Slashdot Mirror
Flash Games as Political Commentary
Clive Thompson writes "All over the net, there are little shockwave games inspired by political events -- from the WTO-style New York Defender to War on Terrorism to even Downing Street Fighter (where British politicians beat each other senseless, Street-Fighter-Style). Sure, like most Shockwave-generated stuff, they may suck as games. But that's missing the point. What's happening here is nothing less than the emergence of the online video game as a form of social comment -- something you dash off in a couple of hours to make a sardonic political point about something. It's a new notepad for communication. Or at least, that's what I argued in this piece in Slate today. In addition to the craven self-promotion of sending it in to Slashdot, I'm interested in hearing what everyone thinks of this issue. After all, courts have recently been arguing that video games cannot be protected speech; these games make it patently obvious that this view is insane." The columnist missed a better example of the genre - the EFF's game of digital restrictions management.
geeks always think that what they are doing is more important and has more social relevance than it is. Where Katz when you need him?
love is just extroverted narcissism
and of our continuing infantilism that our political views are expressed through games?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Ummm, I clicked the 'War on Terrorism' link- I might have gotten the game- I don't know because I restarted my machine to expedite the closing of about half a dozen adult site popups. Can we check these out before our friends who might be reading from work stumble into them? I know better than to click on a link in a post, but this was *in the article*.
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Shockwave has never been my first choice when it comes to playing games. First of all, he's purple. What kid wants to play with a purple toy? Secondly, he spent most of his time alone on Cybertron. Okay, sure, maybe the 'Cons needed somebody manning the outpost, but give me a break. Wouldn't you go completely effing batshit if you spent that much time alone? If you want to do some real gaming, let me suggest Megatron, Jetfire, or Ultra Magnus.
.. in the end, he doesn't measure up.
Shockwave may have been battery-operated and made some cool noises, but let's face it
I see most flash programming as a big cartoon. If people can make political statements in cartoons, how does making the "cartoon" interactive remove its rights for free speech?
I think that law makers just don't like the fact that we can go around killing them w/lightning and nail guns.
Slashdot editors checking links... I'll be laughing all day at that one! Hooooo....
These flash programmers are making waves by dicking around with flash toolkits, oh boy, how scary! Now, all sorts of other, white, well educated, middle class techies will see them too, oh boy, what a highly charged political situation!
If you want to really make a political statement, start conducting voting drives in lower class minority neighborhoods, nothing like getting the disenfranchised to vote to really bother the man. On the plus side, with the fact that there are more black men in prison than in college, even a fat, pasty faced geekboy has a good chance of finding an unattached woman.
Because of it's bloated transfers, and awkward interface into existing browser structures. However, it recently occoured to me, that this is more because of the fact that Flash is integrated into existing browsers. HTTP really isn't designed for multiple, branched file downloads - 1 compressed file is much more suiting to it. How much better would flash be if it had it's own 'browser' which didn't rely on plugins to include content, and it's own 'http protocol', which cut out all the unneeded crap...
Sure, they make games for political commentary. Using something originally intended for entertainment to send a political viewpoint was especially popular in communist Russia, where criticizing the government was forbidden -- so there was a case of a famous playwright (the name is escaping me), who made his plays social commentary hidden through clever metaphors. It was, of course, apparent to the audience what was going on, just like it is in these games.
Surely, that does also show how our society continues catering to the lowest common denominator - instead of having an intelligent debate about something, we'll make a pretty game about it. The endless dumbing down of homo sapiens.
/gleffler
After all, courts have recently been arguing that video games cannot be protected speech; these games make it patently obvious that this view is insane."
I have been noticing this trend. There is a little Tinsel Town video on Eff.org that demonstrates this. I hope it continues to catch on so the courts will realize how foolish it is NOT to protect the artistic, educational, often useful (math blasters/diet programs/financial) and thought provoking programs ppl can come up with.
Flash is very important, it's important to the new breed of fans out there who are bored of docile culture and require more than the usual dose of visual entertainment. I'm talking about fandoms, those that live within Hollywood movies, comic books, Japanese animation, popular fantasy (scifi, fantasy and mystery). I'm speaking of the group that is largly female, mostly white, and middle class. Henry Jenkins labeled this group as "Textual Poachers" (:Television fans & participatory culture) in the book of of the same name, written in 92. This book un-arugubly the definite guide to fandom as defined. I believe Flash would be what would move these fans from the confines of their comic books and tv sets to the Internet. Hopefully, the geek culture (That mostly involves women), would one day migrate to the fringes of the Internet and entertain bored men who use it just for stocks and reading romance novels. HOPEFULLY.
