A very interesting article in the New York Times (free registration required) highlights the research of sociology PhD candidate Danah Boyd, also known as Zephoria, who is studying the popular social networking web tool Friendster: "Ms. Boyd says that the real world has a set of properties, which she calls architectures. With its deceptively simple set of features, her thinking goes, Friendster bends or replaces all of the real-world architectures."

Sounds like a gameable system to me! Friendster allows the creation of multiple online identities, some of them completely fabricated - "Fakesters". While Friendster administrators, who want the software to function as a dating site, are vigilant in eliminating obviously fake friendsters, nevertheless it is fun to claim to be friends with Lara Croft (I am.) My favorite Fakester is Frodo: under the "about me" section, he wrote, "My uncle left me this ring. It changed my life."

But the gaming aspect of this tool goes beyond made-up identities; Friendster turns friendship and dating into a game. You can browse the galleries, pick people out, and see how you are connected to them - if at all. The idea is that you're more likely to contact someone whom you know is a friend of a friend. There are "testimonials" written by that person's friendsters. Finding that special someone, then, merely requires mining these social networks like a resource in Warcraft. Set your peasants to work!

In any case, the article goes a long way towards explaining the popularity of Friendster over other similar network systems like Ryze or Tribe, both of which are arguably sleeker and faster. Friendster is more fun. It invites people to play.

Gabe, the pencil-wielding maestro behind the art of Penny-Arcade, has decided to give of himself to the world. Uh, not like that! He's launching a charity drive to give toys and video games to sick kids this holiday, in part to combat the perception that video games are training kids to be ruthless killers.

He's set up an Amazon wishlist for the kids of Seattle Children's Hospital. I can't really put it any better than he did when he wrote:

"Penny Arcade has a readership of something like 150,000 gamers across the world. We are arguably the largest community of gamers on the internet. The important word there being community. This isn’t IGN, this isn’t Gamespy, we are not a faceless corporation, you are not just a number tracked by a database and then relayed to hungry advertisers. You guys have proven yourselves to be a powerful force when stirred into action. Here is your opportunity to use that power to do some real good.

Let’s give these kids the Christmas that they deserve and let’s give the news papers a different kind of story to write about gamers."

This just makes me love Gabe and Tycho all the more - as if I needed more reason to. So log in and pick out a gift - spread the love of gaming.

Spread it!

[Update: Snowmit adds that P-A has this permanent link to the Child's Play project. Thanks, Snowmit!]

Part two of the effects of games - continuing from the comments on the first thread: How Have Games Changed You As a Person?

People wrote about how their lives were changed by specific games, or behaviour from games. I follow their narratives, and I hear my stories echoing theirs. Listening to myself and reading these excellent comments, I get the sense that people are talking about their personal journey in interactive entertainment - "I learned to read," "I learned to solve problems," "I learned to socialize," "I learned to guide myself." As ClockworkGrue said, "If you have memories of videogames, then videogames have made you human." But these remarks have more to say about things people need to learn, and less about the specific agenda or potential for video games. By and large, any of these things could have been learned without video games. Especially if you speak about them that generally - people have been learning to read, solving problems, or finding paths even before we had computers.

But the metaphors are new. Mimi's comment pointed to this - what games have given us, or imprinted us with, is a shared set of metaphors for our experience. "Problem-solving" sounds like language lifted from business management training, "path-finding" is a definite technical term used by the game community. People studying computer science since they were interested in video games also hint at this - they undertook research in technology, a new field, since they were lead there by these games. Games are a gateway to different kinds of understanding, at least about technology, and perhaps about ourselves.

Users like mfb wrote about the way they studied - self-directed, independent, anti-establishment, that seems to reflect the way that games inspired them to learn. This echoes what other people said about video games teaching problem solving, but s/he has articulated something more specific: that games have characteristics, biases almost. I'm not sure I agree, but it's an intriguing idea - perhaps interactive entertainment has characteristics that it shares with the people that engage it, over long periods of time.

So what are those characteristics? Wedge mentions a friend studying dentistry who claims to work on teeth faster, skills he said he learned fighting boss battles. This is a remark in the right direction - how does the problem-solving or hand-eye coordination you learned from games effect the way you work? or play? or talk to other people? Consider what you might have lost or traded for that time spent playing games. By playing games, you were boosting certain stats (to borrow a metaphor from RPGs). What stats were boosted? And which of your stats atrophied?

