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Ten ways in which MMORPGs will change the future. “For now let’s just say it’s the most instantly gripping, involving and demanding entertainment technology ever invented. The addiction rate appears to be about twice that of crack Cocaine.”
MMORPG and the Dunbar number. “Overall, these statistics still support my original hypothesis in my Dunbar Number post that mean group sizes will be smaller than 150 for non-survival oriented groups.”
News flash! 17-yo kid obliterates opponents at video games. Ok, here’s the kicker: he’s blind.
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton regarding her call for a Congressional investigation about the effects of video games on children. “I know a congressional investigation into [the violence and hostility in high school] football won’t play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.”
Jerry Rice and Sean Landeta are the only NFL players featured in Tecmo Bowl that are still active. And there are only 14 active players left in Tecmo Super Bowl.
Chess960, a more random form of chess invented by Bobby Fischer, is growing in popularity. Sounds really interesting.
Long hours playing Tetris prepares man for constructing brick walkway.
Video Games Live is presenting a series of concerts featuring music from video games. Last week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic played in front of around 10,000 people.
The World Series of Poker……….Robots. Robots make anything cooler.
Fun little Flash game, kind of a chain reaction Missile Command. My high score so far is 133 (49 on an individual screen). You?
Slideshow of the making of Barcade, the bar/arcade in Brooklyn.
Wage Slaves: a look inside video game sweatshops. Low-paid workers “farm” gold and other trickets in virtual worlds and make their employers thousands of dollars a month.
Thoughts on turning the Sony Libre into a “Universal Game Board”.
A basketball fan couldn’t wait until next year, so he’s documenting 2005-6 Bulls season with NBA Live 2005. Looks like the Bulls lost their home opener.
Search engines still aren’t that good at Trivial Pursuit.
It’s nearly impossible not to yawn while watching Emilie’s Don’t Yawn Game. I lasted about twenty seconds before it felt like I was going to pull something if I didn’t yawn.
The Rubik’s Cube — and the attendant speed-solving contests — are back.
20 things gamers want from the next generation of game consoles. “Seriously, get rid of the crates” and “don’t bullshit me about your graphics”.
Pickup Lines Used by Mario [of Mario Bros. fame]. “Are you a magic flower? Because you are burning me up.”
Steven Johnson: “Imagine an alternate world identical to ours save one techno-historical change: videogames were invented and popularized before books”. “Reading books chronically under-stimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying — which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements — books are simply a barren string of words on the page.”
“There’s a game I like where you have to think of people whose name makes a complete sentence”. “Tom Waits. Jeremy Irons. Jeff Bridges. Wesley Snipes.”
Interview with Ludicorp’s Stewart Butterfield about Game Neverending, Flickr’s MMORPG older brother.
A brief history of Trivial Pursuit and the decline of trivia.
Interview with Cory Arcangel about his video game-related art.
The main thesis of Nonzero is that social complexity of human culture has been increasing since the dawn of man and will continue to do so until forever. Wright argues that non-zero sum games are the culprit: societies get more complex (moving from tribes of hunter gatherers to mutli-trillion dollar global economy) because in order to play ever more lucrative non-zero sum games with an increasing number of people, that’s the way it has to be. It makes a lot of sense.
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