Bewarethewumpus

June the nonagenarian performs a spectacular double backflip like a boss.

(706): URGENT INPUT I'm at a renesance fair after party and I'm 100% lined up to fuck their sword swallower OR their contortionist. Dont say both - which direction doth I roll?

A Florida high school student with an interest in science mixed together aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner as an experiment. To her surprise, the mixture exploded. Unfortunately for Kiera Wilmot, she tried her experiment on school grounds.

It was a small explosion, and nobody was hurt. Wilmot was, otherwise, a good student with a perfect behavior record. But the school chose to expel her, have her arrested, and is supporting her being charged with a felony as an adult.

Scientists across the country are not amused. Biologist Danielle Lee writes about this incident in context with the discipline gap that treats minority kids more harshly for small infractions.

Through Twitter, scientists and educators speak up about the things they blew up for science, under the hashtag #KieraWilmot.

This is old sauce, nevertheless a classic! TL;DR, we’re all going to hell.

Juha sez, "Amazingly enough, New Zealand's North and South magazine has lost in the NZ Press Council, after a homeopath filed a complaint against an article that stated: 'Homeopathic remedies have failed every randomised, evidence-based scientific study seeking to verify their claims of healing powers.'"

"Mr Stuart [a homeopath] supplied the Press Council with a letter from Dr David St George, Chief Advisor on Integrative Care for the Ministry of Health, who advises the ministry on the development of complementary medicine in New Zealand and its potential integration into the public health system. He was not speaking for the ministry in this case but offering a personal view.

Dr St George believed the statement in North & South's article arose from a misunderstanding of the Lancet study, which had compared 110 published placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy with the same number of published placebo-controlled trials of conventional medical drug treatments. He said most of the 110 homeopathy trials in that study were "randomised, evidence-based scientific studies" which demonstrated an effect beyond a placebo effect. "

Dr St George said there was no debate about whether there were scientific studies demonstrating homeopathy's therapeutic benefit but rather, whether those studies were of an acceptable methodological quality.

Case Number: 2320 CLIVE STUART AGAINST NORTH & SOUTH (Thanks, Juha)

Being a fan is a powerful thing. Fans can modify a game's ending. More recently, a fandom's excitement was responsible for turning a 30 second clip into a full-fledged anime series—even though the studio didn't initially have plans to expand on the clip. If the Swimming Anime could do that, then Little Witch Academia should be able to do the same.

Little Witch Academia is a an animated 30 minute short released by Studio Trigger on YouTube on April 19th. You can watch it above—and I highly recommend that you do. Little Witch Academia follows Akko Kagari, a young, idealistic witch in magic school. It's like Harry Potter, except way, way cuter. Like Japanese Harry Potter, I guess. Despite at times falling into cliche, Little Witch Academia still manages to be absurdly charming.

The short was produced as a part of the "Young Animator Training Project," which is a program where industry masters train new animators. And Studio Trigger has talent that previously worked on things like Gurren Lagann, Panty & Stocking, as well as staff previously at Studio 4°C (they're responsible for the visuals in Catherine).

To recap: a 30 second clip was able to get an anime series, and this fantastic short—which, let's be frank here, kicks Swimming Anime's ass (there's just not much to Swimming Anime, not until the fans chime in!)—doesn't have one. Not at current, anyway, though not for lack of enthusiasm. A cursory look through Tumblr shows just as much enthusiasm for Little Witch Academia as Swimming Anime...though yes, the fandom doesn't seem quite as absurd. Little Witch Academia, after all, has defined characters with specific characteristics. That means fans can't go as crazy with Little Witch Academia, though if you scroll through, it'll only take a minute or two before you're wading through Little Witch Academia porn. I'm sure this isn't surprising (how old are the kids in this show...?)

But then you also have your typical GIFs, a ton of fan-art, and a good number of people asking/hoping that Little Witch Academia becomes an anime series.

Currently, the most up-voted comment on the YouTube video says the following:

Okay so "swimming anime" lasted 30 secs and now gets an anime series.

This shit actually shows bad ass animation, a plot, voice acting and fucking official subtitles for English speakers but doesn't have a series.

SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD ANIME FANS. FIX IT NOW!

Whether or not that'll happen remains to be seen. I'm hopeful, though. Fans can do anything.

If it's April, it must be time for a new version of the Ubuntu operating system; a great, free, easy-to-use, highly polished version of GNU/Linux. Ubuntu does two releases a year -- October and April -- and the new release, Raring Ringtail (AKA 13.04) is a consolidation release that adds a lot more polish, performance and stability to the system. I'm happy about this: Ubuntu has been slowly transitioning to Unity, a new graphical interface over some years, and while I've come to really like Unity's featureset, I've also been noticing that it's getting a bit creaky under the hood. A stability and performance release is very welcome.

