Joystiq reports the clumsiest product displacement yet, where Electronic Arts removed a reference to Sega in House of Pain’s anthem “Jump Around” from NBA Street v3. The corporate revisionist megamix in yo face!
Clive Thompson wrote a terrific article on the economics of massive multiplayer online games that goes beyond the usual “people are making money with their hobby!” coverage and explores what virtual economics says about capitalism at large. Wonderfully readable, too.
The Name Game
While I wait in the lobby of one of the largest game studios in the world, I watch someone go through to the inner sanctum. The shiny barrier, with transparent doors that whir apart at the wave of a card-pass, looks familiar — I think I’ve seen the […]
Read Only Memories
I’m fairly suspicious of nostalgia, and I hate how advertisers leverage our emotions to sell us the same products twice. So while I’m happy that people are rediscovering videogames from their youth, and that the games and their blocky aesthetic are mushrooming up all over the culture, I […]
Good Grief
The following Q&A first appeared, in condensed form, in my column The Panelist for Toronto’s Eye Weekly. Here’s a special, extended version of the conversation. Collecting every Peanuts strip Charles Schulz ever drew, The Complete Peanuts will take a whopping 25 volumes and more than 12 years to […]
Easy Prey
Prey is the latest science fiction thriller from perennial best-selling author, Michael Crichton. It’s been a few years since I read any Crichton novels so I was curious to see if my memory of his work – topical, easy to read in the way that bestsellers have, but […]
The Cultural Gutter 