I’ve been enjoying the summer movie blockbusters, more or less, and have been struck by a couple that veer off in a decidedly metaphysical direction. And you won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve spent a while thinking about the last few scenes of one film in particular, which may rewrite or redefine the entire [...]
Filed under: character, geek culture, humour, meme, narrative, old media, storytelling on August 25th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
If you’ve been commenting to my last few blog posts on the World of Warcraft, or you have a scientific hypothesis of your own about the nature of Azeroth and how it came to be that way, or you have too much time on your hands and enjoy thinking about stuff that doesn’t make sense, [...]
Filed under: fantasy, game design, game philosophy, geek culture, geophysics, google, humour, information use, meme, mmorpg, online games, playfulness, science, storytelling, world of warcraft on July 4th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
(This is a continuation of the essay started here and synopsised on video here.) I note that my previous post has sparked some academic debate in certain circles relating to the validity of my research techniques and data. Therefore before we embark into a new area of discussion, I must address some of the comments [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized, environment, fantasy, fiction, game design, game philosophy, geek culture, geophysics, humour, information use, mmorpg, playfulness, science, space, world of warcraft on July 3rd, 2008 | 26 Comments »
The text that made up my Interesting 08 talk ‘Brave n00b World’ was part of a much longer document that I’ve been working on for a while. I’m not sure it’s ready for primetime—I’m not sure it’s ready for anything—but to catch the tide of interest in the video, here’s the first part of it. This [...]
Filed under: environment, fantasy, game design, game philosophy, geek culture, geophysics, humour, mmorpg, playfulness, real world, science, world of warcraft on June 30th, 2008 | 76 Comments »
Saturday was the day of Interesting 08, the second unconference organised by Russell Davies (no T on this boy) at Conway Hall in London. Thirty speakers gave talks on subjects close to their hearts, the only common linking theme that the topics were—and the speakers should be—interesting. Possibly it was the best not-a-conference conference I’ve [...]
Filed under: blogosphere, conference, geek culture, play, playfulness, world of warcraft on June 23rd, 2008 | 10 Comments »
In certain circles there’s been a lot of excitement about the Current Cost, a meter that clamps to your mains electricity cable and measures how much power your household is using, comparing usage over time with numbers and little graphs. Evidence shows that having a device like this can save you 15% on your electricity [...]
Filed under: blogosphere, environment, geek culture, information use on May 21st, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Some years ago, someone—it could have been Andrew Rilstone but I’m honestly not sure—commented that he wished Gary Gygax would hurry up and die, so people would stop talking about what he was doing now (which at the time was Dangerous Journeys, a tedious rules-heavy fantasy RPG at a time when the market was making [...]
Filed under: game design, geek culture, history of games, rpg, tabletop on March 4th, 2008 | 7 Comments »
My World of Warcraft guild just got bOING-bOINGed. How’s your afternoon going?
Filed under: blogosphere, geek culture, mmorpg, world of warcraft on March 4th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A quick note—I am not dead, merely busy—to notify you that the final London Gamer Geeks meeting of 2007 is tomorrow night, Wednesday 28th November, at our usual venue downstairs at the College Arms on Store Street, from 6.30pm onwards. Special events this time include: SWAPSIES! Bring games you’ve finished to swap with others! See [...]
Filed under: London, geek culture, london gamer geeks, pub, travel on November 27th, 2007 | 4 Comments »
These two Blizzard commercials are all over the blogosphere and, no doubt, US TV channels as well. They’re your basic celebrity endorsement. SFX: OMG OMG here comes the n00bs endless September all over again. No, I don’t think so. Are these commercials to bring new people to World of Warcraft, or to get existing players [...]
Filed under: advertising, fantasy, geek culture, mmorpg, world of warcraft on November 21st, 2007 | No Comments »