Novosti iz sveta video-igara

[neomedjeni]

Dvodelni Matt Chat intervju sa bračnim parom koji stoji iza razvoja igre Serpent in the Staglands.


http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/115335-serpent-in-the-staglands-video-interview.html

[Meho Krljic]

Sinergija zla nije baš dala sjajne rezultate. Don Mattrick napušta Zyngu (Mark Pincus se vraća nazad u direktorsku fotelju) nakon nepune dve godine i više od 200 milijuna dolara gubitka u prošloj godini.

[Meho Krljic]

Kara Elison na tviteru kaže da bi zbog ovoga svi trebalo da budemo gnevni i... u pravu je. O ovome pričamo već godinama: gejming je jedini medijum (popularne) kulture čiji čimbenici aktivno rade na uništavanju njegovog legata.

Videogame Publishers: No Preserving Abandoned Games, Even for Museums and Archives, Because All "Hacking" is Illegal

The Entertainment Software Association doesn't want anyone to restore the functionality of older videogames that are no longer supported by their publisher, because, says ESA, this is "hacking," and all hacking is "associated with piracy."
EFF, along with law student Kendra Albert, is asking the Copyright Office to give some legal protection to game enthusiasts, museums, and academics who preserve older video games and keep them playable. We're asking for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions (Section 1201) for those who modify games to keep them working after the servers they need are shut down. Many player communities, along with museums, archives, and researchers, want to keep the games they own playable after publishers shut down the servers the games depend on. Section 1201 creates legal difficulty for these communities, which is why we've asked the Copyright Office to give them an exemption.
Section 1201 is often used by the entertainment industries not to prevent copyright infringement but to control markets and lock out competition. So it's not surprising that ESA (the trade association for the largest game producers), along with MPAA and RIAA, have written to the Copyright Office to oppose this exemption. They say that modifying games to connect to a new server (or to avoid contacting a server at all) after publisher support ends—letting people continue to play the games they paid for—will destroy the video game industry. They say it would "undermine the fundamental copyright principles on which our copyright laws are based."
ESA also says that exceptions to Section 1201's blanket ban will send a message that "hacking—an activity closely associated with piracy in the minds of the marketplace—is lawful." Imagine the havoc that could result if people believed that "hacking" was ever legal! Of course,  "hacking" is legal in most circumstances. ESA, the spokespeople for a group of software companies, knows this full well. Most of the programmers that create games for Sony, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, and other ESA members undoubtedly learned their craft by tinkering with existing software. If "hacking," broadly defined, were actually illegal, there likely would have been no video game industry.
Behind this hyperbole, ESA (along with MPAA and RIAA) seem to be opposing anyone who bypasses game DRM for any reason, no matter how limited or important.
Games abandoned by their producers are one area where Section 1201 is seriously interfering with important, lawful activities—like continuing to play the games you already own. It's also a serious problem for archives like the Internet Archive, museums like Oakland, California's Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, and researchers who study video games as a cultural and historical medium. Thanks to server shutdowns, and legal uncertainty created by Section 1201, their objects of study and preservation may be reduced to the digital equivalent of crumbling papyrus in as little as a year. That's why an exemption from the Copyright Office is needed.
   

[Meho Krljic]

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 najavljen, događaće se u budućnosti.

[Meho Krljic]

Little Devil Inside je igra koja ima vrlo ozbiljne ambicije za kad jednom bude grinlajtovana na Steam. Pominje se tu svašta, slobodno kretanje po prelepom 3D svetu, ozbiljne borbe, ozbiljna istraživanja, ozbiljan mišmeš akcione avanture i RPG-a. Ako je neko pomislio "Aha, Zelda?", čestitke, to je isto pomislio i Kotakuov Nejtn Grejsn, koji kaže da ovo izgleda ko Zelda i Dark Souls u timbartonovski dizajniranom svetu. Doduše, kaže da mu i nije još najjasnije ŠTA će u igri da se tačno radi, ali, gaddemit, trejleri izgledaju zapanjujuće:


Little Devil Inside

Battle

[Meho Krljic]

LoL igrači se na zabavan način bune zbog Riotovog prilično ozbiljno skupog poteza:

League Of Legends Players Are Rebelling Against Overpriced Stuff

[Meho Krljic]

Takođe, u normalnim uslovima ne bih pokazao mnogo entuzijazma za Early Access igru koja je roguelike FPS jer takvih igara na Steamu ima toliko da ispadaju iz kompjutera kad god kliknem na stimov šortkat, ali gaddemit, ovaj Space Beast Terror Fright izgleda DO JAJA. Kao nekakav lo-budget ali potpuno ISPRAVAN pokušaj da se ostvari autentično Aliens iskustvo. Nejtn Grejson ga takođe snažno preporučuje. A i košta petnes evropskih dolara... OH!!!!!!!!!

http://youtu.be/FZkjEIUAnXw

[Meho Krljic]

