Check out the crowd gathered to watch Guillaume Patry ("AMD_Grrrr..." from Canada) vanquish Igor Campolina ("HellGhost" from Brazil) in StarCraft: Brood War at the World Cyber Games 2002.

And this was the semi-finals in the loser's bracket! Looks like gaming has some slight potential as a spectator sport.

Great letter to the editor in the NYTimes today by Isabel Walcott, founder and former president of Smartgirl.org:

I was amused to see "Payoff = Points: A False Equation'' (Oct. 24)[an article by Janelle Brown about the changing nature of video games based on increasing age of the average gamer], about the changing tastes of the "maturing" computer game player. The industry has seen demand change as young and teenage boys reach their 30's and beyond; they now want lasting experiences, complexity, multi-tasking, humor and creativity from their gaming. They don't just want to score: they want a relationship!

As a longtime researcher of the computer gaming interests of teenage girls, I know that these are the very game characteristics that they have always yearned for. If the industry hadn't virtually ignored girls for the last 20 years, it wouldn't be playing catch-up now. Hiring a lot of women in creative management roles at these companies might just solve their design problems.

I found a store that sells refurbished GBA's for $50.00. I can even get a fushia one!

Sam Hart's intelligent critique of Nintendo's business practices on GeekComix is particularly relevant today. Nintendo is currently under fire from the EU regarding these same business practices, and will have to pay US$147 in fines (see NYTimes story).

Nintendo has definitely made its name as a family-friendly, kid-safe company with the cutest, sweetest avatars on the block. But it sounds now like they were a hard-hearted greedy corporation engaging in illegal strong-arm tactics to artificially set the prices of their products.

Oh, Nintendo. Don't make me cry.

Delve into the world of pro-Quake controversy - nationalism, pride and financial reward have converged to create some International online confusion.

Shack E.S. is covering questions about the hot-contest between Russia and the United States over Quake 3 here at the World Cyber Games. Matt Huey's post "WCG heads into third night" describes the debate over whether Cooller purposefully lost his game to Ni3 to keep Zero4 from advancing to the next round, while linking to some of the flame-filled boards covering the same topic elsewhere.

The nationalistic flap mars what has otherwise been an exciting, eye-opening event so far. Countries such as Hungary and China have put themselves on the first-person shooter map for the first time, and they're two countries that represent the growing trend for more and more countries to become competitive in the pro gaming world. It was just a few years ago that Chinese Q3 duellers were getting wooped on by New Zealand stars like Mirage: now their best players are capable of running with the best in the world (Rocketboy finished 5-0 and beat Daler in his pool, and Jibo represented himself well too). In the midst of two gaming superpowers going to war, the rest of the world's skill is coming closer together.

Greetings from the land of the morning calm! This week's updates (October 30th-November 5th) by GGA editor Jane Pinckard (that's me) and from co-editor/assistant/bag-carrier Justin Hall will be logged in from Daejeon, South Korea - "city of innovative traffic" and host to the 2nd ever World Cyber Games.

there is an acceptance to the notion that as gaming technology and complexity increases so will the production cost and market price. but this is not only premature, but bordering on absurdity...

Soon after we got our Japanese Playstation2 in beautiful Ocean Blue, we went shopping for games. In the electronic wonderland of Akihabara we came across the game Rez. "Have you ever played it?" Justin asked me. "No," I replied, "it's like a music shooting game, right? Seems sorta boring."

Ever on the media consumer, Justin insisted, "But this one comes with a trance vibrator!"
I looked at the package curiously. "I wonder what that's for? It costs nearly 2000 yen more!"
"Let's get it!"

When in NYC this past weekend, we decided to check out the film Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore�fs latest commentary on the ills of American culture, in this case the subject is violence s it relates to gun control. On a brisk overcast day, my friend and I set out to see what the all the rave reviews were about.

Hong Kong-based Lik Sang has been among the Internet's finest purveyors of tools for hacking and cracking your game consoles and trafficing data between your computer and your GameBoy. Their e-commerce site went down a few weeks back, and while they have returned to the web, they no longer have "the good stuff." They've posted an explanation about a pending lawsuit, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft vs. Lik Sang, and their users have responded with a lengthy string of comments.

