Sundays are for coming back from Poland full of admiration for their ability to throw down, getting disgusted at the idiocy of British Rail Staff, seeing how your Beta Ray Bill pages in issue 3 turned out and compiling a post of all the fine reading from across the week while trying to avoid linking to some piece of pop music you rediscovered in the last week.
- Average gamer is fat, depressed and 35. Yeah, a lot of people exploded at this one. I suspect we all will too.
- Comrade Ste sighed nostalgically as he realised it was 10 years since the wonder of Old Man Murray’s Drakan Theme week. It’s not actually 10 years yet, but such pedantry is only for the noxious. i.e. Walker.
- Actually, talking about OMM, Jim talked to Chet Faliszek over at Offworld about why AI constructs are depressing. Because they take over the world and enslave us, you fool. Much more about L4D2 too, natch.
- Rammykins published a piece he contributed to a defunct mag where he got the Dave Taurus, Rick Porter and myself to chip in on games prices affecting reviews. I’m right. Everyone else is wrong. Especially Taurus. Again.
- Society Eye had a good week, especially if indie-interviews is your thing. Firstly they talk to Interactive Fiction-ite, indie-chap and comics-creator Jim Munroe. And then they talk to Zombiecow’s Dan Marshall about – oooh – you guess.
- I missed this when it was posted, but reading Zorg’s take on his time working for the corporate dollar after selling out UK Resistance (and then getting it back) was interesting.
- Meanwhile, people are still talking about Left 4 Dead. The Slow Down takes apart the characters in the game, analysing the original looks in comparison to the final ones, and thinks about what that means for L4D2.
- Bit-tech do a hefty piece on the problems of porting games. The problem is: it’s hard.
- And if it is too tricky, Brandon Sheffield compiles some nasty-dirty-coding-cheats for Gamasutra. They’re the programming equivalent of “drop in a nob gag” in games journalism, I suspect.
- A splash of Academia: Towards A Theory Of Domestic Gaming.
- Adventure Classic Gaming talk to Tale of Tales about – well – them.
- Crytek’s Cevat Yerli talks to Gamasutra about the future of graphics.
- On Bladerunner and the future.
- Scientists modeling zombie attacks. The question being, did they consider the possibility of everyone backing into a closet and melee attacking?
- I say we defeat them with high-speed-robot arms.
- A quick pod-cast recommendation. Geek Syndicate did an interview with English TV Presenter and geek-figurehead Jonathan Ross. As usual, Ross is most interesting when talking about what he’s most interested in. That is, geeking out spectacularly. Mainly on comics, but the splash of videogames – he likes R-Type and is a Warcraft/Warhammer-widow thanks to Ex-games-journo wife, now-screenwriter Jane Goldman – it’s fun stuff. Get here.
- Something that’ll be of interest to any artists in the house. It’s Disney’s Carson Van Osten’s comic-creation-guide-kit-thing.
- I don’t think I mentioned a couple of weeks back when Marvel announced my first ongoing for them, S.W.O.R.D. Well this week they followed that with the announcement that I’ll be taking over on Thor from JMS. Crikey.
- Saint Etienne’s How We Used To Live. Magical. Give it to the middle section to disagree. Rediscovered thanks to Pitchfork marching through their singles of the 00s this week. Best of all, someone’s turned all the tracks on Spotify into a playlist, which is an agreeable walk through the 00s.
Failed.
Related Stories:
So why are you reading the review at all? What is 7/10 if not a value judgment? ;)
I can’t seem to find the research paper on the AJPM site,
but did anybody actually read the news article, or are we all just leaping into “defend our hobby” mode?
There are some interesting findings there, even if the causal conclusions drawn in the article about games being bad for you are spurious at best.
Firstly, the finding is not “gamers are 35, fat and depresssed”.
Male gamers are more overweight than non-gamers, so it doesn’t really matter if Americans are all 300 lbs to start with, the gamers are all 350.
That they’re 35 and use the internet more might be “well duh” facts to us. They weren’t the primary focus of the study, but hey, if that’s what you’ve found the facts to be, why not include them and turn them into something other than anecdotal evidence.
What I think is the most interesting finding is that they don’t say all gamers are more depressed than average. That is the province of female gamers.
That is definitely something worth exploring further.
Is it a result of gaming being seen as “for boys” that meant that only a certain type of girl took it up, and they were broken when they got here?
Or were they okay, until the never-ending parade of female characters with lara croft-esque proportions destroyed their self esteem like fashion magazines did for the control group?
I’m sure the reality is too complex to be one or the other, and other factors will be involved, but if I were a game designer, I’d be kind of keen to know if the things we were putting in our games were contributing to the poor mental health of our audience.
According to my statistics taken over the last 1000 years, the average person who doesn’t play video games is dead. It’s purely in the interests of survival that I play.
