Cool blog on brain chemistry and how it reacts to getting “loot” in WoW. Very cool blog, has some other interesting articles on gaming and psychology as well.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2009/12/27/phat-loot-and-neurotransmitters-in-world-of-warcraft/
I’ve been waiting for some major MMO to try this shift. There are already more free-2-play MMO’s than you can shake a stick at, but the vast majority where all built that way from the beginning, using a specific strategy that’s already been proven for the most part.
DDO is the first MMO that I’m aware of that has shifted from the traditional western design of $15/month to F2P. And reports thus far are that it’s a resounding success, at least initially.
Sep 8
A custom Super Mario World game, which after watching this video, has now caused my inner geek to retreat into a small corner and weep uncontrollably at the mere thought of trying to beat this game.
*makes finger-lip bibbling motions*
Course it would be more impressive if it had actually been played in real-time. Although this sort of thing is kind of an art form in and of itself. For those who don’t know, this kind of thing is done with custom and normal games using an emulator and some FPS manipulation tools to create a Tool Assisted Speedrun (TAS). There’s more videos like this around Youtube, but this one is particularly cool.
I think this is a very sensible article on video game violence. I’m sure that the fact that this young girl was playing an M rated game at such a young age isn’t going to affect her in the slightest. Except to draw the attention of alert Wired reporters. This is a prime example of the parent being familiar with the content of the game (well, we hope so!), and having a good understanding of his child’s maturity level. This is what parenting is all about. Making informed decisions, not shielding them from the horrible reality of…. reality.
Also, after reading the part where he mentions they will have some parental controls to change/turn off the gore and blood, I have a request. I’d love to see a “G” switch to turn all the blood and gore into glittery stars and rainbows, cuz that would be goddamn hilarious.
I’ve had the idea of having gaming marathons, or holding last-man-standing competitions to see who can game the longest, and things like that. These guys have done it right though. They hold multi-day (even up to a week straight!) marathons based around a game theme (Zelda, Final Fantasy, Mario, Pokemon) and raise funds to donate to a specific charity.
Jul 25
I have lost all faith in humanity.
Universal Pictures has optioned the rights to do a movie based on the Asteroids game. Yes, the one with 2D vector art, from the 1980s.
/facepalm
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59693
Origonal announcement :
Jul 21
As some may or may not be aware, I run a LAN Gaming Center, named LAN Speed Games. (more info HERE) A lot of the customers have been coming and playing games and making friends since near the beginning, 5 years ago. So they have a strong sense of loyalty toward the place.
I began working at LSG about a year ago. Sometime after I began I made mention of an offer I’ve always made at the LANs I’ve worked at: If you get a tattoo of the store’s logo on a visible portion of your skin, I will let you play for free for life. Up until recently nobody had taken advantage of the offer, as most company logos are designed to be very obviously, a company logo. LAN Speed’s is fairly unique, and in terms of body art, actually works fairly well. (see picture)
So in January of this year, we finally had someone take the offer and get ink done. We followed through and let him play for free. This seemed to break the dam, so to speak, and within about 2-3 months we had a total of 6 people with tattoos, at which point we said “enough” and haven’t let anyone else get one. Until today.
As if all this wasn’t enough already to impress upon you the nature of the community that develops in a good business like this, I have one further note on tattoo #7, which walked in today. Today is also the day when our 4 new systems arrived, giving us a total of 30 PCs. We had stated when the tattoo thing began to escalate that we would not allow any more tattoos than 6, which is ~25% of our capacity with 26 machines. And we told people that we would allow more if and when we got more PCs.
So today our 4 new PCs came in. And about 4 hours later, tattoo #7 walks in. He had missed being in on the first batch by a small margin (we had a waiting list, actually). And so he had deliberatly timed it so that he got the tattoo the same day our new PCs arrived. That kind of dedication (or desperation, I haven’t decided) just amazes me, and I’m really glad to be a part of a business where we have grown such a strong bond with our customer base.
Jul 18
My friend Moose has written a nice beginner guide to playing Heroes of Newerth, which is currently in beta testing. HoN is a highly polished revision to the Warcraft 3 mod DOTA, done by S2. I’ve loaded it up at the shop, and everyone has liked it so far. Even in its closed beta state, it is highly polished, and right now they’re focusing on bug squashing and balancing.
I’m excited, I’m not a huge DOTA player, but it’s fun. My customers on the other hand…. I have a fairly large portion of my regular crowd that plays it with a fervor. There’s yelling and name calling, death threats, comments about people’s mothers, it gets intense. It’s great to have passionate players.
http://www.blog.last-save.com/2009/07/4-tips-for-beginning-players-in-heroes-of-newerth/
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