sizzlingly clear video graphics.

The Air Force calls the souped-up PlayStations the Condor Supercomputer and says it is among the 40 fastest computers in the world. The Condor went online late last year, and it will likely change the way the Air Force and the Air National Guard watch things on the ground.

The creation, while offbeat, illustrates the modern job for the operation that began as Rome Air Development Center in 1951, researching radar. It has survived the closing of Griffiss Air Force Base in 1995 to find a new niche.

The Video Game Preservation Crisis

JacobSloan — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:23:57 +0000

Perhaps they were conceived as toys for children, but video games of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s are significant artifacts of 20th-century technological, cultural, and design history. Much of that history is being lost or thrown away. Gamasutra discusses the Game Preservation Crisis:

Trash cans, landfills, and incinerators. Erasure, deletion, and obsolescence. These words could describe what has happened to the various building blocks of the video game industry in countries around the world. These building blocks consist of video game source code, the actual computer hardware used to create a particular video game, level layout diagrams, character designs, production documents, marketing material, and more.

These are just some elements of game creation that are gone — never to be seen again. These elements make up the home console, handheld, PC and arcade games we’ve played. The only remnant of a particular game may be its name, or its final published version, since the possibility exists that no other physical copy of its creation remains.

The passage of time, and even the inevitable passing of a game development team, diminishes the possibility of further elements being placed in safekeeping. Some of these building blocks are still kept in filing cabinets, closets, storage units, attics, basements, and garages. They may soon face the same landfill fate if they are not rescued.

As a community of video game developers, publishers, and players, we must begin asking ourselves some difficult but inevitable questions. Some believe there is no point in preserving a video game, arguing that games are short-term entertainment, while others disagree with this statement entirely, believing the industry is in a preservation crisis.

Where do the various assets of a single video game go once production and publishing is finished? How are these development materials handled after the game is finally published, and what should inevitably happen to them?

Evangelical Mortal Kombat

JacobSloan — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:00:31 +0000

A video of one cultural phenomenon interpreted through the lens of another.

Youth And Video Games: Life Is Just A Stage And We Are Merely Digital Actors

James Curcio — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:36:04 +0000

Terror-mongering about new technologies is nothing new. When the car was invented, I’m sure people were worried about the thing ripping our faces off. “Humans aren’t meant to operate at that speed!,” and so on. On the other hand, it is inarguable that technology very quickly becomes a part of our lives, of our culture. And there’s no time to do long term testing. Some of us get to be canaries in the mine shaft. And if people start dropping or getting depressed at unprecedented rates, it’ll take decades to come to a conclusion about why this is happening.

Tell me if this narrative about a kid, beleaguered and possibly brain-damaged by dangerous video games, sounds familiar:

He stumbles upstairs with a glazed look in his eyes. “Why did you make me stop playing Xbox with my friends! That’s not fair!” he accuses me. I shake my head feeling guilty that before I knew it, my 6th grader has spent a better chunk of his Saturday, lost in ‘live-land.’ “Besides,” he chimes in, “I was just about to get a homework assignment from Ben.” Wow, good one Harry, told with a poker face and all. Are video games hurting our children? Does it prevent them from accomplishing more than they should be academically and socially and how much is too much? (Article)

Poor droopy-eyed, armless children. They could never keep up with Charlie Sheen. But seriously, what if the “problem” wasn’t gaming, or how long we spend in front of screens – that seems like it is here to stay, at least barring the zombie apocalypse. What if it’s the myths that control the types of games we’re creating? What if we’re not playing too much – we’re not doing it enough? Further, we’re failing to see the role that games and gaming play in our lives, and it is being capitalized on by only certain segments of our culture, certain interests, like the military?

These are some of the things asked in this introductory article “Questions towards a Philosophy of Gaming, Transmedia, and Myth.”

NYC’s Last Chinatown Arcade Shuts Its Doors

JacobSloan — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:27:35 +0000

It’s a sad day for lovers of underworld history, as an important slice of gritty “old New York” just faded into dust: the last video arcade in Chinatown has closed its gates. The iconic and beloved Chinatown Fair arcade perfectly embodied the cool, seedy downtown culture of Taxi Driver/Warriors-era NYC, and offered a futuristic escape from reality for teenagers and misfits from all boroughs. The arcade was minorly famous for its “tick-tack-toe chicken” booth game, which allowed customers to play an electronic game of tick-tack-toe (sometimes losing) against a live chicken. NYC The Blog offers great photos and a farewell:

Rumors started flying around New York City blogs last week that Chinatown Fair, one of the last traditional arcades left in the city, was closing. Those rumors became reality yesterday when Chinatown Fair locked its doors for good at 8 Mott Street yesterday at 12:48 am. It was in business since at least the 50s, first across the street and then at its current location for almost 30 years. Some games were removed before the last token was dropped and the space was nearly empty by yesterday afternoon. The end of Chinatown Fair unfolded with players battling each other in fight games until the very end.

Sony Banning PlayStation 3 Hackers For Life

BananaFamine — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:33:52 +0000

CNET reports:

Sony came down hard on PlayStation 3 hackers today, saying they will be permanently banned from the company’s online services.

