Archive for the ‘Sound Off’ Category

I’m always open to an idea that can potentially make me money, and while I won’t be sending any more money to Nigeria any time soon (I only ever make the same mistake three times), I did get excited when I read a report on CNBC about making money from my favourite past time. CNBC, is of course the cable channel dedicated to all things business, finance and money related. These guys live and breathe money and know what they’re talking about. So when I see an article on the CNBC site titled How to Make Money Playing Videogames I sit up and take notice.

Turns out this isn’t about the elite players wearing garish t-shirts and bandannas, playing in big professional leagues for big money; the guys with unpronounceable gamer tags with more ‘z’s than vowels. In fact you don’t need to be the best of the best or even the best of the worst to be in with a chance to make money doing what you love. The article charts the emergence of companies that allow you to play family, friends or strangers online, matching you up with players as good or as hopeless as you and letting you win as little as $1 or thousands of dollars in the process.

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The future of videogaming is driven almost solely by technological innovation and not by creative endeavour. The reason is simple. For all the recent talk of the importance of the story, there are only seven basic plots anyway, and chances are, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are across all seven. In all likelihood you have probably already played all seven too! So in ten years time will videogaming resemble the videogaming of today? Will videogaming evolve in response to the wants and wishes of gamers? Will we get the videogame experience we demand or will the videogaming landscape be formed by the emerging technologies of the day? Sorry to burst your bubble, but your videogaming future won’t be the one you wish for and nor will it be the one the masses clamour for either. We’ll get what ‘they’ give us and it’s already happening.

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How environmentally friendly are your videogaming habits? Unless you’ve got your own wind farm in the back garden or a bank of solar cells on the roof providing all your energy needs and spitting the excess electricity back into the national grid, then probably not at all. Even if you have managed to build your own eco-friendly power station in the burbs, the eco warriors still won’t be happy knowing you’re squandering that energy on mindless fun when you could just as easily be providing the energy needs of a modest sanctuary for giraffes with cataracts.

Don’t think you’ll earn brownie points simply by choosing the most energy efficient current generation console on the market. That’s the Wii for those keeping score. Nintendo’s Wii uses only slightly more power than a jack-in-the-box.  So little power in fact that you might mistakenly imagine it must come with a crank handle…until you see the graphics it puts out, at which point you’ll be absolutely convinced. Just kidding. Seriously. Come back. I repeat, there is absolutely no correlation between a console’s power consumption and the power of a console.

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This week’s edition of The Wrap over at PALGN, asks the question: Is there ever a wrong time to game?  The question was prompted by the news that over in the  US, in the wake of Hurricane Ike, a number of children were admitted to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning whilst playing video games.  The story puts Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs on its head.  You can also find out how I fared with my PSP Go! predictions from a few weeks back.  You’ll find the complete article right here: The Wrap #33 – Generating Headlines: Is there ever a wrong time to game?

Enjoy.

The Incomplete Gamer

It’s the weekend before E3 and the Incomplete Gamer is feeling pretty positive about videogaming. E3, Christmas, Reindeer Poo, NBA Play-offs, ’80’s motoring icons and a baby all feature in this week’s edition of The Wrap. Head over to PALGN, to read more: The Wrap #32 Life imitating The Wrap on the road to E3.

Enjoy.

The Incomplete Gamer

Sure, this is the home of The Incomplete Gamer, and it’s a label we wear proudly most of the time.  But there are those odd moments when our pile of shame, our unfinished games, lying in the corner and mocking us in silence, are impossible to ignore and we’re faced with our biggest video game frustration.

Why are we failing to complete more games than we finish?  Why do we so rarely see the credits roll?  To find those answers, you’ll have to head to PALGN, where my latest edition of The Wrap, #31 has just dropped.

Enjoy.

The Incomplete Gamer

The Incomplete Gamer still doesn’t know any one personally that has ever one anything of note, but thanks to Kelly of Queensland, who dropped a comment on our TiVo Easter Hunt post, we have at least heard directly from one such happy winner and learnt a valuable lesson to boot.  Back in April, when reporting on the five TiVo packages up for grabs in the TiVo Australia Easter Hunt, we cynically suggested that it was all a bit too much effort. Luckily, Kelly and her friend Rachael didn’t heed our advice.

There’s always next year for The Incomplete Gamer.  Keeping that in mind we  contacted Kelly to find out what inspired her to take part in the competition. 

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It’s that time of the week again.  My weekly PALGN column has landed and this weekend it’s a bit on the nose…well the subject matter is at least.  This week The Wrap #30 asks the question, Can a game be too immersive?  Over in the UK a boffin is working on a scent delivery system which brings the odours of the video game environment into your home.  Do we really want that much immersion?  You can find out the answer to that question right here at PALGN.

Cheers,

The Incomplete Gamer

There is a revamped, remodelled, reworked PlayStation Portable on the way. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen rumours flying, details revealed and even speculation surrounding a new PSP name. Over at PALGN, my weekly column, The Wrap has just landed, and I’m attempting to sort the fact from the fiction, the wishful thinking from the watertight, the logical from the ludicrous, the rational from the rubbish…you get the idea.

You’ll find The Wrap #29 here.

Cheers,

The Incomplete Gamer

Tomorrow night is Logies night and The Incomplete Gamer is rolling out the red carpet.  Over at PALGN, my Saturday column, The Wrap #28 is available for your reading pleasure.

This week I take a look at the growing ‘mainstreamification’ of video games and ask whether a major video games award show is inevitable or even a necessary part of that continuing mainstreamification.

Interested?  Head over to PALGN.  You’ll find The Wrap #28 here.

Enjoy,

The Incomplete Gamer