Dan Ariely On Cheating

Dan Ariely Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University (His Papers) did a TED Lecture about Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal.

Essentially people cheat because of the belief that they can get away with it, but I thought it was interesting to hear that people cheat more if they are disconnected from the consequences and less so if cheating questions their morals.



[Source Derren Brown's Blog]

Uncle Jay Explains The Current Economic Crisis

Uncle Jay knows his stuff.

OnLive Another Pump And Dump?

The best place to get info on this is Rock Paper Shotgun, but OnLive is a new webservice where you play games on a server, but not just casual games, the latest FPS and racing games. It is supposedly a Remote Process Service Provider. So the software runs on a remote server, the game is rendered on the remote server, your PC just displays a video of what is running on the server and collects game input signals to send to the server.

The thing that makes me sceptical about this is that I was expecting to see this in the next few years, but not now. Kind of like Phantom which was a download game distribution platform, at the time very cutting edge, was a pump & dump scam to steal money from investors, but retrospectively could have done very well, as online distribution is very much the present and future of the industry. So I just hope that OnLive is for real, but the current day technical challenges seem to me, to be too great for them to do this right now.

Fantastic Aminated Wall Art

Some fantastic animated wall art. I think this video is better without sound, but maybe that is just me.

inFamous

There are two big open world games in development at the moment, Prototype and Infamouse. Ptototype is about a quarentined city and a genetically altered guy who runs around a city absorbing people. Infamouse is about a quarentined city where an event happens that gives some poeple super powers and a guy who has the power to control electricity.

Prototype looks quite forgettable with a main character who absorbs bullets like a fridge, but Infamous really interests me because of the way people you fight have unique powers like teleportation or the ability to control mass. From what I have seen this could lead to some very interesting narrative situations. Unfortunately I will not be playing Infamous because it is PS3 exclusive, and I have no intention of buying a PS3 at it's current price point (as a matter of sanity).



[PS3 Blog via Evil Avatar]

Flash Political Map Quiz

Globetrotter is a great map quiz, not as good as the great Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, but I can still give it props for being a short distraction.

The game consists of a world map, a sign at the top of the screen lists the name and country of a place. You then have to put a pin in the map as to where you think that place is. You get points for accuracy and each level you have to acquire a certain number of points to proceed to the next level. Simple yet fun.

It ticks the boxes of improving the players strategy as they play by educating them and by making the player feel as if they are doing well by simply being in the correct vicinity of the place.

I managed to reach level four by cheating with Google Maps; and like to consider myself well versed in different cultures. I hope others do better.

[Jay Is Games]