“Violation of the system software license agreement for the PlayStation 3 System invalidates the consumer guarantee for that system,” reads a notice posted to Sony’s official PlayStation blog. “In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of international copyright laws. Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.”

To avoid the lifetime shutout, Sony said, consumers must “immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software from their PlayStation 3 systems.”

In the post, Social Media Manager Jeff Rubenstein said the policy represents an initial response to questions from PlayStation.Blog readers about how Sony plans to deal with breaches of its policy.

The company did not say when the ban will begin, but the blog PS3 News is reporting that many users of its PS3 forums have already confirmed receiving e-mail notices from Sony followed by their PlayStation 3 consoles being banned.

According to one account, “If you get error 0×8002A227, Sony banned your PS3 from the PSN.”

This is just the latest step by Sony to thwart PlayStation 3 jailbreaks.

In the most well-publicized battle, the company last month requested a restraining order against famed iPhone jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as Geohot, for coming up with a jailbreak that lets people run unauthorized software on the PS3…

For more information, see original article.

Reality Is Broken: Who Needs Reality When We Have Video Games

BananaFamine — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:30:13 +0000

A new book explores how gaming fulfills many human needs and how gaming may be utilized to solve the world’s problems.Psychology Today reports:

It may be time to stop thinking that what goes down in a game world like Azeroth has no impact on the “real world.”

Azeroth, the fictional location of the epic-scale events in World of Warcraft (WoW), the popular online role-playing game, may as well be a monster-thronged baseball diamond. In WoW, being part of a raid to defeat a nasty boss (powerful enemy) is an experience as “real,” emotionally rich and memorable, as winning a high school championship game. Twelve million rabid players will attest to this.Time spent with digital gaming is no longer considered an escapist pastime for a geek minority, but as integrated into our routines as our morning commutes. According to the Entertainment Software Association, almost 70 percent of all heads of household and 97 percent of youth are gamers, 40 percent of these being female.

As gaming and real life converge, Jane McGonigal’s Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Penguin, 388 pp., illustrated, $26.95) is the right book at the right time. McGonigal proposes a fascinating and provocative, if troubling, manifesto that adds to our understanding of the appeal and potential power of digital games.

McGonigal’s central thesis is this: Reality is discouraging, unproductive, disconnected, and broken in about a dozen other ways. Meanwhile, electronic games are already “fulfilling genuine human needs,” she writes, in ways that our real lives often fail to. If lessons learned from Call of Duty or Wii boxing were applied to everyday life, could reality be “fixed”? Could day-to-day drudgery be slayed?

McGonigal replies: Game on!…

For more information, see original article.

Telling the Truth to A Culture of Lies (Video)

Good German — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:10:39 +0000

Mark LeVine, professor of history at UC Irvine, writes in Al Jazeera:

If there’s anyone who doesn’t think the world — and particularly the United States — desperately needs WikiLeaks, I offer you “Exhibit A” of why this is the case: the star-studded official trailer for the “Call of Duty: Black Ops” first person shooter video game. Regular readers of this column might recall my November 16 article, “Nowhere Left to Run,” where I discussed the cultural implications of “Black Ops” after spotting a poster for the game in a Berlin subway around the time of its release.

Since then I have seen the trailer, whose slogan is “There’s a soldier in all of us” and features both ordinary people — a secretary, fry cook, hotel concierge, and the like — along with celebrities like Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, and late night American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

After watching the trailer I was so exasperated I emailed a colleague at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies here at Lund and asked him, “Where is Ice Cube when you need him?” His reply stunned me: “LoL you don’t know where Ice Cube is? He’s doing the voice of Bowman in ‘Black Ops’…”

In case you’re not a hiphop fan, once upon a time Ice Cube was the terror of law abiding white citizens across America as a member of the highly political gangsta rap group NWA. In fact, their song “F*** Da Police” almost got them into as much trouble with the US government as is Julian Assange today.

But those days are long forgotten. Today Mr. Cube spends his time, when not playing secret service agents in movies, providing the voice for one of the lead characters in “Black Ops.”

But it’s not just hiphop that’s prostituted itself to violence and big corporations. The rock n’ roll establishment has equally shamed itself, as none other than the Rolling Stones allowed their song “Gimme Shelter,” one of the most important anti-war songs of the Vietnam era, to be used as the soundtrack for the trailer, which shows Kobe Bryant smiling widely as he and innumerable other “ordinary” people blast away an unseen enemy in a clearly Middle Eastern landscape (not surprisingly, digital sales of the song and other Stones hits spiked in the wake of the trailer’s release).

Billion-Dollar Black Ops

majestic — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:33:19 +0000

Of all entertainment offerings, only Avatar has reached $1 billion in sales faster than the mega-popular first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Black Ops. For those yet to be initiated, here’s the official trailer, followed by the revenue report in the New York Post:

The entertainment industry has a new billion-dollar baby.

Activision Blizzard announced yesterday its “Call of Duty: Black Ops” video game has racked up $1 billion in sales after just 42 days on the market.

That’s quicker than the company’s previous blockbuster video game, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” which passed the 10-figure plateau in 64 days.

