I've been playing MMORPGS for a bit more than 6 years now. at the same time i pretty much stopped playing FPS games and have been focusing on MMORPGS. The reason for that is that I find MMOs alot more relaxing and pleasant to play. it allowed me to socialize with tons of people from many different origins, live awesome group experiences and experience teamwork and competition at new levels.
While playing these MMORPGS, I ended up analyzing my own behaviors and other players, and how everybody interacts in these virtual worlds. I elaborated a bunch of theories and ideas about MMORPGS and their playerbase. and i could probably write 30 or so articles on the subjects as I already started doing with this blog but nothing could summarize my thoughts better than this psychological research that is the Daedalus project:
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_intro.html
if you click through the different parts of this site, youll be able to click on words that will lead you to detailed results and analysis about various aspects of the research
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Bringing more girls in the video game world
As is it this now (altho its changing every year) not many girls play video games. some do and for the most part they are considered "geeky girls" and are often special in their own way, (theres plenty of "normal" girls too, but just not enough yet) The other thing is that they play certain types of games, typically RPG games, sometimes FPS games, and rarely RTS games. RTS games dont appeal to all guys, and it seems understandable that it doesnt appeal to many girls, youre not really a character in a game, but someone dictating the fate of units on the battlefield, kinda like chess, but more starcraft 2. then theres FPS games which are mostly violent and very competitive. theres alot of "owning everybody" and "raping everyone" in these games, which again doesnt appeal to a lot of girls.
lastly theres role playing games which are probably the more popular genre for girls, where youre character is usually involved in a story, and works with others to overcome challenges. and even within RPG's girls often fill stereotypical roles by playing healer classes that are supposed to heal and tend other players. the problem with that is that theres alot of roles that needs to be filled in a group and not every girl is made to be a good healer but thats another story. then in some games like SWG most girls played entertainer classes like dancers, musicians and image designers, because thats girly. and guys that had characters playing these proffesions had em strictly for the utility their provided or to joke around and have funny looking characters.
I also want to clarify that im pointing out the general trend here, theres definitely good RTS and FPS female players, same goes for RPGs, not all girls are healers, (tho I have yet to see a female main tank in any MMORPG)
Then games are mainly designed for guys, with male main characters, usually really badass people (think of Infamous, the force unleashed, Mafia 2, assassin's creed etc etc) girls are rarely the main character, and if they are, they are usually very very sexy, and not necessarly the best type of character for a girl to identify to (think of Lara Croft) in fact, it seems to me that female main characters are generally just to look cool, like a female kicking everybody's ass or using a big gun to destroy things, actually thats how I like to play female characters, unrealistically strong for their size, and just really badass, kinda like all male characters but better looking.
Many girls think these female game characters just look stupid the way that they are arranged to be sexy and have a perfect body and basically dont behave any different than guys as characters.
Now that leads to many questions, how do you design a game that will have credible female characters that are feminine instead of simply looking feminine. and if they are feminine, is everybody gonna cry because the game is too stereotyped. lets say a RPG game wanted to make a realistic female warrior character and for that they had to give her more muscle mass and make her look less feminine. would females and even males be interested in playing such character. ask yourself the opposite, would a male be interested in playing a male character that runs around wearing a bikini. in all games the male game characters are really badass iconic characters that the players kinda want to be, therefore that character has to be a symbol of masculinity to please the male crowd. at the same time, female characters kinda become that perfect woman, tough and rough like a man, but looks like a woman.
To appeal to more girls, there need to be games designed towards them, real games, somehow the industry needs to get a feel of what girls will like and create games accordingly, for example a game that focuses alot on story telling like Heavy Rain couldve been it, but its filled with poorly handled stereotypes and hollywood-like cliches that makes it not a very rich experience. I cant think of other possible avenues for now of games that would interest girls and actually made the brain work to solve problems quickly because...
Games are all about mathematics, the game setting is just a costume to make mathematics more appealing, but its all about numbers and geometry, thats why initially it was only nerdz and geeks playing games, and also mostly guys (the engineering and computer science world is still mostly composed of males). nowadays with games wanting to appeal to a wider audience, and the huge market share of casual games and social games, we have a HUGE portion of the gaming population that doesnt realize that they are doing maths. somehow game developpers needs to make mathematics appealing to girls for them to want to take on challenges we typically get from good games where you have to adapt quickly to a situation and make the best out of whats at your disposal and eventually reach the highest level of competitive play where you play against other human players and where your intelligence is put against the intelligence of other humans. because i think girls are just as competitive as guys, they just demonstrate it differently.
lastly theres role playing games which are probably the more popular genre for girls, where youre character is usually involved in a story, and works with others to overcome challenges. and even within RPG's girls often fill stereotypical roles by playing healer classes that are supposed to heal and tend other players. the problem with that is that theres alot of roles that needs to be filled in a group and not every girl is made to be a good healer but thats another story. then in some games like SWG most girls played entertainer classes like dancers, musicians and image designers, because thats girly. and guys that had characters playing these proffesions had em strictly for the utility their provided or to joke around and have funny looking characters.
I also want to clarify that im pointing out the general trend here, theres definitely good RTS and FPS female players, same goes for RPGs, not all girls are healers, (tho I have yet to see a female main tank in any MMORPG)
Then games are mainly designed for guys, with male main characters, usually really badass people (think of Infamous, the force unleashed, Mafia 2, assassin's creed etc etc) girls are rarely the main character, and if they are, they are usually very very sexy, and not necessarly the best type of character for a girl to identify to (think of Lara Croft) in fact, it seems to me that female main characters are generally just to look cool, like a female kicking everybody's ass or using a big gun to destroy things, actually thats how I like to play female characters, unrealistically strong for their size, and just really badass, kinda like all male characters but better looking.
Many girls think these female game characters just look stupid the way that they are arranged to be sexy and have a perfect body and basically dont behave any different than guys as characters.
