Zoe Quinn, a woman placed at the heart of the controversies currently running wild on #GamerGate in the gaming community, is a game developer. She is known for her game ‘Depression Quest’ and the fact that she deviates from the regular video game norm by developing games that are based on feelings. Now, in spite of the criticism she received (and still receives) for developing video games that turn away from the normal pattern of plot and theme, she apparently was also asked (read ‘demanded’) who had developed the game for her as girls can’t develop games. (Please allow this writer to…

So long, SEA or South East Asia online gaming market basically referred to China and Japan. However, Niko Partners findings in 2014 affirm that the 3 countries in SEA – Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam have started playing a key role in the e-gaming market. This year, the online gaming market in Southeast Asia that includes both PC-based and mobile-based, has gone up to US$784, 4 million. China indeed has a big online gaming market with annual revenue of $13 billion in 2013. It represents 40% year on year growth. According to IDC, the predicted growth of Chinese e-gaming market will be 23.5%…

Video game developers, from the very beginning of the video game development era, have been aiming at the male audience and, quite frankly, ignoring the female gamers. Luckily though, it seems that the general population doesn’t care for the theme or marketing gimmicks of video games overmuch. If the game is good enough to catch a gamer’s interest and attention – whether that person is a man or woman, girl or boy – then it will be played. Therefore, it is a little bit of a surprise (and a disappointment) that women video game characters are still little more than…

The #GamerGate war, which was sparked earlier this year thanks to a revenge post by a programmer about his game developer ex-girlfriend, is by now probably common knowledge. However, the fact that is still ongoing, and is still a pretty vicious war, is what keeps putting #GamerGate in the top topics of gaming news. Online discussions and debates are normal. And in all honesty, it is almost laughably easy to start a debate online. It often seems that the World Wide Web is full of users who can’t wait to find something to spew about – and most often in a negative…

Socially, there are (at the most general level) two basic types of people: Introverts and Extroverts. Now, for a long time – and even now in the current generation and era – the real life social situation is more or less designed to facilitate the extroverts. Which is why it is really no surprise when we see introverted people cringe, avoid, and generally hide in such social situations. In fact, you can often pick out a person (or persons) that lean towards an introverted nature quite easily in the real life social crowd. They are the people who stand awkwardly…

As a gamer, we’ve all at one time or another (or probably many, many times for that matter) been given the somber speech of how video games affect our health, can be notoriously addictive, have been proven in studies to be very bad for our concentration skills, and can promote violence among its players. What people don’t seem to consider however, are the positive effects of playing video games. In fact, playing video games have been shown to also improve a variety of skills in gamers that are potently useful even in fields other than gaming. So here’s a shout-out…

With the domination of zombie apocalypse and fighting games that are available in the video game market, it is perhaps not so surprising that video games are valued for nothing more than their entertainment value. However, video games have often proved to be wonderful teaching tools for a variety of real life skills, applications, and subjects. In that spirit, this article is going to deal with all the ways video games can be a wonderful teaching tool. Teaching Through Virtual Simulations Virtual or video game simulations are perhaps the most common and known ways that video games have been used…

Most non-gamers often fail to realise the appeal of video games (that video game enthusiasts will alternately swear by). It doesn’t help either that most studies regarding video games tend to highlight the more negative aspects of the activity than the positive. It also doesn’t help when people still put a lot of intellectual value on the books one reads (and how many) in inverse proportion to how much time a person spends watching TV or playing video games. To that end, video gamers often find themselves feeling like they pulled the short end of the proverbial intellectual stick. Because…

When a person plays a video game, he or she will never be able to tell you or pin point one particular activity that they are engaged with at any point of time during the game. And if you ask, you will often get a series of answers (if they deign to interrupt their concentration on the game to answer you at all, that is) like fighting enemies, avoiding traps, collecting artifacts and points to improve their score or upgrade their player character’s abilities, doubling back to collect something else, performing a series or combinations of moves, interacting with other…

Video games often get a bad rap from a lot of the population outside the gaming community for its many alleged dangers. (And yes, even many inside the gaming community as well as loyal to the art of playing video games often guiltily concede that their health might be affected in the long run.) And while (unfortunately) many of the health concerns regarding video games might be (and sometimes are) true, it is also true that there are a lot of positive aspects of gaming as well. (Really, why don’t more people talk about that!) Not only that, but some…