A few gaming articles
PK Arrested
Several of us, for many years, have predicted various gloom and doom scenarios related to the buying and seeling of virtual goods for real money. I don't think any of us forsaw this outcome.
There are a lot of issues here. First off, this guy was supposedly "cheating". According to the story, he wrote an unbeatable bot and used it to kill people. Tough to prove to start off with but is there such a thing as an unbeatable bot or was he using it just against newbs? OK but if the game allows killing other players and taking their shit, the only thing he did illegally was use a bot. Selling stuff on eBay might be against the EULA but it is a criminal offense? It is certainly a wide spread practice but I don't know enought about the laws governing such things to comment. Let's really fly off into left field, who else is liable? Isn't the company at fault for allowing such activity to happen unchecked? I mean really, if you allow someone to kill people and take their shit, aren't you an accomplice?
I know one thing, this is what we've all been worried about. Granted, this happened in Japan but how long before it bleeds across the big water?
On to happier topics:
Video Games Make Youths Violent, Says Study
Sorry, not so happy after all. Yet another group coming out and saying that video games are bad for us.
A pertinent quote
Kieffer says the research points to numerous gaps that can be filled with further studies on the topic. Among the areas of study he suggests is attempting to determine whether those who play violent games are predisposed to violent behavior to begin with. "I think we really have to get to describing the individuals who are playing the games and see if they're any different from the population," he says. Kieffer also says that a truly complete study would involve research from institutions in multiple geographies to achieve demographic balance.
However:
Based on Kieffer's and Nicoll's findings, the APA drafted a resolution recommending a number of steps to reduce violence in video games.
So, even though they acknowledge that they might be all wet and that other factors might actually be the cause, they go ahead and issue their recommendations anyway.
People get violent WATCHING a soccer game. People tear a town apart because their team WINS a world championship. People get violent just driving down the street. Can we somehow tie that to Doom III?
I'm not going to beat this one to death, it's already been done. I just wish these so called intelligent, educated people would get their heads out of their asses every once in a while.
Several of us, for many years, have predicted various gloom and doom scenarios related to the buying and seeling of virtual goods for real money. I don't think any of us forsaw this outcome.
There are a lot of issues here. First off, this guy was supposedly "cheating". According to the story, he wrote an unbeatable bot and used it to kill people. Tough to prove to start off with but is there such a thing as an unbeatable bot or was he using it just against newbs? OK but if the game allows killing other players and taking their shit, the only thing he did illegally was use a bot. Selling stuff on eBay might be against the EULA but it is a criminal offense? It is certainly a wide spread practice but I don't know enought about the laws governing such things to comment. Let's really fly off into left field, who else is liable? Isn't the company at fault for allowing such activity to happen unchecked? I mean really, if you allow someone to kill people and take their shit, aren't you an accomplice?
I know one thing, this is what we've all been worried about. Granted, this happened in Japan but how long before it bleeds across the big water?
On to happier topics:
Video Games Make Youths Violent, Says Study
Sorry, not so happy after all. Yet another group coming out and saying that video games are bad for us.
A pertinent quote
Kieffer says the research points to numerous gaps that can be filled with further studies on the topic. Among the areas of study he suggests is attempting to determine whether those who play violent games are predisposed to violent behavior to begin with. "I think we really have to get to describing the individuals who are playing the games and see if they're any different from the population," he says. Kieffer also says that a truly complete study would involve research from institutions in multiple geographies to achieve demographic balance.
However:
Based on Kieffer's and Nicoll's findings, the APA drafted a resolution recommending a number of steps to reduce violence in video games.
So, even though they acknowledge that they might be all wet and that other factors might actually be the cause, they go ahead and issue their recommendations anyway.
People get violent WATCHING a soccer game. People tear a town apart because their team WINS a world championship. People get violent just driving down the street. Can we somehow tie that to Doom III?
I'm not going to beat this one to death, it's already been done. I just wish these so called intelligent, educated people would get their heads out of their asses every once in a while.
posted by Big Ed at 7:48 AM
2 Comments:
When I started playing UO, I was absolutely convinced that MMO games were the future of computer games. Today, I am convinced that MMO has no future at all.
As much as I love them, I'm afraid you're right. I've got 6 of them on my desktop right now, UO, DaoC, Guild Wars, The Matrix Online, CoH and WoW and I'm bored out of my mind. I can't imagine logging into UO, Guild Wars lasted about 3 days as did TMO, WoW lasted a little longer but it's lost my interest and I log into CoH and stare at the character screen wishing they had the new powers in but not wanting to log into any of my current characters. I am looking at DaoC again but doubt that will happen.
The state of computer games in general is in dire straits. There isn't anything new out there and there is nothing new on the horizon. MMORPGs are just different versions of EQ as has been the case since EQ came out.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
Well, you are getting old (Happy Birthday!) But computer games have also hit a major snag. There is really nothing out there that I am looking forward to.
Civ 4 is coming out in November. Civ II was probably the best sim ever but Civ III was a real stinker. They supposedly fixed the problems in Civ III so we'll see.
Other than that, there really is nothing to look forward to. This is a strange time, it's been a long time since I haven't been excited about some game on the horizon. Why can't someone come up with something new and exiciting instead of just retreading the same old shit? Is it like TV, it's all already been done?
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