jennie

Curses, my secret identity and disappearance from Joystiq have been compromised. There's nowhere for me to hide now!

Interacting with the content created by other people -- thousands of planets of it -- is enough to make one feel close. Though it would be insanely cool if the planets were little homeworlds and actively run by players. Gosh darn it, I just had a sporegasm.

Sexism and observations are different things, folks.

The head-to-head calculation battle has thirty questions; I'm not sure why the difference, but thank goodness it's not 100 ;)

#3 - Yes, that's an illustrative diagram of Forza 2 from the MS press conference and it means exactly that.

ZeroCorpse - you seem to have missed quite what this post is about! I'm not evangelising the crazy new-fangled idea of girl gamer clans -- instead, I'm pointing out that these well-established organisations are becoming an alternative way for companies to advertise their products, a form of savvy booth babe that appeals on both a visceral and intellectual level. I think this ties in really nicely with an earlier piece we linked to by Kim Rom which complained about the sponsorship-seeking breast-baring camera-happy nature of girl clans. The clans getting the sponsorship for E3 didn't form with that explicit aim (though the Frag Dolls are a special case). They formed because they were gamers that had something in common -- and they're the ones getting the sponsorship, not the "ooh look at us we have BREASTS and we're GURLZ" lot.

The 'clampdown' refers more to the enforcement of policy than any changes ('cause there haven't been any).

I've had no problems with Firefox, but you do need Flash 8, so check you've got the latest plugins and check you've not got ad blocking or anything running (including on your firewall) that might stop the flash file getting to you.

It's horrible when the CGI is put right next to actual footage in the ads, isn't it? And as you guys say, GRAW didn't need to be CGId up to look pretty. As consumers, having honest adverts is great, but some games would totally lose the wow factor. Animal Crossing as mentioned.. I know single girls who play it, you know!.. if the ingame graphics were the focus of the ad, it would have limited success. Still, ads like Animal Crossing and SingStar try to build on the image of who plays it, and what sort of person you want to become by playing it -- rather like deodorant and car ads!

Flat fee, I'd assume, since Guild Wars has no monthly subscription..

Ah, but family friendly doesn't mean just for the kids. Family friendly means games the entire family can enjoy together -- karaoke, Guitar Hero, dance mats, Buzz! -- as well as games the kids can play *and* decent titles for adults too. At least, that seems to be the definition Microsoft's shooting for. Nintendo has a special place in the market, though, it's true.