YukoAsho's Bag of Stupid Is Not Gay.
Hey there, everyone! It's time for the inaugural LiveJournal edition of the Bag of Stupid, where idiocy is mocked relentlessly. And goodness gracious, we have quite the bag today. For those of you who haven't been reading since the GameSpot days, here's a previous one to show you guys how it works.
I Am Not Gay. I Never Have Been. I Just Fell and Landed on His Penis.
Idaho senator Larry Craig resigned last Saturday amid crippling pressure from fellow Republicans, Idaho conservatives, late-night talk show hosts, the entire YouTube community... Well, you get the idea. For those who haven't been following this delicious saga, Mr. Craig was arrested in June for soliciting anonymous gay sex in a Minneanapolis airport bathroom. The undercover cop was very insistant on what he experienced from Mr. Craig, having busted hundreds of men doing it before (by the way, how would you like that job?). The interrogation was actually quite funny.
You can hear the old man making up a bunch of bullshit to try to defend himself, his unwavering denial making for hilarious listening. It's actually quite funny the way he just digs himself further and further into the hole. Anyway, Craig pleads down from a lewd behavior charge to disorderly conduct, is given a relatively small fine and sent on his way. The story all but dies there, until a newspaper called The Idaho Statesman enters the picture. Trying to gather sources for a story about Craig's alleged sexuality (there have been rumors dating as far back as 20+ years), they find this little nugget and expose it to the world. Then it just got awesome. Mr. Craig decided to defend himself.
I love how he makes it a point to say that he's not gay twice in the space of a minute and a half. He even goes as far to attack the Statesman. How he couldn't have expected the shitstorm that was to follow is amazing, even for an out of touch politician.
Let me give you people a clue: If you're not gay, you're not playing footsie with a member of the same sex in the stall next to you. That's simply not how it works. Between this and the myriad of stories just leaping out - not to mention his suspicious activity in 1982, where he got married mere months after fighting allegations of Senate misconduct with pages where he wasn't even accused - it's completely clear: Larry Craig is gay. He's gayer than a Richard Simmons excercise marathon at Janet Reno's house while a gay pride parade goes on outside. However, a little adventurous sex isn't the issue here. The issue is that this is a man who, for his entire political career, has fought against every piece of gay rights legislation, from his time in the Idaho state senate, to the US House of Representatives, and in the US Senate. He's lectured this country for years on family values and done his best to make open homosexuals into a second class citizenry in the United States. That this man is not only gay, but engages in the very behavior that fuels homophobia among the ignorant, is hilarious in the extreme. And he is far from the first one. It's amazing just how many sex scandals have gone on in the Republican party, particulary gay/pedarast scandals (Hello there, Mr. Foley). Let this be a lesson to all: careful when you look in your closet - you might find some Republican homophobes fucking eachother. And no one wants to see wrinkled-up old guys having sex.
Product Placement and the Inflexible Gamer.
A study by GameSpot UK has shown that most gamers don't mind in-game advertising as long as it's realistic and contextual. While most people were very intelligent about the issue, a few people went right on ahead and showed their asses to the world.
Here are a few gems:
doctorteeth
GameSpot UK survey finds that most gamers are mindless consuming zombies more than willing to have the video game experience constantly interrupted with encouragements to suck corporate **** providing that it is contextual and realistic.
We are doomed.
Cracktacularq
Let's all just err on the side of caution and say "yes, we DO mind in-game adverts". That's like including a helping of herpes and gonorrhea with every pr0n dvd. Some realisim you can just do without.
Kcube
I dont plan on buying any games that have Adverts in them.SO go ahead companies and lose another customer.
Proman84
NEWSFLASH: This report was paid for by money generated by ads!
In case, you don't get it, we the players, do mind being abused by gaming companies and we do mind the ads in the games we pay good money for.
Metallicantera
i just paid 60 dollars for your game... an you still wana shove advertisements in my face? get the **** out.
Damn, I love you GameSpot comment people! The complete lack of perspective is amazing! Have any of these twits seen a movie in the last, oh, 20+ years? Product placement in movies has been going on for years, and is a fundamental part of several huge blockbusters including Transformers (real cars, Vizio Ocean phone) and the recent Bond films (BMW instead of Aston Martin). Everything from celphones, to vehicles to softdrinks in movies is the result of product placement, and yet I doubt anyone walked out of a good movie because the studio sold out and got a little extra cash by taking a cell phone company's money to put their product on screen instead of someone else's.
But when we talk about people leaving comments on GameSpot's comments page, we're not talking about normal, reasonable people, are we? We're talking about people who don't think for even three seconds before typing away on their keyboards, throwing the most banal nonsense in the world out for the whole world to read and laugh at, like I'm doing now. Granted, I'll give creativity points for the guy with the herpes comment, but people like this only enforce the negative stereotype that gamers have absolutely no idea what it's like on the outside. Wake up and smell the Folgers Crystals, people: advertising's everywhere. It was only a matter of time.