And way to give this moron free advertising, slashdot!
I think Xbill is a perfect example of the genre. I like to play it just after having to troubleshoot a windows 2000 machine. I have 35 linux machines and 4 windows 2000 machines on our network. 80% of my administration chores go to support those 4 machines. I'm not a full time admin, I'm a developer at this rate if we ditch the Win2k and go 100% linux, I could still support up to 100 machines part time. Xbill is my game!!!!!
According to the US Supreme Court they can selectivly restrict *any* speech as they see fit.
The first admendment really is just a ruse to make people *think* they have rights...
The first I remember was Urban 75's (Hi Mike!) slap-a-politician game in '97 (around the same time as their infamous slap-a-spice-girl). But in this google post, Mike says he nicked the idea from a US site - anybody know what it was?
But that's missing the point. What's happening here is nothing less than the emergence of the online video game as a form of social comment -- something you dash off in a couple of hours to make a sardonic political point about something. It's a new notepad for communication.
;P
Whoa, settle down Katz, their just games
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Someone, somewhere has cloned Jon Katz.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
I have been trolling a yahoo chat "room" for a few months now. It's full of right and left wing hatemongers. They rag on each other 24/7. Some guy has been recording them and making flash cartoons. He picks on the liberals. So many people called to complain the provider pulled the cartoon. He was able to move it to a provider in England, hoping the phone calls would be to expensive to complain.
From the article: These games aren't trying to get you hooked or make your thumbs sore. They're trying to make you think.
I don't think the games are trying to make anyone think. I think they are a byproduct of tech guys feeling hatred at an enemy, and choosing to make games rather than pick up a gun and fight.
It might be interesting to think about our culture as reflected in this trend, but thinking is (IMO) an unintended by-product.
"The girl makes Godot look punctual." -- Buffy
...the emergence of the online video game as a form of social comment...
Does it mean that the next "killer app" (al least here in italy) will be "Hunt for the Corrupt Deputy" or (thinkin' about their side) "Escape from the Jail"??
Apple iProduct. Non importa cosa sia, lo comprerete!
He isn't the one that will sue himself for sexual harrasment.
/. needs to make money, and shock journalism brings in the clicks, even if to say "I was so shocked, I had to re-enter the site several times, just to see if I was still as shocked.", but linking to porn sites is a little over the top.
He isn't the one that will fire himself for lewd behavior at work.
And for the one people that have a platform forced on them, they might not be able to disable popups.
I understand that
Why not just sell the advertising spot to the porn kings. They will only lose about 10% of the more mature audience, and pick up a lot more skript kiddies, overall increasing OSDN's profits.
I seem to recall a time a year or two back when the "in" thing was to have a flash "game" on your website called "PUNCH THE (fill in pop-culture target here)"- wether it was teh Spice girls, or the backstreet boys, or NYSNC* (yeah that's right!). So the current trend of Polititcally charged flash games are a riff on a riff!
Regardless I think this is nothing new. Comedy works best when it takes a spin on reality (as a friend of mine said, its the gradient of a society)- yes its an oversimplification but thats its point. It elicits a view by reducing a topic down to a short soundbyte, forcing the audience to "reconcile" this oversimplification.
It helps that these games are easy to create, much like a one strip cartoon. Since they are quick to make they can remain topical and quickly be "thrown away" a few weeks later.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Many would argue that a lot of games have always been a form of social commentary - not just cheap flash ones. Most "art" is.
:)
Fallout, Civilization, Alpha Centauri, GTA, etc...
(Disclaimer: Haven't read the article yet, this may be completely redundant - if it is, mod me to oblivion
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
--Chag
this one really sucks. Not cause of the motivation or the aim, but as a game it sucks more than the "anti terrosism" games I hate so much. (What has hitting Osama to do with "anti terrorism"? That's just childish and naive!)
"WTO-style New York Defender"
And here I was hoping I got to run around in riot gear beating tree-hugging hippies senseless... I call false advertising on this one!
I can't believe slashdot has become a forum for those in the know, and with connections, to shamelessly plug their articles and websites. Blech!
Do not click on that second link if your at work. Especially if your boss is near. One word..... "ITPOPSUPAPORNWINDOW"
At least mine (clicks) were blocked from our proxy guardian!
