Author: x100tacksx

The Video Game Blog Shakedown Shake up

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I reached a disappointing conclusion while trying to objectively evaluate various popular gaming blogs. Well, blog is a vague term for what they are, which is really news based multi-featured sites. The evaluation was based on my own reservations about whether such sites were responsible or in the least, uninfluenced by other larger forces. The more I tried to dig at this to find the best site, the more I found the comparative worth of the sites incalculable.

I wish I had come up with more of an answer than that, but the answer is still the same. I think in trying to analyze them I saw the strings that made them dance, and became disenfranchised with all of it. Not necessarily the sites themselves, but the greater overall market and they way people interacted with it. I feel it’s no different than the mass commercialism and capitalism that is seen everywhere else. There weren’t many games of interest for me at the time either. The industry in general is in a strange place where the next step isn’t so obvious, the next console more vague than ever. As Nintendo showed, it’s not just about who can make the best graphics, as the summit of that mountain is ever nearing. It’s about who will continue to innovate, and how they will manage to improve the experience to keep gaming engaging, relevant, and worthwhile.

Of course, none of this is the fault of the gaming websites that are dependent on the industry. A lot of these sites are involved in creating commentary and criticism, which puts them in the tough spot of trying to validate the efforts of the industry, which can prove themselves fruitless. Trying to collectively commentate on the collective commentary was also proven fruitless.

Conjecture: Best Buy

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They are looking to take down Gamestop, and honestly, I’m glad. This isn’t about some lingering hatred for Gamestop. I think Gamestop does what it does very well, and has enough going for it that it rolls mostly like a snowball down hill. But Best Buy is starting some bonfires on that hill.

Is Gamestop the best value for your money? Aside from selling a game online or on the street, yes. They are your best bet on a guaranteed immediate buy of an item. Will you get a lot for it? Of course not. They have no limiters on what they buy. If they did, they could offer more. But since they don’t, and since they will still take Madden 08 for a quarter, that is factored into how much they can offer across the board. Will they buy your broken stuff for the same price? If it’s not obviously broken, then yes. They will. And that costs a lot of money too. Will they give you a lot of cash? No, but you can finagle a good chunk of store credit from them, which you can use to buy….

More games. Good for them, mediocre for you. Maybe you want something else. Maybe you just want a soda and some chips. Maybe you want a refrigerator. Or a CD. Or a car stereo and a book bag. Too bad. There are no affiliates of Gamestop that will honor your store credit, so your options are games or game accessories. This doesn’t much matter when you have 4,500 stores though. Gamestop stores print money. It’s just been a little hard for anyone else to compete.

That’s not a coincidence, by the way. Gamestop actively seeks and destroys competition. They will let a given store offer aggressive discounts if another competing used game store is around. That used game store will have cheaper prices, but Gamestop will lower their prices and raise trade in values until the consumer, finally getting what they feel they deserve for a game, chooses Gamestop and the other company is forced to close. Once they close, prices return to normal. Crisis averted!

In the case of larger companies, (such as Blockbuster) the inclusion of a used game service seemed like a successful idea, but their main business was already failing for many other reasons. Even though Gamestop can stay open with just games, they rely on a lot of in store advertisements (paid for by game companies) agreements with companies, and a huge inventory. I shutter to think how many games are owned by Gamestop at any given moment. So, when Game Crazy and Game Rush failed, it might have been a little bit because of Gamestop, but mostly of their own downward trend.

Best Buy is different. Best Buy is a very successful, well advertised electronics giant. Best Buy is diverse in their product offerings and is poised to take a risk. They have seen the numbers on the size and potential growth of the gaming industry. They have increased the presence of cell phones in their stores (which play games) have always sold ipods and computers (which play games) and also sell video game systems (which… you know). If they could merely impact Gamestop, they could gain quite a bit. They could possibly do to Gamestop what Gamestop has done to most everyone else: beat them and then either adopt them or watch them die.They have roughly xeroxed the back of the gamestop nametag already, copying their circle concept directly. Do they intend to be a mini electronics complex broken down into individual stores within a store, with one of them being a Gamestop?