Možda drugu neomeđenom bude zanimljivo da sazna da ljudi koji su pravili Bound By Fame prave postapokaliptični  cyberpunk RPG koji se zove Technomancer


Bound by Flame dev announces cyberpunk RPG The Technomancer

Spiders, the Paris-based developer of Bound by Flame, has announced its next game: The Technomancer.
The Technomancer is described as a post-apocalyptic action RPG set in a cyberpunk world, and is due out for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016. Publisher Focus Home Interactive released a few images, below. (That's art there on the right.)
For combat, expect four different skill trees and three different fighting styles. Out of combat, there's conversation dialogue and a story that reacts to the decisions you make. The story, apparently, has up to five different endings. Also, there's a crafting system for weapons and armour for yourself and your companions.
The action takes place on Mars, with the Technomancer on the run from the Secret Police.

[Meho Krljic]

Spojlerima ispunjen video koji obrazlaže lavkraftovske motive u Bloodborne. Ja ne smem još da gledam al evo, nek neko uputi Gula da baci pogled:


Bloodborne and H.P. Lovecraft (Spoilers!)

[neomedjeni]

Možda drugu neomeđenom bude zanimljivo da sazna da ljudi koji su pravili Bound By Fame prave postapokaliptični  cyberpunk RPG koji se zove Technomancer

I jeste, samo nisam siguran koliko smemo da se nadamo da će napraviti nešto dobro. Ne sećam se da je BBF nešto slavno prošao.

[Meho Krljic]

Dishonored je ovog meseca dostupan za dž za Playstation + pretplatnike, pa da podsetimo da se ova izvrsna šunjačka igra može igrati i bez mnogo šunjanja. U donjem videu igrač demonstrira kako se u Dishonoredu može dominirati kroz suvu agresiju. Impresivno je:


Dishonored Stealth High Chaos (Assassinate Barrister Timish)1080p60Fps

[Meho Krljic]

Mikrotransakcije su se stvarno otrgle kontroli. Novi Mortal Kombat prodaje "lake fatalitije" za slučaj da vam je teško da ih izvedete u vanila verziji igre.

[Meho Krljic]

Moderne konzole, pošto su svesne da je ponekad svlačenje 40 gigabajta instalacije sa interneta (pa čak i sa diska) pomalo frustrirajuće jer vi biste da se igrate ODMA, omogućuju da se igra lansira čim se daunlouduje dovoljno materijala da, recimo, zaigrate prvu misiju u igri dok se osttak skida u pozadini i pakuje na hard. Do sada PC igre ovo nisu mogle da rade. Steam testira ovaj "streaming instal" pristup sa Mortal Kombat X i, za sada, sa katastrofalnim posledicama 

[Meho Krljic]

Mene nema dva dana i ovde odma zavlada lenjost i nedostatak preduzimljivosti i niko ne kači nikakve vesti.

Dobro. Frst tings frst, da podsetimo da je izašao GTA V za PC (ko mrzi internet, može ga kupiti i u GameSu koji su dobili stok) i, kako Rokstar već običava, ovo nije nikakav na brzinu sklepani tejk d mani end ran port sa PS4 ili Xbone, već s ljubavlju napravljena igra koja dleuje kao da j enativni PC naslov, sa dobrim kontrolama, gomilom podešavanja i ekskluzivnim editorom za pravljenje filmova. Editor jako hvale a ovo je neka selekcija filmića koje su ljudi napravili već posle par dana od izlaska igre:


http://kotaku.com/the-best-fan-made-gta-v-movies-so-far-1698119216


Dakle, ako imate 60 GB slobodno na hardu za instalaciju, plus još malo mesta za rendanje filmova, dajte šansu režiseru i montažeru u sebi da se iskažu. Ja sam igru već kupio i za PS3 i za PS4 i jasno je da ću uzeti i PC verziju kad malo cena popusti.

[neomedjeni]

Krivi smo, ali ne karaj nas javno!!!! 

[Meho Krljic]

U pravu ste, kolega, karanje je ipak intimna radnja.


Dalje, Invisible Inc. je nova Kleijeva igra i ja sam, jer Klei su nezavisni studio čiji je trek rekord prilično izvrstan (Shank, Mark of the Ninja, Don't Starve) rado dao pare za igru unapred. Takođe, pošto je Don't Starve i u early Accessu bio vrlo dobar, malo sam pre par meseci igrao i neku od EA verzija Invisible Inc. i bio impresioniran. Igra samo što nije izašla, to jest, izlazi 12. Maja za PC, a najavljena je i neka subsekventna PS4 verzija i ja ne mogu dovoljno intenzivno da je preporučim. Ispostavlja se da je "potezna šunjačka taktička igra" žanr koji nam je svima nedostajao a nismo to ni znali. Drugim rečima, vanbračno roguelite dete Hitmena i XCOM bi ovako izgledalo:


http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/16/invisible-inc-makes-aturn-based-stealtha-a-real-cool-thing

[Meho Krljic]

Inače, Uičer 3 je otišao zlatan oficijelno gotov i može se preinstalirati na odabranoj platformi, kako ne biste grčevito skidali 25 giga instalacije na dan izlaska, a koji je devetnesti Maj. Ima još mesec dana, al da se zna.  Ja sam, kako već rekoh, već odavno kupio PC verziju ali sam u međuvremenu priorderovao i PS4 verziju jer sam konformista, pa eto 

[neomedjeni]

Nećeš valjda da igraš inferiornu PS4 verziju pored žive PC lepote? 