"A nation in Palestine is being uprooted: their houses are being devastated, their establishments are being destroyed, their lands are being occupied, their trees are being pulled out, their property is being confiscated, their cities are being besieged, their schools are being closed, their sanctuaries are being violated, their sacred structures are being made permitted, their children are being beaten, their hands are being broken, their bones are being crushed and they are imprisoned, tortured and slain. They are even prevented from crying and moaning. The whole world is plotting to ignore them. None hears them moan. None sees the trains of their martyrs. None says a word of support to their rights.

This is the tale of the game of "UnderAsh" in short..."

The "Top 10 FAQ Pages" on GameFAQs.com are a great way to see what people are actually playing (for example, years after its release, people were still trying to figure out how exactly to optimally cross-dress in Final Fantasy VII).

Today, looking for help on the "Temple of Tyr" quest in Neverwinter Nights, I saw that the number 2 game FAQ listed was "Animal Crossing" for Nintendo's Game Cube.

Animal Crossing?

Acclaim is getting desperate or else they decided that "adult" gaming, a la Grand Theft Auto, translates into "nudity" and Lara Croft was too clothed. As reported by Steve Rhodes on Bud.com, the Wall Street Journal has a short article on BMX XXX, "the first major title to include live-action footage of nudity." Acclaim is spending as much as $4 million on an ad campaign with the slogan "Keep it dirty."

Jane speaks without stopping her fingers: "Wow I think I'm becoming obsessed with knitting. It's taking the place of video games."
"Uh-huh."
"It's slightly repetitive, it's not that hard, but as you go slowly, you can think of patterns you might want to put into it. And you get to see the results, like levelling up - the results are pretty quick to start manifesting. And it's very satisfying creating a material thing."
"More satisfying than video gaming?"
"Differently satisfying."
"You don't want to leave the house, do you? You just want to knit and knit and knit, and game and game and game."
"Knitting is the new gaming."

Somehow the company responsible for Laura Croft, buxom action-archaeologist, they're having trouble recruiting women to design and test their games. This is particularly a problem for the next Laura Croft game, because as a Core spokesman says, "A women's mind would bring a different angle to the game" (as opposed to the angles men have already brought to Ms. Croft's gameplay?). As the BBC puts it, Women shun Lara Croft.

Sitting in an Italian restaurant just outside Philadelphia, a friend relays the story too me about loosing her cat.

Friday October 11, 9:46 PM

China bars minors from Web cafes

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has barred minors from going into Internet cafes, issuing new rules on Friday to govern the shops hugely popular for video games and Web services, but blamed by state media for poisoning the minds of urban youth.

The regulations, reported by the official Xinhua news agency, came four months after a fire at a Beijing cyber café killed 25 people -- mostly students -- locked inside and shocked the nation's leaders.

As authorizes struggle to put together a profile of the mass murder/sniper terrorizing Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington DC, they grope for clues and possible theories behind the sniper who has killed six people and wounded two others by firing a high-powered weapon at long range.

On the trains you see ads for these everywhere: the Gundam Credit Card.

If I had a hope of decent credit I'd totally apply for one.

IOL : Game over - 86 nonstop hours later

Seoul, South Korea - A 24-year-old South Korean man died after playing computer games nonstop for 86 hours, said police on Wednesday. The jobless man, identified by police only by his last name Kim, was found dead on Tuesday at an Internet cafe in Kwangju, 260km south-west of Seoul, they said.

What game was he playing?!?

Shades of Reefer Madness - Korean Kids love videogames! They're skipping school, developing weird relationships, hanging out in groups doing bizarre things with machines we don't understand! NYTimes: South Korea's Real Rage for Virtual Games.

Maybe there are real problems with overuse in Korea, but I'm inclined to see it as an experiment. They're living in a part of the future. It's not always pretty but is it much worse than kids dedicated to any other hobby?

My new food specialty/craving is crepes. That's right, I'm playing at being a French chef, well sort of. More like a glamorous pancake maker. Crepes are my new fav thing to whip up in the kitchen. All you need is some all purpose flour, 2 eggs, water, a pinch of salt, and a splash of crème if you have it on hand, some melted butter & I bought my own little crepe pan!