And do you think Gamestop knows this? They have been acquiring quite a few other things lately of the digital variety. Do they perceive their brick and mortar store to be a cash cow that is aging quickly? Even though they make money, it costs money to run that business. There are excessive amounts of shipping that happens from stores to other stores. All those ringed, scratched games are shipped to the warehouse as defective where, if they are fixed, are shipped back out again. Ask your local Gamestop what they have had stolen from their store. Few (to none) of them can honestly say “nothing.” Many of the items they buy in can be defective, or become defective after purchase, which they also foot the bill for. Or rather, you foot the bill for in some degree. It’s expensive to them, so it’s expensive to you.

Maybe Gamestop will cheerfully pass the torch to Best Buy, ushering in a new brick and mortar games king. Maybe the acquisition of digital properties and beefing up of their website are the first notes of “closing time.” Previously it has been said that they make all their money on used games, but if the format starts to die, what choice do they have for survival besides going digital?

Ghostwriter

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Today my husband was at work, demonstrating how to use Log Me In (a remote login application). He logged into the computer I was using at home and started remotely controlling the mouse. Luckily, I wasn’t doing anything embarrassing like becoming a brony. I opened notepad to talk to him, and it made me think of this:

In case the concept is a little confusing, “He’s a ghost that writes to us! Ghostwriter.”

Tangential Learning

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I felt as though there was not as much game philosophy on this site as a I would like. In the effort to jump-start the topic in my mind, I’ve been watching Extra Credits and became a member of Escapist (the Escapist? Escapist magazine? Not sure how to reference that). I’m watching from the most current backwards, and about 14 weeks ago they did one on Tangential Learning in games.

I thought they might have mentioned Assassin’s Creed 2 and/or Brotherhood since the story is set in a rather accurate renaissance Italy. However, I may know why they didn’t.
Tangential learning can be understood as factual references. If a game references something without completely explaining it, players may be led to find out more about it themselves. As the video explains, that’s great! They note that not being clear or systematic in the way a game incorporates these elements can make it impossible for anyone to take the bait on tangential learning. The tricky part about this, which you see in Assassin’s Creed and things like the DaVinci Code are that you mix some very solid facts with wild conjecture and fiction. Though the buildings and some of the individuals you are interacting with are historically accurate, the overall story is not, and many of the characters are not. Players and readers can be left a bit confused on what actually happened.

The danger in tangential learning is assumption. If a few true things exist in a work of fiction, finding exactly what those are becomes important. Otherwise, a new story is created and accepted as fact. I’m going to veer into the far lanes of this topic for a minute to mention Sarah Palin, who fueled a little unintentional tangential learning. Here’s a Colbert Recap. It did fuel tangential learning, because people looked it up and realized she was wrong. However, Palin and some of her followers insisted that it was true (going as far as to change Wikipedia to defend her).

Even worse, some could use the idea of tangential learning to color their opinion as fact, which seems somewhat like propaganda. If you remember some of the strange things that were in Assassins Creed Brotherhood, you may get where I’m going with all this. Stephen Totillo wrote a fantastic article for Kotaku about the writer of AC:B. His name is Jeffrey Yohalem. He added historical-like things to create the story he wanted to tell, thus creating an alternate telling of history. Intentionally, he sort of Palin-ed the story, if you will. Most of the bolder assertions were tucked deep in the games puzzles, but they still guided the overall plot (which he also wrote). Even if we ignore the overarching story, the biographies of fictional Ezio still appear alongside historic Leonardo.

Maybe Extra Credit did not mention Assassins Creed because of this related dilemma. Maybe it is better to just take tangential learning for its merits, and celebrate the people who are subsequently educated. Maybe we should not judge or caution tangential learning just because some people will not be responsible with it, either in application or interpretation.

Girl Gaming

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Earlier I mentioned a post about girls in gaming. It was chosen for the Speak up post of the day on Kotaku. Jason Taylor (whose Kotaku page is gone) added this is the comments. In my opinion, it is a very concise account not just of women in gaming, but the discussion of women in gaming too. Genetics vs. society is often confused, and I can’t remember many pregnant game characters….