50 Trazillion Wii Owners, None of Them Want Games.
And finally, yet another 3rd party is being suckered into making software for everyone's favorite fad console. Valve, developer of the Half-Life series and architects of the only online PC games distribution service that doesn't suck, is looking at developing for the Wii. No doubt lured by the astronomical hardware numbers, Valve thinks they can overcome an audience that has refused to buy games thus far. Needless to say, I think this is a braindead idea. Let's look at the facts. Yes, the Wii has sold a ton of units in a much shorter time. But software? Not so much.
The only games that have sold in the NPD top ten since launch are the big four Nintendo franchises, Wii Play (which only sells because of the remote, which effectively makes it a $10 game), and Resident Evil 4, the last one on that list being the only 3rd party game to sell in the top 10 since launch. There are tons of 3rd party games out there, ranging from crap like Chicken Shoot to amazing games like Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Regardless of quality, however, games outside of the core Nintendo audience aren't selling that well, at least in comparison to the robust market for 3rd party games on the 360 (there really aren't that many on the PS3, so it's hard to compare). Valve makes games that are so far away from the core Nintendo demographic - long-time Nintendo fanboys and young children (here come the flames). What makes them believe that this audience even wants games like Half-Life, Portal and Team Fortress? Furthermore, what makes anyone think Valve can make a game that appeals to Nintendo's audience... Oh wait, they'd have to get the rights to use Nintendo characters, and that probably won't happen after Nintendo's wonderful experience with Phillips.
Then there are the technical specifications. Despite Nintendo's claims, the Wii has shown itself not to be that much more powerful than the Cube (Metroid Prime 3 isn't that much of a graphical over Metroid Prime 2) and less powerful than the original Xbox. If anyone remembers the original Xbox version of Half-Life 2, well... It wasn't pretty. Great game still, but the graphics were heavily compromised, and the frame rate was an atrocity. This of course ignores the crazy loading times. Now without stripping the Source engine of everything that makes it awesome to begin with (physics, lighting effects, etc) or making a completely new engine for the Wii, how is Valve going to deliver anything for the system that won't make people cry at how poorly it runs?
Valve's just not in their element. They're making a huge mistake for a market that by and large won't even touch their games. Hopefully someone talks some sense into Gabe before they get too far along.
Anyway, that's the bag of stupid for today. See ya next time. :D
I Am Not Gay. I Never Have Been. I Just Fell and Landed on His Penis.
Idaho senator Larry Craig resigned last Saturday amid crippling pressure from fellow Republicans, Idaho conservatives, late-night talk show hosts, the entire YouTube community... Well, you get the idea. For those who haven't been following this delicious saga, Mr. Craig was arrested in June for soliciting anonymous gay sex in a Minneanapolis airport bathroom. The undercover cop was very insistant on what he experienced from Mr. Craig, having busted hundreds of men doing it before (by the way, how would you like that job?). The interrogation was actually quite funny.
Click to viewYou can hear the old man making up a bunch of bullshit to try to defend himself, his unwavering denial making for hilarious listening. It's actually quite funny the way he just digs himself further and further into the hole. Anyway, Craig pleads down from a lewd behavior charge to disorderly conduct, is given a relatively small fine and sent on his way. The story all but dies there, until a newspaper called The Idaho Statesman enters the picture. Trying to gather sources for a story about Craig's alleged sexuality (there have been rumors dating as far back as 20+ years), they find this little nugget and expose it to the world. Then it just got awesome. Mr. Craig decided to defend himself.
I love how he makes it a point to say that he's not gay twice in the space of a minute and a half. He even goes as far to attack the Statesman. How he couldn't have expected the shitstorm that was to follow is amazing, even for an out of touch politician.
Let me give you people a clue: If you're not gay, you're not playing footsie with a member of the same sex in the stall next to you. That's simply not how it works. Between this and the myriad of stories just leaping out - not to mention his suspicious activity in 1982, where he got married mere months after fighting allegations of Senate misconduct with pages where he wasn't even accused - it's completely clear: Larry Craig is gay. He's gayer than a Richard Simmons excercise marathon at Janet Reno's house while a gay pride parade goes on outside. However, a little adventurous sex isn't the issue here. The issue is that this is a man who, for his entire political career, has fought against every piece of gay rights legislation, from his time in the Idaho state senate, to the US House of Representatives, and in the US Senate. He's lectured this country for years on family values and done his best to make open homosexuals into a second class citizenry in the United States. That this man is not only gay, but engages in the very behavior that fuels homophobia among the ignorant, is hilarious in the extreme. And he is far from the first one. It's amazing just how many sex scandals have gone on in the Republican party, particulary gay/pedarast scandals (Hello there, Mr. Foley). Let this be a lesson to all: careful when you look in your closet - you might find some Republican homophobes fucking eachother. And no one wants to see wrinkled-up old guys having sex.