“In all of entertainment, only ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Avatar’ have ever achieved the billion-dollar revenue milestone this quickly,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said.

“Avatar” — the 3-D blockbuster produced by 20th Century Fox, which, like The Post is owned by News Corp. — wears the crown as the fastest entertainment property to ring up $1 billion in sales, having done so last year after just 20 days in wide release.

Demand for “Black Ops,” the seventh release of the “Call of Duty” franchise, has proved more resilient than some Wall Street analysts expected, and puts the game in the running to become among the biggest entertainment releases in history, whether in movies, books or video games.

The milestone follows last month’s announcement that “Black Ops” — which retails for $59.99 — had generated an unprecedented $360 million in revenue on its first day of release, and $650 million during its first five days, shattering records set by previous media titles.

“More people play ‘Black Ops’ every day than watch late-night hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon combined,” Kotick boasted in an interview with The Post…

[continues in the New York Post]

Is Your Videogame Console Watching You?

JacobSloan — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:23:40 +0000

Microsoft’s new Kinect gaming console has been a success in the weeks following its November unveiling – sales are expected to top 5 million units by the end of the year. However, privacy advocates are concerned about the machine’s built-in camera, equipped with motion-sensing and facial-recognition technology. Xbox’s CFO implied that Microsoft would use Kinect to gather data on its users, the Wall Street Journal notes. It begs the question: Are your videogames watching you?

Microsoft Corp. officials are considering using the camera on their new Kinect videogame system to target ads to people watching the games.

Dennis Durkin, who serves as chief operating officer and chief financial officer for Microsoft’s Xbox video game business, told investors Thursday that Kinect – which allows users to play video games without so much as a joystick – presents business opportunities for targeted game marketing and advertising.

Kinect is a camera peripheral that plugs into the Xbox 360 console and allows players to control games with only body movements. The system uses facial recognition technology to sign in players and match them with their avatars and profiles. But the technology can also be put to use beyond those purposes, Durkin said in a presentation at an investors conference sponsored by BMO Capital Markets.

“We can cater which content we present to you based on who you are,” Durkin said. “How many people are in the room when an ad is shown? How many people are in the room when a game is being played? When you add this sort of device to a living room, there’s a bunch of business opportunities that come with that.”

Such a system also could raise questions about privacy. In the past few months, targeted online advertising has been facing increasing scrutiny, and the use of cameras and facial recognition would push such technology into a new realm.

Durkin declined to give out sales figures for Kinect, which went on sale last week. Microsoft recently upped its forecast for the system to 5 million units in the fourth quarter, compared with an earlier projection of 3 million units. Kinect is part of a push by game console makers like Microsoft and Sony Corp. to introduce new controlers that bring in new players. Although, as MarketWatch points out, traditional games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops” are expected to be hot sellers this holiday season, the console makers are hoping the new platforms will ape some of the earlier success of the Nintendo Wii.

I Want Everything You’re Doing To Fail

majestic — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:21:02 +0000

The people at Brave New Films are having some good ole fashioned fun ‘n games with Bill, Rush, Glenn and Sarah, playing a special kind of Pacman.

Are you ready to take on the Right Wing? Get started at Brave New Pacman!

To share the game go here.

More about Brave New Films at BraveNewFilms.org.

‘Medal of Honor’ Brings The Battles in Afghanistan Home

Pelliciari — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:09:48 +0000

Ever wanted to fight against the Taliban? Ever wanted to fight on the side of the Taliban? Thanks to the realistic first-person shooter game Medal of Honor, it’s possible. That is, until the controversy it raised cause the game to be debuted with Taliban being referred to simply as “opposing forces.” USA Today reports:

Electronic Arts faces an uphill battle when it comes to first-person shooter Medal of Honor. Formerly entrenched in World War II, the franchise is trying to reinvent itself by switching to the present day. But it enters a crowded battlefield with juggernauts Call of Duty and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 owning most players’ online time.

The revamped Medal of Honor marks a relatively smooth transition from battlefronts in Germany and Japan to modern-day Afghanistan. However, those hoping for a powerful competitor to Call of Duty might want to temper their enthusiasm.

Medal of Honor focuses on United States Special Forces — specificially elite soldiers called Tier 1 Operators and U.S. Army Rangers — as they embark on operations against Taliban foes in Afghanistan.

Continues at USA Today …

President Obama Featured in Video Games

John Bernardo — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 05:27:46 +0000

From Kotaku comes an interesting piece on President Obama appearing in video games. Owen Good writes:

In two weeks, President Obama will appear in a video game for the second time in two months. Is he being paid for that? Is the White House cutting deals with sports game makers? Not likely.

Obama appears in a special cinematic added this year to Madden NFL 11’s Super Bowl presentation mode. Win it all, and your team gets a White House visit with the POTUS, just like in real life. NBA 2K11 this week revealed it will have the same type of ceremony when your franchise takes home the title in its Association mode.

American society enjoys the most robust entertainment culture — and, it seems, civil litigation market – in the world, so most folks are aware that when someone shows up in a commercial work, he has to give his permission, and often is compensated. Otherwise, he might and often does sue.