Ubuntu is my operating system of choice, and has been since 2006 or so. I run it on rock-solid, amazing, lightweight and fast ThinkPad laptops (currently the X230) and I find it to be exactly what I need from an OS: fast, easy, easy-to-maintain, and super stable. Switching to Ubuntu (which runs on pretty much any computer) was a little like remodeling the kitchen: for a couple weeks I kept looking in the wrong place for the menuitem I was seeking (just like I kept looking in the wrong place for the cutlery drawer), then, one day, everything was where I expected it. I don't even notice my OS anymore, in the same way that I don't notice my doorknobs or coathooks anymore. It just works.

And when something goes wrong, it goes wrong very well. I spilled a cup of coffee into my last laptop, an X220, while on tour in February, just as I was leaving my DC hotel for a plane to Boston. I rushed straight to a Micro Center in Cambridge -- where I met not one, but two knowledgeable, helpful and skilled sales clerks! Seriously! -- and bought the X230 I'm working on right now. I then commandeered a pallet of blank CDRs as a worksurface, removed the single screw that holds the drive, and smacked it into the new laptop and pressed the power button. Ubuntu figured out that it was in an all new computer, churned for about 30 seconds, and has worked great ever since.

Now I fear that I've got a problem with my hard-drive (a big SDD that threw a couple rare and suspicious crashes last week during big file-writes) so I'm about to switch to a new drive that should be arriving in the post today. All I need to do to effect this drive-swap is pop the drive in the machine, install Ubuntu on it (it's free to download and you can easily make a bootable USB-stick installer), and feed it a tiny text-file listing all the apps ("packages") I've used Ubuntu to install. It will auto-download the right apps for the new version of the OS, auto-configure them, and auto-install them. Then I copy over my user data and bamf, it's ready to rock. No re-keying serial numbers. No searching out the original install disks. No worrying about whether I have the right version for this OS.

I love living in Linuxland. The operating systems are so boringly useful and undramatic. They work great, and fail better.

Ubuntu 13.04 available Thursday, brings a streamlined footprint to the forefront

HEY, YOU GUYS! Be the first on your block to see Tom the Dancing Bug, by @RubenBolling, every week! Members of the elite and prestigious INNER HIVE get the comic emailed to their inboxes at least a day before publication -- and much, much MORE!

Please click HERE for information. Yes, now.

Think of the children (Thanks, Steve!)

FINALLY. Nintendo is bringing the beloved RPG Earthbound to the Wii U's Virtual Console this year.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced the news during the Nintendo Direct presentation this morning. I'm still stunned.

Fans have been begging Nintendo to re-release the quirky role-playing game, titled Mother 2 in Japan, for years now, but the Mario makers have never complied. Until now.

Originally released in 1995, Earthbound became a cult classic over the years, beloved for its bizarre humor and trippy aesthetics. But Nintendo hasn't shown it much love in North America: the sequel, Mother 3, never made it out of Japan, although an English fan translation is floating around on the web. (The first game in the series, Mother, also never left the East.)

So a re-release of Earthbound is certainly welcome news. Perhaps we'll see more of the Mother series in America soon? Maybe? One day?

You could probably deal more damage with this replica of the Gale Boomerang from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess than the one in the game, which is more a tool to cut ropes and put out fires than weapon.

YouTube user Victor Poulin is really into making boomerang replicas, and he's got a really bad website where he sells a variety of return-y stick things, though sadly not this one.

REAL Gale boomerang from The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess It really returns EPIC [YouTube]

Wired:

Google is barring anyone deemed worthy of a pair of its $1,500 Google Glass computer eyewear from selling or even loaning out the highly coveted gadget. The company’s terms of service on the limited-edition wearable computer specifically states, “you may not resell, loan, transfer, or give your device to any other person. If you resell, loan, transfer, or give your device to any other person without Google’s authorization, Google reserves the right to deactivate the device, and neither you nor the unauthorized person using the device will be entitled to any refund, product support, or product warranty.” Welcome to the New World, one in which companies are retaining control of their products even after consumers purchase them.

Statutory rights are just so emasculating.

The owner of this Ferrari sports car is not pleased to see what he thinks is someone urinating on his vehicle.

For hand towels, astronauts get those little vacuum-packed pucks that you kind of have to unravel into a towel. But what happens when you actually put the towels to use?

