Older Gamers Getting Attention

PenguinRadio writes "The Washington Post is writing about Barbara St. Hilaire, a 69-year-old grandma and a fanatic video game player. Apparently, the 'AARP generation' of gamers accounts for about 19 percent of all computer and console gamers. St. Hilaire is, on the internet, Old Grandma Hard Core (previously mentioned on Slashdot). The OGHC blog has gotten a ton of traffic in recent weeks, has been featured on Web sites around the world, and has been hired as a 'senior reporter' for MTV.com to talk about games." From the article: "There is an AARP generation of gamers, a group that logs on to Gamegeezers.com and would qualify for a senior citizen discount if game stores offered them. ... They play a variety of games -- from laid-back, relaxing fare such as solitaire and mah-jongg, to first-person shooters (military-themed titles are hits)."

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important

[Anonymous Coward]

January 31st, 2005, was the last day that Michael Sims, Nazi editor of Slashdot, ever posted a story or indeed was ever heard from again. But what happened that day to Michael Sims? Did his embroilment in the Censorware.org conspiracy finally catch up with him? Or was he involved in a violent, and ultimately fatal, lovers' spat with his partner Jamie McCarthy? The truth, as we'll see, is much more perverse than fiction.

On New Year's Eve of 2004, the entire Slashdot staff was throwing a party to celebrate another year of Linux propaganda, homosexual recruitment, and the profits that their Microsoft ad banners had raked in for them. Eric Raymond, Emad, Roblimo, Hemos, Taco, Jamie, and Alan Cox all planned to rape Richard Stallman later in the night. Michael had shown up late, however, and was let in on the plans after they were made.

As it turned out, Jamie was to be leading the charge against the Free Software Foundation's founder and would be the first to penetrate Stallman's hairy unwashed ass. Michael, however, was jealous of this and made secret plans to thwart their nefarious venture of homosexual rape. The event was planned for zero hours, right as the ball dropped. But Michael had other ideas.

Michael suggested they all toast their plan with Jägermeister, Eric Raymond's drink of choice that was in heavy supply that night, and the rest of the partygoers followed. While everyone downed their first shot, Michael slipped into the VA Software office's break-room, grabbing the syringe Raymond used to inject Rob Malda's semen with on the way. Michael leered at the case of Jägermeister, needle in hand.

Minutes later, Michael reappeared in the conference room with more Jäger, ready for more shots. Over the next couple of hours they indulged in several drinking and party games, spurred on by Michael, as they drank bottle after bottle of the dark brown herbal liquor. If one were to pay special attention to Michael, however, they would note that Michael drank much less than anyone else and only from his own bottle.

Emad and Roblimo were involved in a powerful sixty-nine cheered on by Hemos and Alan whose bent geek penises throbbed near Emad's head and Roblimo's bloated ass, waiting for an opportunity. Moaning, Emad diverted his wet mouth from Roblimo's butthole and took down Hemos and Alan's cocks in quick succession. Hearing the wet, sloppy commotion behind him, Roblimo lost control and glunked all over Emad's chest.

Across the room near the podium, Eric Raymond was man-handling Rob, jamming a handgun down the back of his pants and asking him if he remembered their special night in Holland. Rob was giggling like a school girl and squirmed with all his might against the cold steel. Eric rained a shower of Jäger over Rob's head which Rob greedily tongued up even as Eric's skinny red penis entered his ass cheeks, probing for the brown prize.

The conference room was awash in gay cum and chaos, Michael noted happily as he surveyed the carnage around him. Emad had now teamed up with Alan and Hemos to rape Roblimo's ass as Rob was being pistol-whipped to orgasm by Eric, all oblivious to the massive amounts of Rohypnol they were ingesting as they drank the Jägermeister Michael had given them. It wouldn't be much longer before the drug took effect.

Another half-hour into the night, Eric paused from raping Taco's mouth and sodomizing his anus with his Glock, short of breath. His head swam and he looked at his bottle of Jägermeister. I can usually down six of these babies, thought Eric, wondering why he was now farting uncontrollably. Rob's nose wrinkled as Eric's rectum expelled another gallon of aerosolized feces into the air. Stooping, Eric held on to the podium for support.

Across the way, Emad pulled his tiny Iranian dick out from between Alan and Hemos's in Roblimo's ass and doubled

Important news for all SWG players

[ringbarer]

I don't expect you to take my word on this but I will share with you what I was told by a friend of mine who works for SOE. I can't give you any more detail like his position, department, etc for fear of him being identified. They apparently are bound by some air-tight non-disclosure agreements.

Below is what I was told:

Apparently, the NGE has really, REALLY stirred things up in Austin. All sorts of fingers are being pointed among SOE employee's as nobody wants to take the blame. Right now EVERYONE is trying to distance themselves from being responsible for making ANY decsions on pushing the NGE live. Every single employee is avoiding any connection to the NGE like the plague. I was told that the Dev's expected SOME account cancelations when the NGE went live, but my insider said they were willing to take those vet losses with the hopes of bringing in new subscribers over the holiday sales season. Also, the devs were counting on most of the threats by vets to quit to not actually go thru with cancelling. They have admitted, at least internally, that they number of cancels has FAR FAR FAR exceeded the number they were willing to take. As a result, there is beginning to be some serious discussion of a pre-NGE rollback. Several dev's are in serious jeopardy of being fired, and many many many of the support staff etc are polishing up their resume's because SOE has become the laughing stock of the online gaming community. No longer is it a badge of pride to work for SOE according to what I was told. Even my friend says he is no longer proud of working for SOE because of how they have destroyed their reputation.

Also, after having to report to LA on the NGE results, specifically the account cancels numbers, some of the big dogs from LA have flown into Austin for some serious intervention. No details on what that means yet, but it is known that Smedly and the senior crew at SOE have been behind closed doors for unusually lengthy meetings and have emerged with scowls on their face. The speculation is that LA is gearing up to crack down big time. (I would love to have been a fly on the wall in those meetings)

Because of the signifacant loss of subscriptions, customer service has laid off 25% of their support staff starting the 1st of January with more cuts expected.

All in all, the NGE turned out to rock the player base more deeply than what they expected. Talks are now underway on cutting the game off sometime in the first quarter of 2006. There is discussion with an outside company that is interested in purchasing the pre-NGE code with the aim of running a handful (5 tops) of pre-NGE servers, and maintained with a skeleton support staff. Right now this is apparently looking to be the most realistic result.

I will post more info as I hear stuff.

Added stuff:

Oh, and my insider said the Devs are being intentionally vague on their forum posting and player communication because they want to keep as many subscribers as possible right now. A memo was passed down to ALL Dev's by the SOE execs with a list of topics that are completely not to be discussed or responded to on the forums. It is generally feared by the SOE team that the more info the player base has, the more of them will quit the game.

Also, the game WAS in the pre-development phase on porting to consol (xbox, playstation), but that those cycles have been 100% stalled at the moment because the future of SWG is so uncertain. But I was told that if any Dev posted or said that consol talks were never taking place it is a lie because significant discussions had already been underway with the design teams experienced with porting PC games to consol systems and that the NGE was partly (not entirely) designed to acomplish this objective.