[Meho Krljic]

Oprosti mu, svevišnji, ne zna šta čini. 

Dakle, već sam pisao ovde da bi za propisno igranje W3 na PC-ju verovatno trebalo da pazarim novu grafičku i možda i CPU. Što ću ja RADO učiniti sa parama koje sam zaradio prevodeći neku konferenciju poslednja dva dana AKO te pare ne opciguje supruga da bi zastakljivala terasu ili već nešto slično. Čak i to na stranu, stotinak sati provedenih ispred kompjutera i stotinak sati provedenih na trosedu ispred televizora su radikalno razčičita iskustva gde je ovo drugo toliko udobnije da sam spreman na malo duža učitavanja i koji piksel manje.

[neomedjeni]

Izgovori, izgovori...


Ovakve igre, koje izlaze jednom u životu, igraju se u punom sjaju i raskoši koju mogu da pruže igraču, šta košta da košta!!!!

[Meho Krljic]

Uništiće te taj (neosnovani) PC elitizam. Dakle, ja sam mislio da je jasno da bez investicije od jedno trista evra, moje iskustvo igranja Witchera 3 na postojećoj mi PC konfiguraciji pruža MANJE sjaja i raskoši od onoga što će mi dati PS4 verzija.  Al džaba, tvrdoglav si.

[Meho Krljic]

Da ne pominjem da mi sve ovo priča čovek koji se i dalje igra na DirectX 9 sistemu 

[Meho Krljic]

A avanturisti imaju čemu da se poraduju, serijal Samorost (Česi koji su se posle proslavili machinariumom su prvo veštine tesali radeći Samorost) se vraća trećim nastavkom:


Samorost3 Teaser Trailer

[Meho Krljic]

Lep napis/ intervju sa ljudima koji, uz Sonyjev blagoslov i podršku rade novu Shadow of the Beast igru:


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-16-the-new-shadow-of-the-beast-is-one-mans-dream-come-true


S druge strane, Shadow of the Beast zapravo nije bila preterano dobra igra. U nekim elementima bila je užasna, da se ne lažemo. Sećam se kada sam video skrinšotove Amiga verzije (Amiga je platforma za koju je igra originalno napravlljena, a posle smo i mi sa osmobitnim mašinama imali portove) da sam se zablentavio od lepote i, zbilja, igra je jedno vreme dobijala sjajne ocene po gejming magazinima, na ime grafike & atmosfere koju je ta grafika proizvodila. Ali nakon što se prašina malo slegla, da ne pominjem nakon što smo odigrali grafički manje impresivne portove igre, shvaćeno je da je ovo bila dosta slaba igra za svoje vreme. Ali možda ovaj rimejk bude valjao...

[Meho Krljic]

Sunset izlazi 21. Maja na Steamu:


SUNSET (preview teaser)


Da podsetimo, to je ona igra u kojoj ste kućna pomoćnica u domu moćnog političara u vreme narodne pobune i nastupajuće revolucije, gde možete odlučiti kako da svojim neprimentim uticajem oblikujete istoriju. Zvuči kao vrlo zanimljiv koncept i zapravo više "gejmi" nego većina onoga što su Tale of tales do sada uradili. Ovaj studio je ekstremno posvećen "art" strani gejminga, uz često zapostavljanje ludo komponente, ali Sunset zvuči kao interesantan kompromis.

[Meho Krljic]

Super Time Force je prvo bila Xbox ekskluziva, pa smo dobili unapređenu PC verziju a prednost dugog čekanja na PS4/ Vita verziju igre je u tome što je ovo najekspanzivnija verzija, u kojoj je jedan od likova i Sonyjev Predsednik Globalnih Studija Shuhei Yoshida, plus uz crossbuy opciju, jednom kupovinom se dobijaju verzije za obe konzole. Sonyju treba stisnuti šaku. Podsećam da se meni igra vrlo dopala na PC-ju i da sam nameran da kupim i ovu verziju. Trejler u kome se vidi i YOSP:

Super Time Force Ultra - More PlayStation Exclusive Characters! | PS4

[Meho Krljic]

Brendan Keogh se, inspirisan GamerGateom, potrudio da napiše analizu toga kako je gejming nastao u senci starijih i širih patrijarhalnih koncepata. Pa da vidimo:


Hackers, gamers and cyborgs

Gamergate began in August 2014 when a slighted and abusive ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn, developer of the award-winning interactive fiction game Depression Quest, posted private and libellous information to internet message boards with a predominantly male user base. According to the ex-boyfriend, Quinn had slept with a journalist from one of the major enthusiast press outlets and, as a result, the journalist mentioned Depression Quest in an article. Thereafter, the online mob hid behind claims about 'ethics in games journalism' as they launched an attack on a woman for having a sex life.
Gamergate (though not known by this name for the first fortnight) soon escalated.
The damage has been well-documented, with feminist critic and second Gamergate target Anita Sarkeesian appearing on the front page of the New York Times and the Colbert Report to discuss the hateful movement and the death threats. I have previously written a piece for Overland detailing the fallacies of Gamergate's 'it's about ethics in games journalism' veneer and demonstrating how the movement ignores genuine ethical conundrums in mainstream video game journalism to instead focus on marginal, independent women creators and critics.
Here, I want to situate Gamergate in the context of the broader patriarchal structures from which video game culture emerged. Gamergate didn't appear from nowhere, and an examination of its origins provides an opportunity to grasp the entrenched patriarchal values of this significant pop-cultural form.
The masters of the computer The history of video games is inexplicably enmeshed with the history of computing: in the late 1940s, when Alan Turing was formulating the concept of a computer algorithm, his goal was a computer that could play chess competitively. Commonalities can also be traced from video games back to the penny gaffs, nickelodeons and theme park attractions of the late nineteenth century. But it is the people from the early years of electronic computing who created the first video games and who laid the tracks along which gaming would travel for the next half century.
Even today, the study of video games in universities will more often be found in computer science or IT faculties than in the humanities. This is because video games are well understood as software but not so much as cultural artefacts.
At the time Turing was working on his chess algorithm, most 'computers' were, literally, women: human clerks hired to punch out desktop calculations to be passed on to gunnery officers to aim artillery or other weaponry. The women, already cheaper than equally qualified men, were gradually replaced with computing machines such as the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (the ENIAC), designed at the University of Pennsylvania and funded by the US Army. While several female computers were initially retrained as programmers for the ENIAC, they were removed from the project when the machine was taken to a military base.
The story of computers transitioning from the flesh to the digital, from the clerical (feminine) to the militaristic (masculine), provides a compelling origin myth for the digital computer. By the 1960s, computers were exclusively the realm of rich (and usually military-affiliated) universities, in overwhelmingly male computer labs. Such was the case with MIT's PDP-1 computer, with which a group of male students created Spacewar!, the first video game.
Even as computers became increasingly significant devices in the last decades of the twentieth century, they remained entrenched in broader patriarchal structures that inscribed them as mathematical, scientific, important – that is, as male. They were embedded, more often than not, in parts of society already explicitly gendered: the science lab, the maths classroom and, when they moved to the home, the son's bedroom rather than the daughter's.
It is in such settings that the much glorified hacker culture of the 1970s and 1980s emerged. This new identity is perhaps best documented in The Second Self, Sherry Turkle's ethnographic work about MIT in the early 1980s, in which she traces a fascinating and complex alternative masculinity, one very much defined by its repulsion of jock culture and physical prowess. These nerdy engineering students are not jocks, but rather the bullied kids who never get the girl.
Yet their relationships with their computers echo a certain masculine normativity all the same: a need to transcend the corporeal, a desire to master and dominate the machine, to have it bend to their will. The hacker ideology functions as a microcosm of broader masculine ideology, even as it provides an alternative for those young men excluded from dominant forms.
This is the narrow demographic (male, university-educated engineering/computer science geeks, many affiliated with one hacker scene or another) that shaped the early years of video game design. Video games would spend decades symbiotically attached to student hacker culture: to the sciences, to computer programming, to engineering and thus to masculinity. PONG, one of the first commercially successful video games, was created by Allan Alcorn, an engineer and computer scientist by trade.
In tracing this early history, it is important to acknowledge the women who were present throughout, such as the human computers of the 1940s, or Ada Lovelace (responsible for significant early contributions to the understanding of computer programming), or Veronika Megler (who co-created the critically acclaimed 1982 video game The Hobbit). But the existence of these women does not render the field less patriarchal – that is, open to men and often closed to women.
It is from this male-dominated computer culture that ideas about what video games should be emerged. This is not a claim that video games are naturally masculine, but rather – as argued by Judy Wajcman in Feminism Confronts Technology (1991) – that both computing and video games were co-opted early on by the ideology of masculinity.
Early video game genres were narrowly and disproportionately concerned with science-fictional and militaristic fantasies of shooting aliens, blowing up missile silos, driving racing cars or saving princesses. The patriarchal inscribing of video games thus enforces itself. As Wajcman notes:

Many of the most popular games today are simple programmed versions of traditionally male non-computer games, involving shooting, blowing up, speeding, or zapping in some way or another ... No wonder then that these games often frustrate or bore the non-macho players exposed to them. As a result, macho males often have a positive first experience with the computer; other males and most females have a negative initial experience.