Two Nova Scotia high school students, Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner, submitted this experiment to Canadian Space Agency and got to see astronaut Chris Hadfield actually test it out on the ISS. The results are seriously extraordinary and you need to see them.

Thanks, Dean!

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is part of the Library of Congress, and it provides "policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation." This month the CRS issued a report that says Colorado and Washington (where cannabis is legal, according to state laws) can't be coerced to enforcing federal cannabis laws. "While the federal government can ban what it wants," reports Reason, "the Tenth Amendment allows the states to opt out of participating in the law or assisting in enforcement in any way, leaving federal officials to do the heavy lifting themselves." From the report, State Legalization of Recreational Marijuana: Selected Legal Issues:

Although the federal government may use its power of the purse to encourage states to adopt certain criminal laws, the federal government is limited in its ability to directly influence state policy by the Tenth Amendment, which prevents the federal government from directing states to enact specific legislation, or requiring state officials to enforce federal law. As such, the fact that the federal government has criminalized conduct does not mean that the state, in turn, must also criminalize or prosecute that same conduct.

States Can Legalize Marijuana (Though Federal Laws Stand), Says Congressional Research Service

(Image: Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from cannabisculture's photostream)

It's weird. When it comes to hardware, Nintendo is the most daring video game company in the world, hands-down. You don't come up with stuff like the DS or Wii unless you're slightly mad.

Yet when it comes to software - and I'm especially talking about its older series like Zelda - Nintendo is unusually conservative. Sure, there have been deviations in setting, like Wind Waker's post-apocalyptic Hyrule and the fact there are trains in Spirit Tracks, but for the most part, Zelda games are always about a boy in green who has to save a girl in purple.

Which is why I love this idea so much. It flips that completely on its head.

New York artist Aaron Diaz has come up with Clockwork Empire, a Zelda game that isn't just steampunk in design, but - inspired by the work of Anita Sarkeesian, whose first video focuses on gender and Zelda games - also stars Zelda, who has to strap on some gear and go and rescue Link for a change.

What's more, this isn't down to some quirk in circumstances, where the usually "heroic" Link has a bad day. In this part of the Zelda timeline, 2000 years after Twilight Princess, Zelda is "an aspiring battle mage", and Link is a naive, pasty noble.

Clockwork Empire [Aaron Diaz, via Gamefreaks]

Meet the Sense of Right Alliance heroes (from left): Blue Power Ranger, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Shrek.

What are the 100 greatest TV episodes of all time? Funny you should ask! IMDB users have ranked them according to their own hive-mind preference, and Pajiba has pulled out the list of the top 25, along with some helpful gifs and images. While my own top 25 is pretty different, a lot of these episodes are still in there. That said: LOST's "Through The Looking Glass" over "The Constant?" Please.

Talk TV, ranking, or anything else, here or over at Talk Amongst Yourselves. Have good chatting, and see you tomorrow.

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the time British politician Ed Balls accidentally tweeted his own name, Twitter users are planning to spam his moniker en masse on the social networking and microblogging site.

Author : Javen J.

1:10. Three fingers of vodka were left; two in the bottle and one in a tumbler. He had never drunk so much before; and never would again. At least there would be no record breaking hangover. He chased the tumbler with a sharp inhale. He looked down at his mangled knee. It was bloody and useless; but he had nowhere to go.

1:02. He had a hyper-rifle, two fingers of vodka and one minute to live. The countdown continued as feverish crashing reverberated through the makeshift barricade. He erected it to isolate himself in the orbital laboratory’s control center.

:55. He poured himself the rest of the vodka and sat the glass between his legs on the ground. He hoisted up the hyper-rifle and checked its charge. The rifle grew exponentially heavier as he lost more blood. Charge at four percent; about fourteen bursts of fire left.

:42. More than enough. He fingered the sight. It took him roughly fifty bursts to put down seven of the freaks and erect the barricade. However, there was no need to kill them all; only to preserve the countdown.

:38. He took a long deep breath and held up the vodka. He would not let it go to waste, like his research. He chased the vodka with a few tears and warm thoughts of his young lass.

:30. He heard metal twisting as the barricade began to give way. He figured the hatch must be cracking open because he could hear the creatures’ audible throat growls.

:24. Once friends and colleagues; now mindless victims of a botched experiment.

:20. The barricaded hatch crashed open and the howling abominations rushed into the control room.

:16. He delayed the stampede by hitting the first intruders in the knees with several rifle bursts.

:11. Suddenly the room was filled with creatures.

:08. Half of the freaks charged for the control panel behind him and the others began clawing at his already mangled body.

:05. He ignored the immense pain and fired his remaining bursts in defense of the panel.

