Tag Archive for 'video games'

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18
Sep
2007

All around douchebag Jack Thompson goes after GTA IV. Again.

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .
original article

Rockstar Games is busy working on the next installment of their hugely popular Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game franchise. GTA IV is scheduled for release sometime early 2008. The GTA franchise has been, unfairly so, I believe, in the news for quite for a while for being too violent. Some people are going even so far as to claim that the game is a murder simulator training otherwise healthy human beings to be murderers.

One of the most vocal critics of the GTA games is one Jack “Jackhole” Thompson, all around douchebag. To fully explain his douchebaggery would take far too long, so I’m just going to refer anyone interested to Google. The evidence is everywhere. For kicks start by reading up on Janet Reno and Jack Thompson. If nothing, you’ll get a good laugh out of it.

Jackhole’s latest crusade against GTA and Take Two Interactive, the publisher of the game, takes him to yet another threat of a lawsuit or as if Jachole puts it “govern yourself accordingly, or else”. Yes, that does sound exactly like a schoolyard threat. Kinda makes you wonder who gets to call themselves a lawyer in this country, doesn’t it?

Jackhole is claiming that a character in the game is actually him, and since the game has the player kill this character in one of the missions of the game, Rockstar Games is “targeting” him for murder.

As usual, Jackhole’s arguments are full of holes.

It appears that the only resemblance to Jackhole this fictional in-game character has is that they both are lawyers. Well, in as much as a fictional character can be a lawyer. But I suppose since Jackhole is about to lose his bar association membership, he’s also soon going to be a fictional lawyer. So I guess there is some similarity here.

The in-game character doesn’t bear any physical resemblance to Jackhole, is named Goldberg (not Thompson), lives in New York (not Miami) and is a Second Amendment expert (not a First Amendment idiot like Jackhole). There simply isn’t any similarities between the in-game character and Jackhole anywhere else than in Jackhole’s delusional mind.

That has never, of course, stopped Jackhole from going after anyone. So he’s threatening Take Two Interactive with an unspecified legal threat unless the scenes of this in-game character’s killing are removed from the game. Take Two has until 5pm September 21st 2007 to remove the scenes. Or else.

Yes. He really says “or else”.

Anyway, the absolute best part of Jackhole’s little hissy fit is that he’s done the exact same thing he’s accusing Rockstar Games for. Except that he actually referred to a real person. Pot, meet kettle, he’s black.

In October 10th 2005 Jackhole wrote a video game script he called a Modest Video Game Proposal. In the “script” he’s depicting a murder of a person named Paula Eibel, a CEO for a video game company “Take This”. In 2005 Take Two Interactive had Paul Eibeler as the CEO.

So, if he gets to sue Take Two over a fictional character that has no resemblance to him, he should really talk to a real lawyer because his ass should be in a court room for the same reason sometime soon after he “wins” against Take Two. His “script”, after all, leaves absolutely no doubt whatsoever whom he’s murdering in it.

-TPP


06
Aug
2007

Yet another anti-video game law ruled unconstitutional, this time in California

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , .
original article

GamePolitics.com reports that a federal district court judge in California has ruled a 2005 anti-video game law unconstitutional.

The bill, which was signed as law by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was championed by a long-time video gaming critic Leland Yee, currently a California State Senator.

Let’s see who’s paying the legal fees, a millionaire Governor or the California State tax payers.

-TPP


05
Aug
2007

ICE raids mod chippers. The US is much safer today.

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .
original article

ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency in charge of, among other things, keeping illegal immigrants out of the country raided 32 mod chipping “operators” earlier this week in 16 states. The operation was a cooperative effort with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). ESA, unsurprisingly, applauded the raids wholeheartedly.

The rest of the country, however, aren’t seeing things quite in the same light ICE and ESA are. Especially gamers. The reaction to the raids has been overwhelming and 100% negative. Even the venerable John Dvorak felt compelled to speak out against the raids.

One of the best written counterpoints to ICE’s and ESA’s black-and-white view of the world is a forum post on Xbox Scene by twistedsymphony titled The Legality Of Modding, and how everyone is a criminal according to the DMCA. It raises several questions about ESA’s motivations, the PR spin put on the raids and modding video game consoles in general.

Technically speaking the people raided might all be guilty of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The raids are, however, yet another sign of how utterly ridiculous the DMCA is.

-TPP


22
Jun
2007

Me, a game designer

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , .
original article

Microsoft is running a game design contest sponsored by Doritos (huh?).

I couldn’t help but enter my most awesomenest game idea in the contest. It puts a player in charge of fixing a video game console with chronic overheating problems. Gee, that sounds awfully familiar.

Somehow I think my chances of winning are quite remote.

-TPP


18
Jun
2007

Microsoft continues to deny quality problems with the XBox 360

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .
original article

The XBox 360 video game console is built by Microsoft. It was launched November 2005 in the United States and it cost $400.

