Second post opposing prejudice, intolerance and abuse in the community

Here’s a screenshot of a session that was planned and announced for Capricon in Chicago this year:

The backlash was immediate and will continue on YouTube and blogs.

Here’s tenet number 1 on Capricon’s own published Code of Conduct:

I. Respect for Others

Phandemonium wants all its attendees to enjoy themselves at its events. As such, we ask that you respect each other. All Phandemonium events should be a space where everyone feels welcomed and comfortable. Phandemonium forbids abusive, insulting, harassing, and / or intimidating behavior which includes, but is not limited to, stalking, physical or verbal intimidation, discriminatory comments, inappropriate physical contact, hate group iconography and unwelcome sexual attention.

To be clear, sexual orientation is protected because we’re born with it. Race and color are protected because we are born with them. Age is protected because our birth defines it. None of us control any of those things about ourselves. The ill-thought session name and its description is a plain violation of the con’s own code of conduct. Unwelcome, uncomfortable, abusive, intimidating and discriminatory are obvious in what they said about this event and how they said it.

Good news is the session is no longer on the site. What obviously happened here is that someone lacked self-awareness about the inappropriateness of their own thoughts and words, and no one else caught this before it was published. But the backlash was immediate, and the problem was corrected. Calling it out is about *raising* awareness to help this happen less. Hopefully this made them rethink the agenda for the event, not just its name and description. E.g., is this the same session? “3:00 pm Game with the GoH: Original D&D with Victor Raymond” Hope so. Sounds better. And hopefully the person who did this has learned from the mistake and won’t make it again.

I am straight, white and older, but I’m not a grognard and don’t play OSR. Still, I’m not defending myself with this post. I’ve dealt with such prejudices before and am not reactive about them now.

Rather, I’ll always oppose prejudice, intolerance or abuse, no matter who the target is. And I’d like to help the community improve its inclusivity. Of everyone who wants to play. Of everyone who wants to be at the table. No matter their sexual orientation, gender or race. Tolerance and inclusivity are for everyone. They don’t point only in one direction.

Two posts opposing prejudice, intolerance and abuse in the community

First is a link to a short YouTube video that addresses it briefly and directly and brilliantly and compassionately, better than I could:

Abuse, Content Creation, and You(Tube) by DnD Shorts

The video is a fundraiser, too, for Mental Health America.

And if you’re a ttrpg player, DnD Shorts is a recommended channel, of course.

I realize the references are about TTRPG, not video games. But the issue is more visible and more problematic in the video game community.

I’m baaack!

12 years since I logged in, and the blog is still up, and I can still log in. Nice! I will be too brief about my status update. There’s a LOT in this, and the past 12 years.

Most recently, I worked at Wizards of the Coast as a Director of Software Engineering, managing the managers of software engineering teams that built and supported dozens of applications, APIs and services in support of tabletop Magic the Gathering play.

I returned from a wonderful head-clearing vacation on November 13 and handed in my resignation. The three very good reasons for this were 1) I don’t actually need to work anymore, and 2) my mom and my brother are both in poor health and need my support back east and 3) the bad situation at Wizards is just going to get worse.

Before I could tell everyone my news, that last point was demonstrated with the latest round of layoffs, just before the holiday break.

So what *am* I going to do now?

First, I’ll move back east, and arrange things for mom and brother. I expect that’ll keep me busy through June.

But I also have fun things I’m preparing to work on, do and create, without worrying about money or a job or bosses. Emphasis on fun! More about that as I prioritize and proceed. Picking this blog up again is, in fact, one of those things. This blog will continue its focus on video games, certainly.

But I also want to focus, even more, on tabletop gaming. Particularly but not only role-playing games, like D&D. So, I’ll be adding a new blog about that community and its games and its content and its business and its importance. There’s good connection and sometimes overlap between the video games and tabletop (are you playing Baldur’s Gate 3 yet?!?), but for the sake of keeping context and focus in the content organized and distinct, I think it will make sense to move forward with both, occasionally linking them with cross-references. We shall see.

Teach your Monster to Read

Teach your Monster to Read

Web based and free. I’ve only watched the video and played the demo. Very cool to see people doing this online, and free. Has anyone used, or your kids used? UK english versus US english seems an issue, with the emphasis on audio and pronunciation?

Teach your Monster to Read: First Steps is a new, free game to practise the first steps of reading.

 

Combining top quality games design with essential learning, the game is built on the principles of synthetic phonics and follows the teaching sequence of the Letters and Sounds programme.

 

It has been assessed by reading experts at the University of Roehampton.

Dystopia: What a Game of Civilization II Looks Like After 10 Years

Dystopia: What a Game of Civilization II Looks Like After 10 Years

In The Atlantic, no less. Nice.

When I was a kid, it felt like some expansive History of All Time, except that it was a turn-based computer strategy computer game. Which is why a 10-year game of Civilization II has struck a chord around the Internet today: if you could learn a history of western civ from the game, then its vision of the future feels oddly significant.

