They call it "WoW" for a reason... because that is MY reaction to this.

(From Joi on Twitter)

I would SO play the bard class! OMG.

Haha! This is awesome. Snippets:

Are you playing on your brother’s/boyfriend’s account?
Well clearly it’s not my own. Everybody knows girls don’t play video games and thus don’t have their own accounts. I don’t even think Microsoft lets females purchase their own accounts actually. I think I read that in the fine print somewhere.

Shouldn’t you be playing Barbie Horse Adventures?
I’ve already beaten it over 10 times. I rock at that game! Just every once in a while I need a break from it.

How old are you? Where do you live? Do you have a MySpace page?
I will share all of that information with you as long as you promise to stalk me. Frequently.

Brandon pointed out the humor in this article title: GCDC Panel Tackles Women In Games.

Ouch!

Except, it was real, and it was caused by power fluctuations in San Francisco. The power in my office went out six or seven times. Fun! Gaming sites and high tech sites went down, too.

I should have worked from home today....

Take-Two's naughtiness apparently extends beyond their games...
Fudging financial spreadsheets? Check!
Lying to regulators? Check!
Stock options backdating, check and mate!

Steve Jobs, are you paying attention? There but for the grace of...

Go Brandon! In a really solid interview with Peter Moore, late of Microsoft, our intrepid reporter asks him the critical question we've all been dying to know:

[A]re you in fact the Prince of Darkness?

PM: Damn, my cover's blown! Let me just tuck the tail in back there!

I knew it!

The rest of the interview is JUST as thought-provoking. :)

Plus, it's kind of nice to hear Peter say that he never gave up on the Dreamcast. The love was real, people!

EA's Madden series is one of the highest-selling franchises in the market - and although a lot of gamery-gamers don't pay much attention to sports games, on the whole, one shouldn't ignore the huge cultural impact that sports games have had, and continue to have.

Witness this insipidly written but still rather interesting article in the Washington Post about gamer kids who know more about football than coaches (supposedly) because of the hours spent playing Madden. If indeed the game knowledge translates so well to real football, then EA has done a fantastic job of modeling the sport.

The other side can be ugly (and hilarious): the lowest-ranked player in the game fires off an angry letter to John Madden in complaint.

Hi, John, my name is Ethan Albright. I play line for the Washington Redskins. You probably already knew that, so I’ll continue. I am writing in regards to the overall player rating of 53 that I have received in Madden NFL Football 2007. I feel that this is fucking bullshit and you should kiss my mother-fucking ass. Ahmed Carroll was rated a 78 and the Packers just cut his ass on a Tuesday morning after his performance in a Monday night game. That is pretty terrible. The worst part is that his overall rating was sniffing 80.

I suppose people who are that famous become somehow inured to it. But it must still feel odd, sometimes, all the same.

The Wii in Japan comes with a charmingly illustrated safety manual. Now, Icon Factory reveals the missing pages!

[via GayGamer.]

"In my mind, Nintendo is like a wonderful old friend who has a drinking problem. You like the friend, you like to spend time with the friend, but every so often bad behaviors come up and remind you that this friend has problems."

-Steven Kent, on why Microsoft will win this holiday season.

My favorite internet star of the moment, GameJew (AKA Jonathan Mann), takes on education in the latest episode: GameJew Episode 7. He visits a videogame class at a technical college, then talks to a professor of interface design at an arts school, and finally ends by driving around a videogame bus to teach kids how to play co-operatively.

There's a wealth of interesting insights here - like the fact that the kids value winning over challenge, something that a lot of hardcore gamers may not understant, since one common critique that can lower a review score is that the game is "too easy."

The 3D interfaces designed by the teacher Jonathan interviews are also beautiful and inspire new possibilities for videogame controls.

GameJew is one of the smartest, funniest, most creative commentators on the culture of videogames today, and I urge anyone interested in that to check out his work. It's not always perfect, but I would argue that it never fails to engage.

Something light-hearted for Friday: The bad videogame box art contest! I would submit one, but the ones they already have are so, so good. I wish Xmen Legends II: Rise of Pikachu were a real game. I'd totally play it.

Cool photos of videogaming-themed cakes. These are pretty amazing., especially the standing cabinet. But I want to know, how do they taste?

Be sure to also check out the behind the scenes post and video.

Accordion Hero now has a brilliant post-mortem on Gamasutra.

I actually love the accordion, in all its quirkiness, but I think aesthetically I prefer the sultry Latin accordion of Argentinian tangoes to the bouncy Teutonic one that is the basis of the polka.

Dear PC,

NVIDIA has released a couple new cards; one of which, at first caress, seems a decent value. $300-$350 to do the latest whiz-bang shit ain't too bad. I wish your species were longer-lived and your innards a bit more resistant to the ravages of time, but the higher powers have deemed thee as such and as such I choose to love thee. You're two years old now, and while you've been loyal and doggedly refused to let age and failing fans conquer your determination to keep on gamin', it's time for a little corrective surgery to hold off the effects of aging.

