Why you should be playing games

(tags game, criticism)

Why you should be playing games. It's to train your brain to recognize good experiences, or perhaps learn how your standard of tolerance is different from others. Not so recently, I played the Pokemon series, but I gave up on it before getting the "complete index" item, because the battle screens are so slow. Still there are millions of people playing this game.

Or more recently, it's to make yourself a noisy nuisance on the bus or train. (Games: DJ Max Portable 2, Rubik's Cube).

Or it's to inhibit (or develop!) your lust for collecting collectibles. 100% completion makes gaming like work, but I don't want to feel like I miss out.

Sometimes gaming is just for relaxation. I recently discovered Spider Solitaire, one of those Windows built-in games. It's been my guilty pleasure for the last week. I play with one deck (beginner level). I really like the bling in the Windows 7 edition of this game, because I find that the Windows XP just serviceable, not unlike the feeling of playing a Windows 3.1 game.

Why shouldn't you be playing games. Surely you need your sleep time? ;)

Microsoft's shorten long tail

(tags game, Microsoft, Xbox 360, criticism)

As a game archiving dilettante, I am annoyed that Microsoft is considering deleting the "cruft" from the XBLA. I can't be bother to find a (Joystiq?) forum post that highlights the many classic games that miss the Metacritic 65% or above cut, but Robotron 2084 was one of them. The mind boggles! I want to rant some more about it, but Kohler at GameLife summarizes my position neatly.

I have too many video games myself, but I really feel like can't part with them because there's no easy place around here where I can just rent them, unlike books and movies.

Lightweight people prefer Ruby and Haruhi

(tags presentation, Ruby, Japanese, English, China, criticism, anime)

Here's a "lightning talk" called "Diligent People. Lightweight people." done by Masayoshi Takahashi, chairman of the Nihon Ruby-no Kai, the Ruby programming language core and libraries developers (and support) group. (Thanks to _why's post "Chairman Takahashi in Taiwan") This is a rare English sample from the mainly Japanese presentation group.

Basically a lightning talk a short 3 minute speech with big kanji Powerpoint-like (or is it Evangalion-type?) visuals, usually on programming topics. Try it out here: "About Nihon Ruby no Kai" (日本Rubyの会について), but don't forget to maximize your browser.

So Takahashi makes an argument for lightweight ("lazy"!) people and processes instead of "diligent" people, but rather than spoil the humor I urge you to watch the video.

I realize when says "lightweight people prefer scripting languages like Ruby" he is expounding the strengths of unit-testing, dynamism, and less documentation, as much as a 3 minute talk can allow.

But his "lightweight people prefer Haruhi (light novel)" is just icing on the cake. He's definately not saying that Ruby is so like last year's anime, ie. old news. Still any programming language that can be associated with making people dance in the streets is novel.

Slap a "Made in China" sticker on anime

(tags anime, China, Japan, criticism, kawaii, season 2005/04)

One of my favorite English-based anime bloggers, Matthew, had an interesting report on how Futago Hime is being shown in the Chinese TV prime-time despite being a Japanese-made anime, because it is restamped as "made in China". This anime has all the audio parts in Chinese, voices, OP and ED songs, but the visuals are the same as the Japanese version.

He in turn links to a Japanese speaker who is conversant in the Chinese anime otaku scene with 3 posts (「ゴールデンタイムに日本のアニメを「中国で制作した」として放映？」:1, 2, 3) on this very issue.

Summarizing (hopefully not too crudely), the company that made the 2005 TV anime Fushigi Hoshi no Futago Hime (ふしぎ星の☆ふたご姫) is the HAL Film Maker Co,. Ltd, which is one company in the TYO Group. TYO Group also has a 31% stake in the Chinese company Da Lian Eastern Dragon Cartoon Development Co., Ltd, who is responsible for this "made in China" anime.

So the transfer of assets seems legitimate. It sounds like a business strategy to repurpose a successful product towards a different market. I'm sure that the "made in China" stamp is so that the show garners more eyeballs, which in turn will feed the toy purchasing.

But it's the same situtation as when any U.S. based (or elsewhere) dubbing company releases a Japanese anime. Do you call that product "made in the U.S.A"? I didn't think so.