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Microsoft & Games for Change: Pretending to make a difference since 2007 photo

I'm a cynical guy, so when FiringSquad tells me about Microsoft's worldwide competition to find the best student-designed videogame based on the theme of global warming, all sorts of alarm bells start ringing in my head. Aside from the fact that global warming is the latest vogue bit of fashionable scaremongering since the "everything causes cancer" craze and the nationwide panic that man will one day crossbreed a badger with a pig to seal the doom of civilisation, actually centering a game around the idea sounds like the biggest pile of garbage I ever heard.

In Microsoft's announcement, we're given details on what the company calls "an all-new socially minded global gaming competition". Microsoft and Games for Change (G4C) are working together on the pointless initiative of "social change" by challenging students around the world to develop the best global warming game EVER using the XNA Express development software. In addition to cash prizes, contestants will also have a chance to earn their game a spot on Xbox Live, as well as the opportunity to go to Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business as part of an intern program.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, get busy inventing a game where you kill the Sun.

 

 






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Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize. Likes PS2, iPod Touch, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid, Dynasty Warriors 3 Meet the rest of the team



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29 comments | showing # 1 to 29
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PwnDaddy's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:10
PwnDaddy
Yeah, I'm throwing the flag on that one. Unless it's like a crazy ozone-destroying version of Risk, I don't think this is gonna work. Scratch that, it's just not gonna work anyways.
Jim Sterling's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:12
Jim Sterling
Aw man, it just hit me:

Ozone of the Enders.
turdferguson's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:22
turdferguson
The theme is global warming, it doesn't say anything about the game having to be supportive of global warming, why not make a game suggesting it's all a lie? Why not make a game that points out that the time periods when humanity put the most carbon dioxide and monoxide the average tempurature of the earth went down? Or that nations with extremely left leaning governments, such as china and venezuala, that produce alot of pollution are never asked to sign things like the kyoto protocol. Or that 30 years ago, everyone was whining about global cooling and how we would be in the a new ice age by 2000.
turdferguson's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:24
turdferguson
Oh yeah, you can't do all that, because anyone who publicly suggests global warming is anything less than the absolute truth get death threats.
Magesx's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:25
Magesx
Civilsation? Stop being English, commie. D:<
Jim Sterling's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:26
Jim Sterling
turdferguson = win.
TheStripe's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:27
TheStripe
Junk Science, for the lose.
double2's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:28
double2
I wish I was a games student...

I'd make a game where you find the reason for global warming is all the polar bears keep bombing and diving off of tall icebergs. The ironic part is, it is then your duty to go and kill them all with flamethrowers, napalm and rocket launchers.

I would name it "Kill the cunting polar bears with fire cos they're like breaking the sea innit". Winnar?
Jim Sterling's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:37
Jim Sterling
double2 has taken the win crown for this thread!
Joseph Leray's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:43
Joseph Leray
Global warming issues aside (file that one in the "I'm so not getting into that topic on the interwebs" folder), this sounds like a way to promote XNA more than anything else.
tehuberone's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 10:44
tehuberone
Oooohhhh.... That's Jim Sterling.

Now what the fuck is Games for Change?
HarassmentPanda's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:01
HarassmentPanda
The BBC actually released a flash game about global warming called "Climate Challenge." It was decently entertaining. I wasted a Civ Pro II period playing it, so it's got that going for it.
TheStripe's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:01
TheStripe
@ Orcist - Of course it is. The only reason anyone in business or media (or hollywood, for that matter) cares about Global Warming is because soooooo many sheeple- er, people- care about it as if it actually were something that existed, and that means that they can play on their fear and insecurity to sell them something. I wouldn't have had a problem with "An Inconvenient Truth" if they had mandated that it be free for patrons to see at a movie theatre, but just the fact that they used bullshit scare tactics to propgate the effectiveness of bullshit scare tactics FOR A PROFIT makes me fucking cringe. You want to lie to the public and scare them into a more environmentally sound human society, fine, but when you cultivate that fear from nothing, then use it to sell shit, it makes me want to carve a fucking hole in your head just to prove to the whole fucking world that there's nothing in there but granola, yogurt and the highest quality bullshit grown anywhere in the world.
double2's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:04
double2
It means they hardly pay you anything for making 'em! ROFL!
Aberrant's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:09
Aberrant
Wow, I am actually at this festival today. I'll actually get to take this game for a spin later-- I am really, really trying not to be cynical either.
s0lesurviv0r's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:14
s0lesurviv0r
"Are you a bad enough dude to save the ionishpere?!"
Ambulance-Y's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:33
Ambulance-Y
the only way i could think of to make a global warming themed game is

1. your a giant hippie and you must patch the hole in the ozone layer in the time limit.

2. gta type game where you just blow up suv's and other vehicles with a v8. also you must destroy manufacturing plants spewing CO2 and other nasties into the atmosphere, anyone else thinking plane or like a million satchles?
Cloudman's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 11:49
Cloudman
The Antarctic ozone hole is an area of the Antarctic stratosphere in which the recent ozone levels have dropped to as low as 33% of their pre-1975 values. The ozone hole occurs during the Antarctic spring, from September to early December, as strong westerly winds start to circulate around the continent and create an atmospheric container. Within this "polar vortex", over 50% of the lower stratospheric ozone is destroyed during the Antarctic spring.[8]

As explained above, the overall cause of ozone depletion is the presence of chlorine-containing source gases (primarily CFCs and related halocarbons). In the presence of UV light, these gases dissociate, releasing chlorine atoms, which then go on to catalyze ozone destruction. The Cl-catalyzed ozone depletion can take place in the gas phase, but it is dramatically enhanced in the presence of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs).[9]

These polar stratospheric clouds form during winter, in the extreme cold. Polar winters are dark, consisting of 3 months without solar radiation (sunlight). Not only lack of sunlight contributes to a decrease in temperature but also the “polar vortex” traps and chills air. Temperatures hover around or below -80 °C. These low temperatures form cloud particles and are composed of either nitric acid (Type I PSC) or ice (Type II PSC). Both types provide surfaces for chemical reactions that lead to ozone destruction.