Now that leads to many questions, how do you design a game that will have credible female characters that are feminine instead of simply looking feminine. and if they are feminine, is everybody gonna cry because the game is too stereotyped. lets say a RPG game wanted to make a realistic female warrior character and for that they had to give her more muscle mass and make her look less feminine. would females and even males be interested in playing such character. ask yourself the opposite, would a male be interested in playing a male character that runs around wearing a bikini. in all games the male game characters are really badass iconic characters that the players kinda want to be, therefore that character has to be a symbol of masculinity to please the male crowd. at the same time, female characters kinda become that perfect woman, tough and rough like a man, but looks like a woman.
To appeal to more girls, there need to be games designed towards them, real games, somehow the industry needs to get a feel of what girls will like and create games accordingly, for example a game that focuses alot on story telling like Heavy Rain couldve been it, but its filled with poorly handled stereotypes and hollywood-like cliches that makes it not a very rich experience. I cant think of other possible avenues for now of games that would interest girls and actually made the brain work to solve problems quickly because...
Games are all about mathematics, the game setting is just a costume to make mathematics more appealing, but its all about numbers and geometry, thats why initially it was only nerdz and geeks playing games, and also mostly guys (the engineering and computer science world is still mostly composed of males). nowadays with games wanting to appeal to a wider audience, and the huge market share of casual games and social games, we have a HUGE portion of the gaming population that doesnt realize that they are doing maths. somehow game developpers needs to make mathematics appealing to girls for them to want to take on challenges we typically get from good games where you have to adapt quickly to a situation and make the best out of whats at your disposal and eventually reach the highest level of competitive play where you play against other human players and where your intelligence is put against the intelligence of other humans. because i think girls are just as competitive as guys, they just demonstrate it differently.
Gaming for girls
http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-games-statistics-2010-09
interesting how social games on facebook are sooooooo popular, but more interesting is that 69% of the facebook game gamers are women (and 19% consider themselves addicted). meanwhile when it comes to real games, were not sure, but it doesnt feel like more than 20% of gamers are girls.
id be tempted to guess that theres some kind of desire to game in girls, a similar desire that animates us, guys, and allow us to enjoy video games. but at the same time, most games are directed toward guys, and appeal to that crowd specifically, theres also the socialisation hypothesis, where the way we raise kids, its more socially acceptable for a guy to play video games and less for a girl.
in general girls suck at video games, but it doesnt mean they cant be good, its just that most of em dont play or dont bother to reach the same level of competitiveness of guys. I think if there was games targetted at a girl audience, but not stupid games like some of the games that already exist where you have to do really pointless girly lstuff like put makeup on your character and the only point of the game is to look pretty. but actual good games.
at the same time im not sure if both sex are looking for the same thing in a game. for example we could say that guys like to have puzzles to solves, in a game i want to use to use my logic to overcome challenges i want to be able to adapt to situations really fast and push the use every tool at my disposal to its highest efficiency. the question becomes, does that appeal to girls too? For some of them im sure it does, those represent the pretty big amount of gamer girls in this world, but their are still a minority so I'm really wondering what most girls would be looking for in a game, how would it be played, what would be the goal
heres a real world example: last summer I was playing a card game with 2 friends that are girls. I won the first few games, then one of the girl started winning too, and in the end me and her were pretty much equal while the second girl was annoyed by the fact she always lost and thought that her friend was good in games in general (I didnt get credit but thats another story :P) then her friend said that she counted the cards a little to improve her choice of cards when she played and so did I, because its really easy and its so obvious to me that I couldnt do it otherwise. Because if you always play the best card possible every time you greatly improve your chances of winning than if you do several mistakes in the game, the rest is due to luck and having good cards. so the 2nd girl was surprised that we were doing that, and said she didnt and didnt intend to.
I concluded that the 2nd girl in my example would probably suck at most video games unless she really focused on learning, but that would take a moment. but dont get me wrong, i dont think guys are superior than girls in video games or that girls are not capable of being good. its just that some of them either dont want to, or are not socialised in a way to encourage and develop certain skills at a early age, skills that are needed to enjoy video games. I would also like to add that the second girl in my example really liked farmville and tried to get me to play, but after a few levels i just stopped because there was no point in playing for me (earning ribbons? so I can show the world how awesome I am at growing pumpkins?)
interesting how social games on facebook are sooooooo popular, but more interesting is that 69% of the facebook game gamers are women (and 19% consider themselves addicted). meanwhile when it comes to real games, were not sure, but it doesnt feel like more than 20% of gamers are girls.
id be tempted to guess that theres some kind of desire to game in girls, a similar desire that animates us, guys, and allow us to enjoy video games. but at the same time, most games are directed toward guys, and appeal to that crowd specifically, theres also the socialisation hypothesis, where the way we raise kids, its more socially acceptable for a guy to play video games and less for a girl.
in general girls suck at video games, but it doesnt mean they cant be good, its just that most of em dont play or dont bother to reach the same level of competitiveness of guys. I think if there was games targetted at a girl audience, but not stupid games like some of the games that already exist where you have to do really pointless girly lstuff like put makeup on your character and the only point of the game is to look pretty. but actual good games.
at the same time im not sure if both sex are looking for the same thing in a game. for example we could say that guys like to have puzzles to solves, in a game i want to use to use my logic to overcome challenges i want to be able to adapt to situations really fast and push the use every tool at my disposal to its highest efficiency. the question becomes, does that appeal to girls too? For some of them im sure it does, those represent the pretty big amount of gamer girls in this world, but their are still a minority so I'm really wondering what most girls would be looking for in a game, how would it be played, what would be the goal
heres a real world example: last summer I was playing a card game with 2 friends that are girls. I won the first few games, then one of the girl started winning too, and in the end me and her were pretty much equal while the second girl was annoyed by the fact she always lost and thought that her friend was good in games in general (I didnt get credit but thats another story :P) then her friend said that she counted the cards a little to improve her choice of cards when she played and so did I, because its really easy and its so obvious to me that I couldnt do it otherwise. Because if you always play the best card possible every time you greatly improve your chances of winning than if you do several mistakes in the game, the rest is due to luck and having good cards. so the 2nd girl was surprised that we were doing that, and said she didnt and didnt intend to.
