Fit, Sexy, Geeky Chicks!

In an article called “The Virtual Battle of the Sexes“, the BBC report on research by Dmitri Williams (University of Southern California) Mia Consalvo (Ohio University), Scott Caplan (University of Delaware ) and Nick Yee (Palo Alto Research Center).

In particular they highlight analyses which suggests EQ2 players tend to be healthier than the general population, and that 40% of them are female and 5 times more likely to be bisexual.

Williams also posts about this paper on Terranova in an article called “Gender differences: New findings, new paper“

You can get the original 44 page manuscript from his publications list,

Williams, D., M. Consalvo, S. Caplan & N. Yee. (2009, in press). Looking for gender (LFG): Gender roles and behaviors among online gamers. Journal of Communication.

Here’s the abstract,

“Gender role theory was used to examine differences among male and female players of a large online game. Several hypotheses regarding the importance of gender and relationships were tested by combining a large survey dataset with unobtrusive behavioral data from a year of play. Consistent with expectations, males played for achievement-oriented reasons and were more aggressive, especially within romantic relationships where both partners played. Female players in such relationships had higher general life happiness than their male counterparts. Female players were more likely to play for social reasons. Contrary to popular stereotypes and current hypotheses, it was the female players who played the most. Female players were also healthier than male players or females in the general population. The several findings have implications for gender theory and communication-oriented methods in games and online research—most notably for the use of self-reported time spent, which was systematically incorrect and different by gender.”

Hot Research!

This week I’m in Athens, presenting my first ever academic publication, “Toward Accessible 3D Virtual Environments for the Blind and Visually Impaired” at DIMEA 2008.

 

It’s all about the hotness: of the weather (34 C) and the post-grad researchers

 

Academic life so far seems to be characterised by poverty, international travel, autonomy, fulfilling research and meeting girls who are simultaneously hot and smart!

My prejudices are slowly and pleasantly being dismantled.

Heavenly Heroes

I’ve been watching a lot of Heroes recently. (Hayden Panettiere – Claire Bennet – is very cute!).

I noticed that Jessica and Micah were “playing” Heavenly Sword (which hasn’t even been released yet). Nice choice of game though. It’s about a beautiful but deadly woman, so seems fitting that Jessica – rather than Niki – should be playing it.

Sex, Drugs and Videogames en España

According to Wikipedia,

“Personal consumption and home cultivation of cannabis have been decriminalized, but buying or selling remains a criminal offense.”

And High Times has this to say,

“Spain is in the vanguard of a new European revolution in pot freedom”

There’s also a forum post on that page from a tourist who claimed he paid just 4 Euro per gram for homegrown ‘dank’!

I’d be interested to hear a more official account of the legal status.

[EDIT: 04/03/2008] Oh dear lord it’s just how I imagined it to be… 

Work:

In other news, Pyro in Madrid are hiring.According to their website they’ve got 125 staff and are working on PS3, Wii and XBox 360 projects…Read more about the company on MobyGames or Wikipedia.They also seem to have connections with academia [Spanish].There’s some coverage confirming that they’re working on an adventure game for Wii, to be released in 2008.One of my friends went there for an interview and had this to say:”pyro seemed coolgenerally people were nice, the interview questions actually made sense (not like completely irrelevant technical or even theoretical stuff), office seemed good, game they work on as wellthey are doingtwo titles with the unreal 3 enginethere seem to be a lot of hot girls there TBHthey offer free spanish courses toothey booked a really nice hotel for meboth actually… although the one in mallorca was more touristy, whereas the one in madrid was more business like, really nice breakfast buffet, swimming pool, whirlpool thingy in the roomquite enjoyed my stay “

 

It looks like both EA (Madrid) and Ubisoft (Barcelona) have studios in Spain, though I couldn’t find much information about current vacancies there.

“EA Europe Integration is a centralized studio based in Madrid specialized in the integration of the localization of games to European languages.”

