http://www.bupipedream.com/Articles/Remains-of-speakeasy-found-in-Cyber-Cafe-parking-lot/4826

Secret rooms were discovered during a renovation of the parking lot next to the CyberCafe West on March 27, by artist and local landscaper Dan Carruthers.

Speakeasies were establishments which served alcohol during Prohibition, a time when the sale and consumption of any alcoholic beverage was outlawed.

Hitchhiker's Guide: The Text Adventure

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_nolan.shtml

An Unbeatable Computer Game?

http://www.physorg.com/news107707614.html

Laszlo Laufer and Bottyan Nemeth at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary developed the idea of a frustrating computer game to learn more about biofeedback signals analysis, which could have more useful applications
in real life. The researchers told New Scientist, for example, that the technology could be used to help speed up a person’s reaction time, which could be beneficial for pilots in military operations.

Unbeatable Video Games

http://forums.gametrailers.com/thread/games-you-never-beat-that-you-/938652

http://www.physorg.com/news107707614.html

"How I got into gaming" & the good old days...

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=204&topic=53414928

The official "How did you get into Gaming Topic"

I'd get a shareware game, and play the living hell out of it. All difficulty settings, options, try to get all secrets, etc. Rarely I'd get the full version, and repeat the process.

Now whenever I play a game, I feel pushed to finish it quickly so I can move on to the over a hundred games I own which I haven't played or barely played. And forget trying to get all the achievements!

Ludology

http://www.ludology.org/articles/ludology.htm

The three possible narrative sequences from this scheme would be:

1) "The door is locked with a combination lock. The agent doesn�t try to open it"

2) "The door is locked with a combination lock. The agent tries a combination code. The door remains closed".

3) ) "The door is locked with a combination lock. The agent tries a combination code. The door is opened"

Bremond�s scheme could also be used to describe a particular ludus in an adventure videogame. Those videogames are made by many different "puzzles", or problems that need to be solved in order to continue the game. Those "puzzles" perfectly fit our definition of ludus.

Adventure videogames usually have, at least one "correct" path to win the whole game. There is a right sequence of solving that will lead to the triumphal denouement of the adventure�s "story". Each time the player fails solving a puzzle, either the videogame ends "wrongly" (and the player loses), or the player has to continue until she goes through it.

Fallout 3's Ending

The great Anthony Burch. I'm glad someone's thinking up this stuff.

Remember the 80s!

http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/fashion.htm

The crazy power of web2.0 on the fly

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=768618

Gamer Stereotypes 101

http://www.gamegrene.com/node/568

Hello, and welcome to my class. Today we shall embark on a satirical exploration of stereotypes found in RPGs - players and Game Masters alike. Everybody is parodied equally! Have fun as we apply each of these stereoypes to the "Orc and Pie" scenario.

Everything that has meaning has value

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=687

For the better part of 2009, we here at CCP have been formulating new strategies to address the issue that all persistent services on the Internet ultimately face, i.e. the data persisted in our systems has meaning to people and everything that has meaning has value. Frankly speaking this has been something that we have been strategizing about since 2004. Even though we have throughout the years kept the Real Money Trading element at bay with manual actions from our game masters, we have always realized that this is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed with innovation and thoughtfulness. As early as 2005, we came up with the seed which was later released in November 2008 as the Pilot's License Extension(PLEX). It has had many names through the years such as 28days and CCP Points, and it has been refined and iterated to the point that it is accepted by you, our players, as something that adds value to EVE and that is something we care deeply about.

Daniel Pink on Motivation (TED lecture)

Intrinsic Motivation

1. Autonomy: the ability to direct our own lives
2. Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters
3. Purpose: Sense of a higher meaning

LOVE, the new MMO by Eskil Steenberg

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-trailer-love/41941

Detective Fiction Inspiration!

http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pd.php?pcode=da002701

http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pd.php?pcode=cd004001

1890 Voice (N.Y.) July 17 The ‘boot-legger’ is a grim spectre to the anti-Prohibitionist... He is a man who wears boots in whose tops are concealed a flask or two of liquor.

1903 N.Y. Even. Post 25 Sept. 3 In this bottle was some of the native spirits called ‘hooch’, distilled from sugar and graham flour.

It's raining Feralas

http://www.wowwiki.com/Feralas

"Unlike its barren neighbors to the north, south and east, Feralas is a lush jungle. Both the Horde and the Alliance lay claim to the area and both factions have to contend with powerful local forces, which include, most notoriously, the bloodthirsty Gordunni ogres which populate the region and control a number of ancient Elven ruins scattered in the area, including the vast dungeon of Dire Maul. Gordunni ogres have desecrated and defiled much of Feralas and have damaged the land with their taint. The Horde in particular is concerned with the unchecked expansion of the Gordunni clan and has put out a call for adventurers to aid the war effort against the Ogres. Feralas is also home to a number of scattered Grimtotem tauren tribes, members of which are hunted by Horde agents on the orders from Belgrom Rockmaul in Orgrimmar. In addition the far western islands are crawling with Naga and recently several Silithid hives have been spotted in the region."

Saving the World Through Game Design

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2008/mcgonigal

The Economy of Engagement

1. Satisfying work to do
2. The feeling of being good at something
3. Spending time with people we like
4. Feeling part of some bigger purpose

Are You Game?

http://corpmedia.ign.com/corp/press_assets/AYG_booklet_final.pdf

http://corp.ign.com/articles/920/920555p1.html

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/10/study-squashes-myth-of-gamer-as-antisocial-comic-book-guy.ars

Here are some of noteworthy findings of the study:

* 55 percent of gamers polled were married, 48 percent have kids, and new gamers – those who have started playing videogames in the past two years—are 32 years old on average
* More than 75 percent of videogamers play games with other people either online or in person
* More than 47 percent of people living in gaming households saying that videogames were a fun way to interact with other family members
* 37 percent of gamers said friends and family relied upon them to stay up-to-date about movies, TV shows and the latest entertainment news, compared to only 22 percent for nongamers
* 39 percent of gamers said that friends and family rely upon them to stay up-to-date about the latest technology
* In terms of hard dollars, the average gaming household income ($79,000) is notably higher than that of nongaming households ($54,000), but the value of the gamer as a marketing target can be seen in a variety of ways
* Gamers are 13 percent more likely to go out to a movie, 11 percent more likely to play sports, and 9 percent more likely to go out with friends than nongamers
* Gamers are twice as likely as nongamers to buy a product featuring new technology even if they are aware that there are still bugs
* Gamers are also twice as likely as nongamers to pay a premium for the newest technology on the market
* Gamers also consume media in different ways than nongamers, with hardcore gamers spending five more hours on the Internet, two more hours watching television and two more hours listening to music than nongamers per week

And the counterintuitive kicker:

* Gamers are twice as likely to go out on dates as nongamers in a given month

To make people believe is to make them act

"To cite is thus to give reality to the simulacrum produced by a power, by making people believe that others believe in it."

Narrations about what's going on constitute our orthodoxy...They move forward camouflaged as facts, data, and events. They present themselves as messengers from a "reality." Their uniform takes on the color fo the economic and social ground they movie into. When they advance, the terrain itself seems to advance. But in fact, they fabricate the terrain, simulate it, use it as a mask, accredit themselves by it, and thus create the scene of their law (185).

http://ir.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/bitstream/123456789/1055/1/Vol51p1.pdf

http://www.webcite.org.uk/author/decerteau.html

Machine Dreams: Computers in the Fantasies of Young Adults

Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion