This semester, teaching a seminar on the history and meaning of video games has given me a chance to think of how the way people approach playing games can mirror how they approach real-life decisions. It sparked some thoughts about how sometimes the “optimal” way we handle things ends up making us worse off. Here […]
Are We Min-Maxing Our Way to Failure? Read More »
informed informalityVrin! I don’t know if that’s how you spell it, but that’s how I’ve seen it most frequently, so “vrin!” it is. What, you may be wondering, do I mean by “vrin?” It’s the sound Hornet makes when she heals, in Hollow Knight: Silksong. You can hear it right here. She says it four
Silksong’s Difficulty And Healthy Frustration Read More »
informed informalityI recently had an essay I wrote about Fallout New Vegas’s Honest Hearts DLC published on First Person Scholar. Here’s the first paragraph: As a Western set in a post-apocalyptic Mohave, Fallout: New Vegas demonstrates that the big questions that drive Western history are durable and malleable enough to survive even the (fictional) nuclear demise
Dreaming of Zion – First Person Scholar Read More »
writingHow about those millennials? I’m more interesed in video games than demographics, but that seems to be the hook that is getting casinos interested in a different kind of gaming. You can now find tournaments at the Silver Sevens, as I talk about in the latest Green Felt Journal: Millennials—technically those born between 1980 and
Games Millennials Play – Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas SevenBased on a Twitter conversation with @AgentMarco, I decided to look into what was happening with betting on video games. The result was this week’s Green Felt Journal: Could betting on video games be the last chance for gambling? In 2009, Woody Levin debuted BringIt.com, a website that let gamers open accounts and bet against
Will Video Games Go Vegas? in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas SevenProblem gambling is classified as an impulse control disorder, and it looks like it may have company. An Iowa State study says that many children suffer from addictive video gaming. From USA Today: Nearly one in 10 children and teens who play video games show behavioral signs that may indicate addiction, a new study reports.
Kids addicted to gaming Read More »
gambling & culture“I’ve been using the computer for so long, and command-Z works for undo in all the software programs. So whenever I find something in my life that I want to undo, I reach for the command-Z keys and I find it weird that it doesn’t work.” — Lisa Hoffman, graphic designer, who probably spends too
Daily Quote 01/11/05 Read More »
haphazard world