6:44 AM on 05.28.2009
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I'm genuinely all for Destructoid being ad supported, i usually get a smile out of an ad for a lesbian RPG coming up in a BAN THIS SICK FILTH post. This one 'suggest your DREAM pc' ad for WEPC is a little bit... err unimaginative though.
Exhibit a)
Umm... Isn't EVERY* screen glow-in-the-dark? *my apologies to the Gameboy/Advance
Exhibit b)
Hardly a dream PC, dual monitors have been around for years and years. Hell, my shitty laptop at work is connected to a monitor thus making it a dual monitor PC.
Also, 
Exhibit c)
Laptops with built in remotes have been around for a while too. Not to mention the Pandora
Come on WEPC, what about Smello-vision, PC's with bobble head hula girls, a laptop with keys made of chocolate... DREAM BIG DAMMIT! I'll give them the 'holographic' display one, but i'd say the keyboard would get a bit messy if people use it for what i think they will (i.e. what EVERYONE will use it for).
I guess that's why they need you to submit your dreams.
As a point of note, everyone should click on that link and support Destructoid. If you use an ad-blocker, make an exception for Destructoid, it won't hurt you to see ads on one page and sometimes the ads can be unintentionally thought provoking... or you might get to see some anime softcore furry rpg pr0n.
Hell, you might even get a shitty blog-post out of it.
 read more
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3:46 AM on 05.18.2009
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It is a fundamental aspect of human nature that most people will steal something if there is no danger of getting caught. And this is what has happened to the recorded music industry. Most music residing on MP3 players in the world is stolen, it has been downloaded over the internet using peer to peer filesharing. In fact most young people today think that it is quite normal and acceptable to steal in this way and they kick up a fuss when someone tries to stop them.
With the advent of broadband this stealing spread to movies. So now every movie is available online before it is in the cinema. And many millions of people are regularly stealing from the film industry. To these thieves it is the acceptable norm.
Which brings us to games. To a large extent these have the DRM protection of being on a console. Where this breaks down, as in boxed PC games, the market is decimated and the supply of new products dwindles to a trickle. http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/04/23/game-piracy/
The thieves make lots of excuses for their thieving. Such as the fact that one incremental copy does not cost the producer anything. But they miss the fundamental moral point that they are benefiting from another person’s work without contributing towards it. And if everyone steals, then who will pay for new music, films and games to be made?
The only way to stop this stealing is to stop the illegal traffic on the internet. It currently comprises well over a half of all internet traffic, so widespread is the stealing. The French have introduced a law that thieves will have their internet connections stopped if they offend repeatedly. This approach is what a lot of governments and a lot of the industries involved want. So if it works in France it will be rolled out to other countries.
This stealing is not victimless, the recorded music industry has been decimated, the film industry is suffering from a huge loss of revenues and the games industry has just about deserted several gaming platforms. All this means people losing their jobs and less content being produced.
In the UK the creative industries contribute £112.5 billion (or 8%) to the economy and provide 1.8 million jobs. It has been researched that half of this is at risk from illegal file sharing. So something has to be done. Peer to peer downloading is the biggest epidemic of theft in the history of mankind. The law has not kept up with the technology and everyone will be a lot worse off until it does. read more
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7:28 AM on 04.26.2009
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It became apparent from the comments on the Destructoid Mosaics (Version beta 1c) that some key members (hehe members) were missed off of the mosaics. That wasn't going to do, so i looked into the settings and i think I've managed to include more people. Seems i was missing the avatars hosted on outside servers (not dtoids) in the pool of images.
Surprisingly, this took me a lot longer than last time. The biggest problem was how to get the 1000odd avatars without clicking save-as on each one. My temporary internet files method was no good, so i settled with saving the page. Anyway... using Mr Sadistic's avatar (Destro ftw) as my litmus test these new pics seem to pass. Again, there are bigger versions in the gallery.
Now... let's make things a bit more interesting (and try to ignore the fact that this blog post is essentially a shameful copy-pasta)
I have a newly acquired XBLA code for Connect 4 which will go to the first one that can find these 3 avatars :
RioMcCarthy:.......................Niero:.......................Char Aznable:
 ..  .. 
in this masterpiece :)
Screen caps or written location posted in comments section is fine. Shouldn't be too hard as every avatar can be on there up to three times.
And just to make sure that RAB and Y0j1 don't feel left out this time:
purplemonkeydishwasher.
UPDATE: Congrats Justice, the code has been sent via message to your Gamertag. read more
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11:25 AM on 04.21.2009
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Sometimes you wake up with an overwhelming desire to express your love for the good ship Destructoid and her crew. Today was one of those days for me. So after spending the day at work wondering how i could express my love i had this idea. Here are some mosaics made up from the avatars of the top 1000 posters.
Some came out pretty good, others not so much, but i might as well post all of them. There are big versions in the gallery below.
