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Eliza Dushku starts playing WoW
Alright, so maybe she's only picked it up after almost five years of the game being out, but it looks like actress Eliza Dushku has started to play World of Warcraft. The actress, who broke into the nerd radar when she played a renegade Slayer in Joss Whedon's Buffy, tweeted yesterday asking her followers whether she should roll Alliance or Horde. The tweet made a small ripple across the nerdverse. The Dollhouse star, whose new show is getting pummeled in the ratings, received a number of responses on Twitter, most of them telling her to roll a Horde Blood Elf. We certainly hope she bucks the trend, though... Dear Eliza, Please roll a female Tauren Druid. Sincerely, Zach Dushku isn't the first actress or celebrity to publicly reveal a geeky side, and certainly not the first, uh, cryogenically-challenged female to play the game. There's Mila Kunis from That 70's Show, Guild creator and star Felicia Day, or even gaming event staple Kat Hunter, so the actress' firing up WoW probably isn't that big a deal. I mean, it's really okay to be geeky. There's nothing to it. Even girls play video games. It's also stipulated in the nerd handbook that we should play them in our underwear. The Chewbacca one.
BlizzCon 2009: WoW.com interviews Felicia Day, continued
That's the last money question that I have. You work with all of these actors, the first season it was like you were kind of the face of the show, and you were talking to everybody, and the other actors have kind of come up. And this BlizzCon I think is one of the first ones where people are really diving in and saying this person is my favorite, I really want to talk to Robin, I really want to talk to Jeff. You wrote the stuff, you even talked on the panel as well about how the actors are kind of taking over your characters. How has that been, in terms of how your actors are becoming the characters you're writing about? As of the third season, I've written them hundreds of pages, at this point. So they've as actors really helped me define, it's kind of a metamorphosis. Every TV show, if you watch a pilot, a lot of characters change a lot, from the time they do that first pilot. For this one, the actors though, they bring so much to the table, Jeff and Sandeep do a lot of improv, and ad-lib a lot, they're adding a lot of ideas with their characters. At the same time, honestly, I've been pushing them forward as far as press and stuff and meeting fans and stuff, because I'm out there on the Internet a lot, I get sick of myself, honestly, I'm sure some of your readers are like, "I hate this girl." [Laughs] No! They do have trolling tendencies. Which is cool, they will, but that's cool, everybody doesn't have to love me. [laughs]
Ubisoft says Wii a 'female-driven platform'
Gaming is becoming more and more popular, thanks to ever-increasing sales of the DS and Wii, and that means new gamers. A large portion of these gamers are of the female variety, and Ubisoft says a lot of them are flocking to the Wii and DS. "What's driving the Wii sales is the use of Wii by women, girls and families," said Ubisoft's senior brand manager, Ann Hamilton. Hamilton says that the number of girls who game has significantly increased over the past two years, jumping from 50% in 2006 to 57% in 2008. But are they solely responsible for the Wii's success? We'd say not, but it's important to note that female gamers probably take up a notable chunk of the overall casual audience that has been so responsive to the Wii. In our experience, however, we've found that a game's ability to be fun to play overcomes all obstacles, including the huge chasm between us boys and the fair sex. [Via Endsights]
Show and Tell: All around the world
We love hearing from our international readers, particularly because most of us -- with the exception of Mr. Chris Greenhough -- are tucked away in the United States. So when Flacko, a reader from Estonia, sent us in pictures of her collection, we sat up and took notice, even if they aren't the best quality pictures we've ever seen (for which she apologized). The other thing that makes this collection interesting (besides all the Nintendo stuff) is that Flacko reports she is a major minority in Estonia. Most girls there are into "makeup and shopping," she says, not games. We know how that can be. But take heart! In the worldwide gaming community, you're not alone.Got something you want to show off to all the other DS fans? We like just about anything with a little Nintendo flavor, so snap a few pics and send 'em off to tell us what's up, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest.
Vision Camera: Uno uncensored
I picked up a Vision Camera a few days early thanks to the stock first, ask questions later policy at the local Toys R Us. After a weekend spent playing Uno under the watchful gaze of complete strangers (at the expense of this blog I'm afraid), I can report that the camera is a worthy purchase based on that cool watery dashboard effect alone. Webcams have been around forever, but it still feels strange to have to check your boxers for complete scrotal coverage while playing a console. Just pray the guy on the other side does the same. I talked to a couple girl gamers who had already witnessed Uno hands that devolved into a sordid game-within-a-game of "show me yours, I'll show you mine" to the shrieking glee of the zit-faced participants (and presumably, the horror of the ESRB). Wild Cards never had so much economic clout. Expect this type of seedy peep show bartering to take off as the Vision makes its way into more sweaty palms this week. It will probably take a couple months before the novelty of pimping out your girlfriend for color changes wears off, or at least settles to a tolerable level. In the mean time, YouTube should prepare for a flood of poorly lit softcore with the same soundtrack.