:02. When his charge was depleted he used the butt of the rifle to shove one creature away from interface.

:00. The countdown terminated. He writhed in agony hoping the infliction was contained. Without warning the station’s grav-drive reached critical mass and vaporized the station and every piece of dust and particulate matter within a mile.

 

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Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

It was China that finally did it.

So little was known about the whys and hows of explosive decompression of the human body in space. There had been assumptions and guesses but nothing had happened yet in terms of accidents to give the scientists any bodies to study.

China’s space program was also curious.

It also happened to have ten criminals that it had condemned to death and were in good enough physical condition to qualify as astronauts.

They were strapped into their roller coaster chairs and kept in the back. Funny how the government didn’t balk at the idea of how much ten bodies would cost them in terms of fuel but they felt it was okay to skimp on anesthetic.

China’s government wasn’t doing it completely independently. They had been caught early on in the planning. After some top-secret political wrangling, the other two major governments of Earth had given China the silent go-ahead with the proviso that they share their data. They’d condemn the action if it ever came to light but other than that, they wouldn’t interfere. The information would be valuable and no one except China had the balls to do something like this.

And since there were no civilians up in space at the moment, eyewitnesses would be scarce.

The chairs were fitted with restraints bolted to the floor of the cargo bay. At no point would the prisoners be released. They’d simple be exposed to the vacuum of space for ten minutes and then the cargo bays would close and the shuttle would head back down to Earth.

Simple. Easy. Effective.

Like all horrible plans.

First of all, two of the criminals were adept at escaping locks. Second of all, space agencies weren’t as good at designing criminal restraints as prisons were. Third of all, the plan was to do the mission in radio silence. And fourth, the shuttles these days were mostly automated except for landing.

Weng Pen got out first when the G’s stopped. Pei Sheng followed suit. They freed the others.

One of the crew needed to do a final check on their bodies before the decompression. If only he’d checked the feeds coming from the inside.

That open door was all they needed.

The prisoners overwhelmed the crew, killing them or rendering them unconscious. They prisoners strapped the five crew members into the chairs.

The prisoners gathered into the cockpit and watched the red numbers count down.

The doors opened. Ten minutes passed. The doors closed. The ship turned slowly on its pre-programmed course back to China.

The dead bodies of the crew were the first images that ground control saw when the ship was back within accepted broadcast range parameters.

The other thing they saw was the laughing faces of the prisoners in the cockpit as manual control was restored to them for the landing.

One hard right later, the entire shuttle port and ninety government officials were ionized gas in the crater of the shuttle’s impact.

The rest of the governments of Earth have gone back to waiting for an accident to provide them with what happens upon an explosive decompression.

 

Discuss the Future: The 365 Tomorrows Forums
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This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows

 

New Comic: Emulator, Part Two

When I originally pitched writing this piece to Kotaku, I was a bit worked up. I had read some of Kotaku’s coverage of the post-Sandy-Hook gun vs. games debate, and I sent some pointed Tweets to Kotaku staff. I felt that the games industry media had not provided balanced coverage.

I felt that every story of mass violence from the games media was slanted towards gun control as the answer--and the lack thereof as the cause.

The few interviews I saw with game developers focused on gun control as the response to any calls for a check on video game violence.

I was pissed.

I thought that, as a game developer who not only has worked on mass-market games that revolve around violence, but as a gun owner and libertarian, I could provide an argument that would reach out to both sides. My argument would explain why, at least in the America that I believe in, the right to express speech through video games and the right to bear arms shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

I thought I could explain the nuances of magazine capacity, rate of fire, “assault” features, etc., to the masses that really don’t understand the differences. Those difference sometimes define the line between a well-meaning gun collector and a felon.

I thought I could step beyond media hype and Hollywood education to really tell people what real life was like, and make a difference.

A few weeks ago, Stephen Totilo, head of Kotaku, offered to take me up on it. He asked me to write up a piece from the perspective of a game developer who was a gun owner and wanted to stand up for gun rights.

I do fit the bill.

On the gun side, I grew up in Alaska. I have owned and fired weapons since I was a child. I have used firearms to defend myself from animals and to defend my pets from animals. I've used them, in that regard, in a lethal manner. I have served in multiple branches of the military--in the military police field--which involved me pointing live weapons at real humans.

I have never fired a weapon at a human. I have never been in combat. But I understand weapons. I could rattle off a list of firearm related labels…Rifle Expert, Pistol Expert, 03 Federal Firearms Licensee, Range Safety NCO, etc…

On the game side, I have been an avid video gamer from the F-15 Strike Eagle days. I became a modder after getting out of the Corps in the late 90’s and started working on games for Red Storm’s Ghost Recon franchise, moving onto games such as Halo: Reach and working in big IP’s for WB Games.

