Game Design and the Geneva Convention

Cory's posted this interesting bit about Hugh Spencer, a parent who's agreed to let his 13-year old play Call of Duty, provided he reads up on the Geneva Conventions and abides by them during the course of play.

Awesome. I can't wait to hear the outcome.

I'm curious whether it's POSSIBLE to successfully finish the game when doing so. I wonder whether the designer(s) read the Geneva Convention and incorporated it into the design.

I wonder whether you can successfully finish Amerca's Army when doing the same?

Please stop pouring viagra in the fanboys' mountain dew!

I'm torn.

While I find the provocative pix over on this Kotaku post as, err, interesting as the next fellow, I'm also frustrated by the fuel this throws on the embers of the Jade Raymond fire.

The games industry & culture is still rife with a lot of sexism. It's a factor in attracting more of the fairer gender to the business, which is a factor in making games that appeal to them, etc.

[Of course, there's a difference with the Jade Raymond thing in that Jade did nothing to fan the flames so to speak, and Grace Kim arguably is inviting some of the commentary, or at least playing to the stereotype. Another difference of course is that Ms Kim was in PR, and we all know PR people are hired for their looks anyway. Ha! I kid! I kid!]

Gabe & Tycho make a good point...

Sex in Games: The Lecture

Alice points us to this awesome lecture-turned-flash-movie by Daniel Floyd.



Well worth the few minutes to watch!

Teaching the Teachers

In response to the Canadian Teacher's Federation call for a ban on the release of Rockstar's 'Bully: Scholarship Edition', Clint Hocking has issued a pretty compelling challenge. He's offering to buy Emily Noble, the head of the Teacher's Association, an Xbox360 or Wii system, along with a copy of the game, if she commits to entering a critical discussion of the games merits rather than call for it's ban out of ignorance..

Let's give this enough linkage that Ms Noble and her collegues will have to accept the challenge!

The truth will set itself free

At least that's the case in this day and age.

It seems that Rockstar, in releasing Manhunt 2, left some names off the credits.

Partway through development (from what we gather - 80% of the way through, the whole project was moved from Rockstar Vienna to Rockstar London. When the game was released, none of the names of the 55 people from RV that worked on the project were listed on the credits.

Like the game didn't have enough controversy already!

So, over on Intelligent Artifice, Jurie was miffed and posted their names for the Internetz to know all about it.

Way to go Jurie!

link.