Evidently gaming is king this Christmas Holiday Season.

In a poll conducted by Yahoo, over 132,000 kids participated and the top three toys requested are:

#1: X-box #2: GBA SP Platinum #3: PS2

Although the Game Cube wasn't in the list of toys to be voted on for the top ten list, Yahoo claims that the list generated was "was compiled based on votes Yahoo! received from its users." It should be interesting to see if the Game Cube is still in second place in installed units come January 1, 2004.

This article on Gamespot raised a few eyebrows as it noted EA's recent release of Metal of Honor: Rising Sun... in Japan (Official Japanese MoH:RS site).

Players take on the role of American soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater of the Second World War, that is, against the very nation they are selling the game to. The article notes that while the Japanese game reviewing press has stoically avoided commenting on anything more than the game play, gamers themselves are not quite as willing to brush it off as "just a game."

Still, as another Gamespot article notes, only about 1% of Japanese gamers (from the Tokyo Game Show) actually own any American games. Still, EA's probably not going to be helping those numbers with MoH:RS.

In any case, what is up with that, yo? Perhaps more importantly, how should game companies deal with issues like this without having to sacrifice lucrative international markets?

First, we saw the Sexiest Geek Alive contest. Now, Gamer.tv brings us the Sexiest Gamer contest. But while the Sexiest Geek contest kept it real by requiring a test of the Knowledge of Nerdly Matters of its participants, the Gamer.tv promotion merely asks you to list your top three favorite games.

Also, a major problem with the contest is that the gamers pictured are not in the least sexy to me! Okay, we all have different taste and all that, sure. And I *guess* I appreciate a nice washboard stomach as much as the next girl. But that's not what sexy is built on, for me. And for many geek girls. The most important thing for us, what turns us on, is Brain Power. We may indulge in a little kissing action with pretty boys, but they'll never go the distance. Instead we look for the tell-tale quirks of personality, the indie t-shirt, the limited-edition accessory that says, "I am a collector of the strange, an eccentric, I am a prize in a world of muddled Muggles." And of course a nice smile never hurts.

But the true test of a sexy geek's worthiness is in Making Stuff. Robots, art, decompilers, what have you - we go for guys who can design and build some cool and unexpected thing. That is HOT! Watching someone do what he's good at is a turn on that beats a Calvin Klein underwear model body.

I know, it's different, slightly, for boys. Boys tend to be more visual, at least initially. But I suspect that for many of you, hotness in a girl goes way beyond looks and goes into the realm of charm, sass, wit, and so on. We geeks are pretty particular that way I think, because most of us are smart ourselves, and we tend to get bored when under-stimulated.

If I were to ever have a sexiest something contest on GGA, applicants would have to submit questionnaires, projects, and an essay in their own words in addition to a photo. Not a bad idea! It could be fun. What say you, readers?

Austin was preparing Langston Hughes for class tomorrow. I couldn't find my CD of him reading "A Negro Speaks of Rivers" so I played him some Paul Robeson. Austin hadn't heard of this bold man, or his amazing life; I was happy to share. As his rich rendition of "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" resounded from my computer, I realized that this song - Paul Robeson singing Joe Hill, reflects much of what I miss in video games. A politically conscious person with a passion for current events and human justice, an informed view of struggle and history, sings with profound passion - a voice filled with quivering depth.

Today I was reading an advance review of Rockstar's upcoming Manhunt on GameSpot. Like the film Kill Bill, Manhunt appears to be the art of violence - reflecting media back upon itself in a bloody mirror. Months ago I was curious and eager to see it. Now I'm tired. I'm tired of seeing the language of violence used to express little more than irony and detachment. I want to see someone make a video game to express something they're passionate about, something that matters to people with more tangible problems than boredom.

On a recent research trip to Seoul, I discovered a business in the basement of the COEX mall that would screen any digital image onto a small device. They meant it mostly for mobile phones, but I couldn't resist the chance to re-cover my GameBoyAdvance SP.