 

Here’s what happened. Some human being kept playing the same game for a decade and then posted screenshots to Reddit along with a narrative explanation of where the gameworld stands.

Xbox Live: How an Old Tech Company Built a Social Media Juggernaut

Xbox Live: How an Old Tech Company Built a Social Media Juggernaut

Harvard Business Review analysis, no less:

Amid the flood of social media IPOs during the last 12 months, another “old guard” tech company has quietly built one of the most dominant, fiercely loyal and profitable social media businesses to date. You might have heard of it: The company is called Microsoft, and the social media business is called Xbox Live.

Xbox Live is easy to miss. It’s a $2 billion revenue business embedded within the $9 billion revenue entertainment/devices business of the $73 billion revenue of Microsoft overall. If Xbox Live was a standalone business, its 40 million members would be dwarfed by user base of Linkedin, Twitter, Zynga and Facebook. But while Xbox Live’s membership is less than 20% of the size of Zynga (a comparable gaming company), it likely has nearly double the gross profit that Zynga generates. Not bad for the old guy.

E3 Trends: iPad, Augmented Reality Loom Over Video Game Trade Show

E3 Trends: iPad, Augmented Reality Loom Over Video Game Trade Show

There’s a 900-pound gorilla stalking the halls and suites of E3: Apple’s iPad. I lost count of how many times tablets were mentioned, and while few game companies specifically mentioned the top-selling tablet, iOS’s hold on gamers is being felt in the mainstream game business.

 

Microsoft is trying to move out of the living room with SmartGlass, which provides two-way communication between the Xbox 360 and software running on Windows 8 tablets and other Windows 8 devices.

Nintendo’s Wii U Game Pad offers strong similarities to tablets, but the device is more tightly coupled to the Nintendo ecosystem, and doesn’t look like it works as a standalone device.

 

Sony announced more games integrating the PS Vita with PlayStation 3 games, but Vita’s integration seems even more loosely coupled than SmartGlass. Hedging its bets, Sony also talked up PlayStation Mobile, an attempt to bring PlayStation-style gaming to Android tablets.

 

PlayStation Mobile could become a credible competitor to iOS, but Sony’s track record in taking on Apple has been spotty, lest anyone forget how Apple took over the portable music player business.

Despite all the companies’ best effort, none of the gaming devices addressed key benefits delivered by the iPad and iPhone: games cost less. Major game companies try to eke out more revenue streams beyond the $60 boxed title. Phrases like EA’s Riccitiello’s “games have evolved from the disc that you buy to the place that you go” are heard more often, and efforts like Battlefield 3 Premium strive to generate revenue beyond the ship date of a title.

Microsoft Xbox Is Winning The Living Room War. Here’s Why.

Microsoft Xbox Is Winning The Living Room War. Here’s Why.

Forbes analysis, no less. A good para:

In May Microsoft effectively stopped treating Live like an add-on for a videogame console and started pricing the console as a loss leader for an entertainment platform. Rather than pay $199 just for the unit, users can now get an Xbox for $99—as long as they also take a two-year contract to Xbox Live Gold. This new low price looks even better when you consider you don’t need to buy a new TV, which is what Samsung and, soon, Apple want you to do. “If you want to start a phenomenon,” says Ballmer, “it doesn’t start with thousand-dollar-plus devices that sell at unreasonably low volume and need major room redesigns.”

Chris Rickert: Kindness at your gamer’s fingertips

Chris Rickert: Kindness at your gamer’s fingertips

UW Madison is, I think, the best institution on the planet addressing how gaming is applicable to and useful for many things other than just the fun of playing a game. The article is a snide, skeptical journalist’s take, still worth a read. A snippet:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving two UW-Madison researchers a $1.39 million grant to develop two video games to help teach eighth-graders compassion, empathy, cooperation, mental focus, self-regulation, kindness and altruism.

 

I can’t help but wonder, wouldn’t a puppy work just as well, and be a heck of a lot cheaper?

 

Besides, if your kid is going to be a mass murderer, derivatives trader or some other empathy-less sociopath, isn’t that mold pretty much cast by the time he’s 13 or 14?

Sony Online’s SOEmote software provides you with your Everquest II character’s expressions and voice

Sony Online’s SOEmote software provides you with your Everquest II character’s expressions and voice

This really is going to be a bigger deal than it seems right now, yep.

As a collaborative concoction between Sony, Image Metrics, and Vivox, SOEmote captures your voice and facial expressions and pastes them onto your in-game character. It also modulates your words into the pitch appropriate for your race such as the deep baritone of an ogre or the gnome’s tinny squeak. We at GamesBeat recommend turning off this feature when spilling large, expletive-inducing cups of coffee.

 

In the below video, David Georgeson, Everquest II director of development, demonstrates SOEmote’s capabilities with his mighty Froglok warrior, proving anthropomorphic amphibians look terrifyingly creepy when grinning.