Sock Master did some outstanding work tracing the lineage of video game controllers from 1977 to now without missing any of the weirdness in between.

Posted July 8, 2008 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Dispatches, Technology. Tags: controllers, family tree, joystick, joysticks, Sock Master, video game controllers, video games. One Comment.

Sure you played Asteroids and Defender, but did you play these?

Posted April 21, 2008 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Dispatches. Tags: Atari 2600, photoshopped, retro, video games. Be the first one.

Annalee Newitz tells me that video game developers are looking for cheaters by installing spyware with their games. Blizzard, developer of World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo is among the biggest names doing this.
Greg Hoglund, quoted at Copyfight, notes:
I watched the [software] warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on [...]

Posted October 24, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Technology. Tags: annalee newitz, blizzard, cheaters, eula, game environment, game law, online games, sniff, snoop, snoops, software warden, spyware, video game developers, video games, warden, world of warcraft. One Comment.

Matt says my attempts to analogize online roleplaying games to more familiar contests like chess or automobile racing are “just silly.” But his response appears to reinforce my point rather than refute it. It is the responsibility of the gamers and gaming organizations to create and enforce rules. People violating those rules are subject to [...]

Posted September 28, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Politics & Controversy, Technology. Tags: game, game world, game worlds, gamers, games, gaming, in game, law, mmo, mmorpg, multiplayer online games, online games, online role playing, online role playing games, real world, real world violence, role playing game, role playing games, rpg, story world, video game, video games, virtual, virtual economy, virtual world, virtual worlds. 6 Comments.

Matt started talking up the weird issues developing around multiplayer online games a few weeks ago. Then soon after he blogged it, a story appeared in On the Media (listen, transcript)
Short story: online gaming is huge — one developer claims four million paying customers. More significantly, the interplay between real and virtual worlds might create [...]

Posted September 13, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Politics & Controversy, Technology. Tags: crime, game, game money, game world, game worlds, law, loss, mmo, mmorpg, multiplayer online games, murder, online games, real world, real world violence, role playing game, story world, theft, video game, video games, virtual, virtual economy, virtual world, virtual worlds, weird issues. 70 Comments.