Ban These Evil (Video) Games (Ads)?

The UK’s Daily Mail once ran the front page headline, “Ban These Evil Games” but apparently the world of videogame culture is so vile and evil that we need to go beyond baning the games and taking up some sort of tobacco and alcohol style regulation of advertising and not even advertise games on public transportation. Or at least that is what some would have happen apparently.

With the imminent release of Grand Theft Auto 4, the advertising is in full swing including advertising on buses and bus stops. Now anyone on the inside of videogames and gaming culture would not be surprised that good old Jack Thompson doesn’t like the GTA4 ads but he isn’t alone. At least one local television station has complained about the ads and gotten them removed.

Of course the main rallying cry is “Think of the children!” and it isn’t just some reactionary “Vidja games am the eval!” moral panic, right? Because they would be upset no matter what violent (or uberviolent or ultraviolent or megaviolent or whatever word you want ot make up) and designed for adults form of entertainment was advertised on busses and other public places where children could see them, right? Right…

It is funny how all of these moral crusaders seemed to be looking the other way when The Sopranos was advertised on the side of a bus with a hand holding a handgun in place of the “r” in March. Or when The Sopranos was advertised by having a fake arm dangle out of the trunk of taxis implying that there was someone locked in the trunk. Or when The Sopranos rented out space in shoe store windows and placed “cement shoes” in the display window. Or when The Sopranos put stickers on taxis in Scotland that looked like bullet holes and blood.

But I’m sure that such oversites are just isolated incidents and these people really have the best interests of children in mind and not simply some moral panic, crusade, or ignorance of videogame culture or anything like that…

Despite the best intentions gaming the library initiatives can have some odd results

Apparently today is “gaming in your library day.” While there is some controversy over having games at the library, I’m all for it. After all libraries have had movies and music for years so why not games?

While the university has had little extension library things in the dorms that rented out games and movies for years it is only in the last few months that they main library has begun to rent out games. They have a small collection of xbox, 360, PS2, PS3, Gamecube, and Wii games. Imagine my surprise though when I notice a floppy disk version of Dig Dug:
Dig Dug C64
Then I took a closer look at it and not only is it a floppy disk but it is for the Commodore 64!
Dig Dug C64

I can only imagine where they found that disk gathering dust back on some shelf somewhere.

If that weren’t interesting enough, I was in the library today and noticed two games had been added to the collection:
H.E.R.O. 2600
H.E.R.O. for the Atari 2600
Ghostbusters NES
and Ghostbusters for the NES.

I can only imagine how many other games they have floating around in the system somewhere. Of course it isn’t unusual that they would have some unusual items in a system as large as IU’s library but it does seem kind of unusual that they would put them out on the shelf. It makes me feel like hooking up my Atari and NES just so I can check out a couple of these!

When Did Videogame Ads Get Such Odd music?

Once upon a time you could count on videogame ads to either have agro angry rock in it or pretentious orchestral music. Not any more. They have weird music in them. The first one that I noticed was the Gears of War Trailer featuring Mad World.

Then Lost Odyssey had Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit

Now Grand Theft Auto 4 has Miles Davis’ Move

Maybe it is just me but it is just kind of odd to hear Miles Davis in commercials for a videogame.

Lan party aftermath

So I spent Saturday at the local gaming club’s LAN party. From noon Saturday until noon Sunday. OK, I didn’t make it until noon Sunday. I left at 6am. I guess I’m getting old.

I had another reason to think I’m getting old at the LAN party. Dell was there with some college gaming league thing and if you signed up they gave you a tshirt and some other swag. As part of the sign up they wanted my birthday. It was then that I knew I was old. Why? Because the years on the form didn’t go back far enough for me to enter my year of birth…

The lan party was pretty fun other than that. I played in a DotA tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Call of Duty 4 tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Counter-Strike: Source tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Team Fortress 2 tournament and …actually won. I got lucky enough to be on a team with someone who was really really good and we mopped the floor with everyone. I also won a videocard in a drawing. It is a pci-express card and my motherboard only has agp.

However, it turns out that when I got hom and set my computer up again it didn’t start for some reason. So I guess I’m going to be putting that videocard to use sooner than I anticipated if I can’t get my current system back up and running (I booted into vista using my second hard drive but even if the main drive is plugged in the system won’t boot. It is SATA though so once booted into Vista and I plug it in the drive shows up so I was able to get my documents off it so that is a sign that it might be fixable. However, the bios is acting weird so I don’t know if I trust it or not).

Anyway… it was some good videogame culture and a good time all around.