On a related note, I had a conversation between myself and another commenter on Kotaku. The other commenter said biology was the reason that more women don’t play games, not that women were not included in games. I thought that the biology of women did not exclude them from an interest in gaming, and that if anything, their biology gives them certain advantages in gaming. Hit the jump for the entire conversation, but be warned it is very long.

“/rant

I think the writer of this piece has failed to understand the general differences in genders from a psychological perspective and seemed to dwell on the superficial elements of “girl gamers.” (“It has a girl and some story to it so it MUST be attractive to more girl gamers!”)

As someone that’s been playing games since before the 8-bit revolution, I can appreciate games as both a gamer and a woman. Why? It’s not pandering to me. Sure, the animated blow-up dolls in the vast majority of stuff that comes from some developers (I’m mainly looking at you, Japan!) is highly offensive and comes off as wank-material for teenage boys, but the stuff that doesn’t shove tits in my face and has a male protagonist has been more entertaining to me (Half-Life, Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed) than games where my gender is presented as an “inclusive” element rather than a believable component of the game.

We don’t need to falsely pad the industry with women because girl gamers are a minority, that’ll just fill positions with unqualified people that happen to have different sex organs. I know several qualified female programmers, designers, artists and producers already.

Why are they a minority? Biology. That’s right, this industry is male-dominated because it attracts the behavioural characteristics more commonly found in males than females (in both development — women tend to not enjoy the sciences/engineering/tech as much as men — and gameplay).

Those of us that happen to enjoy videogames and happen to be women have been enjoying games essentially targeting “boys” for decades now and see no need to force the markets to eliminate what has attracted us to it so publishers can get a bigger piece of female demographic profits.

Do we need to add more explosions and shots of vehicles to Sex & the City, Desperate Housewives and daytime Soap Operas because a very small portion of male viewers turn in every episode? How about we add a male member to The View that talks about martial arts and guns?

The examples of games and companies mentioned above were successful because they were good games – not because they had female protagonists or pandered to women.

To say that female gamers were solely attracted to games because they could play a female character is somewhat uninformed and a little offensive to me – it basically says that women are shallow and superficial enough to only be attracted to something because it represents them. How many people played the original Metroid and didn’t care when they found out Samus Aran was a girl at the end? How many female cosplayers still play Link from the Legend of Zelda series?

/end rant” —Demosthenes

 Bondage_Zombie (who wrote the speak-up topic) replied:
“I appreciated what she had to say, too, even though it made it painfully obvious that she didn’t read my article. It’s a hot-button issue, but i’m glad she took the time to post.

Everyone invoked biology as a reason that there aren’t more females gaming, but that’s a false note. Women ingest entertainment media just like men do and that means there are more avenues for it to find appeal, whether it’s games with a strong narrative or without.

I simply quoted a new market research study that asked leading questions to try to quantify their perception of how and why females game, but I didn’t use it exclusively or heavily rely on it; I used it as a springboard for my own writing, just like she used it as a springboard.

it’s all gravy .”

But she replied with this:

 “A good story and the availability of strong female leads help their games appeal to women” Did you or did you not write this?

I read your article and this line is what struck a chord in me.

Also, my rant is also directed to the many responses to this article that seem to think that artificially padding the industry with women and making more female characters instantly makes things somehow better.”

I responded regarding biology in her original post:

“Biology?

Biologically, I don’t think that women are less capable of enjoying science or video games than men. I think it’s much less about development and more about exposure. You were exposed to games long ago and enjoyed it. In fact, as a woman who likes games you are proving that women are quite capable of enjoying the current popular genres available.

Comparing all of gaming to Sex and the City is to compare apples to oranges. You would have to compare Sex and the City to a specific title, perhaps, Duke Nukem. Neither are really that concerned with attracting both sexes. But some other TV shows are, and some other games are too. Call of Duty was very inclusive with the “there’s a soldier in all of us” commercial for Black Ops.

I’m not sure how the inclusion of females as positive leading roles in games as a way to attract women that do not currently game is “uninformed” or “offensive”. In general, I don’t think the discussion applies to people who are already gaming, be they male or female. To say that it is a matter of Biology, and that including more women would mean including people that were unqualified definitely seems offensive and uninformed.”

