We-we-we so excited to talk about the emotional breakdown Rebecca Black is going to have after reading all of the YouTube comments about her “hit” song Friday. We also so excited to discuss the freak out that the internet had over a BioWare employee giving Dragon Age II a good review on Metacritic. Speaking of which, everyone should go rate us in iTunes: We sure as hell did. That included five full stars and a glowing review. Whatcha gonna do about it Internet? Noth’n!
You know what else you’re not going to do anything about? Blue shells. Last week Hideki Konna, the man behind Mario Kart, defended the blue shell to Kotaku. This week the Midwest Nerds, four dudes who know nothing about making games, give their thoughts about that spiky little bastard. An email from Nick is good for a few laughs, where he discusses the emotional place he was in during a recent life decision (or cell phone purchase, but whatever). Also making the list this week is discrimination in gaming – we talk about a study done by the video games research center at MIT about hate speech in multiplayer gaming. It ties in nicely with an article Nick posted here a few weeks ago. Steve finishes things off by kick’n in the back seat with his Zombie Tip of the Week.
Until next week, keep Partyin’, Partyin’ (Yeah)
- Rebecca Black’s Friday
- Dragon Age II dev review
- Fat, Ugly or Slutty
- Blue Shell justification
- Discrimination study
News Stories
- Big Top Vertigo – Feel Good Song of the Year
I agree that the Fat, Ugly or Slutty website showcases some of the worst online gamers have to offer. Just wanted to get that out there.
Trash talk is part of competition of all sorts. Much of the same-gender trash talk is meant to express sexual dominance. Imagine the deer with the largest antlers or most vividly colored peacock. It’s not just performance, but attitude/display that is all part of the game.
So, in your opinion, what should the limits of mix-gendered competitors be? Should sexual dominance of any sort, even if it’s gender neutral, EVER be a part of mixed-gendered competitions?
Say, for instance, tea-bagging in Halo. If you KNOW the opponent is female should you restrain from tea-bagging? How about pre-game lobby chat?
Also – it seems the term “rape” is being co-opted by gamers as a term for “destroying you in game.” I trust that…… most???…of the people that claim to want to rape me on XBL don’t LITERALLY want to rape me. We generally accept the common usage of “Fuck You!”. Should we accept the common usage of “I want chop your head off and skullfuck the neck hole?”
Simply put, I’m not a woman. I can only try to empathize with the threat of sexual violence/harassment IRL. I’m even less able to understand it’s impact online, where I’ve been desensitized to it. In your opinion, where is that line we shouldn’t cross in online gaming and how much of it has to do with the recipients gender?
I too am not a woman, but in game I have always felt that all is fair in love and warcraft. Teabag away regardless of gender, because that’s just how the communities in certain games act. That said, I think the line crossing occurs with the post game messaging and e-mailing. It seems like a lot of dudes will go out of their way to contact these gamettes post game to make crude requests and comments. In game all is good, after the fight is done it becomes sexual harassment in my eyes.