Grand Theft Evil

“Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them,” she said in a statement on the issue. “This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it’s OK to diss people because they are a woman, they’re a different colour or they’re from a different place.”

The “she” in question is senator Hillary Clinton now out to bash violent games. Interesting how the above mentioned game mechanic is probably the most famous is recent video game history. Interesting also how one of the best designed games on the form-side also turned out to be the most provoking on the content side. Birth of a Nation, anyone?

Via Nick.

Big questions

I pitched a few memes related to online gaming through the radio show “Mission” last night.
Mainly I was asked whether interacting in game worlds could be considered “natural” and comparable to RL communication.
The show also dealt extensively with another question: Is visible female pubic hair extending over the panties line natural or gross?

Seems to me I got the more boring question here…

BTW, I was also interviewed about similar issues in URBAN recently (in Danish).

Post-GDC

GDC 2005 has played itself out. It did so with great pomp, some fascinating talks, some entertaining talks, quite a bit of mingling, immodest amounts of high-quality coffee and a considerable number of visits to Lori’s.
Most distinctly the air was loaded with some trepidation over the coming console generation and particularly buzzing with energy during Will Wright’s “Spore” keynote (advocating a solution to next-gen woes in the form of player-generated content). See Jesper’s blog for more on this.


Oh, and here is Jesse Schell, Edward Castronova, and Jim Paul Gee discussing “What Researchers Can and Can’t Tell You About Your Games“. Castronova pitches his game design idea that will “enable social scientists to finally make studies with the precision of physicists” – yep, that’s more or less what he said.