CULTURE: Video games skirt the edge of controversy

A 13 year old boy is believed to have fatally stabbed his 16 year old brother on Sunday over whose turn it was to play a video game. So far, police are not considering gameplay to have been a factor in the crime.

"I don't believe the actual game itself was the cause of it. I don't believe they were acting out in any way or mimicking anything in a video game. I believe it was actual use of the game and whose turn it was," said Lansdowne Police Chief Daniel Kortan.

I think how this story plays out - and whether it blows up into a controversy - will depend on what game they were playing at the time. Imagine if that game were Manhunt!

[Brother kills brother in video game dispute via GamePolitics]

Tit for tat -- A group of Iranian students have created a game called Rescue the Nuke Scientist in response to American-made Assault on Iran. What I find most interesting is a comment by one of the students:

"We tried to promote the idea of defense, sacrifice and martyrdom in this game," one of the students told reporters. "This is our defense against the enemy's cultural onslaught."

Ironically, the so-called cultural onslaught includes the video games so enjoyed by Rescue the Nuke Scientist's creators. Unless they only play Iranian video games -- which is possible, but probably not very satisfying.

[Iranian video game rescues Nuke scientist via Joystiq]

Scandals not involving Paris Hilton -- GamePolitics is accepting reader votes to determine the 10 biggest video gaming scandals... ever. Have your say, or admire this piece of clever Photoshop wizardry from Joystiq.

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CULTURE: Video gamers "most sophisticated shoppers in the entertainment industry"

There's a New York Times article on why critical reception of video games correlates so closely with sales. What's interesting is that in the realm of movies and music almost the opposite is the case.

The Top 10-selling games of last year — including titles like Gears of War and Guitar Hero 2 —had an average Metacritic score of 87.5. Only one of the top-selling games scored less than 80. (More about that later.) Meanwhile, the Top 10 box-office films of last year — including titles like “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”’ and “X-Men: The Last Stand” — collected a poor average score of 62.9.

The article makes a few good points about why this might be the case, but I think it's ultimately pretty simple. Video games are expensive, therefore gamers are much less likely to impulse buy. Gaming media is also far more focussed on critical evaluation (previews, reviews, interviews) than music and cinema media, meaning there are plenty more opportunities to know whether a game sounds like it might take your fancy. And lastly, big development studios have big dev budgets (nice graphics, plenty of content, huge teams) and huge advertising budgets to go with them. It's no surprise that development studios with huge staffs and resources tend to make good games.

[Their thumbs may be too busy to raise, but gamers agree with critics via Kotaku]

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CULTURE: Latest gaming addiction disaster

A young Nevada couple have pleaded guilty to child neglect after leaving their two young children starving and suffering other health problems while they played MMORPGs.

"They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games," Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.

Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said.

This is the kind of thing that I believe puts the American Medical Association's decision not to classify video game addiction as a mental disorder in question. I know this isn't a popular view, but I strongly believe people can become addicted to video games in the same way that they can become addicted to drugs, and that the problem should be treated just as seriously.

MMORPGs are a unique source of this problem because they fulfill social needs while releasing a steady flow of dopamine. There's also no point in which the game is 'beaten' - you can continue amassing more loot and power even when you've reached whatever insane level cap the particular game has in place. Unlike multiplayer shooters, which are broken up into individual scenarios and maps, there's no natural break in RPGs. Even when not on a quest there are people to talk to, things to do. People are able to perform incredibly repetitive tasks in games like World of WarCraft because it produces a hit of dopamine each time their character is slightly bettered. In laboratory tests, scientists found that they could starve a mouse by offering periodic drips of dopamine from a tube. The mouse would stay at the tube, lap up the dopamine as it was produced, and forgot to eat until it starved.

The games function like drugs in that each time the player achieves a goal they get a hit of dopamine not dissimilar to a minor drug rush. This is more than they gain from other actions like going outside, going to school, going out with friends or spending time with their kids. WoWDetox is testament to this.