I didn’t do any interviews or anything but it was some good old fashioned ethnographic participant/observation.

Getting ahead of myself while getting behind…

I’m working on getting a syllabus together for my class on videogame culture that I”m going to be teaching in the fall. Should be pretty fun. I’m also getting to teach a course on action movies. I’m going to make them watch Tokyo Drift. Ha!

However, I’m also trying to finish a draft of my prospectus that was due two days ago.

And there’s a LAN party this weekend so no work done this weekend — except for you know, the work of playing games as part of my dissertation…

And I’m grading stuff.

And I’m going to get even more stuff to grade tomorrow!

You would think it was part of my job to teach and grade or something!

Although… perhaps I should remember this grading stuff when I’m making up this syllabus!

That’s good readin’

If you haven’t been reading gamepolitics.com’s posts of the transcripts of Jack Thompson’s Bar Trial, you have been missing some hilarious stuff including such jems as:

JT: Do you recall my cursing at you?

CJ: I do not recall you cursing…

JT: In fact, I told you to “go fuck yourself,” didn’t I?

JT: What’s the cut-off on how many faxes?

MOORE: Oh, I don’t know. You reached it, whatever it is.

JT: Anybody else ever reach it?

MOORE: No… Not close… You ruined my fax machine.

JT: I ruined your fax machine?

MOORE: It quit.

JT: Did it.

MOORE: Yes.

JT: What kind was it?

SMITH: Mr. Thompson, I’m going to ask you to step back. Step back.

JT: I’ll step back when the court asks me to.

DT: Let’s do this. We have a podium that’s pushed over… Let’s have all parties utilize the podium.

SMITH: Thank you, Your Honor.

DT: All right.

JT: What were you afraid of, Mr. Smith?

DT: Okay. That’s inappropriate.

JT: No. It isn’t inappropriate, Judge. I don’t mean to argue with you, but I’d like to know what Mr. Smith is concerned about.

DT: Mr. Thompson, I’m going to ask you to please utilize the podium as it is –

This is stuff you can’t make up. This cries out for dramatic reenactment.

Farewell to Break…

Appropriately as my spring break ends I finished Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It only took me something over a decade. Maybe one of these days I’ll finish Super Mario Brothers…

It was fun but like the Final Fantasy games I don’t really feel any need to go on to finish Ocarina of time. Maybe at some point I will but not now. Needs more guns.

de Certeau plays Zelda

The only two Zelda games I really ever played were A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. I probably played the first Zelda but not too much. I’ve never finished any of the Zelda games.

Way back in the 90s when Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was the latest Zelda game (and this was still 93-94 or something like it so the game was already a year or two old), someone in the dorms had a SNES, a system I never had, and we played Link to the Past as a group.
Then we got to a part that we couldn’t get past. You had to get to this other cave and we couldn’t figure it out. This was before gamefaqs was around and none of us had internet-connected computers at the time so it was the dark ages and we gave up.

Then around 98 or 99 I was living with some people and one of the had an N64 and Zelda Ocarina of Time. They had one of the gameguide books for it. We were getting pretty far in the game and then the guy who owned the N64 up and moved out, taking the N64 with him. Bastard!

So new I’ve gotten around to downloading a SNES emulator for my softmodded xbox and am hip deep in playing A Link to the Past. In playing it I’m realizing, not for the first time, that my sense of the direction or perhaps more accurately my sense of how geographic locations are connected is kind of weird.

I like to think that I’m pretty good with directions. I only got lost twice in Tokyo on my own and one time I was suspicious of the direction I was headed as soon as I got off the subway and the other time I should have just kept going a couple more blocks before I turned. But playing Zelda and wandering around in the dungeons? I got no clue. I might as well stop looking at the tv because I’ve no idea how I end up in one room or where I’m going in the dungeons. Similarly when I’m in the open world I’m constantly overshooting or totally missing the mark when I’m trying to get somewhere.

Of course being the academic dork I am I can’t help but wonder WWdCD? What Would de Certeau Do? There’s some scholarship out there about de Certeau and gaming but not as much as you with think. The importance of maps in videogames would seemingly make his writings about maps, directions, and architecture would seemingly make a good connection with map-based RPGs. Someone go write more of that stuff so I can read it, OK?

Spring Break….

Yay spring break….
I’m going to sit on my butt so long I get bed sores and play a whole lot of games.
Right now Zombie Master is still a favorite.
I’m also going old school with Zelda: Link to the Past and Defender of the Crown (NES version).

If I can clear some room on my hard drive I might get to Bioshock too this week.

Who needs human contact?