Speaking as a scientist I’m more than a little appalled at the total lack of rigor, and the willingness to demonize games in the press, of the people who published this study. Based on their own comments, it’s hard to avoid the perception of a clear bias. I can only imagine how that survey was worded. What we do know, even from this poorly constructed article, is that their sample space makes the headline completely absurd. This: “survey data from 552 adults in the Seattle-Tacoma area. The subjects ranged in age from 19 to 90″ is not a valid sample for drawing any of the conclusions that article draws.
Haha! I’m slightly above average! Or is it below….
Aside: That may be the best Spotify playlist ever posted on Sunday Papers Kieron. I am loving it like DJ Pied Piper and his Summertime Crew.
Taking pricing into account on a game’s review score makes little sense when price is so constantly fluctuating. It’s not unusual nowadays to pick up a game that’s less than a year old for a $20 – $40 discount. Or to buy it used for even less.
When I’m browsing Metacritic to see if a discounted game is worth picking up, the only reviews and scores available to me are going to be the ones that were published at the time of the time of its release. If those scores have been docked due to the initial price, then that’s not going to be much help to me.
Just rate the game based on its quality. Consumers are perfectly capable of doing the price evaluation themselves.
That first news item is unscientific and pointless. To be expected from MSNBC.
@SteveHatesYou
If you’re just browsing Metacritic there’s nothing reviewers can actually do for you anyway.
Hey lovelies, Sam from America here. It’s my birthday today and I’d love more than anything to get an RSS feed from you folks that isn’t truncated. I’ll still click your ads, I promise.
I’m serious.
By any chance, Sam, are you 35, overweight, and depressed?
By any chance, Sam, are 35, overweight, and depressed?
Is there an echo in here? Specifically, one that removes words from sentences?
@Vinraith
I couldn’t agree with you more on this, not to mention that surveys and statistics rather than proper examination and study over time haven’t ever really counted as Scientific evidence for a reason.
That reason would be that the survey probably read something like this:
Name: …
Age: …
Weight: …
Height: …
Do you feel you suffer from depression?: …
How many hours a week do you use the Internet?: …
Do you ever engage yourself in any form of interactive entertainment (such as video games, on a computer, console, or via a hand-held device?): …
And that’s the problem with surveys and statistics, they’re very generalised, often very biased, and at the end of the day they pretty much only ever say what the person utilising them wants them to say, as there’s no form of information that can become more biased than statistics, especially statistics based on surveys written by those who’ll use said statistics.
The problem with this is that we could encounter this scenario: A person who’s going through some bad times in their life might think that they’re suffering with depression and answer yes to that, now if they’re over some predefined BMI limit, and if they happen to own a DS that they play on once a week, then suddenly they become a “depressed gamer”.
And there are many variations of this, and who knows what their definition of overweight is, even? And moreover, the article specified Internet usage as opposed to playing Internet-enabled games. But apparently a heightened level of Internet usage is a “gamer problem”. I’d disagree with this on an anecdotal level by noting I have a number of friends who live on the Internet but rarely (or never) play games.
And thus the twisting occurs, where statistics are painted in a certain way because they were asked in a vague enough way in the first place in order to be painted later on. And I’ve never really seen any statistics that don’t work this way. It’s a common trick right-wing politicians like to pull to try to show the opinion of the populace, and the lies are always evident and fairly obvious.
I’ll buy into that headline when they can back it up on a proper Scientific basis, until then it’s laughable and here’s hoping everyone will treat it as such. Of course, people are bloody gullible so that’s probably hoping for too much … but I do live in hope.
Quoth the sage (in this case, a British Prime Minister): “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
I’d do that one better. I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and can point out that most of us are fat and depressed.
We don’t get much sunlight, and when we do, it hates us. As for the fat, well, we’re Americans. Newsflash, milk, cookies and hamburgers isn’t the core of a healthy diet, and that’s probably the least processed food most of us ever touch.
That comic strip artist’s kit is really quite helpful.
Enjoyed the interview with Chet
Regarding that interview with Chet:
Chet may not want AI bots that take voice direction, but I sure as hell do. I’ve had any number of times playing L4D where I could only drum up 2 friends and didn’t feel like dealing with the hassle and chance of a random pickup. Even one of those god-awful bots, which can not be directed in any way (unforgivable in a modern game IMO) is more than adequate to destroy any plan you might hatch. Even rudimentary directability would help enormously, but voice direction (ala UT 2004) would be genuinely spectacular.
Blade Runner article is fascinating. Have a lot of things to say about it, but I’m going to keep to myself.
I’m 34, overweight (but doing something about it) and have never been cheerier, thanks. :)
(From the article) “a finding consistent with prior research pointing to the willingness of adult video-game enthusiasts to sacrifice real-world social activities to play video games.”
I would also argue with this statement: I feel we ’sacrifice’ very little in pursuit of our lifestyle. Avoiding contact with our fellow humans for prolonged periods is, in my opinion, a choice most of us are perfectly happy to make, and one that comes with very few negative consequences.