For those interested, i pulled the images from Internet Explorers cache (after viewing the leaderboard), femputed them into jpgs (sorry those with animated gifs), manputed them into AndreaMosaic, a free mosaic program, and got most of the template images from here.
Takes all of a minute to make each one.
Maybe this is more of a forum thing, if enough people think so i'll remove this and repost it in the forums.
Democracy, not just for losers.
Fun game for new players, can anyone find Y0jimbos avatar? read more
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10:18 AM on 04.03.2009
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I love awkward humour. I was a big fan on The Office, I love Reno911 and have always had a thing for Mr Shake Hands Man from Banzai. Hell, I’ve even sniggered at Dennis Pennis. So when Anthony mentioned that Robert Summa would be on Podtoid I thought it might be a damn good laugh.
It started off pretty well, just seemed like a normal show, Rev asked what games they’ve been playing, and they talked a little about Burn Zombie Burn (did I detect a little uncomfortable pause after Summa said something? It seemed like Jim wasn’t sure if to make a joke or not? )
Of course, it didn’t take long for Rev to take Summa to task for taking credit for Destructoid and claiming that he was the man that made them. Totally fair enough, he can’t expect to make claims like that and not ruffle feathers.
But then it just kept going and it occurred to me it was less entertaining and more just beating a dead horse. Fuck, not saying that the horse didn’t deserve to be beaten, but I kind of felt that Rev was expecting an apology from Summa whereas It was clear after 30mins or so that he wasn’t going to get it.
I’m sure Rev’s intended purpose for the show was to show the Dtoid community that Summa is indeed an asshole, but it didn’t really seem necessary and almost became more bullying than anything. It’s obvious Summa doesn’t see that acknowledging being an asshole is not the same as apologizing for it, and at times he couldn’t even understand Rev’s jokes about him being a kiddy fiddler.
Actually, i guess it was more like beating a dead horse, that was also autistic.
The best analogy I can think of is it’s like when I saw science graduates arguing with fundamentalist (with no university education) about carbon dating and feeling great about it. I still love Rev but felt that this whole show did him a disservice. He’s better than that.
I can’t seem to see any record of the show on Podtoid.com so maybe that’s why it's not on the front page (or for some other completely unrelated reason or that I missed it). It wasn’t as much entertaining as it made me feel like an outsider listening to a public argument. Awkward, but not funny awkward. Okay, some of the pedophile jokes were pretty funny. Okay, maybe a lot. But still….
Maybe I’m alone on this one. I don’t know, but that’s how I feel anyway.
p.s. Yes, everybody sees through Summa’s frat boy defense response.
UPDATE : On reflection If the podcast made me think enough to write a cblog about it, and also reflect on what it was exactly that made me uncomfortable it was a good thing. read more
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7:31 AM on 02.05.2009
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Just got this in my inbox. I can't make it but thought it would be a good idea to let people know.. i.e. the few people in Edinburgh.
You are invited to an event hosted by The Skinny magazine and the ESRC
Genomics Policy and Research Forum.
Title: Digital Evolution: What Can Gaming Tell Us About Where Life Came From
and Where It's Heading?
Venue: The Drill Hall, 36-38 Dalmeny Street, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG
Date: Saturday 7th February 2009, 7pm
Details:
From the Game of Life to Spore to Second Life, computer games reflect our
fascination with evolution. But how life-like are these games, and what, if
anything, can they teach us about human evolution?
The Skinny magazine and the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum welcome
you to discuss these fascinating questions with our guest experts:
award-winning science fiction writer Ken MacLeod and synthetic biologist Dr
Alistair Elfick.
To register:
This is a FREE, ticketed event. For your ticket please call 0131 467 4630 or
email evolution@theskinny.co.uk.
 read more
Attached photos:
 
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12:01 AM on 07.31.2008
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Wow, i can't believe this.
I've been hearing all about the Americans playing Rock Band and having a blast and lamented the fact that living in little ol NZ i could never play against my xbox live buddies.
But it's been so long, and now Harmonix has gone and made Rock Band 2 surely they would just let NZ dive right into Rock Band 2 given you can play the Rock Band 1 songs anyway... right? right? RIGHT!?
Today i got an email from my local videogame supplier (Gameplanet NZ http://www.gpstore.co.nz -sorry Hamza, you're exactly right) letting me know that Rock Band 1 is finally dated and priced for NZ.
ROCK BAND 1 comes out OCTOBER 10th.
Yeah, that's right, we are only now getting the FIRST Rock Band, and to carry on the theme of ONE there will be ONE shipment only, and the cost of getting into it is the raping of exactly ONE anus.
Here's the run-down.