I concluded that the 2nd girl in my example would probably suck at most video games unless she really focused on learning, but that would take a moment. but dont get me wrong, i dont think guys are superior than girls in video games or that girls are not capable of being good. its just that some of them either dont want to, or are not socialised in a way to encourage and develop certain skills at a early age, skills that are needed to enjoy video games. I would also like to add that the second girl in my example really liked farmville and tried to get me to play, but after a few levels i just stopped because there was no point in playing for me (earning ribbons? so I can show the world how awesome I am at growing pumpkins?)
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
fired from her job for being too sexy?
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2010/06/03/14241021.html
This woman was fired from her job because her bosses thought she was too sexy. The first thing that came to my mind is that maybe she didnt respect the dress code and wore clothes that were too revealing. but according to the article, it doesnt seem that way.
it really sounds more like her bosses couldnt resist being tempted by her and to avoid being tempted to cheat with their gf/wives they decided it was a better option to fire her.
and in my male mind that doesnt make any sense, theres no reason to logically want to get away from a person you find physically attractive. if they really were tempted by her, the simple fact that they got to hang with her at work should normally be the perfect learning environement to learn how to control yourself and stay calm in the presence of a hot person.
Then if their reason was to avoid cheating on their wives/gf, if they really couldnt control themselves, then maybe they need to look at their couple and try to fix their own little problems instead of trying to find an other person to point fingers at. but thats just me hypothesizing, i cant really tell what goes on in their mind, it just doesnt make sense from the outside
This woman was fired from her job because her bosses thought she was too sexy. The first thing that came to my mind is that maybe she didnt respect the dress code and wore clothes that were too revealing. but according to the article, it doesnt seem that way.
it really sounds more like her bosses couldnt resist being tempted by her and to avoid being tempted to cheat with their gf/wives they decided it was a better option to fire her.
and in my male mind that doesnt make any sense, theres no reason to logically want to get away from a person you find physically attractive. if they really were tempted by her, the simple fact that they got to hang with her at work should normally be the perfect learning environement to learn how to control yourself and stay calm in the presence of a hot person.
Then if their reason was to avoid cheating on their wives/gf, if they really couldnt control themselves, then maybe they need to look at their couple and try to fix their own little problems instead of trying to find an other person to point fingers at. but thats just me hypothesizing, i cant really tell what goes on in their mind, it just doesnt make sense from the outside
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
pirating music
I was browsing the web as usual when I found an interesting article about music pirating, one that shared a point of view thats not what you generally hear from artists. http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Oasis-Misic-Piracy-P2P-Download,news-6476.html
Basically what the guy says is that artists shouldn't complain as much about people that pirate music since it allows them to reach a bigger audience. And what i say is that we cannot deny that it sucks for artists to have their revenues diminished because of music piracy, but right now it doesnt make much sense to pay for every single song you have. for many reasons: we consume alot of music and its easy to find for free.
We're consume alot of music, way more than they did before. before you had to go to see an orchestra for good music, later on you had to buy vinyl discs and the hardware to read it, then you listened to the radio, then you waited for your song to come up to record it on a tape, then you could copy the content of a cd on your computer and listen to it through your speakers or burn it on other discs and make your own compilations. Then there was the internet and people started to share music and they could download music, so people started to try new stuff, discover new artists, discover new genres and develop tastes. So while music became more widely accessible, it started to play a bigger part in everyone's life and we've been consuming so much more music than ever before.
It doesnt make sense to buy it all when it can be found for free to easily. The only reason to buy a song is if you want to support an upcoming artist a little bit which relies solely on your good will and we know thats not economically compatible in the world we live in. I buy some songs when they are really good and i cannot find them anywhere to be downloaded but a really great amount of songs i have on my computer wouldnt have been worthy of being bought so i wouldnt have bothered buying them if it was my only option. Another problem is that teenagers and young consumers dont have much money to invest in music, they will prioritize other stuff thats more important. Thankfully tho, music is widely available to be downloaded for free if you know how to use a computer and learn to avoid viruses and spywares.
Lastly, I think the music world is what it is now because music was easy to find for free on the internet and people shared it. That made us all bigger and bigger music consumers and music started to take a bigger place in everyone's life and now we dont want to lose what we acquired. I think that is the kind of issues the internet will be faced with alot as the mainstream world starts to grasps internet's neck. Video games already losts their free DLC, ISPs are now charging for bandwith usage. We're slowly losing what we had acquired in the free world that is the internet.
Basically what the guy says is that artists shouldn't complain as much about people that pirate music since it allows them to reach a bigger audience. And what i say is that we cannot deny that it sucks for artists to have their revenues diminished because of music piracy, but right now it doesnt make much sense to pay for every single song you have. for many reasons: we consume alot of music and its easy to find for free.
We're consume alot of music, way more than they did before. before you had to go to see an orchestra for good music, later on you had to buy vinyl discs and the hardware to read it, then you listened to the radio, then you waited for your song to come up to record it on a tape, then you could copy the content of a cd on your computer and listen to it through your speakers or burn it on other discs and make your own compilations. Then there was the internet and people started to share music and they could download music, so people started to try new stuff, discover new artists, discover new genres and develop tastes. So while music became more widely accessible, it started to play a bigger part in everyone's life and we've been consuming so much more music than ever before.
It doesnt make sense to buy it all when it can be found for free to easily. The only reason to buy a song is if you want to support an upcoming artist a little bit which relies solely on your good will and we know thats not economically compatible in the world we live in. I buy some songs when they are really good and i cannot find them anywhere to be downloaded but a really great amount of songs i have on my computer wouldnt have been worthy of being bought so i wouldnt have bothered buying them if it was my only option. Another problem is that teenagers and young consumers dont have much money to invest in music, they will prioritize other stuff thats more important. Thankfully tho, music is widely available to be downloaded for free if you know how to use a computer and learn to avoid viruses and spywares.