30+ fat about 170pounds (fat for me i used to be very thin) and depressed most days. Gaming can be a great time kill and escape/adventure. Disappointing to me that most games are about pseudo-life accomplishments rather then interesting adventure and fun action. If at this point I’m not attracted to video game accomplishments, i doubt i ever will be.
Unsure about that Fibreculture article. Seems a bit… weak?
Wow, nice score KG on taking on Thor. Congrats.
The results of the study have two possible reasons: 1. Video games are likely to make you fat and depressed. 2. Fat and depressed people are more likely to play video games.
It might be a combination of both, but for me #2 is the dominant factor in explaining the findings. That being said, I think the study is valid. And I think that video games make some people fat. Not sure about depressed.
Also in the interview with Chet, Jim said that he wants a special edition of the HL2 games, where he can change the language of the game. You can actually do that already. You can right click on the game in Steam, and change the language. And then you have to change it again in the game. Unfortunately you can’t select a different subtitles language.
Sagan – it’s also worth noting that their methodology in general was pretty weak. For starters, the interviews about five hundred people, all who lived in the city. Not exactly wide-ranging.
Reminds me of an old Burger King ad: It Just Tastes Better!*
*Based on a survey of 500 people**, 260 of whom preferred the Burger King burger.
**All of whom were randomly selected from people leaving a Burger King restaurant.
I’m looking forward to a 4-page scene where Thor explains how the mouse-keyboard combo is much superior to a gamepad.
Congrats!
P.
Oh; and thanks for St Etienne and the instant teleport back to doing my A Levels.
Apparently only love can break your heart…
I think we’re well past the time when a single review score is sufficient for games.
Pricing should always be evaluated separately. I would even suggest different buying price recommendations for different player groups: serious, casual, genre fans, budget conscious, etc. Whatever is appropriate to the title at hand.
The other side of reviews is that they tend to all drop at release time, or trickle out after that, and then cease. Hype is too strong a factor with front-loaded reviewing (remember GTA4?). We really should consider quality over time (which tends to increase with patching, support, etc), active player base (especially for multiplayer), community strength, modding, competing games, and so forth.
Kotaku is starting a recurring survey series that hopefully will show longer term feedback on games. There is definitely room for a serious post-release community feedback style of website (besides MMOs, which seem to have that covered).
I guess this also goes to highlight the gap between the “dump out a new rehash every year” style and “it’s great and we’ll support it indefinitely” studios. I know which I prefer.
‘feel like the only person in a position to make a value judgement is the consumer themself’
So why are you reading the review at all? What is 7/10 if not a value judgment? ;)
The rest of my post ^^ addresses both of these points. ‘Value’ and ‘quality’ are not synonyms.
Um, what? No form of information that can become more biased than statistics, really? They only ever say what the person utilising them wants to say?
I assure you, sir, that while statistics, like many things, can be misused, there do exist correct ways to do them. And with bad statistics, as long as people are open about them, there are plenty of ways to check and subject them to rigour. However the quote goes, the reality is that only with the numbers open to you (and hopefully the process being open as well), can you really get to the bottom of what’s going on. Usually, the presence of statistics does not indicate a lie, and contrarywise, the absence of numbers are what usually suggests that someone is hiding something.
I’d take my poll over your anecdote and armwaving and teary interview any day of the week. (Within a margin of error, anyway) For this case, I would not rush to judgement until the full paper is available – note that this is published and peer reviewed scientific research, not some random newspaper survey. Usually they are cleverer about these things. (E.g. burying the videogame question in some irrelevant ones, etc)
Disclosure: I study statistics.
I condemn your comic comparison to the Culture, Kieron.
Everyone knows that Contact/SC could only operate from a post-scarcity society! Without the socialist utopia to back it, what possible way could it exist!?
Oh, is that what happened with Idiot Toys (now Extralast)? I’d wondered. I’m glad I won’t be missing out on any fascinating battery photos and holding.
And therein lies the problem. See, what would the internet, especially the gaming community of the internet, be without rash, mindless races to defend the Hobby?
By the time the article comes out, the internets will have forgotten about it and so will all the Adonises with their spectacular bodies, social lives, AND Call of Duty skillz. Or the internet scientists that know the one and only important rule of statistics, that correlation does not equal causation!!11
Ars Technica has already provided a post which outlines the fact that most of the reporting on this study was garbage and missed several key points, including the fact that the writers acknowledge the flaws – such as the geographic location and source of responses. They’re careful to caution against assuming too much with the data (which the media apparently ignored). And the quote at the end of the MSNBC article says that this study may warrant further research (read: larger survey, across a wider georgraphic area), not that this is the be-all end-all study on the fitness of gamers’ body and minds.
Kotaku is starting a recurring survey series that hopefully will show longer term feedback on games.
Yea, Kotaku is the place I look to for solid research and insightful analysis.
Let’s hope further research on the subject is conducted by scientists more interested in objective results than media headlines. I’m inherently suspicious of anyone that goes to the press before their peer reviewed article reaches the eyes of their colleagues.
“bummed”.
hehehe