The early manufacturing run(s) have widely been reported as having pretty serious quality issues. Those early units are failing at alarming frequency, in fact at such alarming frequency Microsoft offered to repair any 2005 manufactured XBox 360s for free, but only until the end of 2006. If you didn’t get a free repair, it’ll cost you $140 plus shipping to get it repaired by Microsoft.

I belong to a large online gaming community called Seasoned Gamers. We’ve got close to 1,000 active members. A lot of us own XBox 360s. The failure rates among the members are nowhere near the 2 – 3 percent range Microsoft wants us to believe, that is when they actually do talk about numbers. Four months ago the SG members had reported over 50 dead XBox 360s. There were several who had had more than one die on them.

If you round the SG members’ numbers up generously (for Microsoft) assuming there are 1,000 active members (there are less), and that everyone owns an XBox 360 (they don’t), you end up with a 5% failure rate within our community. During the past four months more XBox 360 units have died, so the failure rate among the members of SG is much closer to 10% than 5%, and it is probably higher than 10% by now. What Microsoft is saying and what SG members are seeing is statistically significantly different. Microsoft is basically full of shit when they claim the failure rates are not significant and are within “normal boundaries” or failure rates in electronic devices.

Yet Microsoft continues to publicly deny a problem, as is evident in an interview by Dean Takahashi, a well known journalist who has written books about the video gaming industry and the XBox in particular. In his interview of Todd Homdahl, Vice President of Gaming and Xbox Products Group at Microsoft directly responsible for the quality of the XBox 360 product, Dean tries to get a straight answer from Mr. Homdahl regarding the XBox 360 failure rates. The interview is a bizarre game of hide and seek with Dean trying his best to get an answer. Mr. Homdahl isn’t budging though and keeps evading the question with platitudes, half-truths and marketing bullshit.

Mr. Homdahl sums up Microsoft’s position with this wonderful statement:

We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it.

Way to go Todd! That’s exactly the message people with 100% failure rates need to hear. We know you really care, you’re just one of those shy silent types that aren’t really comfortable in saying you care. We know.

-TPP


05
Jun
2007

New York State anti-video game bills getting more opposition

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .
original article

GamePolitics.com is reporting two separate news about the New York State anti-video game bills are getting some heat from people concerned about them.

The CEO of Vicarious Visions, a video game developer from Albany, NY, writes a rather excellent editorial in Times Union, a newspaper in Albany. The editorial mentions the failed attempts of legislating video games in other states, and how the court battles there have cost tax payers almost $2M USD. He’s warning the New York State legislators from going the same path given the sorry state of New York State finances. He’s recommending the legislators concentrate their legislative efforts in encouraging the use of the ESRB ratings and educating parents of the ratings and parental controls already used by the video gaming industry and retailers.

More importantly, it seems the legislators themselves are waking up to the realities of the two bills. Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson recently challenged Andrew “Virginia Tech in every sentence” Lanza in the New York State Senate about the constitutional concerns of his bill. Lanza remained clueless, as always. I’m very encouraged by the fact that he’s, in fact, finally getting challenged by someone over this issue. If the bills don’t get struck down before Eliot Spitzer signs them, the legal fees will come down on us New York State tax payers.

-TPP


22
May
2007

New York State Senator Lanza continues to milk the Virginia Tech tragedy for political gain

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .
original article

The anti-video game bill championed by New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and New York State Senator Andrew Lanza has been passed by the New York State Senate in four days after getting introduced. Looks like the debate over the bill was thorough and comprehensive. Not.

Andrew Lanza continues his blatant exploitation of the Virginia Tech tragedy to promote his misguided attempts to save the kids from these awful video games. His press release about the passing of the bill says:

“The recent release of ‘V-Tech Massacre,’ a sick game which exploits the Virginia Tech University tragedy, is a painful reminder of the culture of violence which has severe consequences on our youth and society”

Wow. That’s wrong in so many levels it boggles the mind and begs questions as to Andrew Lanza’s ability to effectively legislate the video gaming industry since is blatantly obvious he knows nothing about it.

First of all, the game was created by an Australian, so it’s rather interesting why it has any bearing on “our” society. He could’ve pulled out all the guns and dug up some Islamist game as well, but that would require him to actually have some knowledge of video games. Instead, he clings onto a sensationalist, headline gathering soundbyte to camouflage his bill as something that could’ve prevented the Virginia Tech tragedy. That’s kinda interesting as well, because the shooter did not play video games. Instead he wrote poems and plays. Let’s ban those next, eh?

Secondly, the game was created by a hobbyist and is not commercially available, so it wouldn’t be subjected by the very bill Lanza is marketing for…even if the game was made by an US citizen. Again, Lanza demonstrates shocking lack of knowledge about the subject matter he’s drafting bills for. Or he knows this and is blatantly exploiting the fact other people know even less about video games than he does. Either way, he’s unfit to legislate the video game industry either as a clueless dumbass or an unscrupulous manipulative liar.