Lastly, I think the music world is what it is now because music was easy to find for free on the internet and people shared it. That made us all bigger and bigger music consumers and music started to take a bigger place in everyone's life and now we dont want to lose what we acquired. I think that is the kind of issues the internet will be faced with alot as the mainstream world starts to grasps internet's neck. Video games already losts their free DLC, ISPs are now charging for bandwith usage. We're slowly losing what we had acquired in the free world that is the internet.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
A book about not looking fat
I saw a little video on msn video which was a short introduction to a book titled "How to Never Look Fat Again" by Charla Krupp (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfC2lj_HJi4 thats not the video i saw on msn btw). While the video was loading i was thinking to myself "this is gonna be ridiculously dumb and outraging" because if you didn't already know or if you didn't guess it already, I don't really like how fashion is presenting us really skinny women as the type of body shape girls should strive for.
I don't like how were all very superficial, how there's so many girls concerned about their fat and silhouettes while most of the time they really are not overweight and in many case look absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes it's so bad it makes me wonder if girls concerned about their silhouettes have trouble with their spatial vision.
I also really hate the social pressure women have to live with because they need to look great all the time.
So with that in mind i started watching the video. I was thinking the 2 superficials women in it were dumb reinforcing the stereotypes and giving tips on how to hide that "buddha belly" or really large hips. The book really emphasize on changing the way women dress in order to hide the imperfections and i couldnt help it but be amazed by how sometimes the different clothes can really change the impression you get from looking at a women. I had no choice than to admit not every piece of clothes suits every women and sometimes you can go from bad to good simply by changing clothes. In my opinion, it comes down to the individuals to choose what they wear according to their common sense. Sometimes though, i thought the advice given were completely outrageous like "wear a V-neck to draw attention away from your belly" which is basically like saying "you're an object and if you show alot of cleavage people wont bother looking at the rest"
So the book can provide a band-aid fix to a problem, which is women being concerned by their silhouettes and give them a little self confidence boost. But theres still a deeper social problem where women are simply not comfortable with their body and want to hide their imperfection. They need to somehow be able to live with them and not worry too much. I could say "be rational" but who am I to say that you can objectively judge who's good looking and who isn't, who should be concerned about their appearance and who shouldn't. Come to think of it, it really shouldn't be that way, beauty is something that should remain entirely subjective to everyone, the problem is that right now were socialized to enjoy certain type of women, while others are left in the shadow not getting any attention.
Besides, what makes a person look great often will be how they are wearing their body, take for example a girl with a true smile versus one thats afraid to smile because shes concerned about bad teeth or braces. A true smile will always be nice if it bears the joy contained within a person. Beauty is NOT limited to physical traits, in fact its the result of someone's vitality.
I don't like how were all very superficial, how there's so many girls concerned about their fat and silhouettes while most of the time they really are not overweight and in many case look absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes it's so bad it makes me wonder if girls concerned about their silhouettes have trouble with their spatial vision.
I also really hate the social pressure women have to live with because they need to look great all the time.
So with that in mind i started watching the video. I was thinking the 2 superficials women in it were dumb reinforcing the stereotypes and giving tips on how to hide that "buddha belly" or really large hips. The book really emphasize on changing the way women dress in order to hide the imperfections and i couldnt help it but be amazed by how sometimes the different clothes can really change the impression you get from looking at a women. I had no choice than to admit not every piece of clothes suits every women and sometimes you can go from bad to good simply by changing clothes. In my opinion, it comes down to the individuals to choose what they wear according to their common sense. Sometimes though, i thought the advice given were completely outrageous like "wear a V-neck to draw attention away from your belly" which is basically like saying "you're an object and if you show alot of cleavage people wont bother looking at the rest"
So the book can provide a band-aid fix to a problem, which is women being concerned by their silhouettes and give them a little self confidence boost. But theres still a deeper social problem where women are simply not comfortable with their body and want to hide their imperfection. They need to somehow be able to live with them and not worry too much. I could say "be rational" but who am I to say that you can objectively judge who's good looking and who isn't, who should be concerned about their appearance and who shouldn't. Come to think of it, it really shouldn't be that way, beauty is something that should remain entirely subjective to everyone, the problem is that right now were socialized to enjoy certain type of women, while others are left in the shadow not getting any attention.
Besides, what makes a person look great often will be how they are wearing their body, take for example a girl with a true smile versus one thats afraid to smile because shes concerned about bad teeth or braces. A true smile will always be nice if it bears the joy contained within a person. Beauty is NOT limited to physical traits, in fact its the result of someone's vitality.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
ke$ha is....
hot! no thats not the only thing I wanted to write about,
I was listening to the radio today and Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRNQS5UCQQIwas) playing and while listening i thought to myself "i cant imagine anybody on this planet would like that song for the male vocals more than for the rest of the songs (off course its also because its not the chorus) but my point is that its amazing how these vocals are only there to fill in the blanks and have pretty much nothing to do with the construction of this really simple song.
