seanmonstar

Another perspective on violent video games + the shooting. I enjoyed Jeremy Norman’s pull quote here:

I don’t want to explain to my son why daddy is shooting the guys on the television. Why that’s okay, but when it happens in real life, people cry.

Game journalism is an oxymoron. There’s no point in reading more than one game news site, because they all say the same thing, literally:

In mainstream news outlets it’s a scandal when someone is caught plagiarizing work, and the writers usually lose their jobs. In gaming news when someone is caught plagiarizing work it’s Tuesday.

Ben Kuchara has a wonderful and balanced article about video game violence in reponse to the recent Connecticut shooting:

Here is a fun thought experiment: if you could do anything, be anyone, or have any power, what would you want to do? Fly? Swim to the bottom of the ocean? Be an officer on a starship and explore space? Make love to a beautiful or handsome man or woman? How far down the list is the fantasy of killing someone? Yet when we open up Steam or walk into a video game store, the killing fantasies are the most popular, and generally the most advertised.

I played the original Natural Selection about 10 years ago. It was fun then. This sequel, Natural Selection 2, is a complete joy to play.

Andy Modrovich tackles an important subject:

Why does a studio remove someone from a game’s credits, and why do developers put up with it? Most importantly, why do credits matter?

When I was learning to program, my dream was (of course) to help make something like Starcraft, and then be able to see my name in the list of people who made it. It’s saddening to learn that even with work invested in a game, that’s not necessarily going to be the case. Not just saddening, it’s jacked up.

But beyond any of the practical concerns, or the high-minded talk of posterity, the best reason to insist on proper crediting is simple human decency, respect, and love of the truth.

It reminds me that it’s important for you to appear in the constributors list of a project you work on, or even in a humans.txt file of a website.

My brother, Kyle McArthur, gives an amazing analysis of the classic epic, Chrono Trigger:

“Be good today, Crono.”

Star Wars: The Old Republic launches next week, and I’ve long looked forward to this game. I know what I’ll be doing as the year ends.

A super interesting write-up from Chad Birch.

A hint: each ghost’s behavior makes much more sense in Japanese.

• Blinky - “chaser”
• Pinky - “ambusher”
• Inky - “whimsical”
• Clyde - “feigning ignorance”