Chinese Prisoners Forced To Play World Of Warcraft
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…
Navy Turns To Online Gamers In Fight Against Somali Pirates
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…
Video Games Now Legally Considered An Art Form In The U.S.
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.
Bin Laden Operation Featured In Two Video Games
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
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…
Homelessness: The Game
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.…
A Military Supercomputer Made From 1,700 PlayStation 3 Gaming Consoles
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…
The Video Game Preservation Crisis
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…
Evangelical Mortal Kombat
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
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,…
NYC’s Last Chinatown Arcade Shuts Its Doors
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…
Sony Banning PlayStation 3 Hackers For Life
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…
Reality Is Broken: Who Needs Reality When We Have Video Games
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…
Telling the Truth to A Culture of Lies (Video)
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.
Billion-Dollar Black Ops
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.
Is Your Videogame Console Watching You?
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…
I Want Everything You’re Doing To Fail
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
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…
President Obama Featured in Video Games
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.…
‘Halo’ Is Bigger Business Than Any Movie
So what would you rather spend your money on: an amazing game that you can spend tens or hundreds of hours playing, or a two-hour movie that you have to travel to and get ripped off on ridiculously overpriced popcorn and soda? No prizes for the correct answer… From The Atlantic:
Microsoft has announced that the fourth installment of their space-themed first-person shooter franchise, Halo: Reach, has netted $200 million dollars in sales in only one day of release. To put that massive number in perspective, it beats out the opening day numbers of any Hollywood blockbuster ever, and it far outpaces this year’s opening weekend numbers of Iron Man 2 ($128 million) and Alice in Wonderland ($116 million). Still, Bungie and Microsoft were certainly hoping that the title would unseat the current gaming record-holder Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which brought in $310 million when it was released…