Apple iProduct. Non importa cosa sia, lo comprerete!
Based on flash/shockwave....
Elian Deportation
You crazy man? You piss off supahfly!
Having a silly shoot-'em-up where you shoot "evil terrorists" isn't a commentary at all. Commentary points things out. Commentary presents a view. Commentary is intended to make people think.
These games do not have the subtlety of a good political cartoon. Hell, even a bad political cartoon (such as you might see in USA Today *shudder*) makes more of a statement than "I wanna beat up Bin Laden".
The best example of a political cartoon in Flash form are the "Napster Bad!" line of cartoons on Camp Chaos. The one with Sheryl Crow and Nutty McShithead ("MP3s: Good or Goblin") is hilarious.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Slashdot, subdivision of VA Software, no longer content to "slashdot" cheap html+jpg websites, changed their business model. Now they crash heavily loaded flash sites.
CEO Rob Malda commented : "yes, with the diminishing eployment, less techies have less occasions to waist [sic] corporate time on websurfing so banner income stagnated. So we had to cut costs and involve much simpler slashdottings"
In my humble opinion, it's just another method of providing content to a viewer. Not everything printed in on paper is protected speach, just as not everything found on the internet is protected.
Suppose I make a game where the goal is to go around shooting politicians; its just as poor taste if I decided to print "paper dolls" of the pol's along with text encouraging you to cut them into pieces. What is the point that you are trying to make in either case?
But, suppose I wrote a game called "Fur Fighters" where the object is to throw cans of paint on people wearing furs? Thats much more aligned with a political message...
In short, its not the delivery medium that matters, it all comes down to the value of the content.
An XPilot map about the Mad Cow Disease scandal.
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~np2/xpilot/bse.html
In response to yesterday's michael bashing, I'd like to point out that the eff DRM game was quite interesting and a good inclusion.
How did you score?
karma whore by design.
Anything you say will be held against you.
stfu, people .. the political cartoon has been .. how is this any different?
around forever
just because you can put a cat in an oven, that
don't make it a biscuit
According to the US Supreme Court they can selectivly restrict *any* speech as they see fit.
This makes the first admendment, and perhaps the whole constitution null and void.
At the least its being violated right and left by our so-called leaders. And the public is FOR this.
Dont you people see it ? When will you finally get sick of it all and say NO.. Its time to stand up and stop this before its too late..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
look at slashdot...neowin...e-review
thanks for the porno link. I'm at work and I clicked on the war on terrorism link and got a couple porno popups. Thanks slashdot.
anyone care?
Urban75 - dodging soap while listening to low-quality dance music since 1997, eh?
You just keep on making fun little satires
of your politicians now, kids (while being
denied your rights in the courts by fossilized establishment judges)!
"Games" are the next big medium for propaganda,
be it commercial or political.
The games industry made $37 billion last year
(whining about piracy all the way of course).
You think this is still just playing around ?!?
Meanwhile, as long as certain people can keep sipping the champagne by the swimming pool and farting in the face of the people they are supposed to represent, everything will go on as before.
"Games? Political? Oh look how the ordinaries
are amusing themselves! How rude!
Now pass me the Dom Perignon, biatch!!"
If you're worried that the exectuable might be infected with some sort of virus... here is the official location:
Elian Deporation
You crazy man? You piss off supahfly!
How can /. endorse it? It would be like plugging Internet Explorer DHTML games, wouldn't it?
Right here.
is here.
Friend of mine pointed me to this one a while back... There's 2 more in the series, but this is my favourite.
I can spell. I just can't type.
Please, please don't /. the poor Newgrounds site their already horrid server never was designed to handle extreme traffic. oh whoa .
... a little game as a protest (of sorts) against the Australian government's policy on, uh, unsolicited refugee landings. For what it's worth (which isn't much, given my game design skills), it can be found here.
Who says code isn't speech?
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
Doesn't mean all are.
Political cartoons are protected speech.
Porn cartoons are not. Even if they in some way are political.
Same way with games.
Just because X item in the genere fits into catagory Y, doesn't mean the whole genere fits into catagory Y.
This is an example of what I think of as "Wired journalism". Everything is new, exciting, revolutionary. No historical perspective is given - there is no historic continuum, everything is a new. Of course in the real world very few things are a revolution, things change slowly, most ideas have been around for centuries but every new generation thinks it's got all the good ideas.