 She replied thusly:
“Haha. If you don’t believe that the male and female brain are different as a matter of evolution and biology instead some misguided concept that some evil patriarchal society has suppressed women away from such fields, we really don’t have much to say to one another.

Our culture has become 100% accommodating to women these past few decades and, as a result, we’re short-changing both genders in a vain attempt to enforce a uniformity that goes against our biology.

Some women excel at the sciences, math and engineering – bloody geniuses, even. Unfortunately, there are more men with interest in the subject than women and it has nothing to do with exposure – people gravitate to what they like regardless of accommodations. In fact, the American education system favours women over men now. The genders learn differently and since our society’s education system is moving more toward the way the female mind learns, we’re seeing a major decline in the number of male graduates (as well as graduates in the sciences and engineering) — sadly, that little tidbit of info isn’t receiving any attention because of certain agendas in our commercial and political systems.

I didn’t just list a single show – Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives and The View are all shows that target women as their primary demographic and yet we never hear anyone having a whinge about how there aren’t enough men portrayed in them. The “There’s a soldier in all of us” campaign goes against your point as there are NO playable female characters in Black Ops.

On your final point; to include women just for the sake of having someone with ovaries in your workplace is EXTREMELY offensive and uninformed. If a company were to be given a choice between two candidates for a job and one candidate was more qualified but lacked the proper sex organs and ended up getting the position, that’d be sexist (and sexism offends me greatly).”



I replied:
“Hello again,

I do not believe in any fictional villainous societies.

If American society has become “100% accommodating to women”, then why from 1970 to 2004 has the disparity in wages between women and men only risen 18%, still 20% behind men (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics)?

I never said women did not excel in different fields. I did not say that the American Educational system should keep favoring women, as you said it does.

I didn’t claim that you only listed one show, but merely restated only one show. The point that I made is valid with any show that you would like to list, or any combination of shows.

The inclusion of Black Ops does not defeat my point. I included Black Ops not to imply that there are women characters available throughout the game, but to imply that a given game or show can target whoever it wants through marketing, and one way to do that is to include females as players of the game, as the commercial did. I regret that my lack of clarity allowed for inaccurate inferences.

I did not say that men and women do not have different biology, I said that their different biology does not impact their ability to play or enjoy games. Both men and women are fully capable, biologically, to enjoy video games along with many other forms of media.

And yes, brains are different. A study done a few years ago found that women have better peripheral vision, a better ability to predict outcomes in relationships, and are better able to multitask. These biological traits do not exclude women from gaming, but instead indicate that they may excel in gaming.

As a side note, many studies have indicated that the number of women playing games is approaching the number of men playing games. According to the ESA, there are more adult women gamers than there are gaming males 17 and under. The split these days is believed to be around 55/45 guys to gals. Not much of a difference at all! The trend is mirroring internet usage, meaning that originally men used the internet more but now that time has passed a gap no longer remains. Even if you were right in claiming this biological gap that kept most women from gaming, they would be quickly evolving out of that theory.

Padding the industry with a bunch of useless women would be a horrible idea, but you seem to suggest that this is the only possible alternative, or that I suggested this was the only possible alternative. I did not.”


She replied:

The disparity in wages is directly correlated to the same statistics that show us: women are generally not present as long in the workplace (often don’t work as many hours/days as their male counterparts), more likely to use sick days, and more likely to lodge lawsuits against a company. The women that do equal work are paid equally to mail counterparts. The illusion of a ‘glass ceiling’ is often referenced but yet the ‘glass floor’ is NEVER mentioned by these same people (how many female trash collectors, construction workers and miners died on the job last year?).

The point of this article was: a need for more female characters and better stories in games to attract female gamers (which I disagree with). When Black Ops failed to supply either of these, its inclusion of one woman in a commercial juxtaposed to many men isn’t really much of a “See?! This game is for girls, too!” marketing campaign as a “See? We have a token girl in our commercial so we’re not sexist!”

