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Gamergate is Bullshit
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2–3 minutes·
1 comment on Gamergate is BullshitGamergate is bullshit, and it’s certainly not about ethics in journalism. Threats and harassment against women in gaming is reprehensible for any reason whatsoever, and it’s astonishing that the very people who are pushing the boundaries of what gaming can do and express are the ones being attacked. Now, I had hoped it would go…
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Journeys, Not Badges
From Girl Scouts Debate Their Place in a Changing World (NYT): A 2011 overhaul of girl scouting programs abandoned the old badge system and adopted a set of three “Journeys.” It also aligned badges and leadership opportunities with 21st-century ideas revolving around social issues, professional opportunities for women, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the…
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Brain Training Games Don't Work
A few days ago, 73 scientists signed a letter asserting that brain training games – which typically feature puzzle games and mental exercises on smartphones, tablets, PCs, or handheld devices – do not successfully increase general measures of intelligence or memory. I have long had my doubts about the efficacy of games like Brain Age…
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Molyneux’s Cube Contains Charity
Peter Molyneux is making a game called Curiosity: What’s Inside The Cube, in which players will be chipping away at a giant cube together in order to found out what’s inside; something “life-changing”, supposedly. Of course, you’ll be able to buy more expensive chisels and such to speed up how fast you can chip away,…
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What Retro Games Mean Today
What’s a retro game today? 8 bit pixellated graphics, chiptunes, simple platformer game mechanics, and charmingly traditional scoring and levelling? If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, that makes plenty of sense. I didn’t – I was born in 1982, so the most memorable games I played usually had at least EGA or…
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Does it Feel Like a Trial?
I’m not ashamed to admit it. When I play a game, I often mentally list all the things that are wrong with it, whether it’s clumsy dialogue, irritating tutorials, or unclear level design. It’s an incessant, niggling feeling that becomes particularly strong if the game is web-based, and ARG, or contains any storytelling – and…
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The Pursuit of Perfection
Not only have the terms of success changed but also the very terms of life. For a person who can live within his illusions, the career has to be perfect, the wife has to be perfect, the children have to be perfect, the home has to be perfect, the car has to be perfect, the…
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A Tale from the Academy
To my utter amazement, I turned my computer on this morning to discover an email from none other than Kurt McAllister! As far as I was aware, communications between Earth and Perplex City were strictly monitored, and as you might imagine, these days I simply don’t have the clearance to send or receive anything at…
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Yakuza 3: A Serious Game
I fell in love with Yakuza 3 at five different moments. Let me count them: (It goes without saying that there are spoilers below – but only for the early/mid game) 1. Nakahara’s Pride Kiryuu Kazuma, the hero of Yakuza 3, spends much of his time cooking dinner and solving petty disputes about pocket money…
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In Defence of Gameification
There’s been lots of joking going on about gameification and pointification and badgeification lately. Everything is being gameified, and game designers don’t like it. It’s a bit odd – shouldn’t game designers like game mechanics (and points and badges) being applied to the world? Aren’t game mechanics great ways of engaging people and producing fun,…
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