Wajcman's point (echoed by many contemporary critics) is not that shooting, speeding, or zapping are inherently masculine activities, but rather that video games become coded as masculine through society's pre-existing gendered norms, thus connecting games and computing to broader patriarchal concerns. This attracts more men and boys to the form, and helps to ensure most women and girls remain uninterested or excluded.
In more recent years, the technology industry spawned by the nerds of the twentieth century has become a dominant masculinity in its own right. Geeks are no longer Poindexter: they are Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network. They are frat-boy billionaires running trendy West Coast tech start-ups.
Masculine computer culture thus occupies a complex position: a field traditionally inaccessible to those who aren't male or upper middle class, but dominated by those teased and bullied for not being macho, has now obtained a privileged status. The hacker remains an alternative identity to the masculinity of sporting jocks, but it continues to exclude women, even as it has grown in power and influence.
The early history of digital computing has consequences for the ideology of video game design as well as for the way in which these products are received and discussed. Gamergate's insistence that video game criticism should be 'objective' – a notion considered absurd in any other cultural form – stems directly from inherited mathematical and scientific values: a perception that video games are quantitative software, not qualitative creative works.
Meanwhile, Gamergate supporters harbour a persecution complex, considering themselves to be the marginal, bullied nerds of years past, rather than the beneficiaries of a dominant masculinity harassing women out of a cultural sphere.
To be a true gamer In the mid 1980s, video games changed. The North American industry crash of 1983 was followed by an increase in popularity of Nintendo's home console and microcomputers, meaning that personal video game machines were no longer poor imitations of crowded arcades but rather the primary mode through which video games were consumed. By the 1990s, video games were no longer just a technology with which hackers and amateur programmers toyed, but also a product in need of a consumer market.
In a 2012 article for Game Studies, Graeme Kirkpatrick traces these constitutive tensions in video game culture through a detailed etymology of the words 'gameplay' and 'gamer'. Gameplay, as it emerges in magazines of the late 1980s, is an inherent quality used to differentiate video games. A video game might have a bad story or poor graphics, but what matters is that it has good gameplay. Gameplay is what the player 'does' in the game: the actions they take, the skills they learn. But what the player does in these games created predominately by men is shoot, race, stab, fight and exert dominance.
Gameplay, then, as the normative taste through which the 'true gamer' is marked, perpetuates historically masculine qualities. Kirkpatrick explains: 'The true gamer is the one who understands and appreciates good gameplay and the "gamer's game" is the one that has it in abundance.'
The emergence of a normalised gamer identity was carefully cultivated by magazine publishers, with advertisements and articles strongly suggesting that a gamer was a particular kind of person – male, young, skilled at 'gameplay' and technologically competent. For the Western game developers rebuilding themselves or emerging after the industry crash, a stable consumer identity with a narrow, clear set of values and tastes was ideal. Just as the Wiggles could spend their lives performing the same songs for a perpetual generation of four-year-olds, the large publishers were, from the 1990s onwards, able to tap into the market of young male 'gamers' who valued a narrowly defined understanding of 'gameplay'. The result was an industry churning out iterations of the same games year after year to a perpetual audience.
This had lasting repercussions on video game forms, particularly since the gamer identity was shaped not only through a possession of certain qualities but also through a strategic exclusion of other identities. One example Kirkpatrick cites is a mid-1990s gaming magazine telling its readers that 'Even the women behind the counter of WH Smith's have heard of PlayStation by now.' Even women – who are by definition not gamers – know what a PlayStation is.
The people who do not appreciate 'real gameplay' are not true gamers. They don't understand.
The repercussions of this exclusionary framing, deliberately cultivated to create a stable consumer base interested in the kinds of games that male developers are interested in creating, cannot be underestimated. The misunderstood science nerd converged with a very 1990s 'Smells like Teen Spirit' mindset in which non-gamers 'just don't get it'. This allowed a generation of young, white, heterosexual male video game players to consider themselves marginalised and discriminated against: the non-gamers don't understand us, the jocks bully us and the politicians want to ban our hobby.
The persecution complex of the nerd gamer persists to the modern day and is the driving force behind the enduring notion of a homogenous gamer identity. When journalists report on industry surveys that reveal the majority of video game players to be women, commenters respond that women only play casual games (such as Candy Crush Saga or Farmville) and thus don't count. The gamer identity sustains itself by dismissing out of hand games that do not measure up against an arbitrary value of 'gameplay' (thus ensuring gaming remains relatively marginal) while simultaneously claiming to be a persecuted identity on the basis of that marginality.