I was talking about that with a friend and we went on talking about how the pop industry was looking for marketability over musical talent. He then mentionned how, when you look at how ke$ha performs, even in her video clip, "it's not the type of music she'd be known for if she had a choice". I had heard that "Tik-Tok" was not representative of her album so i decided to search on youtube to hear some of the songs shes made. After hearing a few songs i thought that it was all pretty much the same stuff where ke$ha just talks dirty in her songs because sex sells with titles such as "I made out with a rockstar" or "party at a rich dude house" and lyrics such as "I want to put my hands in your khaki pants mr. watson" and "tell me what youre gonna do to me". But i dont think im surprising anyone here. But lets go back to our main statement about how
"it's not the type of music she'd be known for if she had a choice". because during my youtube search, amongst all the different uploads of tik-tok and the various other crappy song that can be found on her album Animal, i found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5QYwMfac8o. I'm not gonna say i find this song good, but its definitely a huge contrast from all the other things. interestingly enough, this song is not listed in her discography and its not on her Animal album. It seems to me that shes more her trueself in that song than in others and to me, she definitely sounds way less stupid and as one of the youtube user commented on that song: "she totly rocks this type of music".
but yea that one song seems to be the only one covered by all the other songs that "sell more" but also depicts a naughtier ke$ha and a general image of a "bad girl". one thats attractive to men, one that creates revenues.
also from the wikipedia Animal album page:
Criticism for the album came from James Reed of the The Boston Globe and Jonathan Keefe of Slant Magazine. The former wondered when "the last time an album so flat and vacuous generated such a buzz [was]," denouncing Animal as "a shallow hodgepodge of 2009’s tried-and-true formulas," and said "you can almost hear the clock counting down her fifteen minutes of fame."[4] Keefe wrote a scathing review of the album finished by saying that "[j]ust about the only thing Kesha makes convincing on Animal is that the current crop of party girls are every bit as soulless as they let on."
I was listening to the radio today and Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRNQS5UCQQIwas) playing and while listening i thought to myself "i cant imagine anybody on this planet would like that song for the male vocals more than for the rest of the songs (off course its also because its not the chorus) but my point is that its amazing how these vocals are only there to fill in the blanks and have pretty much nothing to do with the construction of this really simple song.
I was talking about that with a friend and we went on talking about how the pop industry was looking for marketability over musical talent. He then mentionned how, when you look at how ke$ha performs, even in her video clip, "it's not the type of music she'd be known for if she had a choice". I had heard that "Tik-Tok" was not representative of her album so i decided to search on youtube to hear some of the songs shes made. After hearing a few songs i thought that it was all pretty much the same stuff where ke$ha just talks dirty in her songs because sex sells with titles such as "I made out with a rockstar" or "party at a rich dude house" and lyrics such as "I want to put my hands in your khaki pants mr. watson" and "tell me what youre gonna do to me". But i dont think im surprising anyone here. But lets go back to our main statement about how
"it's not the type of music she'd be known for if she had a choice". because during my youtube search, amongst all the different uploads of tik-tok and the various other crappy song that can be found on her album Animal, i found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5QYwMfac8o. I'm not gonna say i find this song good, but its definitely a huge contrast from all the other things. interestingly enough, this song is not listed in her discography and its not on her Animal album. It seems to me that shes more her trueself in that song than in others and to me, she definitely sounds way less stupid and as one of the youtube user commented on that song: "she totly rocks this type of music".
but yea that one song seems to be the only one covered by all the other songs that "sell more" but also depicts a naughtier ke$ha and a general image of a "bad girl". one thats attractive to men, one that creates revenues.
also from the wikipedia Animal album page:
Criticism for the album came from James Reed of the The Boston Globe and Jonathan Keefe of Slant Magazine. The former wondered when "the last time an album so flat and vacuous generated such a buzz [was]," denouncing Animal as "a shallow hodgepodge of 2009’s tried-and-true formulas," and said "you can almost hear the clock counting down her fifteen minutes of fame."[4] Keefe wrote a scathing review of the album finished by saying that "[j]ust about the only thing Kesha makes convincing on Animal is that the current crop of party girls are every bit as soulless as they let on."
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friendship between guys and girls part 2
Here's a convo I had about friendship between guys and girls that helps complete my previous blog entry
[13:39] Mike: A homosexual male could have friend ships with girls with no problems
[13:39] #kom.Pako: yea
[13:40] Mike: except they might both be attracted to the same male
[13:40] #kom.Pako: lol
[13:40] Mike: lol
[13:40] #kom.Pako: every girl need a male friend
[13:40] #kom.Pako: theyll often say "i want a gay friend"
[13:40] #kom.Pako: but that friend doesnt need to be gay
[13:40] Mike: i agree
[13:41] Mike: it does seem that male/female friendships always do end when an attraction forms
[13:41] Mike: but your right that it doesnt have to
[13:41] #kom.Pako: yea
[13:42] #kom.Pako: but also think about it
[13:42] #kom.Pako: how many of your female friends are really NOT attractive at all
[13:42] Mike: true
[13:42] #kom.Pako: theres always something sexual to initiate the relationship
[13:42] #kom.Pako: you will never go speak to someone thats totally unnatractive to you
[13:42] Mike: well sure i would
[13:43] Mike: if she was in my class or something
[13:43] Mike: or if i worked with her
[13:43] Mike: lol
[13:43] Mike: not to get to know her on a relationship level though
[13:43] #kom.Pako: well
[13:43] #kom.Pako: lets say im in a class for project and we need to find teammates
[13:44] #kom.Pako: i wont go toward someone that i find really unnactractive
[13:44] #kom.Pako: But i might end up working with one if she's a friend of somebody else i find attractive
[13:44] #kom.Pako: or she might ask me to work with her which i wouldn't refuse even if she is unnattractive
[13:44] Mike: lol what if the unnactractive girl was top of the class?
[13:44] Mike: maybe then?
[13:44] #kom.Pako: i still wouldnt target her i think
[13:44] Mike: well you and I are different then
[13:44] Mike: do you have a GF?
[13:44] #kom.Pako: no
[13:44] Mike: that would change things too
[13:44] #kom.Pako: i guess thats another value to add to the equation
[13:45] Mike: ya
[13:45] #kom.Pako: but like there are a few less attractive girls that i talk to, but im not that close to them simply cause i dont show that much interest
[13:45] Mike: you could also add, how many girlfriends would allow a guy to have girls as their friends?