I currently run my own studio, focusing on a small, Kickstarter-funded game.

All of my games experience has one thread running through it: Violence. When not working on a shooting game--which is what I am best known for--I worked on a short-lived sword slashing game. I have never made a game that did not include violence.

So, here I am, a gun-owning, 2nd Amendment proponent who also makes violent video games.

I support the 1st Amendment just as strongly and planned to explain to you how a degradation of one can equate to the degradation of the other.

I was going to talk about how degradation of our Constitutional rights is something we should all rail against and had even planned to bring up the erosion of our 4th Amendment rights as context, in this age of “Big Brother” and the Patriot Act.

But now that I sit down to write this, I realize that I am not going to convince you.

If you want to ban guns, you want to ban guns. If you want to protect your rights to bear arms, you want to protect them. Regardless of what I say here, I will not change your mind. But in this venue, I can assume you care about video games. So, what I will do is to ask for a separation between the two.

The NRA (an organization, which ironically, I stopped supporting because of their support for the last failed “Assault Weapons” ban), cast the first stone with their stupid casting of blame onto old video games and movies as a cause for the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This was a blatant misdirection and such obvious flailing designed to deflect the discussion from guns. Even folks like me groaned in disgust. The NRA made themselves look like idiots by holding up copies of GTA, Mortal Kombat, etc.

But then the games media took the bait.

Every article that talked about mass violence and the effect of video games seemed to want to push back against the stupid NRA accusations. Every interview of game developers had to call out for more legislation to ban some form of guns.

I can argue passionately for gun rights. I can argue passionately for speech rights. Both have been validated by the Supreme Court. But what do I do when they argue against each other, when special interests are turned against each other by legislators with an agenda to “do something?”

Instead of trying to educate the game audience about the nuances of gun design, gun control agendas, and other things that hopefully they will take the time to educate themselves on--before they abdicate their rights--I find myself hoping they will educate themselves. I hope they will step outside of their information zone.

What I would ask of the games media, please, is to recognize that it is not us vs them.

Just because out-of-touch NRA executives spout stupid shit about video games, that does not mean that games folks need to spout stupid shit about guns. Gamers can defend their hobby in a reasonable manner without being unreasonable.

While I do have this platform, I do want to call out two issues that I passionately feel we have been avoiding while both sides attack each other: The mental health issue, and the coverage of murderers.

America has a seriously-deficient mental health system, both culturally and governmentally. I have not heard any serious discussion about working to fix this. I don’t mean more fucking government money, I mean talking about a society where it is OK to come out and ask for help. We can figure out the money stuff after…we know how to help the crazy guy on the corner (even if we don’t want to), but what about the repressed suicidal young guy barely hanging on?

And, last but not least, I do want to call out what really gets me pissed. This is what I really think is a true causation factor in this rise of mass violence: the mass media attention that these depraved, and often suicidal killers, receive.

If you have done your homework, you know that the deadliest school killing happened in 1927 (not that you would know that based on today’s coverage). The mass shootings of today, the Sandy Hook killings included--these events, and the perpetrators--draw clicks and views. The media delves into their history, posting every available photo of them, giving them the fame that they crave.

This is what the killers want.

Let’s look back into our teenage years. You know that loner, suicidal guy who couldn’t hack society? Do you think, when he wants to check out, he would choose to be the guy who offed himself in his crappy hotel room? Or do you think he wants to get his picture and name splashed across media for the next few years?

Stop and think back to the North Hollywood bank robbers. These guys were better armed, better armored, than any mass killer in history (most of which was illegal). They fired thousands of rounds, and took hundreds of rounds. Two guys. Yet, they killed no one. Why? They were trying to escape with the money they stole. They didn’t want to get on the news. They wanted to get away.

Let’s look at the motivation of the offenders, and think about why people do this, and why this is currently a “trend.”

Could it be gun laws? Movies? Video games?

Or maybe the same folks that exploit these stories to bring out the faces of these killers should hold up a mirror and think about how they report them?

I know this article will draw some hate, and I guess I could have taken the chance to speak up more to educate the audience about the current debate about guns vs. games. Maybe it's worth it to take the time to refocus the debate on things that could have a huge impact without eroding our constitutional rights.

Christian Allen is a veteran game designer, having worked on titles such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Halo: Reach. Christian currently leads Serellan LLC, a small studio in Seattle working on a Kickstarter funded tactical shooter, Takedown. You can follow him on Twitter.