The Biological gulf between the genders lies in the way we approach problem solving and activity: Statistically, men are more apt to enter direct conflict and competition against others. Women are, statistically, more versed in subterfuge and social dynamics. FPS games, as an example, are nothing more than a digital representation of the old Cowboys & Indians/Cops & Robbers young boys tend to play rather than playing House or hosting a doll party with their Barbies.

Do boys play House and girls play Cowboys & Indians? They sure do but they’re not the majority. There have been several studies illustrating how gender roles existed for a reason long before society’s imposition and there’s a reason men were usually the hunters while the women were the gatherers.

Games still draw from those primordial elements of our biology and we tend to find fewer girl shooters (hunters) as a result of that. 



I replied:

I mentioned wages because you said American society was 100% accommodating, and it is not. I only used that extreme example to point out your extreme example. In any given profession where men are working as much as women it’s more like 5%. But, we can disregard it, as it has nothing to do with games.

In regards to the Call of Duty commercial, there were actually three women in the commercial vs. twelve men, which is a realistic ratio. I used it as an example because it was mentioned in the original post by Bondage_Zombie. The commercial could have only used men as players but included women as players too. (Since the ratio is three to twelve, it is arguable that if there were more female leads in Call of Duty, more women would be represented in the commercial too.)

The point of the article was: more female characters and better stories attract female gamers, which you disagree with. You said the reason more girls don’t play games was a matter of biology. I think that the nature of games, along with the current number of women playing games, prove that the biology of women does not keep them from having an interest in gaming.

You said that women are statistically more versed in subterfuge and social dynamics due to their biology, but these elements are present in gaming. There are games that even mimic playing “house” at times, such as Fable 3 and the more obvious Sims games.

I agree that the chief reason women weren’t hunters was indeed biological: they have children and nurse babies. If they are going to be pregnant, having babies and nursing babies, it is logical for them to be gatherers. Babies on the hunt would be tricky.

Women tend to biologically have better dexterity and a higher threshold for pain than men, so they could probably do alright as hunters too (even if they were shorter and weaker), just like they presently do alright at gaming.

Men, on the other hand, would clearly fail at having babies, could probably manage to gather if they had to (since there were also horticultural and agricultural societies in addition to hunter-gatherer societies) but also do alright at gaming.

Gaming, therefore, is not a matter of biology in the same way that societies are a matter of biology.

Also, all video games are not about hunters (shooters). There are games centered on puzzles, action, RPG, FPS, music rhythm, adventure, racing, and so on. Even the ones that are shooters involve more than simply hunting. To say that interest in gaming is a biological issue ignores the current diversity of game play offered.

The fact that women are playing games more than before suggests that it’s not about biology, as women are not biologically changing into men. Assuming that women have biological factors that include “house” type activities or gathering does not exclude them from gaming. These activities take place in gaming, because there are many types of games.

Therefore, the inherent biology of women does not exclude them from gaming. The biological factors of women seems to suggest the opposite: Due to their biology, women should enjoy games.   



She replied:

The biology referred to in the shooters (hunting) is but a single example. The other genres may entice a larger portion of female players but the concept of a complex technological device that requires multiple buttons presses falls into the male category of interest more so than the female category. It’s only recent (less than 30 years) that videogames didn’t require a technological knowledge base to access. This accessibility and lessening demand for technological prowess has made it appealing to more women over the years.

Also, where did you pull the “women are more dexterous” from? I’ve read studies that yielded results directly opposite to that.   


I replied:
The home console has been available since the early 70s, or about 40 years ago, and the controllers were rather simple: often a knob and a button. I assumed we were talking about home console and computer games, so I wasn’t considering anything akin to Higinbotham’s “Tennis for Two” of 1958, or Douglas’s “OXO” of 1952, or Ralph Baer’s attempts in 1951. These games usually used a knob and button controller too, but were rarely available to those not in the field.

There is a Time Magazine article from the late 60s titled “Employment: Caution: Women at Work”. In addition to saying that women are more dexterous, this article explains the time line and reasoning for more women entering the workforce.The infant birth rate dropped in many countries after World War 2, and there was not enough manpower to keep up with the demands of rising economies. If women in America didn’t show a strong presence in the workplace until the time of this article, they would not have had the same early exposure to technology as men in the field. Also, “GI-Bill educated ex-servicemen” were taking many of the “professional and technical” jobs, dropping the rate of women in this particular field from 45% in 1940 to 37% in 1968. Additionally, the introduction of the pill made women more hire-able. Because they were less likely to leave work for biological reasons, they were seen as more reliable workers. (Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate against them as well.)

