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Guardian

  • [Games Theory] Sex and games – why haven't they got it on?

    Wednesday June 24, 2009 @ 12:38 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 June 2009 19.00 BST

    Sex. Got your attention? OK, good. I’ll try again. Games. Still here? Excellent. Now that I’ve got your number, let’s try the two of them together: sex and games. Hello? Nothing? Where did you go? How strange. You’d think that sex-plus-games would equal a rush of eager gamers waving fists of cash, but according to Brenda Brathwaite, founder of the International Game Developers Association’s Sex in Games special interest group, the adult entertainment industry has never really had a look-in. They may have propelled other digital innovations, but when it comes to console-based hanky-panky, grown-up situations have been a turn-off.

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  • [Tech Weekly] RoboGames: An Olympics for androids

    Tuesday June 16, 2009 @ 07:45 PM (UTC)

    Listen now!

    The robots have taken over the asylum here in Guardian Towers, and joining Aleks Krotoski to fight the onslaught of Skynet, Metal Mickey and Wall-E are our fearless podcasters, Jemima Kiss and Bobbie Johnson – who is reporting from the Mecca of Mech, last weekend’s RoboGames android Olympics in San Francisco.

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  • [Games Theory] E3 - a trip best taken in the safety of your home

    Thursday June 11, 2009 @ 12:37 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 11 June 2009

    A throbbing head, weak knees and flashing lights: these are only three of the reasons I did not go to the second coming of E3, the Electronics Entertainment Expo, last week in Los Angeles. There are others. The west’s Tokyo Game Show is, as I have written on the Gamesblog in the past, an orgasm of the senses. Problem is, it’s actually someone else’s orgasm, and you’ve had nothing to do with it.

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  • [Games Theory] Put down the controller and get some fresh air

    Thursday May 28, 2009 @ 12:35 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 28 May 2009

    The sun is finally out and, confession time, the last place I want to be is inside playing a computer game. Yes, making such a statement under the heading Game Theory may seem treasonous, or at least the end of my tenure on these pages, but I assure you, I’m not letting the side down. I’m still playing – I’ve just taken my playthings outside.

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  • [Games Theory] In loving memory of Duke: Hail to the King, baby!

    Thursday May 14, 2009 @ 12:33 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 14 May 2009

    The games industry lost a great figure last week, a man whose near two decades of service helped to define our modern gaming culture. Duke Nukem, the iconic frontman of the cherished series that bore his name, was laid to rest with the closure of 3D Realms – the development studio that bore him, raised him and pig-headedly refused to let him go.

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  • [Games Theory] It's time to turn on, log in, and shape up

    Thursday April 30, 2009 @ 12:31 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 30 April 2009

    Last weekend, the Department for Health released its latest TV ad in the Change4Life campaign. It features a clay modelled family coming to the realisation that the scientists are right: a sedentary lifestyle leads to health problems. “Throw down the remote! Chuck away the joystick! Stop eating greasy takeaways!” was the message. “Save our NHS from an epidemic of fatties!” was the subtext. And dutifully, the family did as they were told and started freakin’ on Dance Dance Revolution.

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  • [Games Theory] Watch out, weberati – Austin is game crazy

    Sunday April 19, 2009 @ 12:24 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 19 March 2009

    South by Southwest is not a computer games conference, or so I’ve been told. The annual festival in Austin, Texas, is supposed to be the folly of web geeks, that brand of brainiacs who make (or want to make) Facebook and Twitter, rather than the breed responsible for Halo or Grand Theft Auto. Yet, sitting in the Austin Convention Centre last weekend, I spotted Halo’s Master Chief wandering through the hallway. Later that afternoon, Six to Start, the alternate reality game-makers from Clerkenwell, London, won both the experimental category at the SXSWi awards and the best in show gong.

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  • [Games Theory] Help - my thesis is due and I can't stop playing

    Thursday April 16, 2009 @ 12:28 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 16 April 2009

    It is inevitable that at this stage in my PhD – the dreaded writing-up phase – I can see the blasted thing everywhere. I can’t eat, sleep or play without some tenuous and convoluted association with social networks, social psychology and online community interrupting the few moments I’m trying to clear my head of it. This ranges from creating mini-networks out of peas and spaghetti on my dinner plate to dreaming of correlations in my sleep. The worst is when it creeps into my fun time and turns every game I play into an exercise in theory.

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  • [Games Theory] The start of something beautiful in San Francisco

    Thursday April 02, 2009 @ 12:25 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 2 April 2009

    There is a sea change in the games industry, and thank heavens to Betsy. It’s no secret that the output of the games industry has hit me like a damp squib in recent years: my favourite pick in 2007 was a low-key Japanese romance and last year it was a web data tracking tool. After almost a decade working through the vast ocean of games technology, my interactive Babylon was a karaoke game. To say I was disillusioned with the populist zombie and gangster thrillers that consumers and critics crowed over was an understatement.

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  • [Games Theory] Please release me from Mary King's Riding Star

    Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 12:22 AM (UTC)

    Aleks Krotoski

    The Guardian, Thursday 12 March 2009

    Tell most people of a certain age that you’re involved with the games industry and you get two responses: a contemptuous, “Must be great to play games all day” snarl, or a starry-eyed, “I’ve got a great idea for a triple-A game!”. Newsflash, folks: as a hack, I’m only one industry evolutionary seam above the slime mould, belonging to the bulging genus Liggerus Maximus, which is presumed to survive by feeding on free beer and launch party swag.

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