So today was the big day. The Supreme Court heard the arguments between The State of California (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA which the ESA is a part of). For those that are not paying attention this is the final court case to decide if the State of California has the right to control "ultra violent" (a term which is never really clearly defined) game sales to minors. Now at first this may not seem like a big thing. Gamestop and Wal-mart already will not sell to a minor unless their parents are present. But where the law goes too far is it seems too much like government censorship.
What is to stop this law from leading to censorship in other forms of media? What would stop the jump from video games to comic, then comics to TV, and so on? And even if there is no jump to other media for violent censorship and if the worst thing that happens is that it stays in the realm of video games, there is a possibility that the threat of fines or low sales would cause game producers to censor themselves in the US.
What do you think of all this though? Sound off in the comments on your opinions and if you want you can read the court briefing below.
And when can we expect to hear the verdict on this case? Some time between tomorrow and June 2011. So don't hold your breath.
So you may have heard of the kid that informed the Blizzard staff at BlizzCon that they are neglecting their own cannon by letting them know they have left out a key character out of the Wildhammer Clan. No? You don't know him. Well watch this video then.
Ok, you are all caught up then. Well Blizzard has formed an official reponse to this guy. They added him to the game. He is now the Wildhammer Fact Checker. Wearing the red shirt next to the man he said did not exist, which was true until now. So I guess if you want to get your own NPC in a Blizzard game you need to call them out in what will turn out to be a viral video.
Also if you feel like mocking this guy for the voice he used. Check out the response video he posted.
You read that right. Your little lives mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. At least that is what the devs for World of Warcraft are telling us in their most recent announcement. It appears one of the events that is being planned for the introduction to Cataclysm is Deathwing appearing in random zones and murdering the inhabitants. What will happen is the skies will turn dark and Deathwing will begin to burn everything in his path. Players that are in the way of his carnage will be rewarded with three things. They will get a Feat of Strength achievement, a corpse run and a repair bill.
So watch out when the sky turns black and prepare to die.
We are at Episode 48 of The Gameslave Podcast.
Today we have a number of great things (or so I would like you to believe) for you to check out. So have a listen and enjoy what we have for you this week.
Gaming has become a stable in most of our lives. We live and breath it in our free time and social lives. But it has seen its fair share of risks during its existence. Wired.com has placed together a nice list of the 9 riskiest moves made in gaming history to date. After the jump I am going to place what they are, but if you would like the reasoning for them you will have to follow the source link to the article on Wired's website. They did write it first after all.If you like RPG's and flowcharts (who doesn't), do yourself a favor and check out Game Informers newest article, Every RPG Ever: The Flowchart, the single best flowchart in existence, really funny stuff.
Want to make a life for your self in games? Well the first thing you have to do is go to school and that requires money. This is being solved by Scholar Gamers.com. They are giving out scholarships for the best gamers that are in school and at least 13. Think you have what it takes to win? Then head on over to http://www.scholargamers.com/ and enter for your chance to win!
A new class for the long awaited Diablo 3 has been announced! Check out the trailer below.
Instances in WoW can be the bread and butter of the game. Sure you can level your character through exploration (all though that is pretty limited), killing mobs and questing, but once you hit end game you spend the majority of your time in dungeons. With this in mind the great people at Blizzard are going to bring us enhanced dungeon maps. The new maps are laden with great information regarding the bosses that will be encountered. We will have 3D models of the boss, lore as to why we are fighting them (you know, besides money and loot). You will also be told meta-game information such as what abilities that the bosses can use and what loot that the bosses will drop. This will be availble in both 5-man dungeons and raids.
Updated Boss Info huh? They all know how to kill me as it is now anyway.
Let us not forget too, that with patch 4.1.0 and Cataclysm a lot of the vanilla WoW dungeons are going to see a bit of a split up. Examples of this will be seen in the massive dungeons such as Black Rock Depths and Maraudon. Maraudon is going to be split into two different wings, a life area and an elemental area. Black Rock is getting teleporters to help you move around a bit better. We are also seeing Uldamon getting split into two sections. This will make lower level players able to get more done in less time. Looking foward to it when I start leveling some new toons.