To be specific, I was referring to manual dexterity. The idea of women being more manually dexterous than men has been a long upheld notion. This has even been given as a reason that women were more attuned to the delicate tasks of house-wifery. There have been more recent studies that have shown that men are as dexterous or more dexterous manually than women, but it is logical that we could also attribute that to advancing technology. Studies have shown that show video games improve manual dexterity. The modern male taking this test is likely to have years of practice with video games and other technological devices, thus improving their manual dexterity.  


(here is the Time article, which I did not link to in the post)



She replied:

Didn’t doctors in the 1960s prescribe cigarettes to patients for stress? I’d find any source from that era highly dubious at best, especially ones that claim women have been and are more dexterous than men. This reminds me of the same mindset that actually believes women are somehow more agile than men (a false notion presented in many videogames).

As for the pre-modern era consoles, those machines were not only expensive, they required some technological know-how to setup and use. Hell, the “first” videogame was believed by many to be on an old oscilloscope at an engineering school. 


I replied:
Throwing out any scientific knowledge before the modern area seems somewhat reckless, but that is off topic. The “first” video game in concept was a patent for a “cathode ray tube amusement device” in 1948. One that I mentioned before, “Tennis for Two,” did use an oscilloscope and an analog computer, and was interactive through the use of controllers with a knob and a button. The one before that at an engineering school was “Bouncing Ball” at MIT on their Whirlwind Computer in 1950. It did use an oscilloscope, but “Bouncing Ball” was not interactive. It’s a precursor to video games, but not a video game itself.

Thank you for replying back and continuing to engage in discussion. Since you doubt the validity of my sources and we are no longer discussing the biology of man and woman in regards to video games, I believe we have come to an impasse in terms of this discussion.

Microsoft Farts in your General Direction

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 “Microsoft spent the better part of the last decade in a legal battle against the continent of Europe. At the same time they were mired in that international legal dispute, they were fighting a case brought against them by the United States of America. Basically, western civilization itself was battling against Microsoft in the courts for the better part of a decade and Bill Gates is still toweling himself off each night with the silky hides of endangered baby seals. Threatening Microsoft with legal action as a single human being is like trying to attack a hive of Africanized murder bees with a piece of gum you found in a urinal. That’s not to say one person couldn’t conceivably rout Microsoft in a legal dispute; after all it was a single, well-placed torpedo that brought down the entire Death Star. But the difference is the Death Star was fiction and Luke wasn’t demonstrably guilty of severe violations of XBL’s terms of service.”  — Seth, “The Village of the Banned”, 1up.com

This article talked about the Xbox Live banned forum, which is essentially to Xbox Live as the cornfield is to Kotaku, except people don’t end up there on a whim.   

Bulleted List: Acer Iconia

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The Acer Iconia is two tablet screens hinged together that run on a standard Windows OS. They can be linked like one big screen or act like two independent screens.

This is pretty high on the gimmick factor. It could be hard to accurately control without a physical mouse and keyboard. If you were considering a tablet, this would be a clunky and expensive alternative. But if you ever wanted linked tablets, or are a sucker for versatility (that would be me) there are some clever abilities that raise this laptop, or dual tablet, to an impressive level of usefulness. These are the reasons I am filling my coin jar:

DUAL SCREENS
Nintendo’s handhelds have proven the effectiveness of two screens, and now at least one phone is following suit. You can put most anything on either screen, and the screens can be independent or connected. Two screens lets you do some basic functions on the go, like watching tv while web browsing or viewing pictures on one screen while compiling a photo album on another. I have often wished my laptop screen was a little bigger, but that just means a bigger laptop to lug around.