What would be appropriate? I had already picked up a Colonel Sanders charm from Harajuku - the little icon of cross-continental deep fat fry hanging off my Final Fantasy Tactics Advance delivery device. Searching for something to screen, it hit me immediately - carry out the metaphor. I asked them to wrap my device in a picture of fried chicken:

Now my GameBoy is finger lickin'. Mostly I'm happy because it makes me laugh to look at it.

It actually turns out to be hard to find a good large picture of fried chicken online! One good enough for plastic screening onto the device. I tried getting close to the menus above the cash registers at KFC in Seoul, but that wasn't winning me any friends or good pictures either.

I also found a picture of Bill Murray to make a Lost in Translation phone. Fun!

I was working on my favorite open source 3d game engine yesterday when I chanced to glance over at my AIM list and saw this ad staring back at me.

Well, if that don't beat all. It makes sense, really. Final Fantasy XI requires an interweb connection, so their target audience overlaps with AIM users quite nicely, especially as we come up to the big winter gift-swap. Has anybody actually done this to figure out what the mission is? Do they just stick you on a big spim list?

While we're at it, how about a rousing round of "what's your favorite videogame marketing innovation?"

We broke up. I moved out. We divided our possessions. All the hardware was mine - the Xbox, the Gamecube, the PS2; most of the software, his. A sad sifting of the content of two lives once shared.

It all went fairly smoothly - until we discovered that we both had large game files on one Xbox. No problem, Justin said, I can probably copy them over using ethernet. So he bought a new Xbox and I brought over mine one afternoon and we tried to transfer our respective games. Just to be on the safe side, I had brought along an official Xbox-approved memory card.

Turns out the saved games we want the most - KOTOR, which we both love - won't fit on a Microsoft-licensed Xbox memory card.

Justin is a man of action. He promptly called customer support. "I have two Xboxes," he said breathlessly. "A memory card that's too small and an ethernet cable. Lets try to figure this out."

Impossible, he was told. There was no way to transfer my saved games.

"That's ridiculous," Justin countered. He doesn't back down easily. "There are a lot of brilliant people at Microsoft and you can't tell me that they didn't think of this problem. Now we're going to stay on the phone and fix it together."

Not possible.

"Well, could I get a bigger memory card then?"

That is the biggest memory card Microsoft makes.

Justin started to get frustrated. "Okay, maybe I could talk to someone else who would know how to help me?"

No one knows, because it's impossible.

"So you're telling me it's not possible for my ex-girlfriend to take with her her own saved games? I can't believe that! You make it sound like hacking my Xbox is a good idea!"

Three hours later, the last phone call in a series of stymied attempts to do a simple data transfer was over, and we both stared at the one Xbox that jealously guarded both our saved games. It is unlockable. We've got the book. The great black box sat implacable, a challenge and a dare.

But not today. "You keep it," I said, finally. "You're sick."

How have video games changed me as a person?

A 2001 photo of my nephew Elias playing Unreal and talking to a teammate on the phone.

How have video games changed me as a person? Not "have they," but "how have they" because I assume that interactive media shapes the minds of the people that engage it.

I'd love to hear from you, how you think playing video games has changed you. Changed the way you interact with technology, or people, or God, whatever part of your life might have been touched by your time with a keyboard or a controller. You can email me directly if you like, or post a comment below. I have books and articles on my shelf; I want to complement them with first-hand impressions from game players. I might contact you for follow-up questions. Thanks!

I attended a talk by Chris Klug [MobyGames rap-sheet], former creative director of Electronic Arts' MMORPG, Earth & Beyond, at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center. Klug came to the videogame industry by way of the pencil & paper RPG industry [Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2], and spent much of his early working years as a professional theatrical lighting designer. As somebody who changed from one field to another perceived (mistakenly, he believes) as being very different, he had quite a bit to say on how you, too, can get into not just the games industry, but any industry.

A word of warning: Klug's answer to the question "How do I get a job?" is, I'd say, roughly the equivalent to answering the question "How do I get in shape?" by saying "Good diet and regular exercise." Those of you looking for silver bullets had best stop reading and look elsewhere. Also, this is, of course, largely opinion, and I didn't agree with everything he said, so no guarantees.

Lately my mind has been wandering in the directions of where videogames are heading in. Many people try and predict where the "next big thing" will come from, be it a revolutionary FPS pushing the genre in a new direction, or perhaps a new technique in multi-pass textures making PC games even more lush and realistic looking.