Video game giant EA is on the precipice of having a chance to repeat as grand champion in the Worst Company In America tournament, so one might think this would be a time for EA to make nice with the customers who feel like they are being mistreated. And in an EA.com blog post, Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore does admit to mistakes and promise to “do better.” But, for reasons we can’t even begin to fathom, he didn’t stop there.

SHRUGGING OFF CONCERNS
In his statement, Mr. Moore begins by questioning the merit of Consumerist readers’ opinions on what constitutes a “worst company.”

“This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history,” writes Moore. He’s obviously referencing the 2011 champ BP, except BP wasn’t even in the bracket last year. In response to Moore’s statement, we’d like to take a moment to explain that our “Worst Company in America” contest exists within the context of this website, which is about consumers and their relationship to the marketplace and to businesses. Just to be clear: The point of this contest, now in its 8th year, is to enable consumers to send a message to a company that provides goods or services to them. Winning this contest means your customers are trying to tell you something. And that something is that you, out of all the companies, most deserve a plastic poop trophy. 

Mr. Moore continues, “The complaints against us last year were our support of SOPA (not true), and that they didn’t like the ending to Mass Effect 3.”

REALITY CHECK
Actually, our analysis of the reasons for EA’s inclusion in last year’s finale makes no mention of Mass Effect 3 or SOPA. Instead, it looks at EA’s history of buying up smaller, successful developers with the intention of milking — and arguably ruining — the intellectual properties that made these acquired companies so attractive. It also discusses EA’s exclusivity deals on popular sports games, that some say effectively sets the bar for retail prices for the rest of the gaming industry.

Then there’s the issue of microtransactions, in-game purchases that EA has made no secret are at the center of its business model. Many customers believe that EA’s view of microtransactions isn’t to simply charge customers a little bit of money for something that is additional, but not integral, to the core game, but rather to put out broken or deliberately incomplete games with the ultimate goal of selling add-on content that should have been included in the $60 price tag to begin with.

In today’s post, Moore contends that microtransactions are okey-dokey because “tens of millions” of people are enjoying EA’s free-to-play games that include microtransactions. We’d counter that just because people are allowing you to nickel-and-dime them it doesn’t mean you should be doing it.

And since Moore brought up Mass Effect 3, let’s take a brief look at that problematic title. Eager to cash in on a hugely successful franchise, EA rushed out the third and final installment of the series in 2012. Many users had spent years playing Mass Effect and developing a history and connections with other characters that carry through all three games, that is until the very end, which landed with a mammoth, unsatisfying thud for an awful lot of people who had paid nearly $200 (or more) for these games.

By all appearances, this wasn’t a case of a movie director having a different vision from his/her audience, or a novelist choosing to take a story off in an unexpected direction. For many people, it felt like having the plug pulled on a really good concert just as their favorite song was getting started, and it reeked of being a business decision on EA’s part, rather than a complete artistic disaster like, *cough* the finale of Lost.

We wonder how Moore would feel if he spent at least $180 on something that failed to deliver what it had been promising for years?

In the end, EA effectively admitted ME3 was incomplete when it released a “extended cut” ending to mollify the angry crowd.

SHIFTING THE BLAME
Moore even admits that EA has made some pretty bad boners in recent years:

I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve made plenty of mistakes. These include server shut downs too early, games that didn’t meet expectations, missteps on new pricing models and most recently, severely fumbling the launch of SimCity. We owe gamers better performance than this.

As for more recent accusations, Moore tries to shrug off the always-online requirement for SimCity 5 that not only made the game unplayable (because EA didn’t have the foresight to think people might want to play the game after they bought it), but also pissed off a lot of people who felt that it was an invasive form of digital rights management (DRM) that assumes users are trying to play pirated versions of the game.

“Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme,” writes Moore. “It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period.”

Actually, you could be clearer. Make it optional and maybe people will believe you.

And then there is this:

“We’ve seen mailing lists that direct people to vote for EA because they disagree with the choice of the cover athlete on Madden NFL,” writes Moore. “Yes, really.”

Really? Show us. Because while readers certainly complained about the declining quality of Madden, not a single person griped to us about the player(s) on the box cover.

Regardless, all of these concerns are apparently not the real reason that EA is once again heading toward a possible WCIA victory. No, says Moore, it’s homophobia.

Yes. Homophobia.

WAIT. WHAT?
Moore contends that EA’s decision to allow users to create lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) characters in some of its games has resulted in a voting campaign orchestrated by those opposed to portrayals of LGBT characters in games:

“In the past year, we have received thousands of emails and postcards protesting against EA for allowing players to create LGBT characters in our games. This week, we’re seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America.”

