If you’re a Danish youngster who games (and lives in Copenhagen), you could soon have the opportunity to attend a gaming school. I’m not exactly sure where the education part of this all fits in – are we talking extracurricular programs or an entire curriculum focused on gaming? – but after talks with the Korean e-sports organisation KeSPA, the joint project between Copenhagen eSports and a Danish youth group called Ungdomsringen is getting underway:
Juan Gril has what he terms a ‘rallying cry’ up on Gamasutra: the topic is innovation, specifically in relation to the casual games market (but I think this discussion applies on a much broader level to the industry as a whole, as evidenced by slews of blog posts and articles bitching about the topic). He draws a line between games that use incremental innovation – that would be the various incarnations of the match 3 formula, for instance – and games that have totally unique mechanics.
I love Etsy. They always come through with some of the greatest home made gaming crafts. This little Tetris cart clock sold for a measly $20, but if you have a little time and knowhow, you could easily make one yourself.
Via Ars Technica comes a Chinese article on one of the latest (and potentially least offensive) ways officials are trying to combat internet addiction and people dropping dead of gaming binges: freshmen at a number of Chinese universities aren’t allowed to bring computers with them to school. Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University recently joined the growing ranks of Chinese universities who have instituted such a ban. On the surface, I guess it makes sense – no computer = no easy access to the magical online = no WoW binges, at least in theory. But the plethora of internet cafes and quick and easy access to those oh-so-seductive games means many are suspicious about the efficacy of such bans:
I’ve heard of (and had myself) some truly terrible experiences with customer service, but nothing comes close to Speaker Ender’s from achieve360points.com. If you are not familiar with it, achieve360points.com is a website that lists the various achievements that can be garnered by playing various Xbox games and they do an excellent job. Not only that, but these are true, dyed in the wool Xbox fans who are giving the system a tonne of free advertisement with their website and have sung Xbox’s praises from here to the end of the internet.
Speaker Ender has posted an article on said website detailing his excruciatingly frustrating experiences with MS customer service through 1-800-4MY-XBOX. This poor guy has endured a long laundry list of terrible treatment including losing over $US300 of XBL content, going through three red ringed Xboxes and even being hung up on twice by a Tier 2 MS customer service agent. Take a look at this list that tallies up everything he’s been through so far in the last two months…
I was horrified, simply horrified to discover that upon perusal of the past week’s Kotaku articles that none of my colleagues had posted this incredible video. You may remember machinima artist Monty Oum’s last fan made masterpiece, Haloid. Well, if you thought that was good, wait till you see his latest offering, Dead Fantasy I. Combining Final Fantasy, Dead or Alive and a few other tidbits, Oum has created a second piece that definitely rivals the first. The end of the clip carries a “To Be Continued” and I’ll be on the edge of my seat waiting to see what he comes up with next. Incredible.
Happy Sunday morning. And now it’s time for another heaping helping of Kotaku Originals. This week we got a dearth of PS3 from the land down under, Crecente gets cuddly with Eye of Judgement and McWhertor gets a sweet two minutes with Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
