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McDonald’s and Nominative Fair Use
I had an interesting conversation with David after our Week 5 class about nominative fair use and the movie Super-Size Me. For those of you not familiar with the film: first off, watch it because it’s hilarious. Documentary maker Morgan Spurlock spends one month eating three meals a day, only eating at McDonald’s. I’ll let you […]
Rudy Giuliani to help in video game firm’s legal case against disgraced Panamanian dictator
The former New York mayor’s firm will ask a judge to dismiss a lawsuit, filed by Manuel Noriega, that had accused Activision Blizzard Inc. of using the disgraced dictator’s likeness in their ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops II’ game. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-video-game-firm-legal-case-disgraced-panamanian-dictator-article-1.1948554 Interesting read particularly in the context of Mr.Dartnell’s talk a few weeks ago […]
Vancouver Island-made game challenges players in brutal post-apocalyptic North
Vancouver Island-made game challenges players in brutal post-apocalyptic North http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/the-long-dark-video-game-can-you-survive-canada-post-disaster-1.2776501 Inspired by the previous post and by last week’s guest speaker. In addition to helping us become disciplined investors and lose weight (DDR) , video games can also help us obtain the necessary skills to survive the (perhaps) inevitable zombie apocalypse. “You’re tracking your calories […]
Video-Blog News of the Week; September 24, 2014
What do the Noriega lawsuit and the 38 Studios debacle have in common? It’s not as bad as you think. jon
Day Trader Learned Lessons From Games
“CIS, pronounced sis, means death in classical Japanese. The nickname is a holdover from his gaming days, when he used to crush foes in virtual wrestling rings and online fantasy worlds. ‘Games taught me to think fast and stay calm,’ he said over tea at Tokyo’s Hotel Grand Palace a few days after the SoftBank […]
Titan Cancellation Costs Blizzard Millions
As a follow-up to today’s talk about video game production cycles, here’s some insight into just how much the cancellation of a game can cost: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-09-23-titan-cancellation-cost-blizzard-usd50m-or-more-say-analysts
Video-Blog News of the Week; September 17, 2014
Actually talking law, not social issues. Try not to be too shocked… jon
Videogames and the Spirit of Capitalism
This is a terrific talk Paolo Pedercini of Carnegie Mellon University gave remotely to Indicade East 2014. It is hugely thought provoking in its interpretation of games as rationalizations of capitalism. I don’t agree, hewing to Jung’s view of games (see Talk 1) as a way of being in touch with our instinctive self. Of […]
Gaming’s Indie Explosion: Chris Charla
This is a wonderful short video that serves a couple of related purposes in the context of the course: 1. It is a cool and inspirational history of games, especially indie games; and 2. In the context of all our discussion about the creative role of the gamer, it represents a powerful reminder of how […]
Video-Blog; News of the Week September 10, 2014
This week’s take: EA v. NFL. EA wins by a knock-out (how’s that for mixing metaphors). jon