The Stupid Gamer

Barack Obama mentioned GTA IV in a recent speech. He acknowledged that the game isn’t intended for kids, but his greatest concern isn’t with the game’s content, but rather that kids left to be raised by video games rather than spend time outside or doing more uplifting activities. Here’s a snippet of his speech:

“I was just catching the news this morning about Grand Theft Auto, this video game, which is gonna break all records and make goo-gobs of money for whoever designed it.

“Now, this isn’t intended for kids, although I promise you there are kids who are playing it, but these video games are raising our kids…

“Across the board, middle-class, upper-class, working-class kids, they’re spending a huge amount of their time not on their studies, but on entertainment.

“And so part of our job is going to have to be to inspire the entire country to say, ‘How are we giving our kids a thirst for knowledge?’

“And turning off the TV set, and getting them to be engaged and interested, like their future really does matter on how well they do in school.”

Rather than blaming the content of games, Obama is blaming parents for allowing their kids to live unbalanced lives. If you ask me, this is the correct stance to take. As I grew up, games were less violent, but violence still existed in gaming. As I grew up, however, I was also very involved in sports, was expected to do well in school, and my parents were good to keep an eye on the games I played. As long as they could see that the things I was playing weren’t having an effect on me in a negative way (be it school, physical fitness, or emotional health), they never had a problem with the gaming I did.

The problem isn’t with the games themselves, but rather with the parent that would rather let their 7 yr. old kid spend an extra two or three hours in front of the TV playing games rather than taking them out to the park and teaching them to hit a baseball or throw a football. Kids aren’t going to self-regulate, so parents have to learn to be a bit more proactive and, well, you know, be a parent.

Note: I’m not endorsing Obama for anything nor any other candidate.

As a result of debt and the severe need for restructuring, the Ziff Davis group is filing for bankruptcy. Ziff Davis is home to the 1up network, Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, Games for Windows magazine, and other popular online destinations and print publications. In addition to filing for bankruptcy, the Ziff Davis group is set to undergo a reorganization, but the specific details haven’t been announced.

Electronic Gaming Monthly is the gaming magazine I still bother reading (outside of GameRoom Magazine), and I’d hate to see this have a negative impact on the publication. The magazine has already been thinning a lot lately, but the content that is in there is still good and well worth reading. The 1up Network also hosts the best gaming podcasts, and their editors are the most brutally honest in the online realm.

Good luck Ziff Davis, here’s hoping for a quick bounce back!

Last week Warner Warner Bros. studios made the decision to drop HD-DVD support (starting this May) and support Blu-ray exclusively. The announcement, which was made just days ahead of CES, came as a major shock to the HD-DVD promotional group and HD-DVD fans and supporters. During CES, Toshiba let on to the media that they were blindsided by the agreement and didn’t expect Warner to pick a side at this point in the format war. An official release issued by Toshiba said,

TOKYO, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.’ decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD. As central members of the DVD Forum, we have long maintained a close partnership with Warner Bros. We worked closely together to help standardize the first-generation DVD format as well as to define and shape HD DVD as its next-generation successor.

We were particularly disappointed that this decision was made in spite of the significant momentum HD DVD has gained in the US market as well as other regions in 2007. HD DVD players and PCs have outsold Blu-ray in the US market in 2007. We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluate potential next steps. We remain firm in our belief that HD DVD is the format best suited to the wants and needs of the consumer.

Also, according to insider reports, it seems that Sony dished out upwards of $450 million to secure Warner’s loyalty, a much higher figure that was offered to Paramount ($180 million) to side with HD-DVD. So what does all this mean? Well, it basically means that this war is being decided by the studios and CE producers, not by consumers. Yes, Blu-ray was pulling ahead in sales, but one has to wonder how things would have played out if exclusivity had never been a factor from the get go. It seems that exclusivity is what saved Blu-ray from HD-DVDs lower prices, more fully realized specs, and slightly early launch.

Jason and Melissa Jones have continued to expand their offerings for custom carvings through their website Nice Carvings. In our first look at the custom carving work being done, Jason and Melissa were focusing mostly on characters from the video game world. While the colorful characters are still the top draw for Jason and Melissa, they are now offering custom signs and full canvas art as well. Take a look at some of the newest examples of Melissa’s handiwork below.

This is canvas art populated with painted castings of Melissa’s carvings.

Above are two examples of custom signs. These are perfect for businesses or home decoration.

Jason and Melissa use castings to do production runs. Multiples are quite easy for Nice Carvings.

Yep, the characters are still around. Find a pic you like, and Melissa will make it into a painted carving.

The canvas art pieces are pretty big!

If you want to check out pricing, examples of work, or you want to contact Jason and Melissa, visit them over at Nice Carvings. Both Jason and Melissa are extremely friendly and will usually respond to any questions you have that very same day. Pretty soon I plan on having a full Donkey Kong casting set adorning the walls of the Stupid Gamer arcade room.

In a move that will crush many a forum goer, the NPD Group has announced that they will stop sharing sales data with the public on an open basis to non-subscribing members. This means that we’ll no longer get the monthly megaton sales threads across each video game message board detailing the console and software sales. So what does this mean? Well, we’ll still get some sort of idea of how the machines are selling, because each month companies will be spinning their PR talk about how well their consoles are selling, and we should be able to figure out rough numbers.

So why the change? Some people think that the NPD wants more control over the numbers in order to demand a bigger premium for subscribers and more of an incentive for companies to pay for the results. Others think that grumpy old Sony has been moving to have the monthly numbers quashed for some time. Personally, I believe the former.

Source: N’Gai Croal with Newsweek

Ok, so the anniversary was yesterday, but I couldn’t get around to posting. I did, however, co-host a podcast with Stephen Smith last night, so either later today or tomorrow you can check it out. We talk about Atari, the shift in game design philosophy from Atari’s time unitl now, and we even share some fun stories about Atari and the early days of retail gaming. In honor of Atari, I invite all of you to pull out those old 2600 systems and fire up some classics.

It’s a shame that Atari is pretty much a shell of what they once were. Us gamers owe a huge part of our love of games to the pioneering efforts of Atari in both home gaming and in the arcades.

Adam Mapleson, a 24-yr. old gamer was shot yesterday in the chest while coming to the aid of a woman who was being robbed by two gunmen. Adam saw what was going on and tackled one of the woman’s assailants. In the scuffle, Adam was shot in the chest, which has landed him in the hospital. A witness at the scene said that blood was everywhere. Both of the robbers ran after the fight, but Adam’s involvement possibly saved others from danger.

Adam is hospitalized and listed in serious but stable condition.