should read Bogost's book argues that simulation is a form of persuasion, e.g. read it (is less than) hear it (is less than) virtually see someone do it (is less than) virtually do it yourself (is less than) do it yourself. the axiom is that doing something is the best way to persuade your opinion of it.

Bogost's book argues that simulation is a form of persuasion, e.g. read it hear it virtually see someone do it virtually do it yourself do it yourself. the axiom is that doing something is the best way to persuade your opinion of it.

What do you think of AAA studios exploring more moral grey areas (e.g. hostage shooting airport level in COD:MW2) as a form of procedural rhetoric? Do you think players' natural tendencies of (in this case) non-violence toward innocents is solidified or shaken by simulating such acts?

I don't buy it.

Women are accepted to have biological tendencies for wider hips, more estrogen, more fat storage in the front-upper-torso region, smaller than males, etc.

Women are mostly accepted to have biological tendencies for more compassion, more communication, etc.

It is controversial to say women have biological tendencies to be less aggressive, less ambitious toward leadership roles, and less attracted to hard science in favor of humanities.

The difference between these three categories is hardly in their level of correlation (p approaches 1 for all of them), but in how PC they are. If it is cultural, as the authors suggest, they have stumbled upon the most effective population control mechanism in history!

(note: paper was slashdotted; i'm going by the summary and having waded through too many of these types of studies before)

I came for sanity, I left pleased.

we can be grouped together because we constitute a market. i know console users pirate a lot of games, and i know that PC piraters most often wouldn't have bought the game even if piracy weren't an option, but the statement "PC users pirate too many games and developing for them doesn't generate enough sales" still stands.

As a former game pirater, I completely understand if a studio wants to abandon the PC platform entirely. The reason great games exist is that there is the potential for enormous financial rewards. Downplaying the financial aspect of this problem is unhelpful. We can't talk eschew greed without badmouthing the engine behind nearly all the great games today.

Epic said the PC is the realm of farmville for a good reason. Ad-based games or simple labors-of-love are the only types of games that can exist when software is pirated over sold at 20:1. I think Steam is our only hope; Valve smartly used the Apple model of making purchasing as easy as pirating, all while lowering prices and keeping up a back-catalog to take advantage of "long tail" sales. Recently, I've bought GTA4, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Far Cry, Far Cry 2, Bioshock 2 all from Steam because it's cheap, easy, and makes me feel good to support PC gaming.

The PC market stinks right now, but it should get better with Console/PC hardware looking more and more similar, the effects of "iTunes for Games" (Steam), and us PC users growing the F up and acquiring games legally.

Thanks for this response. When I read this story, this is exactly where my mind went. I guess it's a minority opinion.

But what they're going through is really a civil war. And in the US, we took quite a few liberties with civil rights during our civil war.

Will it help? Maybe--it will at least require drug gangs to go to the trouble of stealing cell phones that only have useful lives of a few days

I was out of work for nearly all of 2009, so I spent my days at a floundering start-up with no expectations of a paycheck. They won because I was able to significantly advance their product development and I won because I got the experience and contacts needed for my current job. For my situation, I'm glad there weren't laws on the books preventing me from 'exploiting' myself.

I used to use dual monitors, but i switched to a single 23" 16:9 LCD. It still supports side-by-side browsing or document viewing, but it looks much better.

False press release to drum up more attention?