Where is the wise analysis from journalists with a historical perspective and knowledge outside their tiny specialisms? I'm getting bored of all this sensationalist stuff.
...Perhaps you could make a social commentary video game where you go into lower class minority neighbourhoods recruiting disenfranchised voters by blowing open their houses and picking up their pixellated arm-waving butts in your helicopter, while dodging bullets being fired at you by the Establishment's tanks, jet fighters and UFOs?
After all of this fuss regarding the prevention of a repeat of Sept 11, I just looked at the calendar for this year and saw that they had another planned!
When will people learn??
Gary
This merits mention? NEWSFLASH!! Politics used as hook for entertainment!
Oh Your God
Somebody call FoxNews!
What's the matter? No linux driver annoucements? No advances in adult diapers or something new and improved by adding caffine?
feh.
Or at least, that's what I argued in this piece in Slate today
I hardly think it appropriate for the author of an article to submit something to Slashdot. Of course the person who writes it is going to think it's relevant *cough*Jon Katz*cough*, but the test of relevancy is if someone else suggests (gasp, dare I say it? a "reader") the article.
In fact, a better test of relevancy is not if one person submits the story to the slashdot editor queue, but if several people submit the same story.
an author submitting his own story here smacks too much of self-promotion and vanity press. (Lowercase v there, as in self-published books, not uppercase V as in Vanity, the magazine.)
I've found TooStupidTooBePresident.com a really entertaining site!
My favorite is "How the Bush stole Christmas". A must see!
I had an idea for a game in the style of missile command where you control the multi-billion dollar missile defence shield. After beginning the game, a small turbaned dude enters from the side, places a suitcase down in between your skyscapers then runs for it. Furious button clicking does nothing as you can only shoot upwards.
Isn't a sign of the times... and of our continuing infantilism that our political views are expressed through games?
No.
It is no more infantile than scratching crude pictures on paper mocking politicians or political events.
We call those political cartoons, and they are a venerated way of making exactly the same kinds of sardonic, and sometime crass, criticisms of public policies and public politicians. The flash games described here are exactly the same thing, printed in a new medium (the interactive internet as opposed to the passive, one-way old media).
Games and programming in general are obviously speech deserving of "at least the same protections as the print media" to paraphrase the supreme court's opinion in their ruling which overturned the SCA. Things like this are invaluable in driving that point home in terms even non-tech savvy, but non-whored-out-to-the-media-cartels judges can understand. In other words, it won't sway Kaplan, but it will likely sway the supreme court, and it is there opinions which count.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Yes. And all the one I've seen are puerile rubbish. Good political satire is intelligent and thought provoking. A site where you click your mouse button to throw bananas at Dubya or some such is neither.
"Information wants to be paid"
Just because some video games are freespeech, doesn't mean all are.
Yes, it's an interesting phenomena in our culture, but it isn't evidence that all video games *are* protected free speech.
Some pictures are considered art, and thus freespeech, but pictures themself aren't freespeech.
Likewise, some video-games can be considered poltical statments, but video games themself aren't freespeech.
Just to help keep this clear, because some people *still* don't get it...
Flash is Flash. Just Flash, that's it. The most recent version of the authoring tool is Flash MX and the most recent version of the plugin is Flash 6.
Shockwave is the 'net export version of an app made with Director - an entirely different product.
Shockwave games/files as a whole tend to be larger and more bloated than Flash movies because Flash is vector based rather than raster based like Director.
Flash movies aren't automatically big/slow/ugly - it all depends on the skill of the developer. Most of the Flash stuff that I do comes in at under 40k.
A|Q|U|A
By the way, all of these were professional, commercially sold games!
--- Frantisek Fuka (Yes, that's my real name and you have no idea how it's pronounced)
...since the discussion has gone as it was easily predicted to (a thread of "Check this game!!).
Here's my entry into the list The Romp.
Over the past few months /. has posted a couple of stories about the Indy Game Jam. The concept seemed interesting, so I went and checked out the page.
As one might expect, the games were reasonably simplistic, though on the whole surprisingly fun. The one that really stood out to me most was "Very Serious RoboDOOM".
This game isn't really a game. It has gameplay, but that's not what it's about. Really, it's a commentary on the state of the gaming industry. Go check it out, they talk about it a bit at the site.