Product Placement and the Inflexible Gamer.
A study by GameSpot UK has shown that most gamers don't mind in-game advertising as long as it's realistic and contextual. While most people were very intelligent about the issue, a few people went right on ahead and showed their asses to the world.
Here are a few gems:
doctorteeth
GameSpot UK survey finds that most gamers are mindless consuming zombies more than willing to have the video game experience constantly interrupted with encouragements to suck corporate **** providing that it is contextual and realistic.
We are doomed.
Cracktacularq
Let's all just err on the side of caution and say "yes, we DO mind in-game adverts". That's like including a helping of herpes and gonorrhea with every pr0n dvd. Some realisim you can just do without.
Kcube
I dont plan on buying any games that have Adverts in them.SO go ahead companies and lose another customer.
Proman84
NEWSFLASH: This report was paid for by money generated by ads!
In case, you don't get it, we the players, do mind being abused by gaming companies and we do mind the ads in the games we pay good money for.
Metallicantera
i just paid 60 dollars for your game... an you still wana shove advertisements in my face? get the **** out.
Damn, I love you GameSpot comment people! The complete lack of perspective is amazing! Have any of these twits seen a movie in the last, oh, 20+ years? Product placement in movies has been going on for years, and is a fundamental part of several huge blockbusters including Transformers (real cars, Vizio Ocean phone) and the recent Bond films (BMW instead of Aston Martin). Everything from celphones, to vehicles to softdrinks in movies is the result of product placement, and yet I doubt anyone walked out of a good movie because the studio sold out and got a little extra cash by taking a cell phone company's money to put their product on screen instead of someone else's.
But when we talk about people leaving comments on GameSpot's comments page, we're not talking about normal, reasonable people, are we? We're talking about people who don't think for even three seconds before typing away on their keyboards, throwing the most banal nonsense in the world out for the whole world to read and laugh at, like I'm doing now. Granted, I'll give creativity points for the guy with the herpes comment, but people like this only enforce the negative stereotype that gamers have absolutely no idea what it's like on the outside. Wake up and smell the Folgers Crystals, people: advertising's everywhere. It was only a matter of time.
50 Trazillion Wii Owners, None of Them Want Games.
And finally, yet another 3rd party is being suckered into making software for everyone's favorite fad console. Valve, developer of the Half-Life series and architects of the only online PC games distribution service that doesn't suck, is looking at developing for the Wii. No doubt lured by the astronomical hardware numbers, Valve thinks they can overcome an audience that has refused to buy games thus far. Needless to say, I think this is a braindead idea. Let's look at the facts. Yes, the Wii has sold a ton of units in a much shorter time. But software? Not so much.
The only games that have sold in the NPD top ten since launch are the big four Nintendo franchises, Wii Play (which only sells because of the remote, which effectively makes it a $10 game), and Resident Evil 4, the last one on that list being the only 3rd party game to sell in the top 10 since launch. There are tons of 3rd party games out there, ranging from crap like Chicken Shoot to amazing games like Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Regardless of quality, however, games outside of the core Nintendo audience aren't selling that well, at least in comparison to the robust market for 3rd party games on the 360 (there really aren't that many on the PS3, so it's hard to compare). Valve makes games that are so far away from the core Nintendo demographic - long-time Nintendo fanboys and young children (here come the flames). What makes them believe that this audience even wants games like Half-Life, Portal and Team Fortress? Furthermore, what makes anyone think Valve can make a game that appeals to Nintendo's audience... Oh wait, they'd have to get the rights to use Nintendo characters, and that probably won't happen after Nintendo's wonderful experience with Phillips.
Then there are the technical specifications. Despite Nintendo's claims, the Wii has shown itself not to be that much more powerful than the Cube (Metroid Prime 3 isn't that much of a graphical over Metroid Prime 2) and less powerful than the original Xbox. If anyone remembers the original Xbox version of Half-Life 2, well... It wasn't pretty. Great game still, but the graphics were heavily compromised, and the frame rate was an atrocity. This of course ignores the crazy loading times. Now without stripping the Source engine of everything that makes it awesome to begin with (physics, lighting effects, etc) or making a completely new engine for the Wii, how is Valve going to deliver anything for the system that won't make people cry at how poorly it runs?
Valve's just not in their element. They're making a huge mistake for a market that by and large won't even touch their games. Hopefully someone talks some sense into Gabe before they get too far along.
Anyway, that's the bag of stupid for today. See ya next time. :D