That being said, his bill does have some redeeming qualities. It contains some elements that would increase consumer awareness and accuracy of the video game ratings present in every commercially available video game in the country. The number one problem with the video game rating system in the United States is that parents are either unaware of them or completely ignore them. The bill is doing something to address that, which is good

However, as GamePolitics.com reports, since the bill also goes on to criminalize the sale of mature rated video games to minors, it will be struck down as unconstitutional by the courts. Lanza and Spitzer must’ve been aware of this before the bill was introduced, I have absolutely no doubt about it. As such, they would’ve known it would be fruitless to introduce and pass the bill as far as making it a law goes. Therefore they must’ve had other reasons for introducing the bill. I wonder when Lanza is up for re-election again…

Anyway, as a New York State resident, I will foot the legal bills, and indirectly fund Senator Lanza’s re-election campaign. Make no mistake about it, that’s what this bill is all about. Hugging babies and saving the children have always been a popular campaigning tricks. I’m just hoping Senator Lanza would use his own money to campaign for office, instead of mine. I consider what he’s doing to be fraud.

-TPP


09
May
2007

Manifesto Games’ CEO’s open letter to Eliot Spitzer

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , .
original article

Manifesto Games’ CEO Greg Costikyan has written an open letter to Eliot Spitzer regarding his anti video game legislation efforts. Manifesto Games is a video game retailer based in New York City. Mr. Costikyan happens to be a former classmate of Eliot Spitzer.

The letter is an excellent summary of everything that’s wrong with Spitzer’s vote buying and money wasting effort:

In summation, therefore, I urge you to eschew what would undoubtedly be a fruitless, immoral, costly, injurious, unwarranted, and inappropriate attempt to infringe on the free speech rights of game creators–and perhaps instead to consider what measures the State of New York might take to position our region as an excellent place to create and develop games.

-TPP


02
May
2007

Design a video game mod – get arrested for being a terrorist

Published in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , , .
original article

A 17-year-old high school student was arrested, his home was raided, and he was transferred to a special-ed school when the school board found out he had created a Counterstrike map of his high school. The police was called in to investigate terroristic threats against the school. There was no explicit threat. The student hadn’t written a threatening email or letter, he hadn’t talked about attacking the school, he had no weapons, nor morbid interest in anything violent. All he did was design a 3D representation of his high school in a video game.

Counterstrike is a first-person shooter (FPS) video game where you play either a terrorist (robbers) or a counter-terrorist agent (cops). It allows users to create maps over which the game can be played. Its popularity is directly related to the high number of user generated maps (or mods, as they’re called). If it wasn’t for these mods, the game would’ve long been forgotten.

What makes the story even more “interesting” is that the student is Chinese. Oh, man! Double-whammy! An Asian kid playing video games. He MUST be a mass murderer in training just like that other Asian kid, right?

But the story just keeps on getting better. When the police raided his home, apparently they found a weapon. The weapon was promptly confiscated so that it couldn’t be used against the students at the high school. The student, after all, is a suspected mass murderer. His weapon of choice? A hammer. Yes, a hammer. At someone’s home. I am not making this shit up.

Poor kid. He’s obviously gifted in computers and architecture to have been able to create the map in the first place, but instead of being encouraged to develop his talents, he’s being transported to a special-ed school. The whole thing is complete insanity.

Creating mods for the games has been popular ever since Doom first allowed it years ago. It has long been a vehicle for amateur video game designers to showcase their talents and in some cases to actually become professional video game designers. Several of the more popular mods have been commercial blockbusters making their creators rich. Creating a good mod takes considerable talent in multiple disciplines; computer graphics, 3D modeling, video game design and general computing skills. Before the Virginia Tech shooting some schools actually encouraged their students to make mods for school projects. Students were even recognized for such accomplishments.

And now that the issue has boiled over and become public, the school board is bickering about the board members’ motivations to clear this kid’s name. Some of the school board members are accusing the members who called a meeting to resolve the issue for pandering to the Chinese community in the district to buy their votes. What utter bullshit. I hope to God these assholes don’t get their kids in trouble with the school board, cause it seems it’s impossible to get them to do shit.

-TPP


30
Apr
2007

Arrrrr – I am a software pirate

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , .
original article

Kieron Gillen has written an excellent article in the latest issue of The Escapist about the early childhood computer game piracy he and his buddies experienced.

His story about his childhood is as if he had written a story about my childhood. I remember the copy parties with friends after school and on weekends. We shamelessly copied every computer game on the Commodore64 we could get our hands on. And we had fun doing it. Almost all of these childhood friends of mine now work with computers. That would have not happened without our rampant piracy during our early teenage years.

-TPP