My reaction to this was basically "Fuckin' A right on!" It's troubled me for ages that video games don't seem to be living up to their potential as a medium. The interactive element of gaming can be used for much more than just entertainment - by involving the "audience" and forcing their complicity in the action presented, games can make powerful statements in ways that have never been possible before. RoboDOOM is a great example of this, as are a couple of the games mentioned in the article (the ones by the French designers seem particularly inspired).
But the real problem isn't just the design of games, it is how gaming is percieved as a whole. Even here on Slashdot, where there is a more than healthy hardcore gaming audience, games seem to be considered trivial - entertainment, nothing more. Look at the other comments on this story! The truth is, gaming (as a medium) is still in its infant state, like so many media before it. Television, radio, cinema, comics, all were seen as means of simple amusement. All took decades to mature into the artforms they (sometimes) are today. The earliest examples, the earliest signs of the potential these media held were only recognized by a very few. It saddens me to see that the few who should be recognizing the beginnings of gaming's growth spurt are so seemingly oblivious.
Maybe this isn't a major new development on the political commentary scene - honestly, I don't think it is myself. But it is a major step in the development of gaming. And, for sure, that is something worth noting.
People have been making novelty dart boards, punching bags, stress toys and other games as political commentary for decades. The only reason that computer games are becoming a part of this expressive medium is because they are becoming just as pervasive, if not more so, than traditional games.
I'd hardly call "Bin Laden in a Blender" insightful or useful political commentary.
..but I think they require the Flash plugin. It's like a gateway drug, first you play some stupid Flash game, next thing you know you're staring stupidly at Flash advertisements. Ohh Look! Shiny things!
Thanks, but no thanks.The fun can go too far, as when they parody our president and compare him to the evil and unfindable Osama bin Laden http://www.snitchreport.com/kids (play terrorist dressup) (true, his evil is so 2001, but nonetheless he is evil).
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
"The columnist missed a better example of the genre - the EFF's game of digital restrictions management."
A "better" example? So you haven't actually played that tripe then?
Been noticing that over at SF Gate with Mark Fiore's stuff. Heavy handed political cartoonist whose pieces are often presented in a flash game format.
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Clarissa used to always write computer games to satirize her situation back in the early 90's.
..as a person who has made quite a few flash games(among games of other langs, if you count flash as a lang even), i can safely say the reason for making these is not political commentary..its lack of creativity.
It seems like Slashdot is becoming the comment board for Slate...
I thought games weren't speech at all!
:-P
If games aren't speech, then there is no reason these "interative political cartoons" can't be censored.
And heck, why not censor political cartoons altogether? I mean, it's common sense that all cartoons are meant for children, right? Comic books too, since they're practially the same thing.
From there it's a short step to books, music, video, and anything else these pesky consumers invent.
And no, you can not ride the slippery slope when I'm done with it.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Why not assume that any site unrelated to what you are paid to do is out of bounds?
An IT professional is paid to maintain IT (information technology, not Segway HT). In order to maintain IT, a fellow has to be alive. If a fellow is killed by a terrorist, he is no longer alive. Therefore, a limited amount of discussion of anti-terrorism is on topic in an IT discussion.
I am stretching things, but you may be able to pull this one over on your boss.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Please don't let your cynicism cloud your judgement on this one. Yes, there is an underlying thread of political commentary in many of these flash games. It's not overanalysis.
The point, as someone already mentioned, is that a medium, any medium, is just a means of achieving a goal.
It reminds me of people arguing whether games or comics can be "art". It's a silly question; any medium can be "art" if you make art with it. Likewise, there's nothing outlandish about flash games that entertain while offering political commentary.
Where do you work, man? I want a job where I can play loud video games at my desk, especially if pop-up ads aren't allowed in the workplace.
Here's another good example of political commentary ala Flash. This one is about gaming community politics (before watching, know that the UT2003 demo has been due out in "two more weeks" for several weeks now):
h /
http://www.planetunreal.com/features/ut2003flas
This was made by Fragmaster, who is quite possibly the only entertaining figure left in the gaming community.
Did that comment make you feel better? Does your fragile low self esteem need to be propped up by making comments that intended to make others sink to your level? You were picked on school weren't you, go ahead admit it. Try talking with Jon Katz awhile he might be able to sooth your mental anguish.
Or then again you just might be a child pretending be older.
Ethnic Cleansing is The most politically incorrect video game ever made. Run through the ghetto blasting away various blacks and spics in an attempt to gain entrance to the subway system, where the jews have hidden to avoid the carnage. Then, if YOU'RE lucky.... you can blow away jews as they scream "Oy Vey!", on your way to their command center.
