Comments on: Oil God http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/ A blog on virtual worlds, games, and digital content, from Matt Mihaly Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:40:35 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: Matt http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-26803 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:59:16 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-26803 Nobody's missing the message I don't think. It's the gameplay itself that's at question and the clumsy way in which it delivers the message. It's just a bad game and the fact that it has a message doesn't make it less of a bad game. Nobody’s missing the message I don’t think. It’s the gameplay itself that’s at question and the clumsy way in which it delivers the message. It’s just a bad game and the fact that it has a message doesn’t make it less of a bad game.

]]> by: Raptor http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-26795 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:28:16 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-26795 The message this game is trying to point out is that america is doing the same with the middle east! in the game if you make countrys go to war with each other and that means the oil price goes higher....america is at war in oil rich countrys...thats why our gas prices are so high....thats why they started this war. The message this game is trying to point out is that america is doing the same with the middle east! in the game if you make countrys go to war with each other and that means the oil price goes higher….america is at war in oil rich countrys…thats why our gas prices are so high….thats why they started this war.

]]> by: The Forge · Alternative Purpose Games http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-20192 Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:58:13 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-20192 [...] I dislike the term “serious games,” which implies that there is something that isn’t serious about, say, WoW. I’ll go ahead and suggest that a service that brings in ~$700 million/year in revenue and provides thousands of jobs (both within Blizzard and in multiple gold-generating operations) is a lot more serious than any game that has, to date, been produced with a purpose other than entertainment. In fact, I’m just going to refer to them as Alternative Purpose Games (ARPs) until I grow tired of having to explain what I mean every time I use the term. I think ARP sums them up much more clearly than ‘Serious’ does when trying to distinguish between games whose purpose is entertainment and games whose purpose is something else. Many ARPs suffer from a major problem: They’re just not very good games. In fact, many of them are somewhat beyond horrible. For instance, Ian Bogost of Persuasive Games, seems like a smart fellow with intentions in the right place, though I don’t know him personally. The media loves him too. The games of his I’ve played are pretty bad though, and judging by his site’s 900k+ Alexa ranking (higher is worse) it doesn’t seem as if his games are getting any traction at all. They all but beat you over the head with their political messages, sacrificing gameplay while doing so, and ensuring that few people will play them and thus they will have little to no impact. Not very serious to me, intentions aside. I read a good article in Wired last night though about a guy named Luis von Ahn. (Among other things, he invented the CAPTCHA.) He’s an assistant professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, and he makes ARPs that are truly serious. For instance, he did a game a couple of years ago called the ESP Game in which players are paired up with an anonymous partner and each is shown the same picture. The participants then have a fixed amount of time to type in as many words as they can think of that describe that picture. They get points for each word that matches one also typed by their partner. [...] […] I dislike the term “serious games,” which implies that there is something that isn’t serious about, say, WoW. I’ll go ahead and suggest that a service that brings in ~$700 million/year in revenue and provides thousands of jobs (both within Blizzard and in multiple gold-generating operations) is a lot more serious than any game that has, to date, been produced with a purpose other than entertainment. In fact, I’m just going to refer to them as Alternative Purpose Games (ARPs) until I grow tired of having to explain what I mean every time I use the term. I think ARP sums them up much more clearly than ‘Serious’ does when trying to distinguish between games whose purpose is entertainment and games whose purpose is something else. Many ARPs suffer from a major problem: They’re just not very good games. In fact, many of them are somewhat beyond horrible. For instance, Ian Bogost of Persuasive Games, seems like a smart fellow with intentions in the right place, though I don’t know him personally. The media loves him too. The games of his I’ve played are pretty bad though, and judging by his site’s 900k+ Alexa ranking (higher is worse) it doesn’t seem as if his games are getting any traction at all. They all but beat you over the head with their political messages, sacrificing gameplay while doing so, and ensuring that few people will play them and thus they will have little to no impact. Not very serious to me, intentions aside. I read a good article in Wired last night though about a guy named Luis von Ahn. (Among other things, he invented the CAPTCHA.) He’s an assistant professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, and he makes ARPs that are truly serious. For instance, he did a game a couple of years ago called the ESP Game in which players are paired up with an anonymous partner and each is shown the same picture. The participants then have a fixed amount of time to type in as many words as they can think of that describe that picture. They get points for each word that matches one also typed by their partner. […]

]]> by: Vykromond http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2201 Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:41:49 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2201 There are detailed instructions if you click the (shocker!) question mark at the top left. There are detailed instructions if you click the (shocker!) question mark at the top left.

]]> by: Prokofy Neva http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2195 Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:52:09 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2195 It was horribly politically correct, it's not a serious game, it's a tract. It was horribly politically correct, it’s not a serious game, it’s a tract.

]]> by: Riashain http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2131 Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:38:05 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2131 wow... majorly pointless waste of time :P Curse you, Matt! wow… majorly pointless waste of time :P Curse you, Matt!

]]> by: Toscho http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2114 Fri, 20 Oct 2006 04:00:08 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2114 Well, if you "liked" it, try http://www.addictinggames.com/airportsecurity.html for even more fun. As a non-american that at least has (for me) some humor in it. Giving all oil countries civil war did the trick of winning Oil God 9/10 times, (getting me down to 120 days) but indeed Olie, how did those high score guys do it. The search continues ... :-) Well, if you “liked” it, try http://www.addictinggames.com/airportsecurity.html for even more fun. As a non-american that at least has (for me) some humor in it. Giving all oil countries civil war did the trick of winning Oil God 9/10 times, (getting me down to 120 days) but indeed Olie, how did those high score guys do it. The search continues … :-)

]]> by: Olie http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2108 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:00:36 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2108 Hmm... it did seem rather vague... I managed to do it in 396 days, by utting all the oil producing countries at war with one another, and giving them civil war to contend with as well. What worries me more is that there are people on the high scores who have done it in 1 day... Hmm… it did seem rather vague… I managed to do it in 396 days, by utting all the oil producing countries at war with one another, and giving them civil war to contend with as well.

What worries me more is that there are people on the high scores who have done it in 1 day…

]]> by: Matt http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2102 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 03:27:39 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2102 Check out Kirby for the DS. Really fun and makes great use of the DS's touchscreen capabilities. Check out Kirby for the DS. Really fun and makes great use of the DS’s touchscreen capabilities.

]]> by: Pentharian http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2101 Thu, 19 Oct 2006 03:18:56 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2006/10/18/oil-god/#comment-2101 Apparently, oil != Valour. I clicked around for a bit, got amused by the little black bombs with fuses sticking out, and then went back to playing DS. I'm sure if you understood the rules better and cared to actually try, there's a game in there somewhere. Speaking of DS, any suggestions other than NewSMB and Mariokart? Apparently, oil != Valour. I clicked around for a bit, got amused by the little black bombs with fuses sticking out, and then went back to playing DS.

I’m sure if you understood the rules better and cared to actually try, there’s a game in there somewhere.

Speaking of DS, any suggestions other than NewSMB and Mariokart?

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