Games for Girls - Are Girl Gamers Really This Lame?
Why do “Girl Games” suck, and why do female gamers tolerate it?
I read an interesting article today on NY1 about E3 and “Girl Power Coming to Gaming”. I thought this would be a pretty cool article since it mentioned the evolving focus in the gaming industry to account for the fact that almost 50% of gamers are now girls.
One game mentioned in the article allowed girls to be “babysitters” or veterinarians, while another let you dress up babies, and play mini games with them. The downhill trend continued with games that allowed girls to paint ladybugs and collect dew drops.
I think the only remotely interesting game listed was “Flock” which still relied on a “cute animal” mechanic, yet showcased a slight sense of humor by naming a UFO the “’Mother Flocker”.
Overall I was extremely disappointed with the details surrounding these games. It would have been more accurate to label most of these as “kid’s games” instead of “games for girls”.
It feels as though a bunch of old men drew up a list of everything they thought represented a girl gamer. In this case it must has consisted of “sugar, spice, and babysitting”.
I always thought that gaming was supposed to be about tapping into people’s fantasies. Or giving them an escape from reality, that the real world cannot offer. I don’t see how a game for girls needs to incorporate flowers, and lady bugs to be appealing.
After being a long time WoW addict and playing with some amazing female gamers (and female guild leaders) I am surprised these types of games are so well received. Look at all the cut throat Halo 2-3 girls out there. Nothing inspires furious competition more than getting pwned, and then having some girl laugh at you.
I think companies need to rethink their approach before they isolate a large part of the audience they are trying to appeal to. Maybe I am generalizing the statistics here, but many of the female gamers I know don’t post links for games like “Barbie’s Horse Adventure” in their guild forums.
When companies come out with a game that let’s girls cook dinner, and clean the house I am going to duck and cover as girl gamers everywhere pull out their shock rifles and frag the hell out of the developers.
What is Steampunk - Information, Origins, Art, and Culture
Steampunk - When History Repeats Itself You Get Art!
While surfing the net a few weeks ago I came across an interesting subject called “Steampunk”. Now because the internet is so large it is not uncommon to run across various subcultures, but I found Steampunk to be one of the most interesting ones I have seen in awhile.
Steampunk originally started out as a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction written about in books and comics during the 1980s-1990s. They were works of fiction that painted pictures of future worlds that relied on old fashioned “steam” technology. A good example that comes to mind is the Myst series of videos games.
Lots of written works, movies and games have based concepts and visuals off of the Steampunk mythos. As Steampunk’s popularity grew it started to transverse the gap between fiction and reality. While this has mainly been in the form of art and style, in some cases it has been applied as an actual engineering style by certain groups.
A recent example of Steampunk artwork that mixes the “old” and the “new” is the Telectroscope, designed and built by artist “Paul St George”. It consists of two giant telescopes of lens and mirrors that allow people in London and New York to interact with each other in real time via a fiber optic connection.
However some of the most interesting implementations of the Steampunk style have been homebrew inventions, and reverse engineering people have created with the aesthetic in mind. Some great examples of this can be seen in YouTube videos where people have created some really interesting devices throwing conventional technology to the wind.
It is interesting to hear people say how history repeats itself. This is very true in many aspects that we see from day to day. Steampunk is very interesting in that it utilizes antique methods of engineering to mirror modern technology with a neo-Victorian twist.
Check out the wikipedia entry on Steampunk for some incredibly interesting background information and resources.
What is a Pseudorant?
A rant by definition is:
“a speech or text that does not present a well-researched and calm argument; rather, it is typically an attack on an idea, a person or an institution, and very often lacks proven claims.”
Ok so what is a “Pseudorant”? By the definition above a pseudo rant would be a rant that is “not genuine” or “false”.
This is very true to the original purpose of Pseudorant. This site was designed to share information that I found interesting with people. Being my first blog I was not sure of the direction I wanted to take the site in, so I tried many different approaches and angles.
I felt a lot of pressure to write a certain way, and to cover certain topics. This expectation was self defeating to the original purpose of Pseudorant.
While I do enjoy writing tech guides, it is the not the main focus I would like for the site. I would rather share all the interesting aspects of the internet and web culture I come across on a daily basis.
The internet is so massive and evolves so quickly that there is always something interesting happening that others should know about. With this being said I am going to actively pursue a slight shift in the focus of the site.
I will still continue to publish tech guides periodically about various topics I come across but I want to share more with people than just how to troubleshoot. I think that a lot of the subjects I will be presenting will appeal to the same audience that has read the blog for the past few months, and I look forward to any feedback or suggestions people have to offer.
I hope you look forward to the new content I will be posting, and keep checking back for all the latest happenings online in the tech world.
Best Price for High Quality T-Shirts and Clothing
Amazing Tee Shirts that Don’t Break the Bank!
Hey all. I just wanted to post a great find I came across this weekend. I have been getting ready to go to a wedding next weekend so I needed to go out and buy a dress shirt because I didn’t have one I could wear to the wedding.
Looking through my closet also made me realize that I was in desperate need of some new Tee Shirts I could wear to work and around the house. I checked out all of my usual websites like thinkgeek, and others but nothing came close to the prices I found on uneetee.com.
Not only were their prices great I came across an amazing daily special they have on certain shirts. The one they are featuring today is incredible.
http://www.uneetee.com/category/productInfo.asp?idx=103
This shirt is only $10 and features a killer typography illustration of the Who! If you are a classic rock fan or just appreciate good music, and good artwork you owe it to yourself to check out this T-Shirt.
For the price I will definitely be picking one up, along with a few others to restock my closet. If you haven’t been yet check out uneetee for the best prices on high quality shirts and clothing.
Expensive New Optimus Maximus Keyboard
Looking for a way to burn a couple federal rebate checks? Look no further.
The Optimus Maximus keyboard is the definition of cool. Just look at it! It has LCD screens for buttons. Not only that, but the new keyboard can be programmed with any language out there ranging from Cyrillic and Quenya, to special ASCII characters and symbols.
It is really pretty cool to see how they designed it, and the considerations that were made to extend the life and service concerns of an LCD keyboard. Each button on the keyboard consists of a stationary LCD display with a clear moving cap to reduce wear on the individual displays.
The keyboard can be connected to USB ports, requires USB or DC power to function and even has a slot for a memory card so you can save your configurations or create custom ones for various uses.
At almost $1900 US dollars the Optimus Maximus does not come cheap but if I had the money to burn I would definitely pick one up. Think about being the first guy at the LAN party with a “PWN” or “IWIN” key!
For more information on the Optimus Maximus check out the specs page.
Editor’s Note: With such a hefty price tag what are the mainstream applications that people see this product being best suited for? I can’t think of many situations where it would be worth the cost, but the cool factor would make it a fun business write off.
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