One could try and look beyond the individual accomplishment, and make predictions about even larger aspects, such as online gaming, and how this wave of console gaming might potentially lead to an even larger market-share for whoever can lead the industry in the next generation of consoles, or perhaps what hardware the next gen systems might have in them.

But I've been trying to look at the big picture: gaming as a financial entity, and where it's headed in the next generation. Where's the big push going to come from? Which console is going to be the big winner? How can we expand our existing market and bring gaming into a mainstream mass-marketed consumer product like the home PC, the television, or the telephone?

The answer, is girls. MORE...

Well, this kid's certainly straightforward - he's started a weblog for his job search. Check out IwanttoworkatEA.com.

Good luck, Scott!

[Thanks for the link, Souris!]

Kingdoms Hearts became one of Sony’s Greatest Hits titles a little while back, and I noticed that retailers were finally kind enough to lower it to its appropriate price. Do you all remember the backlash surrounding the collaboration between Disney and Squaresoft when they revealed the game last year? After the announcement, legions of forum goons quickly spammed message boards across the gaming world, up in arms over Square’s treachery. How could Square sell its soul to the "kiddy" devil?, they decried.

Anyone who played the game once it was eventually released would probably admit that although a bit spotty, Kingdom Hearts’s story could’ve easily adapted to a Final Fantasy game. And Square Enix’s recent decision to include KH as one of its three main franchises only bodes well for further plot development. So, I guess Kingdom Hearts wasn’t akin to a typical Disney movie like the goons originally proclaimed...or was it?

Today (just barely) is November 3rd, which I was reminded of at a certain eatery is the birthday of one 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montague.

Yes, John Montague was the inventer of the sandwich. That thing we all eat from occassion that was originally two slices of bread, meat and cheese and has evolved into everything from foccacia to goat cheese to sun-dried tomatoes.

Of course, you're wondering, "what does this have to do with gaming?"

Well, as it turns out, the Earl was quite the gambler. Evidently he loved playing cards so much that he preferred his meals be delivered to him in a fashion that would allow him to hold his cards with one hand while eating with the other, thus, the sandwich was born. It might not seem like much now in hindsight, but imagine what a social faux pas this was in the day when meals were quite the four course endeavor.

So we have a gamer (and gaming), even in its dated context, to thank for inventing something used in everyday life, and I'm beginning to wonder if there aren't other inventions (besides the obvious military trainers) that have come to light due to the more modern aspects of gaming.

Any thoughts? Anyone here come up with little things that they do while playing games that might have some significance on everyday life?

I've been stricken with some kind of weird illness that has me lethargic. I spent most of last week plugged into an IV machine, having anti-viral meds pushed into me. This week I'm taking pills five times a day. I've been a captive audience for hours at a time, stuck on my couch. But I seldom pick up a controller.

One errand a day has me tired, my normal productive self is mostly motivated to return to low-impact sitting. Once safely returned to my couch, I stare my game machines in the face. They dare me to pick up the controllers, to re-enter Knights of the Old Republic and practice being evil in the midst of familiar mythology. Or Tony Hawk: Underground - I can build up my top-hatted, pantless custom skater into a worthy pro who might finally out-trick my PhD candidate roommate.

But none of this appeals to me. I've got hours and days of relaxing - self-decreed freelancer's time off, during which time I'm supposed to recover from adult chicken pox. And I'm not eager to play games.

This astounded me, as I often feel like life is too sweet and too short, presenting too little time in which to explore virtual worlds. But now I'm sick, and I'm tired, and I don't want to play games because when I'm playing games I have to make decisions. And I can't handle too much recreational decision-making right now.

Except maybe a little bit of Final Fantasy Tactics for the Game Boy Advance. But really, I can't handle too much. Really, not too much. Maybe just a little.

An excellent and forward-thinking article in the Wall Street Journal articulates exactly why I started GameGirlAdvance. Just the other day I wrote a note to myself for a future article: "Videogame reviews must move beyond product recommendation - I am no longer interested in whether or not to buy a game, but rather in what the game means socially, historically, politically, personally."

If this continues I'm going to have to get a subscription!

I'm quoting the article in full below because I think it's too important not to. Once again, thanks to Wayne for the link!