[13:45] Mike: ya very true
[13:45] #kom.Pako: yea
[13:46] #kom.Pako: well i think many girls will think that friendship between guys and girls ends up in attraction so theres many that wouldnt allow it
[13:46] Mike: yep
[13:46] Mike: but the right girl for you should allow it
[13:46] Mike: there should be no jealousy
[13:46] Mike: let me ask you this
[13:47] Mike: say your dating a girl for 6months now
[13:47] Mike: and she wants to go to lunch with a guy that she dated 3 years ago
[13:47] Mike: and she promises there is nothing to worry about
[13:47] Mike: would you let her?
[13:47] #kom.Pako: it depends on my relationship with her
[13:47] #kom.Pako: i could tho
[13:47] #kom.Pako: but
[13:48] Mike: now reverse it
[13:48] #kom.Pako: i could also be worried that the guy might have an interest
[13:48] #kom.Pako: so while i can trust my gf, i cant really trust the guy
[13:48] Mike: of course you cant trust the guy
[13:48] Mike: but if you trust your girl enough then who cares what moves the guy pulls
[13:48] #kom.Pako: what if he pulls a barrel roll
[13:48] Mike: if anything I would want to the guy to do something stupid like that, so then my GF wouldnt see him any more lol
[13:49] Mike: a barrel roll?
[13:49] Mike: hhaha
[13:49] Mike: but like i said, reverse it
[13:49] Mike: how many girls would let their boyfriend go to lunch with their ex gf
[13:49] Mike: i would say 0
[13:49] #kom.Pako: well
[13:49] #kom.Pako: it depends too
[13:50] #kom.Pako: cause you know like i said in friendship between guys and girls, its the guy that usually falls in love
[13:50] #kom.Pako: so for that lunch thing
[13:50] Mike: i see
[13:50] #kom.Pako: if the ex-gf invites the guy, the gf has a reason to not let him go cause she has an interest
[13:51] #kom.Pako: if the guy wants to see the ex, then its also weird cause he still has some interest
[13:51] #kom.Pako: But
[13:51] #kom.Pako: where it differs
[13:52] #kom.Pako: is if its just another friend girl, cause then the gf can be relaxed knowing the girl wont fall for the guy, or at the very laast, she can assume the chances are low. The determining factor here is if the guy is interested in the friend or no, if he can handle it
[13:52] Mike: ya
[13:39] Mike: A homosexual male could have friend ships with girls with no problems
[13:39] #kom.Pako: yea
[13:40] Mike: except they might both be attracted to the same male
[13:40] #kom.Pako: lol
[13:40] Mike: lol
[13:40] #kom.Pako: every girl need a male friend
[13:40] #kom.Pako: theyll often say "i want a gay friend"
[13:40] #kom.Pako: but that friend doesnt need to be gay
[13:40] Mike: i agree
[13:41] Mike: it does seem that male/female friendships always do end when an attraction forms
[13:41] Mike: but your right that it doesnt have to
[13:41] #kom.Pako: yea
[13:42] #kom.Pako: but also think about it
[13:42] #kom.Pako: how many of your female friends are really NOT attractive at all
[13:42] Mike: true
[13:42] #kom.Pako: theres always something sexual to initiate the relationship
[13:42] #kom.Pako: you will never go speak to someone thats totally unnatractive to you
[13:42] Mike: well sure i would
[13:43] Mike: if she was in my class or something
[13:43] Mike: or if i worked with her
[13:43] Mike: lol
[13:43] Mike: not to get to know her on a relationship level though
[13:43] #kom.Pako: well
[13:43] #kom.Pako: lets say im in a class for project and we need to find teammates
[13:44] #kom.Pako: i wont go toward someone that i find really unnactractive
[13:44] #kom.Pako: But i might end up working with one if she's a friend of somebody else i find attractive
[13:44] #kom.Pako: or she might ask me to work with her which i wouldn't refuse even if she is unnattractive
[13:44] Mike: lol what if the unnactractive girl was top of the class?
[13:44] Mike: maybe then?
[13:44] #kom.Pako: i still wouldnt target her i think
[13:44] Mike: well you and I are different then
[13:44] Mike: do you have a GF?
[13:44] #kom.Pako: no
[13:44] Mike: that would change things too
[13:44] #kom.Pako: i guess thats another value to add to the equation
[13:45] Mike: ya
[13:45] #kom.Pako: but like there are a few less attractive girls that i talk to, but im not that close to them simply cause i dont show that much interest
[13:45] Mike: you could also add, how many girlfriends would allow a guy to have girls as their friends?
[13:45] Mike: ya very true
[13:45] #kom.Pako: yea
[13:46] #kom.Pako: well i think many girls will think that friendship between guys and girls ends up in attraction so theres many that wouldnt allow it
[13:46] Mike: yep
[13:46] Mike: but the right girl for you should allow it
[13:46] Mike: there should be no jealousy
[13:46] Mike: let me ask you this
[13:47] Mike: say your dating a girl for 6months now
[13:47] Mike: and she wants to go to lunch with a guy that she dated 3 years ago
[13:47] Mike: and she promises there is nothing to worry about
[13:47] Mike: would you let her?
[13:47] #kom.Pako: it depends on my relationship with her
[13:47] #kom.Pako: i could tho
[13:47] #kom.Pako: but
[13:48] Mike: now reverse it
[13:48] #kom.Pako: i could also be worried that the guy might have an interest
[13:48] #kom.Pako: so while i can trust my gf, i cant really trust the guy
[13:48] Mike: of course you cant trust the guy
[13:48] Mike: but if you trust your girl enough then who cares what moves the guy pulls
[13:48] #kom.Pako: what if he pulls a barrel roll
[13:48] Mike: if anything I would want to the guy to do something stupid like that, so then my GF wouldnt see him any more lol
[13:49] Mike: a barrel roll?