Nowhere has this played out more exemplarily or more violently than with Gamergate. It represents thirty years of this consumer-base-cum-identity's self-sustainment butting heads with the sheer ubiquity and pervasiveness of contemporary video games. When critics wrote articles that condemned the toxic masculinities and normativities of gamer culture after the initial abuse hurled at Quinn and Sarkeesian, Gamergate solidified as a movement with a name, protecting gamers everywhere from those who would dare question the sanctity of their identity. The claim that 'gamer' is an exclusionary label that works to homogenise notions of who plays video games was translated by supporters of Gamergate into a direct attack on their identity.
The rise of the cyborgs In her 1985 essay 'A Cyborg Manifesto', Donna Haraway uses the notion of the cyborg as a way of thinking about how humans engage with technology and the world. An explicitly feminist alternative, the cyborg does not exist separately from and in ultimate control of its world (as with Enlightenment Man) or its technology (as with the hacker), but is spliced with both, always already a part of its world, always already partial and fragmented and viewing from somewhere. It's a call to embrace the mediation of the world on the subjective human, in direct reaction to a conceptualisation of 'man' that only ever applied to those with enough power to understand themselves as somehow separate from the world they control and to think of their viewpoint as somehow objective. Where the hackers and their masculinist ideologies about technology favour domination, efficiency and transcendence, the cyborg is a creature of cooperation, submission, corporeality and embodiment.
If, through the hacker and gamer ideologies of the twentieth century, we can trace how video games sustained a patriarchal culture that actively excludes women, then the cyborg provides an alternative way to imagine our technological interactions. This is especially relevant in the context of recent years, when developers and critics have championed video games that directly challenge assumptions about what a game must be.
Video games such as Merritt Kopas' Lim, Anna Anthropy's dys4ia, Zoe Quinn's own Depression Quest and Fullbright's Gone Home fly in the face of normative design. Unlike traditional games, which typically empower the player to make choices that 'matter' or to take actions that are globally significant, each of these focuses in its own way on disempowerment, by placing tight control over the player's actions. Gone Home, for instance, is a short game about returning from overseas in the mid 1990s and exploring your family's new house by walking around and looking at objects. Through these simple, banal actions you learn about your father's stresses, your mother's boredom and, centrally, how your younger sister is coming to terms with her sexuality.
It's a beautifully paced, heartfelt and endearing video game, but you wouldn't know that by reading the user reviews on a site like Metacritic. 'The only semblance of gameplay Gone Home has to offer is 90 minutes worth of pitiful, painfully easy exploration ... To call this a video game is insulting!' complains one of many gamers furious the game costs $20. In this comment we see all the normative ideologies of the gamer identity and its beloved gameplay in conflict with games created by and for people who do not consider themselves gamers in the narrowly defined sense: the game's too short, too easy, lacks conventional gameplay and, ultimately, an insult to 'true' video games.
Technology is no longer the domain of hackers alone. It is now used every day by people with no interest in understanding or mastering it (Apple computers 'just work', we were told in a turn-of-the-century advertisement). Video games are the same. For normative video game culture, obsessed as it is with objectively understanding and mastering intricate systems, new video game forms (art games, experimental games, 'walking' games, interactive text games, casual games, mobile games and so on) that emerged both by and for a diverse audience of cyborgs offer nothing. For those who have played video games strictly in the narrow hacker-gamer paradigm, a game in which the player goes for a walk, or pokes at some colours and sounds, or flicks a bird at some pigs, does not provide enough to possess gameplay. This normative, if increasingly insignificant, culture is unable to account for why games that lack gameplay are being so well received while military shooters and criminal simulators are being criticised. There is, according to gamers, only one possible explanation: collusion between developers and journalists.
That is where Gamergate comes from: an ingrained, cultivated, formalist and narrow comprehension of what constitutes a 'true' video game. Influenced historically by the male domination of computer culture and reinforced by an industry in search of a stable market, many gamers are unable to account for – and in fact feel threatened by – the nascent and diverse field of developers and critics creating and evaluating video games beyond these normative ideas. Gamergate does not represent a marginalised, discriminated identity under attack so much as a hegemonic and normative mainstream being forced to redistribute some of its power.
But normative ideologies don't die easily, and both Gamergate and 'gamers' are here to stay, at least for a while. Twenty-five years, seventy-five years or several thousand years of patriarchal structures (depending on how you look at it) will not disappear overnight. Just like men's rights activists or the Tea Party – other groups of the powerful masquerading as the oppressed – Gamergate will continue to appeal to gamers who are incapable of differentiating cultural criticism from censorship, more diverse forms of video games from 'bad' video games, and diversity from discrimination.
Gamergate isn't a war against women. It's a battle against women, in a war that's been going for much longer.