Also Revistronic look like a real developer (Though not much on MobyGames and barely a mention on Wikipedia), and they’re also in Madrid.Likewise there’s Mercury Steam who are collaborating with CodeMasters (virtually no presence on MobyGames and Wikipedia), Madrid.As for smaller developers, there’s Virtual Toys (DS developer, Madrid), BitManagers (last GBA game released 2003, Barcelona), OkerFactory (PC & Mobile, San Sebastian).Also, the three year old Tragnarion studio in Palma de Mallorca has recently announced they’ll be using Unreal 3 for their upcoming project. One of my old colleagues has interviewed who speaks well of the impression they made on him. However, other friends had some very negative things to say,” i was in mallorca… was raelly nice… warm weather the guy I talked to seemed nice, the company seemed nice generally, the office was ok, but there was just something that gave me a funny feeling… cant point it out though”Me:I looked at their office on Google and it seems like a pretty industrial areaits in an IKEA buildingand they are owned by ikeawell not quite.. but something like thatthe investor giving them all their money is the one who set up all the IKEAs in spain or soand he thinks the games industry is cool and wanted to invest in itwithout bugging them too much it seemsso they seem to have quite some freedom, compared to having some publisher with contanst pressure*constantbut like I said… there was something which I cant point out that gave me bad vibes i have to say I found mallorca very nice toomuch more so than I expectedjust not too sureabout that companyalso I dont know what mallorca is like in the main tourist season…they have a LOT of shopping there though.. but most of it was closed now”An another friend had even more harsh things to say about Carl Jones, the studio manager,“Oh boy.Ok.<candid>He is the omega wanker – the wanker from which all other wanker’s images were wraught.</candid>”Incidentally flatshares seem to go for around 350 Euros per person per month, which is similar to what I was paying in Vienna.Games-Industry.biz has a directory of development studios in Spain.There’s also a group called ADESE, who have a list of publishers in Spain.And there’s a global map of studios which might be of interest.More about Spain and Madrid,

Quality of Life:Mercer rated Madrid as 42nd for quality of life in their 2007 global survey (London was slightly better in 39th position) and 56th for health and sanitation.

Cost of Living:Mercer’s 2007 survey revealed Madrid to be 26th most expensive (with an index of 92.1 compared to London in 2nd place with an index of 126.3)There’s also a handy salary converter and some detail about the cost of daily goods.

Politics:The last election was in 2004, so they’re due for another in 2008.

“The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, commonly abbreviated by its Spanish initials, PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español), is the major party in Spain and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in 1833. It is a social-democratic party”

“The PSOE was founded with the purpose of representing the interests of the working class born from the Industrial Revolution with the declared objective of achieving socialism, and inspired by the revolutionary principles of Marxism. Nowadays, it is a social democratic party.”

Madrid:

“The population of the city was 3.5 million (December 2005), while the estimated urban area population was 5.5 million. The entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area (urban area and suburbs) is calculated to be 5.84 million. The city spans a total of 607 square kilometres (234 sq mi).”

Nightlife:

“Madrid is noted for its nightlife and night clubs. On weekends, Madrilenian youth are famous for dancing all night long, stopping only to have some chocolate con churros at dawn, go home, take a shower, shave (or not), and go to work.”

Climate:

“The region of Madrid has a temperate Mediterranean climate with cold winters with temperatures that sometimes drop below 0 °C (32 °F). Summer tends to be warm with temperatures that consistently surpass 30 °C (86 °F) in July and that can often reach 40 °C (104 °F). Due to Madrid’s high altitude and dry climate, nightly temperatures tend to be cooler, leading to a lower average in the summer months. Precipitation levels are low, but precipitation can be observed all throughout the year. Summer and winter are the driest seasons, with most rainfall occurring in the autumn and spring.”

“Here we have the average temperatures in each month in Madrid: – January: 9 ºC- February: 11 ºC- March: 15 ºC- April: 19 ºC- May: 22 ºC- June: 27 ºC- July: 31 ºC- August: 32 ºC- September: 25 ºC- October: 18 ºC- November: 13 ºC- December: 9 ºC”

Public transport:

“Serving the city’s population of some six million, the Madrid Metro is one of the most extensive and fastest-growing metro networks in the world.”

And last, but by no means least,

Sex

“Tourists walking along the beaches of Spain this summer should watch where they step, especially between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. They might disturb the world’s oldest activity. Local police have deemed this time slot a happy hour in the truest sense — the time set aside for young people to have sex on the beach.”

Dez on YouTube

The good ol’ Clipsal 500 in Adelaide this year,

You can find more of Derek’s camera work on his gallery.

Postmodern Comic

Sinfest is rad!

Fornicate Using Your Actual Genitals!

There’s a new MMPORPG that sounds like it’s got some really cool features.

Sex Toys

A friend of mine has just launched his new website. Remember Christmas is just around the corner so if you want to get that special person something naughty but nice, you’d be well advised to take a look!

Benjamin Franklkin on Choosing a Mistress

Ben gives us 8 reasons for choosing an older mistress.

My favourite:

“8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!”

DOAX2

Team Ninja have the most fun in the games industry