[13:49] Mike: hhaha
[13:49] Mike: but like i said, reverse it
[13:49] Mike: how many girls would let their boyfriend go to lunch with their ex gf
[13:49] Mike: i would say 0
[13:49] #kom.Pako: well
[13:49] #kom.Pako: it depends too
[13:50] #kom.Pako: cause you know like i said in friendship between guys and girls, its the guy that usually falls in love
[13:50] #kom.Pako: so for that lunch thing
[13:50] Mike: i see
[13:50] #kom.Pako: if the ex-gf invites the guy, the gf has a reason to not let him go cause she has an interest
[13:51] #kom.Pako: if the guy wants to see the ex, then its also weird cause he still has some interest
[13:51] #kom.Pako: But
[13:51] #kom.Pako: where it differs
[13:52] #kom.Pako: is if its just another friend girl, cause then the gf can be relaxed knowing the girl wont fall for the guy, or at the very laast, she can assume the chances are low. The determining factor here is if the guy is interested in the friend or no, if he can handle it
[13:52] Mike: ya
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Friendship between guys and girls
I've had several discussions with friends lately about the possible existence of friendship between guys and girls.
Several people think it doesn't exist, that the guy always end up falling in love with the girl.
Theres an interesting theory on the subject i read a while back which is called the ladder theory (http://www.laddertheory.com/) basically what it says is that between a girl and a guy, the friendship/love is gonna slowly rise until it reaches a point where the guy falls in love with the girl and decides to tell her, which usually fails since the girl wont be in love with the guys at which point the friendly relationship becomes awkward or ends. Therefore, that theory stipulates that its not possible to have close guy/girl friendship
For my part, i strongly believe in guy/girl friendship as i have several girl friends, but i would say that its a matter of being firmly in controls of your feeling, staying natural and not getting all excited at every "hint" the girl might give you. Because thats how it goes in a guy's head, he will think the girl is interested while it might not be the case. In other words, you need to be somewhat smart to be able to handle guy/girl friendship. If the guy starts putting the girl on a pedestal or starts being too devoted to her, he's done, he will end up telling his feelings to her and the friendship ends.
Several people think it doesn't exist, that the guy always end up falling in love with the girl.
Theres an interesting theory on the subject i read a while back which is called the ladder theory (http://www.laddertheory.com/) basically what it says is that between a girl and a guy, the friendship/love is gonna slowly rise until it reaches a point where the guy falls in love with the girl and decides to tell her, which usually fails since the girl wont be in love with the guys at which point the friendly relationship becomes awkward or ends. Therefore, that theory stipulates that its not possible to have close guy/girl friendship
For my part, i strongly believe in guy/girl friendship as i have several girl friends, but i would say that its a matter of being firmly in controls of your feeling, staying natural and not getting all excited at every "hint" the girl might give you. Because thats how it goes in a guy's head, he will think the girl is interested while it might not be the case. In other words, you need to be somewhat smart to be able to handle guy/girl friendship. If the guy starts putting the girl on a pedestal or starts being too devoted to her, he's done, he will end up telling his feelings to her and the friendship ends.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Emotions while interacting with medias
I was talking with my friend today and at one point he told me that I was missing out on alot of good stuff by not watching TV to which I responded that i was replacing the good stuff with other good stuff by playing video games. Then he said while youre not particularly active while watching a good show/movie on tv, its more entertaining than playing a video game cause theres more emotions.
and i firmly disagree with that no matter how you look at it, im not denying that good tv shows or movies are not entertaining and dont give you real emotions when you get involved with the show or movie, but its definitely not more entertaining.
lets look at both type of medias
in a tv show or movies, the author is entirely in control of whats displayed to the watcher, he can then try to play with different images and sounds to create different emotions, he can also write a really complex story since hes entirely in control of it, the story will develop exactly how he wants it.
In a video game, the player is free to move around and act as he/she wishes to determine the outcome. when you script a game, you dont have a full control on what youre showing, but you can still do alot of things and add scripted events that will surprise the player. The main difference tho lies in the nature of games, youre in control, you are there, you are the character, your actions matters, its not somebody else doing it in front of you and that adds alot to the immersion which id say is at the base of all emotions lived while consuming entertainement products.
Theres different emotions and good feelings I can recall from playing different good games, ill name a few just for the hell of it
Call of duty 1: In the stalingrad mission when youre sent to the front with no gun and are forced to charge the german mg42s unarmed, the first time i played through it i couldnt believed, i was playing a FPS game and i didnt have a gun to be a hero and save the day.
Call of duty 2: at the end of the Pointe du Hoc mission where you fall back to the shore while trying to contain the germans back, the feeling i had while playing that was just great, I was reloading my 2 guns as fast as i could but there were just too many
Also in cod2, at hill400 when you wait for air support to assist you at the top of the hill, then again i had a great feeling, trying to be a hero and kill as many germans as I could.
I think these 3 moments are the most intense moments i lived playing SP games, but theres other cool thats cooler for their RP part
like in Far cry 2 at one point i had to ambush a convoy so i was really high on a mountain with my sniper rifle and tried to snipe the driver, I was so far away the AI had no way to know where I was it just felt cool
Theres also actual RPG games, like kotor1, kotor2 and Dragon age, all 3 had really great stories and the in-depth dialogue system creates a really good immersion in the game, you end up liking your character and your companions quite a bit just like you would in a good tv show.
Also, as times goes on and game technologies improves (better graphics, physics, sounds) and the budgets increases, games with good stories are becoming more common, before you had programmers quickly writing stories but mainly working on the game, now you have teams of professional writers working on stories and its only gonna get better.
But thats for actual story driven games, sure the stories are cool and can give you good emotions, but theres other way to live emotions while playing games. As youre playing games, online games i might add, youre in a real world interracting with real people and when you have people with people, anything can happen. You can find what someone says or do funny, or it can make you mad, or sad, it can be anything. you can do things that makes you feel good or not so much, youre in control after all.
Ive lived all sort of emotions playing different games, the good feeling after winning a game of ut2k4 team deathmatch, seeing the score after 20 minute of intense play and what you had to do to get there.