[Meho Krljic]

Oooh, zanimljivo:

The Mysterious Bloodborne Item Nobody Can Figure Out

[Meho Krljic]

What To Make Of A Study About Gaming And Sexism

[Meho Krljic]

  Bloodborne: You are the experience points   A ima i ovo: http://www.molleindustria.org/blog/the-great-art-upgrade/                                             

[Meho Krljic]

Mortal Kombat u "stvarnom" životu  :


Mortal Brawling

[neomedjeni]

Nešto detalja o novoj Mass Effect igri.


http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/115381-rumor-next-mass-effect-details-leaked-by-survey.html

[Meho Krljic]

Zvuči interesantno mada je sve apsolutno nepotvrđeno i mada se čovek potrudio da sve iskuca, ovo se za sada valja čitati kao neproverena glasina. Ali nije da ne deluje kao prirodna ekstrapolacija ME3 i DAi sistema. Jedino nigde ne piše kako bez releja mase prelaze ovako velike kosmičke razdaljine. Ali pretpostavljam da je to nekako razrešeno u igri.

[neomedjeni]

Verovatno je "nekako" reč koja najbolje opisuje pomenuto razrešenje. 

[Meho Krljic]

Dok se ja mučim da JEDNOM završim Bloodborne igrajući ga regularnim kontrolerom, ovaj baja je igru završio igrajući ga Guitar Hero kontrolerom... Ovde na tviču ima cela igra:

http://www.twitch.tv/bearzly


A ovde je sempl, jedan bosfajt, čisto da se vidi:


Guitarborne - Shadows of Yharnam

[Meho Krljic]

Ode i Phil Harrison iz Majkrosofta. Dakle čovek koji je bio vrlo instrumentalan u cementiranju Playstation brenda u glavama igrača/ potrošača/ investitora je u Majkrosoft došao u vreme kada je Xbox diviziju vodio Don Mattrick i u priličnoj meri bio zaslužan i za neke kontroverzne odluke koje su dovele do relativno zaprljane reputacije Xbox One. Sada kad Harrison odlazi, može se špekulisati da Phil Spencer ima odrešene ruke da rehabilituje Microsoftovu konzolu još jače i bolje nego što je radio prethodnih godinu dana.

[Meho Krljic]

Pošto je u ovoj, poslednjoj osmini radnog vremena svakako zabavnije čitati o Bloodborneu nego pisati izveštaje, evo jednog kratkog ali zanimljivog osvrta na dizajn samog sveta/ okruženja u Bloodborne a koji ima nekoliko dobrih momenata. Prvi je svakako nadahnuta paralela između narativno-vizuelne logike Bloodborne (i Souls igara koje mu prethode) i mangi Tsutomu Niheia. Nihei je, da podsetimo, autor stripova poput Blame, Noise, Biomega itd., sve radova koji imaju narativ ali koji je, taj narativ, udenut u ogromnu količinu slika bez teksta, kojima dominiraju arhitektura, urbana geometrija, teksture, polaroidi samog okruženja do te mere da okruženje postaje priča i obrnuto. Ovo je doista veoma slično semantički zgusnutom vizuelnom dizajnu Souls igara/ Bloodborne gde zaista igrač počinje opsesivno da se pita zašto ovaj leš leži baš tu, zašto ovaj neprijatelj stoji baš tu, koja je priča iza ovih slomljenih kola u ovom sokaku, ko je bio ovaj lovac koga sam upravo ubio itd.

Drugo je misao vezana za ovu semantičku gustinu Bloodbornea i Souls igara koja je vrlo lepo formulisana:

The current fashion in AAA design is to convey a sense of place with an open world that you spend most of your time flying around, because when you stop to examine it and explore deeper, you'll find it is of course just a set. Bloodborne gives you a small series of neighborhoods instead of a city, but these streets have nooks and crannies and go so, so deep. There's a hall that leads to a warehouse and that warehouse has a secret top floor and a bottom floor where the viaduct begins, and you can follow the water either above it or sloshing through it, and it empties into a mass of bodies that come to life when you get too close, and the water eventually flows beneath a bridge where a massive pig is waiting to chase anyone who tries to enter the tunnel.

Gud staf. (Primećuje se da me opsednutost Bloodborneom i dalje drži, da? Da na nju samo mislim dok ne igram?)

[neomedjeni]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/115385-masquerada-songs-and-shadows-previews-and-interview.html


Gomila članaka o nedavno najavljenoj RTwP RPG igri Witching Hour studija.


http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/21512-why-we-are-no-longer-developing-for-the-ipad/


Vogel pokušava da obrazloži neke poslovne odluke.

[Meho Krljic]

Možda ste primetili da poslednjih dana dobijate poruke na Steamu gde vam anonimni botovi nude trejdove i to prilično smara i potencijalno je opasno. Valve uvodi meru koja bi trebalo da ovo malo redukuje, ali se možda i pokaže da je lek gori od bolesti: da biste sada koristili sve Steamove mogućnosti (uključujući slanje poruka i neograničeno pisanje po forumima) morate da ste potrošili barem pet dolara kroz Steam (dakle ne važe registracije ključeva dobavljenih sa drugih strana). Dobra namera, videćemo kakva je implementacija.

[neomedjeni]

Dobio sam lepih stvari na čitanje, pa se nisam igrao nekoliko dana. Pa stoga nisam ništa primetio. Tja, pet dolara je malo. Zapravo, toliko malo da sam ispunjavao uslov i bez svoje jedine velike kupovine.