HTTP really isn't designed for multiple, branched file downloads
Then what's this "pipelining" thing I see in HTTP/1.1? While pulling the HTML page, every time the browser sees an object URL (image, stylesheet, etc), it immediately sends a GET request to the web server, and the web server responds with the object's data as soon as it has finished the previous object. Because one object's header and data immediately follows the previous object's, there's very little back-and-forth latency.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So only intelligent speech should be protected?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Don't forget to check out Antiwargame.
There are games out there that slip a little social thought into the plotline; Deus Ex's prescient consideration of "How much will people tolerate in the name of fighting terrorism?" is the first thing that comes to my mind.
But what is the political commentary of "New York Defender" and "War on Terrorism" supposed to be? "Terrorism bad!"? "We need a system of powerful anti-aircraft lasers mounted outside all major cities!"? "Man, it'll be great to beat the crap out of bin Laden!"?
> In addition to the craven self-promotion of
> sending it in to Slashdot, I'm interested in
> hearing what everyone thinks of this issue.
If the issue is craven ("lacking the least bit of courage : contemptibly fainthearted") self-promotion, I'm all for it. Go craven self-promotion!
The War on Terrorism link errupts in flurry of porn ads...luckily, my super wasn't looking over my shoulder when I followed that link...
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. - HST
People are just taking advantage of the medium, as they did with cartoons.
You have a good point.
If games with a message are infantile, then perhaps enjoyable books with a message suffer from the same complaint -- why aren't you reading a bland, straight political pamphlet if you want a "mature" medium?
May we never see th
How about "Commando Libya" for the C=64, circa 1986? Endless human-wave attacks by libyans that you gun down from your machine gun emplacement.
Play well enough, and you'll get to insert your high score. A line of libyans before a gillioutine. First one kneels down, use joystick to put a letter on his head, press fire to chop it off.
Not very PC, but quite fun.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
Using crude artwork to express a political concern or viewpoint has been going on for hundreds of years. They were originally called 'editorial cartoons'. While today's updated version adds sounds and interactivity, the purpose and message are the same.
//e. They were crude, and in retrospect, not very fun, but I was hardly a big corporation, but they were, indeed, games. The difference is, when I finished the only method of distribution I had was swapping floppy disks the next day on the playground with a handful of my nerdy friends.
What we have here is an author that seems to have graduated from the John Katz school of technology journalism; Lets make a big deal about some 'gee wiz' new technology that translates something that's been done for ages into the digital world, but lets forget to mention it's been done for ages.
The revolutionary aspect of politically motivated video games is really a non-issue. The revolutionary aspect is in that anyone who does it can get it distributed easily. The author sort of missed the point on this too. From the article:
This material would have been unheard of a few years back, when only corporations could afford to code video games
Not so. I was coding video games back in the 80s on my old Apple
A crudely produced political video game is just as easily to make by the common man as a crudely drawn etching of a political cartoon was to produce 150 years ago. The types of messages aren't different, but today the common man can get his or her work viewed by thousands, if not millions of people with little or no cost.
And here is where the author misses the boat! It doesn't matter if they are political video games, self published manifestos, communities based on a common interest... These are all nothing new. What's new is the way these publications can be created and distributed by the common man with no corporation behind him or her.
It would be as if somebody wrote an article about websites like Slashdot and said 'Gee wiz! Look, today people can now make critical comments or discuss magazine articles', forgetting to mention that nearly every magazine prior to the Internet had a page for feedback and reader mail, and that the articles were discussed around the dinner table. The only real difference is now I can write this in 5 minutes, post it, and it will be scanned over by thousands, perhaps even read by 50 or 60 people. Now THAT'S the revolution I like and wish were looked at by writers more thoughtful and critical then myself.
The Internet is generally stupid
Now there was political speech if I ever heard any.
It was a dialog box with a picture of His Majesty and a box with one of his quotes (with some provenance). It came with a huge database and you could next through them or set a timer to refresh for you.
It was obviously a programming exercise or a 4 hour throw-away, but it was great.
There were a number of neat game/demo/commentary programs on Suns and SGIs back pre-95.
A direct link to a program that will crash a windows box.
A story about how to illegally make your own cisco box using warez.
Links inside a story that have PORN POP UP ADDS.
The days of my reading slashdot while at work are numbered. Are you intentionally trying to drive away your reader base? Is news just that slow?