In Star Wars Galaxies, when I PvPed with a bunch of friends and we worked togheter to beat groups of players from the other faction. I still remember one guy shouting to me on Teamspeak "BURST RUN PAKO BURST RUN" cause my character class could provide the group with a run speed buff.
Or when some guy came on teamspeak crying cause he'd been kicked from the guild ( http://pooregot.ytmnd.com ) it was a hard moment to live for everybody there and I still remember when it happened.
That and all the drama that can happen in all games with people disagreeing with each others, theres nothing more real than these emotions, its not always funny but it can definitely be really intense.
On the good side, theres all the good feelings you can get from being rewarded after accomplishing something difficult, being rewarded of all the hardwork and the good teamwork you had to go through. The sense of happiness you get after completing something difficult, and the even better feeling when you had to work in harmony with other players to do so.
But one of the best feeling you can live while playing games comes while youre actually playing and its what i call "the zone"
Its not a feeling unique to gaming, people generally live it while playing sports, its that feeling you get when you feel so in control of yourself and the game, where you feel like nothing can get past you, that you see everything, that everything and every action you make is right. Thats the best feeling, and the one im looking for when playing games.
Ive felt it while playing goaltender in street hockey or at school, as a player its possible but since you get physically tired after a while, its hard to maintain. Ive mostly felt that feeling playing games like ut2k4 in the middle of a close tdm match, or in guildwars in a good GvG. I havent felt it much playing games on the playstation 3, maybe a little bit when playing nhl 09/10 but it never felt as good as it did when playing Guildwars.
The zone is the best feeling after orgasm in my opinion
and i firmly disagree with that no matter how you look at it, im not denying that good tv shows or movies are not entertaining and dont give you real emotions when you get involved with the show or movie, but its definitely not more entertaining.
lets look at both type of medias
in a tv show or movies, the author is entirely in control of whats displayed to the watcher, he can then try to play with different images and sounds to create different emotions, he can also write a really complex story since hes entirely in control of it, the story will develop exactly how he wants it.
In a video game, the player is free to move around and act as he/she wishes to determine the outcome. when you script a game, you dont have a full control on what youre showing, but you can still do alot of things and add scripted events that will surprise the player. The main difference tho lies in the nature of games, youre in control, you are there, you are the character, your actions matters, its not somebody else doing it in front of you and that adds alot to the immersion which id say is at the base of all emotions lived while consuming entertainement products.
Theres different emotions and good feelings I can recall from playing different good games, ill name a few just for the hell of it
Call of duty 1: In the stalingrad mission when youre sent to the front with no gun and are forced to charge the german mg42s unarmed, the first time i played through it i couldnt believed, i was playing a FPS game and i didnt have a gun to be a hero and save the day.
Call of duty 2: at the end of the Pointe du Hoc mission where you fall back to the shore while trying to contain the germans back, the feeling i had while playing that was just great, I was reloading my 2 guns as fast as i could but there were just too many
Also in cod2, at hill400 when you wait for air support to assist you at the top of the hill, then again i had a great feeling, trying to be a hero and kill as many germans as I could.
I think these 3 moments are the most intense moments i lived playing SP games, but theres other cool thats cooler for their RP part
like in Far cry 2 at one point i had to ambush a convoy so i was really high on a mountain with my sniper rifle and tried to snipe the driver, I was so far away the AI had no way to know where I was it just felt cool
Theres also actual RPG games, like kotor1, kotor2 and Dragon age, all 3 had really great stories and the in-depth dialogue system creates a really good immersion in the game, you end up liking your character and your companions quite a bit just like you would in a good tv show.
Also, as times goes on and game technologies improves (better graphics, physics, sounds) and the budgets increases, games with good stories are becoming more common, before you had programmers quickly writing stories but mainly working on the game, now you have teams of professional writers working on stories and its only gonna get better.
But thats for actual story driven games, sure the stories are cool and can give you good emotions, but theres other way to live emotions while playing games. As youre playing games, online games i might add, youre in a real world interracting with real people and when you have people with people, anything can happen. You can find what someone says or do funny, or it can make you mad, or sad, it can be anything. you can do things that makes you feel good or not so much, youre in control after all.
Ive lived all sort of emotions playing different games, the good feeling after winning a game of ut2k4 team deathmatch, seeing the score after 20 minute of intense play and what you had to do to get there.
In Star Wars Galaxies, when I PvPed with a bunch of friends and we worked togheter to beat groups of players from the other faction. I still remember one guy shouting to me on Teamspeak "BURST RUN PAKO BURST RUN" cause my character class could provide the group with a run speed buff.
Or when some guy came on teamspeak crying cause he'd been kicked from the guild ( http://pooregot.ytmnd.com ) it was a hard moment to live for everybody there and I still remember when it happened.
That and all the drama that can happen in all games with people disagreeing with each others, theres nothing more real than these emotions, its not always funny but it can definitely be really intense.
On the good side, theres all the good feelings you can get from being rewarded after accomplishing something difficult, being rewarded of all the hardwork and the good teamwork you had to go through. The sense of happiness you get after completing something difficult, and the even better feeling when you had to work in harmony with other players to do so.
But one of the best feeling you can live while playing games comes while youre actually playing and its what i call "the zone"
Its not a feeling unique to gaming, people generally live it while playing sports, its that feeling you get when you feel so in control of yourself and the game, where you feel like nothing can get past you, that you see everything, that everything and every action you make is right. Thats the best feeling, and the one im looking for when playing games.
Ive felt it while playing goaltender in street hockey or at school, as a player its possible but since you get physically tired after a while, its hard to maintain. Ive mostly felt that feeling playing games like ut2k4 in the middle of a close tdm match, or in guildwars in a good GvG. I havent felt it much playing games on the playstation 3, maybe a little bit when playing nhl 09/10 but it never felt as good as it did when playing Guildwars.
The zone is the best feeling after orgasm in my opinion
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)