I know you need this new card, and as such will need a new motherboard because yours is not PCI-express. Would you like that? I think I know you well enough by now to say confidently that you would. That will of course necessitate new RAM--you've made that clear to me in the past. And yes, I know your processor will not work with the new you, either, so what else can I do but provide? I also know you will ask about your power supply, so let me just head off that discussion right now and tell you that I would make certain you have enough juice to remain hydrated.

Thus, your $300 upgrade is at around $1200. That feel about right, PC? Will that keep you satisfied for another year--maybe two? . . . you know, that's a helluva lot of burritos just to play Oblivion with my preferred RPG control scheme. Yes, I could go out right now and sell my organs (which have to last me decades, mind you) to upgrade yours. I could bask in your high-resolution bliss and mouse-look for just that much longer. Yes, I could do that. You want me to do it, don't you? You need me to, don't you?

Well you know what, PC? Fuck you. I mean, I love you, but seriously--fuck you. I'm done with your gold-diggin', 3D-positional-audio-that-has-never-fucking-worked-right, masochistic insecurities. I've had it up to here with you using my benjamins to wipe your ass and throwing parties with my credit card. Parties, mind you, to which you have never invited me! You have to have so many anti-infection shits running that you act like a schizophrenic hypochondriac on acid and yet somehow still manage to contract more diseases than Bangkok hooker. And if I hear you complain even one more time about "update this" and "update that" I fear I may jump off a tall structure just to make it stop. So, in the interests of preserving my finances--nay! my very life, I am officially cutting you off.

I've got my 360 and my 360 loves me as much as I love it. Call me superficial, but it's prettier, faster, and smarter than you would be even after that $1200 of "necessities," as you call them. From now on my new toys are only for drives not belonging to you. Don't blame me, you did this to yourself.

Sincerely,
-Matt

Every so often we see one of these; but this particular one is impressively detailed, long, and difficult to argue with.

But it's not all pessimism. This manifesto is smart, and makes real suggestions that can be implemented TODAY. And some (like #19) are about refraining from doing something in a game that we don't want.

Now, can we collectively do that for game publications? If we were to make a manifesto of everything we wanted from gaming magazines, what would that look like?

Reuters, AP -- Riding what can only be described as a licensing title wave, EA is set to announce that it has brokered an exclusive licensing agreement with God, The Almighty.

In an unofficial statement, Larry Probst said, "Well, we really feel it was a good deal for us. I mean, we have a quite a few titles that feature God in them, such as Populus, Black and White, and even The Sims, just to name a few. We felt that it was in our best interests to get the exclusive on Him before anyone else had the chance to snap Him up."

The contract is speculated to hold God to an exclusive five year deal with EA, including using His likeness on box art, marketing, and especially His Voice of God for trailers and previews to the song of twenty five billion a year for five years. "Everyone knows we have more money than God," Probst proclaimed, "we just figured we should leverage that and grab God while we still could."

"Well, I thought it was a great deal at the time, I mean, five years is only a blink of an eye for me, but I have to admit that I had my doubts at first," God said in an interview. "I'm looking at it from the perspective that at least this way I can make sure everyone at EA gets Sunday off."

It is speculated that God might even be used to offset the "quality of life" issues EA is experiencing. "We're hoping that God can just snap his fingers and have the game created for us in an instant. We can have our designers pitch the idea to him, and presto, instant game. It's going to save us a lot of man-hours and labor costs. Come to think of it, our overhead will pretty much be zero for the next five years," Larry explained.

Theory even has it that in a bold legal positioning move, EA plans to sue for copyright infringement on behalf of all games, everywhere after this deal goes through. "Let's face it," Probst said, "God made everything. Free will debates aside, He made it. You can think you had the idea first, but it was really Him, through you. Call it Divine Inspiration or whatever you like, but it's His, and now, by contract, EA's." What this means for the rest of the industry, and gamers in general, remains to be seen.

Simply fantastic flash video that manages to be at once a critique of the PSP, an elegy for consoles and games past, and a paean to one of the greatest RPGs ever. It's funny, but also extremely moving. At least, to me.

(To see thoe whole piece, click on New Game.)

[From Grand Text Auto]

Don't worry. We've got your cereals and yogurts right here. Dannon's line "Frusion" is a fruity yogurt drink aimed at... us, I guess. There are so many brands normally associated with the fuddy-duddy or the middle-aged dieters that are seeking to woo young hot markets. And videogamers seem to be, for some reason, a very attractive segment.

Is this because gamers are now suddenly cool, suddenly trend-leaders? Somehow I find that a bit off. What feels more right to me is to say that young people have an idea of the cool videogamer that seems to align with trend-spotters' ideas, too.

Especially acapella chorus geeks. They are the worst.

I mean, I am a geek, in my own way, and most of my friends are too, but there's something so... aggressively geekly, so gleefully, in-your-face geeky about chorus geeks. And I say this having done both theatre and chorus in high school and some in college. But in the geek hierarchy, there are good geeks and bad geeks. Yes, BAD GEEKS. And I'm sorry to those who are fan of this "style" of "music", but cutesy-pootsey oh-so-clever acappella singing is VERY, VERY, BAD GEEKERY.