Admitted, slashdot is not the greatest news source out there, but occasionally you can find a gem or two amongst the articles... but with crap like this, it's not worth it.
Personally, I prefer the withering critique of modern adolescence of High School of the Apes and Hentai- Sim Girl.
Hopefully, the appeal of such enlightening games as these will continue to grow.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
The study shows a five-fold increase in the number of incarcerated black men over the past 20 years.
The problem with simply throwing around numbers like this is that these facts do not exist in a vacuum. In order to make any useful judgement from the above numbers, we would need to ask some or all of the following questions:
- How do these changes in absolute numbers incarcerated relate to changes in the population in the age groups most associated with crime?
- How do these changes in absolute numbers incarcerated among blacks relate to changes among other races?
- How do these changes in absolute numbers incarcerated among blacks relate to changes in the crime rate among blacks?
These questions can be summed up as follows: how do these changes relate to the crime rate overall? Do they reflect more crimes being committed, a greater percentage of criminals being caught, or disparate sentencing? To simply throw out the number as if it necessarily demonstrates the last of these three is, at best, disingenuous.Bin Laden Liquors is one of my favorites . . .
I don't see how ramming the WTC into the backside of Osama bin Laden 'makes you think.'
Not all of them PROMOTE the war on terrorism.
OPERATION: ENDURING FREEDOM
http://www.sparko.com/war
Well I dont know about politcal flash games, but this one is a hell of a lot of fun. We usually do it while drinking and see who can get the highest score - the more buzzed you get, the more difficult it is to avoid the obsticles.
This game is very simplistic - yet very fun.
Also another fun diversion is this one, called ant arena (at bottom of page)
I had to look twice. I cannot believe this is not an article by JonKatz. The medium is not speech. The content may be. The content may not be. It absurd to argue that all computer games are protected speech. Some may be, although I haven't seen anything the rises to that level.
As for things we should be getting hot and bothered about, I don't think (here in the USA) that the worry is about government limiting speech. Rather we should be worried about the increasing consolidation of handful of media companies controlling the production and distribution of "speech."
No free speech law prevents any private party from refusing to publish, print, or broadcast anything they don;t want to publish, print, or broadcast. Censorship is legal provided it is a private party doing it. Now what are we worried about, again?
My favorite: Blacks and Whites, a game sort of like Monopoly, but designed "to give middle-class whites a taste of the helplessness which comes from living against implacable odds." Rules include:
"Black players use the strips of black-power paper to mark the property they buy, thus marking the decline of white domination."
"When a black player goes bankrupt, he goes on welfare and collects $5,000 from each white player."
Check out the full rules here.
Pacman was a good game. It taught many people to enjoy running around in dark rooms, eating pills being chased by ghosts while listening to repetitive electronic music. Now thats political commentary
How about a suicide bomber game?
[NOTE: posted on behalf of another Slashdotter who fears professional repercussions]
In addition to the craven self-promotion of sending it in to Slashdot, I'm interested in hearing what everyone thinks of this issue.
Ah, yes. Craven self-promotion and karma-whoring wrapped neatly in a mock self-deprecating tone designed to defuse any criticism. Classic Clive.
What you forgot to mention was WHY you are interested in hearing what everyone thinks of this issue.
For those who are unfamiliar with the esteemed Mr. Thompson's work, he seems to have a history of strip-mining the ideas of people he meets to fuel his lecture-circuit, TV appearances and column-fodder. Those people instantly become his so-called 'friends'. That wouldn't be quite so bad if one could be sure that there was any consistency in attributing those ideas to their respective sources instead of conveniently presenting them (uncredited) as pearls of wisdom from the Oracle of Clive.
[Ed.] The columnist missed a better example of the genre - the EFF's game of digital restrictions management.
Those familiar with Thompson's work already know that he has a history of frequently missing all kinds of things that are evident to people who actually try to be diligent about researching the stories they write.
If the criticism sounds harsh (to some degree) it's meant to. After observing him for some years, he's not quite as bad as some of his pseudo-intellectual contemporaries because his work sometimes rises to the level of being competent. But being damned with faint praise such as that is hardly cause for joy.
Clive, the last thing the world needs right now is yet another self-annointed technology pundit.
Barney, Bill Clinton, Doom.
OK, that's four words, but the Bill Clinton and Barney mods for the original Doom were too funny. I can't remember the number of times I put Buba and the purple dinosaur down with a shotgun.
Someone hates these cans.