MTV has been active in encouraging younger voters to get to the polls for well over 20 years. In 1992 they brought the “Choose or Lose” campaign to the airwaves, and in the decades since they have frequently partnered with nonprofit Rock the Vote to air initiatives encouraging 18-24 year-old voters to get to the polls and engage with the democratic process.
Some believe the future of video games lies in the web-based streaming of triple A titles. Others feel that game consoles and PCs will one day be replaced with mobile devices. Game industry luminary Jamil Moledina sees a future dominated by social action games that people can play regardless of platform.
Activision boss Bobby Kotick didn’t buy MySpace. Someone else will for a measly $US35 million (considerably less than the $US580 million IGN owner News Corp. paid in 2005). Furthermore, also-dying social network Friendster is now a social gaming hub.
Game designer Denis Dyack, who labored on action game Too Human for years, thinks that social gaming is a bubble waiting to burst: “The trend that I see is it’s probably going to be one of the biggest bubbles and explosions that our industry’s seen in a long time and I think when it crashes it’s going to crash very hard.” [IndustryGamers]
Cave (known for its arcade shooters), Gree (known for its mobile phone games) and Electronic Arts (known for being Electronic Arts) are all working together on a new social game for Japan’s Gree networked gaming platform.
Cow Clicker, the send-up of social gaming absurdity, has expanded its parody of all things Facebook with an application platform that offers “seamless bovine integration”. Cow Clicker Blitz is a proof-of-concept of the robust leverages it can architect. Or something.
Here’s a story full of holiday cheer: A Korean woman, who’d just finished a four-hour social gaming session when her three-year-old urinated on the floor, strangled the toddler and left his body to decompose in the home for three days.