A little while ago G4 came into the office to interview all the editors about their top ten lists - best FPS, best art direction, you know. I mentioned the art direction on Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and said, "besides the beauty of the surroundings, the prince is hot!"

They were like, "But what about his hair? Say something about his hair!"

Huh?

Later as we were wrapping up they passed by the life-size mock-up of Prince of Persia that stands guard right outside my cube. "You think he's hot? He just looks gay to me," muttered one of the camera crew.

Aw! So cute! This brings up a very interesting question - what kinds of videogames would a cat want to play? Something with Hamutaro, perhaps?

(Thanks, Souris and Robin!)

And finally, are you a gamer? Are you willing to pose in three photos for the world to see? Are you over 18?

Then this contest is for you. A cheeky way to promote independent games! (Thanks, Carol.)

Despite being two whole years older than I am (and I’m dating myself), one of my consistently favorite games of all times is Robotron. The hectic arcade shooter (which can be played for free here) features a scientist who must shoot wave after wave of killer robots while saving men, women, and children from almost certain doom. Just a regular game that I can play for a few minutes without using any brain cells.

At least, that’s what I thought it was until my friend noticed a curious pattern while watching me play a game.

After five waves, she said, "You realize you save all the women first before you save anyone else, right?"

Huh?

Thanks to José from the band Pepito for this one: Playstation 2 Better than Sex?

I just have to say, what kind of fella doesn't already have a PS2? The kind of fella who probably already has a girlfriend. Just kidding, of course! Or maybe he knows that in the long term, a PS2 will lead to lots more sex.

Have a great weekend, all y'all fanboys and girls.

We all get them: e-mails based on an original concept, the Nigerian 419 scam, formerly a post scheme called after the statute number of Nigerian law that makes them a crime. Typically, the contents have lots to do with you sending them a substantial chunk of change -- or the routing codes and numbers for your accounts -- to help them semi-licitly spirit a large sum of money out of their government's bank accounts and a rather small bit to do with the scads of money -- usually in the millions, US dollars -- they will send you after the money is safely tucked away in the Cayman Islands.

by Anne Pinckard

I dream of you, my Prince. The memory of you still haunts me, beckoning to me from the shadowy corners not yet pierced by the light of day. Your image flickers before me, a phantasm lost in a ripple of water. At night, I lie awake thinking of you. In my mind I can remember every moment we had together, relive our hardest struggles and our most profound joys. Some days, it brings tears to my eyes, knowing that we must live apart. A wise poet once said that it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all. I knew, from the beginning, that my heart would be broken.

Do you remember when we first met? No, you would not. You scarcely noticed me, though I was there, watching you. I was nothing to you, but you were a dream for me, a vision of godly light. You entered the room, and instantly, the world around me broke out into the sweetest music. Where ever you went, the song would follow, a fitting accompaniment to beauty such as yours. My soul, too, burst with the melody as your fingers gently plucked the strings of my heart.

Excerpt: "Here you will find the shelves containing your DBE components. In this mini-puzzle, you must fit all of your merchandise onto the cart so nothing falls off as you proceed to CHECKOUT. It's like Tetris, minus the catchy Russian music and the fun. DON'T SPEND MORE THAN THREE OR FOUR HOURS WORKING ON THIS!"

Finally! A FAQ for shopping.

[via Kat Hunter]

We are reminded by animated holiday specials that this is a season for giving as much as it is for receiving. This year, the games industry has bestowed upon us many gifts, from Wind Waker to WarioWare, Final Fantasy XI to Final Fantasy X-2. While (most) of us exchanged good money for what the games industry gave this year, and a few of us also offered up hours of toil, I can't help but wonder, what gift would you bring if Game Industry invited you to a party? Shiny new review formats? A box of original design concepts? An open can of whoop-ass?

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?

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!]

Talking to W. David Marx at a ramen restaurant in Tokyo earlier this month.

Hand on my forehead, I said I was working to understand how videogames matter in a world where there is much suffering.

David immediately replied, "Have you played Hunger Strike 2?"

Researching the success of Starcraft in South Korea, I came across a Frictionless Insight interview with Blizzard-VP Bill Roper. It contained this delicious quote:

"It's almost to the point that a copy of StarCraft [in Korea] is like a 13-year-old’s bar mitzvah gift: 'Today, my son, you are a Terran.'"

Yesterday Justin and I hunted far and wide for curtains for the freshly-painted dining room. We went to seven stores over the course of four hours. By the end we didn't even know what we wanted anymore. But Justin wanted to achieve something, so we finally settled on some semi-transparent ivory-colored cotton panels we saw at the seventh store.

This morning we were reflecting on the odyssey. "I think we got good experience," Justin said, "even though we only bought one thing. I think we've increased our shopping skill, and our interior decorating skill. I think we're another step closer to leveling up in design."

Can you tell that someone's been playing an awful lot of Morrowind?

Update: Justin and I were just working on the book we're writing together. Suddenly he stood up. "I have to go," he said. "Star Wars Galaxies is out today. I'll be right back." And off he drove.

See you online!