Ludology.org

BBC and political gaming in 2004

"Online games broke through onto the political arena in 2004", says the BBC today. The article focuses on both the US and Uruguayan election campaign and I am glad that I could get on the record saying that I was the first one to be surprised at how soon campaign games started to gather the attention of politicians. Certainly, there is still a long road ahead, but it was definitively a good start. 2004 was a great, exciting year, with plenty of interesting experiments in games and politics. Now that the year is over, I feel that it was quite an exhausting one for me on a personal level, but it was definitively lots of fun.

¡Feliz Navidad!

Hey, Merry Christmas to all you guys, faithful readers. I thought about sharing with you this postcard, created by the powerful folks at Powerful Robot. It's very ludological indeed (whatever that buzzword means :) Enjoy! Gonzalo

Katamari Presents

Plenty of cool wallpapers and even a Katamari Xmas postcard. Here.

Down Under

Down Inder Ingame Ads. Yup, an European ad agency for placing ads in your games. Here's The Link.

My Games

I just added a new block to this site, linking to a list of some of my games (my commercial games are not listed, I'll need to work on that some day). The block features a small, ludological representation of myself made by Ian Bogost and actually included on the Opinions game. It was my first cameo appearance in a game and there is an anecdote on why Ian decided to include me instead of the previous character that he had created (Ian will tell you the story if you buy him a beer). Enjoy the games!

Costik

Greg Costikyan inteviewed on mobile games at TheFeature.

New Ivory Tower

Nathan Garrelths is the Ivory Tower column writer for the month of December. He deals with videogames and literature, as well as non-peer academic recognition.

CNET on griefers

If you are looking for a simple introduction to the "griefer issue" in multiplayer games, you may want to look at this News.com article.

Pinochet charged with murder and disappearances

While the house arrest was quickly overturned, the fact that Pinochet was charged yesterday with murder in his own country, it's a refreshing reminder that we should never give up our hopes of justice. Over and over we hear that the poor old man is 89 years old. The first time that I heard this sort of excuse was from a Catholic woman who told me that she believed in forgiving Klaus Barbie, who was a "poor old man" and was been tried in France when he was 74 years old. This lovely grandpa was responsible for the murder of thousands (btw, this nice guy was for many years employed and under the protection of freedom-loving US government). But since age seems to be so important in these cases, let's get back to Pinochet and talk about age. Let's talk about Mariluz Sabrina Pérez a 16 year old girl who was kidnapped by the DINA, Pinochet's secret police, when she was going back home from her high school. She was raped, received electrical shocks on her nipples and burns on her vagina. Mariluz is now 29 years old and, after several miscarriages, was able to have a baby. According to her, "having a child was a victory against the DINA". Maybe Pinochet is now too old, and Mariluz was way too young, but funny things happen to people of all ages. You are never too young to suffer and never too old for justice. You choose: trial for an elder or torture for a teenager. That's the only way age should be taken into consideration. And Mariluz' case is only one among thousands of Chilean who where tortured and/or murdered. The fact that the former dictator is finally accused in his own country, with all the legal rights that he denied to his victims, is a major victory for humanity. Keep that in mind: you're never too old to be an murderous bastard.

The Mario Evolution

Take a look at this sprite-based evolution of Nintendo's Mario. The famous Italian has been mutating almost as much as that poor Ukrainian fellow.