My life just kicked into overdrive and sadly I won’t be able to post for the next two weeks. If you need to reach me you know where to find me.
- Ms. Pixel on Twitter
- Bukola on Facebook
- Email: Bukola [dot] Ekundayo [at] gmail[dot] com
Playstation Home Bombs I logged onto Home this week. While the graphics are impressive it reminds me of Second Life with many of the same issues. I was also sexually harassed by over eager gamer boys when I strolled into the Plaza to explore. Tracy John had a similar experience.
Gaming Journalists Discuss Review Scores (and waste their time) - Shawn Elliot gathered a group of incredible gaming journalists to discuss critiques that have been launched against them. While I appreciate their efforts I can’t stand the way the information is being presented. It’s a VERY LONG document. Who has time for this?
Some ideas - BOLD interesting points made during the email exchanges and post a quick summary of conclusions reached during the discussion, etc. The people that would read though this document are likely supporters of the way gaming journalists are doing their work. To get this information into the hands of their critics and average gamers the information will need to be delivered differently. If not, this symposium could be a waste of time.
The Recession hits the Game Industry - Bruce gives us a nice overview of the recession’s effect on the gaming business so far.
Scrabulous Comes Back to Facebook - Last summer I talked about Hasbro foolishly pulling the plug on Scrabulous. It turns out that the game maker and the creators of Scrabulous have agreed to settle their conflict out of court.
MTV Multiplayer Battles Rapper, SouljaBoy - What happens when a rapper calls out the Editor of MTV’s Muliplayer to a gaming death match? Stephen (one of my favorite gaming journalists) and SouljaBoy have been trash talking via Youtube in the weeks leading up to the event. You’ll find the riveting conclusion after the jump. Who do you think won? The rapper or the gaming journalist?
Awful PR Exec Gets Called Out By TechCrunch
Xbox Live Arcade Sales Triple After New Xbox Experience: This is a stunning example of social media adoption leading to an increase in customer engagement and sales. The launch of the new Xbox Experiene (social networking + virtual worlds) tripled digital game sales during its first week.
The Wii Dominates Console Sales: The Nintendo Wii outsold the Xbox and the PS3 combined. The majority of consumers buying thre Nintendo Wii are casual consumers. Which brings me to my next point.
The Casual Gamer Saves the Game Industry: I thought this would take about 5-10 years longer than it did. But the day is here.
Wii - 2.04 million
DS - 1.57 million
Xbox 360 - 836,000
PSP - 421,000
PS3 - 378,000
PS2 - 206,000[ Via - Gamasutra]
Nintendo’s DS and Wii crushed every other platform. Casual gamers are growing into a sizeable portion of the gaming community. The community as it stands now (dominated by Ign, Kotaku, UGO and Gamespy) are woefully unprepared to cater to this audience which includes more women and gamers over the age of 30.
NYU Launches Gaming Degrees: In the fall of 2009, NYU will become the first New York City college to offer a degree in video games.
Game Journalists Respond to Critics w/ Launch of Symposium: Shawn Elliott, an influential games journalist, announced that he will be leading an email-based symposium on the practice and politics of writing game reviews. The e-mail threads will be posted online enabling the community to participate. This was done in response to harsh blog posts directed at gaming journalists recently.
Facebook Connecting More Than Just Friends with Facebook Connect: Facebook makes a strong play to connect websites to Facebook’s social properties. Dave Knox has a great write-up on how brands may respond to this move.
Rumor: “EA might get bought out by Disney” - Bruce shares his thoughts on a potential buyout.
Playstation Home Launches: The reviews on twitter don’t bode well for Playstation Home. Most of the tweets are complaints about stalled downloads and freezes. Although, there were a couple of people that liked it though. Have you tried Playstation Home yet? What do you think?
NYU just annouced the launch of the NYU Game Center, which will offer long-term undergraduate and graduate degrees in the research, design and development of digital games. In the fall of 2009, NYU will become the first New York City college to offer a degree in video games.
This is awesome on so many levels.
First, applying to NYU’s MBA program just got ten times more attractive! I can take classes in finance, accounting and marketing and pursue game design courses during my second year when I have the freedom to take more electiives. I understand that this is a purely selfish reason.
Second, this raises the profile of New York as a gaming mecca. I wouldn’t call New York THE place for games (most developers are based out of California) but it’s a great place to start. If we get aspriing game developers to pursue degrees here maybe developers will follow suit by coming here to recuit and hire people.
Third, this marks gaming as a rising media platform. NYU is a leading educational instition. The creation of this center is an acknowlegment of the billion dollar industry and NYU’s intention to be a part of it.
Microsoft’s involvement also shows off their dedication to gaming from education to development.
So for both selfish and practical reasons this is a good day for gaming.
[Via - Wonderland]
[More coveage via Gamer 2.0 and GamingAngels ]
There are two ways you can do this. First, you can download TweetStalk, the firefox addon that enables you to follow someone without their knowledge (and be super creepy). Second, you can add twitter user’s RSS feed to your feed reader.
Post an innocent question seeking gay gamers to play with. That’s what zeldamario did a few weeks ago on the Palgn forums. The thread titled, “Any other gay gamers?” has received a lengthy and sometimes dizzing response ranging from outright homophobia, shock, empathy and a wallop of folks who fear any sort of discussion around sexuality and gaming.
UPDATE: Check out Denis’ thoughtful post about his experience as a gamer in gay circles. I was surprised to learn that Denis’ gaming hobby isn’t always welcomed.
Isn’t it ironic that an aversion to openly gay gamers can be found in both mainstream and gay cultures? This adds another facet of value to sites like gaygamer and lesbian gamers that cultivate and nurture communities for people who may struggle to find acceptance elsewhere.
I use Google Docs to collaborate on war lists and treaty presentations for my gaming guilds and alliances. Keeping track of who I’m NOT allowed to blow up is important. And with my alliance mates scattered across the globe I’ve found that Google docs is becoming the gamers tool of choice for making alliance administration less of a nightmare.
Google Docs isn’t all that spectacular. What makes it remarkable are the collaboration tools: multiple people working on the same document in real-time. Today I discovered that it’s a godsend to gamers and artists alike. Below you’ll see how four artists used Google Docs to collaborate on a work of pixel art.
[Via - Waxy]
Last night I logged onto Youtube to check out my new favorite video. And I noticed that Youtube has gone WIDE. All of the videos now appear in widescreen. I like it so far.
Here’s a clip of a lame woman in a video game. Her sole quest in life is to increase her breast size. Do you know what ALL lame women in gaming have in common? They were probably created by men. Whether its a game that ignores our ability to think beyond babies and marriage or a game that reduces a woman (like Maria of Castlevania) to a brainless boob chaser without a serious story line. We can count on some dude chasing dollar signs to give us a good laugh. That’s the only saving grace of the video clip below. It made me laugh. Poor Maria.
This is why we need more women designing video games. Do you think a woman with power was present during the brainstorming session around this character?
[Via - Destructoid]