KEYBOARD
When you rest ten fingers on the bottom screen, a keyboard automatically appears. Being completely a touch screen means that it’s somewhat difficult to type on since you can’t feel the individual keys. However, you can easily load other types of keyboards.This is impractical for most, but would be amazing for typing in Japanese. I always have to mess around on windows to type in Japanese with my keyboard, and that’s still a bit odd because you have to type everything in romanji. I think this is why there are so many Japanese instruction books that exclusively use romanji. You can also choose to write on the bottom screen, and their recognition software will turn it into type.

DESIGN
Sure, you can write on tablets, and buy these to use a pen on your computer, but with the iconica you can use the programs you cant get on a tablet and write on the screen like you can’t on (most) desktops. I previously wanted the Dell Inspiron duo. The idea is basically the same, except with a rotating screen creating a tablet to write on. However, I am concerned about the hinges that spin the screen. I am not claiming they are flimsy or would break easy… But if they did break, I think you would be screwed. And, if I could write directly on the screen, that may eliminate my need for sketchbooks altogether. Not that I will stop buying them.

BOOKS
This video is for a different device called “Kno” and is specifically designed for text books and note taking. I have no seen any use of the Iconia sideways as a book reader, but I hope that it has this functionality, or could add this functionality. Sure, it would be a bit clunky to hold it sideways, but carting around books, sketchbooks, and a computer is a bit clunky too.

Used Price Shakedown

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I was looking at Destructiod’s Buy and sell games powered by Glyde, and I occurred to me that I could buy a lot more games for my dollar. I prefer brick and mortar stores, but we have all known for a long time that GameStop tries to squeeze every last ounce of profit from their used games. Here’s a quick Shakedown for a randomly selected group of games:

GameStop:
Black Ops: 54.99
Portal 2: 34.99 (sale price)
Crysis 2: 34.99 (sale price)
Total: $124.97 or 89.98 B2G1 (with edge card, $112.47 or $80.98)

That’s actually a little better than GameStop’s average, but only because two of the randomly selected games were on sale. $90 looks like a good deal until you check at Destructiod and Amazon:
Destructoid (with Glyde):
Black ops: $28.25
Crysis 2: $26.00
Portal 2: 
shipping: $4 – $12
Total: $87 – $95


Amazon:
Black Ops: from $29.99
Crysis 2: from $29.95
Portal 2: from $32.00
Total: $91.94 (before shipping)

So, Destructoid is very close to Amazon in price, but is like a B2G1 sale at Gamestop. I have considered trying Gamefly, but I like building my collection. I like that Destructoid gets a share of the profits, because I feel that they are what Kotaku used to be.

I Disagree

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I don’t know how to extract the video, but here is the link :
Step one: LA Step two: Rethink game collection.
It’s not the article that I disagree with, but the video. Something seems excessively extreme about it, yes? For a while I have only been reading Kotaku when there is news, so maybe this is what they do when there is no news. Now that E3 is winding down, maybe this will be the type of thing they do. I hope it isn’t, because this story was so strange to me, and so out of place, because the premise itself seemed… false.

Gamers always game all the time because they can’t stop the constant gaming? Maybe I’m just annoyed by collective speak. I can understand that writing for Kotaku and having your own gaming blog would lead you to say something like that. But from my understanding of gaming, and the reflection of Kotaku itself… that’s not what “we” do. So its contradicting for someone to say “All we do is game” when people who comment on the site and run it don’t conform to that.

Basically, I neither agree with nor believe her. If all she did was game, there is no way that she would not have shipped that stuff with her. If all she does is game, and even 20 minutes in the car was too long without a game, that car would have had more games in it. 
Real addicts prepare better for such situations. I routinely stood on a chair to play midnight club in college because the only good place to put our TV was in the top of the closet. I take four (sometime five) fully charged handhelds on any road trip longer than an hour. (Where I live, if you are driving more than an hour, you are probably driving for three hours before you get to anywhere worth going.) There is no way that, among my things, I would not be able to include many gaming systems and games, even if I had to leave the cases at home and pack the systems in odd left over spaces between the boxes in my car. If she were such a serious gamer, she would have tried harder.
I think she was exaggerating, trying to relate to “us gamers” and I don’t think it worked. This is probably one of the few things that I am taking too seriously.