Japanese Symbols - Playstation Similarity?

This post implies that the Playstation controller markings came from usage of common Japanese marking symbols, equivalent to Western style check marks or "X"s for instance.

I don't find it conclusive evidence but I do think it's interesting. I wouldn't be surprised though if it was just coincidence and the markings were chosen simply to make them look different.

Technorati tags: gaming,
playstation

Video Game Commercials

Here's a site with a great collection of "classic and contemporary" ads shown around the world!

Most appear to be in Japanese, but you can sort by country and time period.

China Sets a Timer on Online Play

Unhealthy Game Time Warning

Link leads to a radio bit heard on NPR, the gist is that China has come up with an idea to curb game time by having a pop up warning interrupt game play: "You have entered unhealthy game time, please go offline immediately to rest." The time limit per day they've decided on is 3 hours a day. I'd be interested in seeing how they came up with that figure.

This brings to mind special situation "gaming". What I mean by that is when one might be logged into the game on the computer but not really playing it, for instance it could be up while you were waiting for your friends to come online, you might be using it as a chat client, or you might sporadically do tradeskills but not want to log in and out all the time. Folks with two computers might even have the game up on one while they work on the other... or just have the game up on one and not even be in the same room while doing chores etc. I suppose these situations are pretty rare and maybe even rarer in China.

On the other hand in EverQuest now, there is a timer you can set to remind you when a certain amount of time has elapsed. It doesn't penalize you like the Chinese system if you play beyond your timed session but just acts as a simple timer. I like this concept much better.

Technorati tags:
gaming, mmorpg, online games

No Strong Link Between Video Games and Violence

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/05/0809videogames.html

I don't think this study is one of the stronger cases since it studies only one game but I do think this study should be counted. There are so many anecdotal stories and tragic news stories in which the aspect of someone being a gamer is immediately pointed out to be the root of all their problems that I think it's important to point out an actual study done.

At the very least even if this study were to conclude that only fantasy violence does not cause an increase in violence and aggression, it would be a step in clarifying to the public in general that video games, like films, TV shows, or any other form of entertainment are quite different from each other and should not be all lumped together .