It is said that there are three things you should never talk about amongst strangers: sex, politics and religion. Well, two out of three aren't bad I guess ;)
On the topics of sex (man...just typing the word should bring those 'ol hits up eh?). Some women decided it would be a swell idea if she sold herself for her flying mount in WoW. This goes up there in my "WTF" category. We all wonder why politicians, lawyers and moral police are all over the game industry these days, it's because of people like this. Opportunistic morons, *cough* Lieberman *cough* Jack Thompson* cough cough*, will seize any opportunity for power and this stunt is just giving them more fuel for their crusade. I really don't care what you do with your free time...heck, jump off a cliff for a flying mount for all I care. What I do care about is when your actions end up putting more rules and regulations on me and others because of your apparent lack of foresight. Man...we're devolving right before my very eyes.
I read a very interesting interview with Richard Garriott regarding the "Culture Clash" between East and West, as well as in Europe to some extent. One of the reasons I hate...yes, hate...Korean MMOs in general is the art and character models. I hate the fact that everyone looks like an asexual schoolgirl. However, I could never figure out why Koreans love it and why North Americans, in general, hate it. Here's a good explanation:
“Asia has a whole set of unique differences,” says Garriott. “Some of these are subtle but important. But one of the most obvious is what a heroic character looks like. In the United States, a heroic character is often very buff, broad shouldered, square chinned, and barrel-chested. The dashing hero is a very clear idea to us. In Asia, characters who look like that are always the bad guys, always.
“The people who are the good guys are young, nerdy, skinny little kids who survive against those big people because of an inner strength that somehow manifests his slight frame. And so when we create heroic characters and try to send them over to Asia they’re saying, ‘why are you making me play these big, dumb brutes who are clearly evil’. That’s a big disconnect.”
Wow...they think big/muscular people are evil and skinny/small people are good. Ummm, I'm not going to touch that one, but it's extremely interesting.
Most of you who read here probably listen to Brent over at VirginWorlds. He announced the winner of his contest in episode #63. The winning article is here...and I'll get around to blogging about the things Julie says later. To answer your question, yes, I did enter and you'll probably see my article up there within the next couple of weeks. No, I didn't win because, quite frankly, Julie rocked with what she wrote. So, grats to Julie...well deserved indeed.
In the rolling article treadmill that Brent has set up for the next couple of weeks, Cuppy's submission showed up yesterday. She tackles the non-issue of girls in games. I agree with her. I have absolutely no idea of why gender is such a big deal to some gamers and why it has anything to do with the games we play. Gamers are gamers, end of story. However, and I've posted this comment over at Cuppy's website, I do think that women fill in a vital roll in our gaming community. Women are natural community builders...they always have been, always will be. Men, well, we're good at smashing stuff. Good thing is that MMOs are a game genre in which social networks go out and smash stuff together....so it's win win for both sexes really. What really surprises me is that women don't equal or slightly outnumber men in MMOs. It's mind blowing to me that this is not the case.
D out.
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