Tag Archives: video games

How not to handle customer service, or don’t make the nerds mad

In that strange in-between time when the Internet is awash with 2,011 year-end ‘Best of’ lists, the nerd-rage descending upon the head of a clueless and inept PR flak is probably the best thing to read today.

Penny Arcade has the full saga about Dave who just wanted his swanky PS3 Avenger controller and Paul, the not-so-adept PR/Marketing man who will probably looking for a new job in 2012 (that’s my prediction).

This story has made Penny Arcade a bit spotty on the up-time, but you can check out excerpts of the fracas at Kotaku, Forever Geek, Tech Crunch, and just about every other nerd-centric blog.

I don’t know what it is about these sort of customer service flame outs that are so darn interesting, but I can’t look away.

Classic video game deaths

Seen on Kottke

Friday Links: Popular video games turned into horror movies

• Check out Line 25′s Sites of the Week. We heartily approve.
• Popular video games transformed into short horror films.
• The Apple-fication of everything, about design standards and a beautiful thermostat. And if you’re still in the mood for some Apple design talk, take a look at Apple’s aesthetic dichotomy (which has a really good point).
• Google kills its other plus, and how to get it back.
• Settlers of Catan, the novel coming to a bookstore near you.
• Pictures from Hallomeme. Some of it’s pretty funny.
• Richard Stallman’s tour rider.
• Beer at work: A case for drinking on the job.
• Forrester urges IT to support the Mac.

Title Scream

Between anxiety over Adobe’s acquisition of Typekit and excitement over tomorrow’s iPhone announcement, I figured you could use a nice little escape. Enter Title Scream, a nice little collection of title screens from 8-bit and 16-bit video games. I particularly liked this gem:

Who killed the video game?

Since spending many many hours on Sunday listening to Wil Wheaton read Ernest Cline’s fabulous book Ready Player One, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about video games. This book is pretty fabulous even if your nerdy-inclinations don’t bend towards Sci-Fi or 80s pop culture or classic video games (mine don’t and I still loved it).

So when I stumbled upon Cory Doctorow (who is mentioned in the book) posting about the death of video games on Boing Boing my heart raced a little. Doctorow’s post points to Tim Rogers’ “who killed video games?” (a ghost story). Which is a bit misleading because I’m not entirely sure if social games (ala Farmville and Social Sims) should be put in the same bucket as other games (like, I don’t Pac-Man. Remember how I said my nerdy-inclinations didn’t include video game knowledge?).

Regardless, Rogers’ piece is pretty interesting about how calculating and evil-genius-y the creators of these social games are and how they program the fun out of the game and put more on the suffering part of it. Sure, the article is white text on a black background and is firmly in the tl;dr zone, but if you got some time to spare and good eyes give it a read. With everything we do becoming increasingly ‘gamified’ it’s kind of cool to see how these game-makers are pulling our strings.

Supreme Court rules Video Games protected by Constitution

Yesterday, in a 7-2 decision the Supreme Court ruled that video games, even violent ones, are indeed protected under the first amendment of the US Constitution. The ruling came in the case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, and concerned a California law that would have enforced fines on anyone selling violent video games to people under 18. In the decision Justice Antonin Scalia wrote:

“Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”

Head on over to The New York Times for more about the decision and why Scalia said violent speech is different from obscenity.

Friday Links: Video game cakes, the moon & Matt Groening

• The definitive collection of video game cakes.
• Go look at Dear Photograph, it’s a very cool photoblog.
• One year of the moon in 2.5 minutes, a mesmerizing animation.
• Matt Groening’s 1989 Apple Brochure.
• 10 myths about introverts.
• Welcome to the Periodic Table of Elements, 114 and 116 (unofficially called ununquadium and ununhexium).
• If historical figures endorsed modern products.
• Facebook loses 6 million users.

Heaven is a place on the Internet

Did you catch yesterday’s xkcd?

That’s it right over there ——->

Funny, huh?

You know what makes it even better? The good people at G U D magazine made it possible for you to play that heavenly version of Tetris. Pretty sweet.

Friday Links: Detroit can thank the Internet for its Robocop statue

• The Internet raised money so Detroit can have a Robocop statue.
• Google Books has all the issues of Spy magazine.
• UX Metrics for Noobs and Skeptics: An Interview With Richard Dalton.
• Plants vs. Zombies board game.
• Against Chrome: A Manifesto (about the design element and not the browser).
• 15 Strat Tips For Crafting the Coolest and Most Impressive Twitter Bio, this will make you laugh.
• The Life and Death of Guitar Hero.
• The Fantasy World Map.
• Groupon vs. Nokia: The Right Way to Respond When Backed Into a Corner.

The Great Gatsby for NES

Mere words cannot do justice to The Great Gatsby for NES. Finally, book nerds and video gamers have something in common. Who doesn’t want to wander through West Egg as Nick Carraway looking for the mysterious Jay Gatsby? Nobody, that’s who.