[Meho Krljic]

Nije toliko stvar u iznosu koliko u činjenici da moraš da imaš neki način plaćanja preko interneta, što mnoga deca nemaju itd. pa će biti kukanja da su im prava uskraćena jer ne mogu da ih kupe.

[neomedjeni]

Što je pohvalno jer na taj način Steam/Valve pokazuju da brinu o dobrobiti najmlađih. Maloletnici treba da jurcaju za loptom i devojčicama/dečacima, a ne da grčevito lupaju po tastaturi na partiji Kantera. Tek kad postane očigledno da su beznadežni u jednom ili drugom sportu, ili, Krome sakloni, oba, što se obično iskristališe u prvim godinama nakon sticanja punoletstva, treba ih pustiti da kao punopravni članovi zajednice troše svoje teško zarađene novce na kompjuterske igre.

[Meho Krljic]

Nije ovde problem u tome da li će oni imati dostupne igre, jer hoće, kao i do sada što su, nego što će se osećati zakinuti jer ne mogu da komuniciraju sa drugim igračima onako kako su do sada činili. Gubitak stečenog prava uvek boli.

[neomedjeni]

Eh, sada me zbunjujete kolega. Prethodno je problem bio u nemogućnosti da se kupuju igre, a sada pričamo o nemogućnosti da se komunicira sa drugim igračima preko steamovih usluga.


Što i da je tačno, svakako nije tragično. Em što s druge strane sajber pošte svakako nije neki genije čiju svaku reč vredi pročitati, em što inače na netu postoji toliko sajtova na kojima možete brbljati sa drugim igračima o igrama da restrikcije na jednom ne bi trebalo da budu primećene, em, kao što rekoh, umesto da kuckate poruke nekom debelom strategu iz Pensilvanije, u tim godinama bi trebalo da razgovarate o narednim predsedničkim izborima i koliko volite da učite matematiku sa slatkim zelenookim devojčurkom iz susedstva. 

[Meho Krljic]

Ne zbunjujem te ja nego samog sebe zbunjuješ tim doslednim nastojanjima da ispisuješ humorističke komentare. Što je plemenita ambicija, naravno, ali, eto, rezultira konfuzijom. Dakle, slutim da će mnogi mladi čovek ili žena biti oštećeni time što su do sada lepo mogli da igraju Besiege ili Street Fighter koje su im roditelji kupili/ rođaci poklonili i da ćaskaju sa saigračima a da to (dakle ćaskanje) sada neće moći da rade jer roditelji neće želeti da ostavljaju kreditne podatke na Steamu a poklonjeni ključevi se ne računaju. Drugim rečima, neće moći da proanaliziraju borbu sa protivnikom koji ih je netom pobedio u Street Fighter IV, da se raspitaju o tome kako se koji Ultra kombo uklapa u stil igranja partikularnog igrača i komparativne prednosti odabranog lika, neće moći da upute reči poštovanja boljem od sebe niti utehe nekom koga su pobedili, biće im oduzeta čitava jedna galaksija komunikacije. I zbog toga vredi pustiti suzu.

[neomedjeni]

Slažem se kolega. Sada kada mi je vaše stanovište jasnije, uviđam da je to zbilja okrutna sudbina.


Ipak, nalazim malu utehu u činjenici da će neka od tih mladih duša u nedostatku mogućnosti da razmenjuje utiske o igrama na koje troši časove dokolice preko steama možda odlučiti da poseti lookalno košarkaško igralište, i ko zna, možda postane neki novi Stojaković ili Galis. A sve to zbog nekoliko dosadnih botova!


I kako to mislite "doslednim nastojanjima"? Pa ja to ni svake druge sedmice, možda par puta mesečno, u vr' glave!!!

[Meho Krljic]

Pa dosledno je, evo, naređao si minimalno četiri takva posta jedan za drugim.

Da ne pominjem da sam ja, poznato je, protivnik organizovanih sportova i smatram da je omladini bolje da vreme provode u samoći, ispred ekrana kompjutera ili konzole, nego da se izlažu toksičnim uticajima "socijalizacije" koja se dešava u okolini sportskih igrališta.

[neomedjeni]

Ah, pa moglo bi se reći da sam momentalno, možda i danas, dosledan u tom smislu, ali nikako generalno. Bolno sam svestan da nisam rođen za karijeru komičara.


Vi, kolega, očigledno nikada niste odigrali par fudbalskih mečeva na lokalnom seoskom igralištu, inače biste nam sada drugu pesmu pevali. 

[Meho Krljic]

Fudb... alskih mečeva?? Da se kaljam u blatu i mokrim znojem po celom telu???  Nikad.

[neomedjeni]

Da se ne bi ovaj razgovor otrgao kontroli, da skrenemo temu na ovaj zanimljiv članak koji se nedavno pojavio na PC Gameru:


http://www.pcgamer.com/why-too-much-combat-hurts-great-rpgs/