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The massively multiplayer online role-playing orgy I never had
It was supposed to be my first orgy. NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.
The Virtual Whirl: Questions from the virtual mailbag
This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're going to take a selection of reader questions that we've received in comments and in the virtual mailbag and do our best to offer up some useful answers. Join us as we whirl through the mail. Not surprisingly, the two most frequently asked questions involve the demise of virtual environment, There.com.
Creating alarmist press release for marketing purposes
GamePolitics was on the ball when they noticed this attention grabing headline about video games screaming, "First Violence, Then Sex, and Now Drugs in Video Games." The funny thing is that the headline, and accompanying text, is actually a marketing maneuver being implemented by sexually-themed MMO Red Light Center to get press. So, in essence, it's a sensational press release, by a fringe company, to gain attention from the mainstream press. According to GamePolitics, TV news sites in North Carolina and Canada have already picked up the story.The best part of the release is this quote by Psychologist David Walsh, spokesman for the National Institute on Family and the Media, "Games are interactive and psychologically powerful. Now we have a game that glorifies drug use. Where do we draw the line?" As GamePolitics points out this statement was actually made in 2005 about NARC, not Red Light Center like the release implies.It was only a matter of time before we saw this level of manipulation. Using the anti-games advocates that get a lot of press to hype games is a brilliant move and Red Light Center's marketing team deserves serious golf claps for the maneuver. In a situation like this, all we can do is try to show those that will be manipulated by this information that they are being used, and hopefully they'll find it out before they go off the handle and give press to something that doesn't deserve it. Time to wait and see if this goes mainstream -- after all, it is a slow newsday in the states.
