MIT Students turned the Green Building on campus into a giant, playable Tetris game in 2012. 53 of the building’s windows became the game’s falling colored blocks on a 80 by 250 foot “screen.”
More:
“The ‘holy grail’ of hacks,” Jessica J. Pourian, The Tech
It’s getting harder to find good help. Well-know plumber Mario has been fired by Nintendo.
” A newly-uploaded profile … of everyone’s favorite Player One describes Mario as having worked as a plumber in the distant past, suggesting he’s a plumber no longer.”
“But to remove Mario from his plumbing origins is a disservice to the fans who fell in love with Nintendo’s hero long before his days of racing, playing tennis, or flying through space. Mario is a video game hero we can all relate to—one that gets his hands dirty under the occasional sink.”
— “Mario is no longer a plumber,” Jean-Luc Bouchard, Quartz
Electronic games now earn more money than recorded music or Hollywood films, about $21 Billion in 2013.
The Strong Museum collects and preserves video games and artifacts through its International Center for the History of Electronic Games. The collection includes more than 55,000 video games and artifacts, personal papers and corporate records that document the history of video games.
The Strong Museum in Rochester, home of the National Toy Hall of Fame, has announced the creation of the World Video Game Hall of Fame. “Electronic games have changed how people play, learn and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography,” said museum President G. Rollie Adams. Unsaid: Games now earn more money than recorded music or Hollywood films, about $21 Billion in 2013.
You can nominate significant arcade, console, computer, hand-held and mobile games here until March 31, 2015. An international panel will choose the annual inductees.
“Videogames are among the suspects that the National Rifle Association blames for gun violence in the United States. In his press conference after the Newtown massacre, for instance, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre called game makers ‘a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.’ So the rest of us are entitled to ask, aren’t we, why the NRA just released a free app for iOS that teaches how to shoot? Especially since, as Annie-Rose Strasser noticed, the first screen shot that pops up on the game’s page is of coffin-shaped targets, with helpful red marks at head and heart level.”
— “The NRA, Which Blames Shooting Games for Gun Violence, Has Just Released a Shooting Game,” David Berreby, Big Think
“And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.
Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?”
“The United States government offers tax incentives to companies pursuing medical breakthroughs, urban redevelopment and alternatives to fossil fuels.
It also provides tax breaks for a company whose hit video game this year was the gory Dead Space 2, which challenges players to advance through an apocalyptic battlefield by killing space zombies.”
— “Rich Tax Breaks Bolster Makers of Video Games,” David Kocieniewski, New York Times
Guitar Hero, the music-themed video game with the plastic guitar-shaped controller first introduced in 2005, was recently discontinued. Sales had been in the billions but fell to under $300 million last year. Now the Activision corporation says there might be a reprise:
“‘Guitar Hero’ Not Dead, Says Game Maker Activision,” Scott Steinberg, Rolling Stone
Image (“Portrait with Video Game, after Paul Bril”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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The mighty Guitar Hero electronic game franchise started in 2005, back in the Middle Ages of video games. It earned hundreds of millions of dollars, but as of today it is no more. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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