PlayStation 3
Rock Band (game only) ($119.95) - 87USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
Drum Kit ($179.95) - 131USD
Wireless Guitar ($99.95) - 73USD
Xbox 360
Rock Band (game only) ($119.95) - 87USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
Drum Kit ($179.95) - 131USD
Wireless Guitar ($99.95) - 73USD
Nintendo Wii
Rock Band (game only) ($99.95) - 73USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
Drum Kit ($179.95) - 131USD
Wireless Guitar ($99.95) - 73USD
PlayStation 2
Rock Band (game only) ($99.95) - 73USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
What? Why is the ps2 hardware bundle the same price as the next gen's? That's a bit rough, but i guess that's where they are going to make the most money.
Oh and guess what? apparently that 220USD hardware bundle DOES NOT COME WITH THE GAME.
I can only dream of having as much money as they're going to make from NZ alone.
http://www.gpstore.co.nz/News/Archive/9647.html read more
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5:42 PM on 06.25.2008
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Here's the story:
A 12-year-old girl was persuaded to send 300 sexually explicit photos of herself over the internet in exchange for points on a gaming site, Customs has revealed.
United States authorities discovered that 300 objectionable images were uploaded from a New Zealand email address to a web-based US photo account and told New Zealand Customs.
Assisted by the police child abuse team, Customs executed a search warrant and identified a 12-year-old New Zealand girl as the likely sender.
The girl's account had been hacked which resulted in the loss of her game credits. She was contacted by an anonymous game player who offered to restore the credits she had lost.
In return, the girl was asked to send sexually explicit photographs of herself to the player. Over time, these requests become more graphic in nature.
US and Canadian authorities are investigating the suspect.
Customs manager of investigations Terry Brown warned that parents needed to be aware of what their children were doing on the internet.
"Once images are on the web they are effectively there forever," he said.
Mr Brown said Customs investigators found that online games provided an easy means for children to be groomed by sexual offenders.
"Images of child exploitation such as those present in this case may lead on to actual physical offending," he said. "We need to protect our children by making sure they know what the dangers are."
Mr Brown said Customs, the Department of Internal Affairs and police were working together to combat exploitation of children and catch sexual predators.
"Our communities need to be educated that online sexual abuse of children is happening in our society."
In a recent interview Interpol online child abuse investigator Mick Moran said that there had been "a huge increase in self-taken child pornography".
Living in New Zealand myself, i can verify that this is a simple matter of cultural differences. In New Zealand it's quite legal and socially acceptable to exchange sexual pictures for goods and services. Just the other day i got a bottle of milk and 2 loaves of bread for a picture of me finger banging Helen Clarke.
But seriously... what the fuck?
Story from: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4596880a10.html read more
Attached photos:
 
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2:26 AM on 06.19.2008
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here we go again
I don't know, i can't think of a better system but there must be a way not to spam the cblogs everytime there is a contest. read more
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10:05 PM on 06.11.2008
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Look, living in the South Pacific i already pay far out the ass for videogames. This has already been established. See Resonance's blog for details
But there are ways to save some money like buying and trading second hand games.
Yeah, not so much at Ebgames. Here are a few examples of consumer butt raping. I wandered down to my local Ebgames, noticed that some sort of sale atomic bomb exploded in the front window
Inside i discovered:
Grand Theft Auto IV; did anyone buy this game?.
New $120NZD (90USD)
Second hand: $115NZD (87USD)
Lost Odyssey; wasn't my cup of tea but Jim liked it apparently.
New $99NZD (75USD)
Second hand, no manual: $79NZD (60USD)
The Simpsons; this was actually what i went in to look for (might be a renter though, no?).
New $120NZD (90USD)
Second hand, beat up case: $105NZD (on sale from $115) (79USD)
Lost Planet; the old one not the re-release:
New $110NZD (82USD)
Second hand, i'm pretty sure it was $95NZD (72USD) though could have been cheaper (i didn't write that one down)
Keep in mind that the average amount someone gets for trading in a new release game to Eb is $33USD. This is why i don't trade games into EB, it's a complete scam. I don't know what the guy who traded in gtaiv was thinking, it would have been easy enough for him to get at least $60USD for it on our version of ebay.
Also, i feel i should note I actually don't mind buying second hand games, it's just I'm not going to pay close to retail for used goods, especially when i know first hand EB has no quality control.
But i'm not naive, and at the end of the day fair enough to Eb they can charge what they want for their stuff if they think they can get it. Apparently they CAN get it too, because people will pay any amount of money for anything. I think consumers need to wise up a lot more to this sort of thing, then maybe EB won't get away with charging so much for 2nd hand goods.
Eb is not all bad, they do offer a Seven day money back guarantee so if a game is really terrible you can return it... and i did consider picking up Eternal Sonata on sale for $45usd, but then remembered i had testicles and decided against it.
Oh and to make matters worse for us NZ gamers... our Nintendo Distributor, Softprint has just gone out of business. So currently we have NO nz distributor of Nintendo products. Yay.
In summary: Wahhh, wahhh wahhh, wahhh.
... read more
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