Not every MMORPG player is going to develop a drug-like addiction, just like not every person who tries meth will become addicted to it. But the similarities between gaming addiction and drug addiction are hard to miss, and I don't see why they should be treated differently, particularly when they have the potential to be just as dangerous.

[Nev. couple blame internet for neglect via Yahoo! news]

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CULTURE: PS2 marketing ideals as old as the console

Click on the above image to view the ad full size. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to, the unreadable bit in the bottom-right corner says:

PS2 - Because your girlfriend bores you shitless.

Sony, your advertising department sucks.

[Misogynist PS2 ads running in India via Wonderland]

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CULTURE: Old Grandma Hardcore

Let me begin this post with a disclaimer. I love my grandma. She's lovely. I'd never wish for anyone else. I will admit, though, that if I were transported to an alternate dimension in which my grandma never existed and I could choose one elderly lady to replace her, I would totally choose Old Grandma Hardcore. Below are the reasons why.

• She owns an Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP. Which big time company reps gave to her.
  
• She plays heaps of games. Not just family friendly DS titles - the kind Nicole Kidman might play if advertisements were a reflection of reality - but hardcore FPS titles like Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man.
  
• She plays Xbox Live and unlocks achievement points and stuff.
• She played Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters in her hospital bed.
• She seems like an awesome person to know.
• I admire anyone who breaks two age-old (excuse the pun) stereotypes: that all gamers are under 15 and male. Sure, she's just one person, but anything that isn't this is a step in the right direction.
  

[Old Grandma Hardcore]

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CULTURE: Where games and people collide #1

Chinese government makes itself even easier target for jibes -- the Chinese government recently ordered that skeletons in World of WarCraft be removed and replaced with flesh-covered counterparts. They've also announced that bare-boned corpses of dead characters must be buried in graves rather than lying on the ground. Seriously.

The9 - the Chinese company responsible for running WoW in China - has already complied with these orders. Why have bones, of all things, been censored in World of WarCraft? To comply with Chinese president Hu Jintao's mandate of an "harmonious society," apparently. No idea how that works. It seems like the government has started censoring things just for the fun of it.

[Censorship reaches internet skeletons via Kotaku]

Fuzzy virtual pet owners start online rebellion -- On July 3rd a new feature arrived in NeoPets land: the NC Mall, which allows users to pay real world money for the game's virtual currency, Neocash.

According to those rebelling the mall breaks NeoPets' promise that the game will always remain free. Angry users have been calling up NeoPets HQ to complain, changing their avatars to "Bleh!" and bombarding many areas of the site with 'hate', 'causing displeasure' to NeoPets employees and also threatening to take 'more drastic action' if the Mall is not removed.

I always imagined the NeoPets user community to have a median age of 13 and be pretty sensitive all round. Either I was wrong, or 13 year olds these days are pretty intense. Their target? Viacom corporation, which owns Neopets.

Good luck guys.

[Neopets users rebel! via digg]

Product placement: usually annoying, not so much in this case -- astute cinemagoers might have noticed the Xbox 360 robot in the Transformers movie. It all probably has something to do with the fact that there is a Transformers game for the console, but hey, I like it when game consoles appear in movies. Especially when they grow robotic arms and attack people.



[Anyone see the Xbox 360 robot in Transformers? via Engadget]

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CULTURE: Wii'll not forget

This is the kind of advertising that makes you forget - just for a moment - that the company responsible just wants your money. First the advertisement team pushing Blue Dragon cast a shadow across the streets of Shubiya, and now Nintendo is getting creative, displaying these wall mosaics made out of colored posted notes in various locations around Italy. On the back of each individual note is a message encouraging the recipient to pay homage to the 80s by playing old-school favorites on the Wii.

Your move, Sony. Impress us, eh?

[Nintendo Wii: Wii'll not forget via The Cool Hunter]

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CULTURE: Nicole Kidman, playin' ur DS

That's Nicole Kidman fronting the latest DS ad campaign. I'm not sure which message Nintendo is trying to convey more: 'beautiful Hollywood actresses play DS so you should too', or 'Yes Nintendo makes that kind of money.'

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