If there is such a campaign, the people involved in it have not reached out to us, nor have we seen evidence of this traffic to our pages. While any number of tech and video game sites and forums have been writing about and linking to the WCIA polls (here’s lookin’ at you /v/), our analytics show absolutely no incoming traffic from anything we’d label as political, let alone conservative.

EA received hundreds of nominations from Consumerist readers this year, by far the most of any contender in the bracket, but not a single one mentioned anything about sexual orientation. Consumerist does not condone homophobia or hate speech of any kind, and our readers understand the Worst Company contest and nominate businesses based on their merits.

BLOWN OPPORTUNITY
In coming out and responding to its previous win — and possible repeat victory — EA had the opportunity to show the gaming community the respect it deserves, but instead has insulted its intelligence by asking it to accept that its quite obvious faults are really just minor problems and that the actual source of trouble are faceless, homophobic hatemongers.

A sampling of gamers’ reactions to Moore’s post indicate to us that EA has only done itself a disservice by trying to pin its own high-profile problems on homophobia and whiny gamers. These people are EA’s customers. 

Writes Joystiq commenter paladriver:

I don’t dislike EA because they are pro-LGBT. In fact I am supporter of LGBT rights. I dislike EA because they have a long standing history of anti-consumer practices. Not liking EA does not make me anti-LGBT, it makes me anti-EA.

On the same story, reader HeavyAttack adds:

“Trying to claim that the people who voted for them are simply homophobes is a bit sleazy. I didn’t vote because it’s a meaningless poll, and all companies are evil, but EA has done plenty of shitty things, and it seems like voting them the worst company in America is the only way to get them to acknowledge those things. That, however, still puts them ahead of other companies. They at least acknowledged that they fucked up.”

GoodNewsJimDotCom writes on Slashdot:

“I think it is pretty sinister for him to dredge up “US vs THEM” protesting in his “apology.” Remember, one thing EA does is to hire fake protestors to get controversy for their game! Stay classy EA. Even in your apologies, you ooze evil.”

And then there’s Xdeser2 who comments on this Escapist story:

NO EA! You do not get to Spin the story and take the Moral high ground on this shit! Don’t try to fool people by lumping these intolerant assholes with the people actually making legitimate complaints against your practices. You don’t get to try to make yourself look progressive like that.

GETTING NO RESPECT
Gaming might be a multibillion-dollar industry that attracts the world’s biggest names in entertainment, music, and sports, but it is nonetheless treated by both the media and the business world with a reductionist shrug. Companies like EA are happy to foster the misinformed perception of your average “gamer” as a whiny, nitpicky loner who will complain about anything, as that image only helps to discredit those who have a valid complaint about a relatively pricey consumer product.

Here’s our question to Peter Moore: If your entire industry is engaged in the production of something so trivial as to not warrant inclusion in a contest that features a poop trophy, why do you even work in it?

You know it's a good plan if it requires someone to act as bait.

And hey, the more, the merrier!

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer

Screams mingle with the hiss of blood on coals. The clatter of dropped gear and the sound of running feet. When will they learn that using small weapons against us is the same as committing suicide?

> CMNDLCK0

I jerk into wakefulness as the amber letters glow across my optic. What the frack? Tactical comms icon flashes for attention. I look and allow.

“Trooper Lillman. Are you returned from C-mode?”

“Awake and curious.” The fact I reply casually is proof. Combat mode has limited syntax and doesn’t do chat.

“Thank Elvis for that. I am Captain Morebay. I need you to do full-droid until we are in the lifter. Do you understand?”

From an observer’s standpoint, you cannot distinguish between biodroid and android unless we are loaded. Biodroids have a diversity of gear and personalisation. Androids, obviously, do not indulge in personal anything. So when things hit the fan, all of us have learned how to behave like an android. Because they have immunity, in effect. It’s called ‘progmal’ and means that the android experienced an error. You don’t court-martial faulty machinery.

“I am returning control to you but erasing recent memory.”

That’s bad. Means something triggered C-mode outside of combat.

> DELMEM90

> RETCMND0

My view returns and I’m standing across the road from my parent’s house. They’re on the lawn talking to a constable. Mum’s crying. There’s a biodroid officer standing by them. I realise that is Captain Morebay and officially she’s nowhere near me.

“Lifter is on your three at the end of the street. Go. Now.”

I pivot on my right heel and parade march to the lifter across front gardens, through fences and over vehicles. There’s a click as the Captain shares her vox with me: “As you can see, your son has had a void episode brought on by progmal. What you see is what acted earlier. Only the android. I’ll make sure he receives the best treatment, but you understand that because of this incident, he cannot legally visit here again.”

