Carnival of Gamers #14

Welcome to the one year anniversary of the Carnival of Gamers! A little over a year ago, I tossed out the idea of holding a blog carnival for fellow gaming bloggers. The idea was well received and since then, we’ve had thirteen other carnivals. So now, here we are, one year later. Welcome to the first annivesary of the Carnival of Gamers. Step on up and wander around the Carnival of Gamers.

I wanted to do something different with this Carnival, but I just drew a blank. I initially tried to make witty comments about everyone’s submissions but realized I was out of my league. Something clever like Thomas’ old-school interface or Cosmic’s screenshot Carnival would have been nice, but I just couldn’t do it. So instead, I categorized, as best I could, the links and will present them with little commentary, letting the writers speak for themselves. Besides, they do a better job than I would. So without further ado…

Casual and Hardcore Gamers

Gianfranco Berardi at GBGames’ Blog asks if Can You Envision a Casual FPS?

Finster at Top of Cool proclaims We Still Matter. That’s “we” as in us hardcore gamers. Some people get “us”. Some obviously don’t.

Nintendo’s Wii – [You knew we couldn’t get through this carnival without at least a couple mentions of Nintendo’s newly named console! -ed]

Brinstar at the Gaming Chair would like to remind us that Wii isn’t alone in the naming weirdness.

Kehaar, projecting the Comic Store Guy, proclaims the Wii is the Worst.Product.Name.Ever. He goes on to say, “Wii will be the straw that breaks the back of the camel that has been carrying Nintendo in the horse race that is video gaming these days.” Time will tell…

Jason has thoughts on the name Wii. In particular, the marketing implications of choosing such an odd name. Is it genius on Nintendo’s part? Not likely, as he says, “it’s more like nakedly exposing how much they don’t understand the American gaming market.”

More thought on Wii from John Watzke at Pure Digital Thought, where he asks, “Do they really think that naming the console the Nintendo Wii that it will grab these new fans?”

Violence, Politics, Public Service and video games [Oh my! -ed]

Greg at Among the Dust points out “Media influences people, and it influences them strongly. This is true of all media, and it has been true for a very long time.”

Kim Pallister talks up Public Service Gaming. Public Service games? As Kim says, “A mini-meme seems to have caught regarding government funding and ‘public service games’.” Check out to see what he’s talking about.

Violence, immigration, and bad taste. Johnny Pi tackles them all in his post “Shock Value.”

Our MMO-World [Who am I kidding? It’s a WoW world and you know it. -ed]

The Curmudgeon Gamer thinks gamers can deal with gold farmers in a similar way some people have dealt with getting people to quit smoking in his post, Gold farming and the war on smoking.

Tobold at Tobold’s MMORPG Blog compares players that don’t interact with other players in WoW as the dark matter of this game.

The Prognosticator asks what makes us go Ding?

Bill Harris looks at what could be a rather startling precedent started in the virtual world of Project Entropia and being able to access in-game cash at real-world ATMs. This could be huge, both for good and for bad. As Bill says, “What matters is that the door is opened and it will never be closed again.”

Foton relates “Seven Things I Have Tried Unsuccessfully to Ban from My Guild,” where he tries, and fails, to improve his own guild experience in World of Warcraft.

Time to take some Tests (Tests? At the Carnival?)
Jeff asks Carnival readers grade a test for him. What kind of test? You’ll have to read on to see.

After you’ve graded Jeff’s test, you have to take the MMO Proficiency Test from Van Hemlock. I was stumped with question #3. “Nerf” means “b) To have one’s character victimised by God,” right? I sure hope I passed!

Everything Else
Jacob at the Gaming Chair asks Microsoft “Where is my co-op Gaming?”

In what could be a first, we have a video blog from Resident Gamer, their interview with Marc Ecko, talking about the urban gaming space. .

Corvus ruminates on the inadequacy of Evil. “Evil, I always felt, was simply inadequate for the task of giving people someone to be truly afraid of.”

Over at Tea Leaves, psu discusses the decline of a strong narrative in video games, comparing the recently released Oblivion and the venerable Planescape. Me, I simply can’t get that picture of that character from Oblivion. shudder

Josh at Cathode Tan is talking about “ESRB’s Line In The Sand.” He says, “The ESRB needs to focus on their actual job – reviewing and rating content intended for gameplay.”

That’s all, folks!

Well, this brings us to the close of the Carnival. A year older and a year wiser. It’s been a great trip and we’ll be pulling into another blog next month. The schedule over the next couple months is currently up in the air, but once I get that straightened out, the Carnival will be back before you know it!

Thanks for reading and enjoy all the great gaming bloggage this month. Read ’em all!