News of the Week; July 30, 2014

GAMES

5. Should thieves in World of Warcraft be sent to real prisons?: Tory MP Mike Weatherley wants those who swipe valuable items in video games to get the same sentences as burglars

+ Should virtual theft be treated like real world theft? A UK MP says yes.

+ Should Stealing in Video Games Be Punishable in the Real World?

6. Square Enix Nixes 3 Years Of Fan Translation Work On PSP, Despite Not Releasing English Version For PSP

7. No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

+ The Most Sexist Video Game of All Time?: It’s called Catherine, and it reveals a lot about misogynist gaming culture.

8. Pink and Blue Pixel$: Gender and Economic Disparity in Two Massive Online Games (Lehdonvirta, Ratan, Kennedy & Williams)

9. The world of bizarre Japanese dating sims is invading America

10. GaymerX founder says NIS America backed out of sponsorship

+ NIS America and GaymerX Kiss and Make Up

+ Nintendo’s Quest for Inclusivity: Nintendo’s Animal Crossing team speaks about the drive for diversity in its games — even if the company falls short of its goals from time to time.

+ Nintendo records quarterly loss of nearly 10bn Yen

11. Game developers, watch out! German data protection authorities publish guidelines for mobile apps

12. Surveillance & Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): Special Issue on Surveillance Gaming and Play

Including – 1. “Surveillant Assemblages of Governance in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: A Comparative Analysis”; 2. “Surveillance and Community: Language Policing and Empowerment in a World of Warcraft Guild”; 3. “Getting Played: Gamification and the Rise of Algorithmic Surveillance”; 4. “Games of Drones: The Uneasy Future of the Soldier-Hero in Call of Duty: Black Ops II”; 5. “Creative Misuse as Resistance: Surveillance, Mobile Technologies, and Locative Games”; 6. “The Gift that Keeps on Giving: Google, Ingress, and the Gift of Surveillance”; 7. “’I had no credit to ring you back’: Children’s strategies of negotiation and resistance to parental surveillance via mobile phones”; 8. “Gaming Privacy: a Canadian case study of a children’s co-created privacy literacy game”; 9. “Enclosures at Play: Surveillance in the Code and Culture of Videogames”; 10. “Reporting From the Snooping Trenches: Changes in Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Behavior Tracking in Digital Games”; 11. “Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming”; 12. “Diverting and diverted glances at cameras: playful and tactical approaches to surveillance studies”; 13. “Playdates with Big Brother: Playfully Repurposing Surveillance Cameras to Build Communities”; 14. “Surveillance Chess”.

13. Kobra Studios Attacks YouTubers and Deletes Negative Comments, Has Game Taken Down From Steam Greenlight

14. No Man’s Sky: A Vast Game Crafted by Algorithms

15. EA improves revenues and profit in Q1, delays Dragon Age

16. Sony: EA Access wouldn’t provide “value” for PlayStation owners

17. PS4 to get 3D Blu-Ray support

18. Gamer discovers his deceased father’s ghost on an old Xbox game, challenges it to a race

19. Learn how to copy, and know when to steal

20. Gaming Tax Credits: A Developer’s Guide to Free Money

DIGITAL

21. Yet Another Court Rules That Digital Data Is Not Property

22. What Is Public?: It’s so simple, right? (by Anil Dash)

23. UK Government Report Recommends Ending Online Anonymity