Dad’s voice is full of gratitude. “Thank you. Captain. It’s such a relief to know he’s not lost.”

With that, it all wraps up double-quick and moments later the Captain is across from me as the lifter heads for Aldershot.

“Free and easy, Lillman.”

I drop the stiff poise and relax the bits of real me in here: not many.

“What did I do, Captain?”

“Not your fault, Lillman. You went over to a neighbourhood barbeque at your parent’s request. People are curious about hybrids, as you know. While you were doing a sterling job of relationship building, one of the teenage boys pulled a zapgun and shot you in the back.”

That would do it. Zapguns were the favoured challenge weapon on Uritreya. Always followed by a vicious firefight.

“How many, Captain?”

“Twenty-six. No wounded. Gunman first. Apart from them being friendlies, it was beautiful. The police car was a work of art.”

I put my head in my hands. “Oh gawd. What a way to end.”

“You miss the point, Lillman. You were getting along famously despite being eight feet tall, covered in armour and having eyes that look like one-piece sunglasses embedded in your featureless alloy face. When the situation changed you only took out immediate threats. They didn’t realise that any movement toward you would be interpreted as aggression by C-mode. Everyone who ran away survived.”

I looked at her. “And?”

“You’re joining my mob. Executive Operations. One of us with the charisma to interact with fleshies? You’re wasted on gruntwork.”

 

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Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer

“The corporeals have sent another machine to planet four,” said Wyvin to Lekvar. Of course, Wyvin had not really “said” anything. He, or more precisely “it,” had communicated its thoughts via short range radio frequency modulation to its companion as the two gaseous entities sailed through the atmosphere of Saturn.

Lekvar responded with a radio signal that in a human being would have been a look of astonishment coupled with a shake of the head. “It never ceases to amaze me. Devices are sometimes of solid construction, but lifeforms? The planet three aliens are as concrete as the robotic mechanism they send out into space. What would that be like, living as a small, indurated mass?”

Wyvin modulated a response: “Unable to fly or change shape, unable to expand or contract, and trapped on a tiny, dense rock world. The most confining magnetic prison would be preferable. When planet three first started broadcasting modulated radio signals a few years ago, the scientific community was perplexed how life could have arisen on such an inhospitable world. When it was discovered that the signals were generated by technology operated by non-plasmatic lifeforms, our very concept of biology had to be revised.”

Wyvin and Lekvar stopped transmitting to each other for some time. They floated together in radio silence, propelled by 1,600 kilometer per hour winds and contemplated what existence might be like for the odd, impossible, solid aliens of planet three. Finally, Lekvar signaled, “Is it true they landed a device on the Great Satellite?”

“Yes,” said Wyvin. “Our colonists were instructed not to signal the probe and not to go near it.”

“Why not make contact?” asked Lekvar. “They’re our neighbors. Shouldn’t we establish some sort of diplomatic relations like we have with the inhabitants of planet five? Shouldn’t we let them know there are tens of thousands of civilizations in the galaxy?”

“Tens of thousands of plasmatic civilizations,” said Wyvin. “Lekvar, we’ve managed to acquire and translate a lot of information from the corporeals, including their speculation on the future of their own expansion into space. They imagine a galaxy teeming with other corporeals. They’ve even made pitiful attempts to monitor the cosmos for signals from other civilizations they imagine to be like their own. You see the problem?”

“I believe I do,” responded Lekvar. “The third planet aliens are an oddity, the only documented case of non-plasmatic life in history. Is that why we’ve been forbidden from telling the other extrasolar civilizations about them?”

“Precisely,” said Wyvin. “If word got out that we have corporeal lifeforms, our solar system would be overrun. Half the scientists in the galaxy would descend on planet three. Can you imagine the experiments to which those corporeals would be subjected? That world and its inhabitants would be taken apart by every xenobiologist within 50,000 light-years to try to discover how something as paradoxical as solid life could even exist.”

“So,” said Lekvar, “we are effectively administrators of a nature preserve.”

“Effectively, yes,” replied Wyvin. “The corporeals are a unique form of life. They have as much right to exist as any plasmatic.”

“And when they expand out far enough into the solar system that they inevitably discover us or the sentients on planet five?”

“When that day comes,” Wyvin said, “we’ll have to tell them the truth. But I hope that day is long in coming. I hope they can persist in their silly, naïve worldview for a while longer. I think they’ll find the true nature of the cosmos a heavier burden than even their massy, compacted bodies.”

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