The photochemical processes involved are complex but well understood. The key observation is that, ordinarily, most of the chlorine in the stratosphere resides in stable "reservoir" compounds, primarily hydrogen chloride (HCl) and chlorine nitrate (ClONO2). During the Antarctic winter and spring, however, reactions on the surface of the polar stratospheric cloud particles convert these "reservoir" compounds into reactive free radicals (Cl and ClO). The clouds can also remove NO2 from the atmosphere by converting it to nitric acid, which prevents the newly formed ClO from being converted back into ClONO2.

The role of sunlight in ozone depletion is the reason why the Antarctic ozone depletion is greatest during spring. During winter, even though PSCs are at their most abundant, there is no light over the pole to drive the chemical reactions. During the spring, however, the sun comes out, providing energy to drive photochemical reactions, and melt the polar stratospheric clouds, releasing the trapped compounds.

Most of the ozone that is destroyed is in the lower stratosphere, in contrast to the much smaller ozone depletion through homogeneous gas phase reactions, which occurs primarily in the upper stratosphere.


Stripe the problem with you're argument is that any climate scientists not funded by oil companies think global warming is a real problem, and the profit from An Inconvenient Truth was donated to the EPA.

It's funny when people who know nothing about science pretend to understand complex scientific issues.
Caecilius's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 12:02
Caecilius
Cure Solid Snake's prostate cancer with the PS3 or save ice caps with the 360?

Hmmm...

Baby seals FTW!

pixelsword's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 12:11
pixelsword
I was doing some thinking, and I think I know why Microsoft is doing this. Hopefully this dosen't sound like fanboy carp, but I think they are skirting around some comments that a Microsoft executive said about the 360's ability to outpreform the PS3 on folding @ home (or folding @ XBL, I would think). Someone in the know said that if the 360 were to use home, the failure rate on the 360 would approach drastically higher numbers[ for every 360 console that would use it. Even the creator of Folding @ home said that the 360 wouldn't be as fast (or good?) as the PS3. Thye official results even suggest that the processor for the 360 can't compete against the Cell.
double2's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 12:12
double2
@cloudman

silly cloudman, this is for comments! this is not your blog! :)
vinnchan's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 12:16
vinnchan
@Cloudman

While awesomely technical, your essay describes ozone depletion, not global warming. You need to add the final section that connects the two.

You'll also note that no one here outright denied that the climate was changing. They were decrying the scare tactics used to make us think that my drive to work this morning killed a baby seal in australia or something.

It's funny when people who know stuff about science totally forget to look at all the words around the numbers and actually think about social issues.
Aaron Mxy Yost's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 12:27
Aaron Mxy Yost
lol, way to cut & paste. You even left in the bracketed footnote references.

Sure global warming exists. It existed long before man became industrialized. It's called climate change, and it's been occurring in cycles for millions of years. Yes, we should be doing things to reduce pollution and fossil fuel dependence. That's just good sense. We should first make sure that any actions we take to improve the environment will have an actual positive effect instead of blinding throwing money towards the issue. Countries like India and China are two of the largest carbon emitters, yet how much international pressure do you see placed on them to change? The Kyoto Protocol is a fucking joke.

An Inconvenient Truth was mostly paranoid nonsense. Gore himself admitted he over-exaggerated the actual environmental threat in his documentary in order to convince people to accept his viewpoints. If I'm going to listen to an eco-nut, it's going to be someone like Ed Bagley Jr who actually walks the talk and not a politician who tries to claim he grew up on a farm (instead of living in a Washington D.C. hotel for 10 months out of the year, that's like me saying I grew up in Summer Camp) and flies around in a private jet wasting the same fuel he chides others for not conserving.
turdferguson's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 17:33
turdferguson
I know a great objective for a game about ending global warming, kill Al Gore. BAM! We will never hear a word about it ever again. And I am merely suggesting someone make a fictional game about killing al gore, not that anyone actually go out and hurt him in any way. And if someone can make a mockumentary about kill George Bush, someone better damn well be able to make a game about killing the former vice president.
TheStripe's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 20:28
TheStripe
The tiny floating man in the purple hat FTW.

The fact of the matter is that humankind hasn't been a part of this planet's ecosystem for long enough for us to know what kind of effect is has on a planet that modern geologists agree (and because of that, I also believe) is aproximately 4.4 Billion years old. Humanity (and not even polluting humanity, ie. industrial era forward) is only believed to be 160,000 years old, many estimates are much less, 30 to 50 thousand years old. How exactly can we have any idea about how and when this planet changes temperature? Especially since basically all life as we know it comes from the sun, shouldn't changes in the sun's status effect earth as well? How much iron relative to helium is in the core of the sun at the moment? Do you know? What does this mean for our climate? WE DON'T KNOW. WE HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING (with current technology. Yes, we can know certain things about the sun. However, we can't make the connection between the emperical data we have from the sun now relative to the geological information we have detailing the past. Perhaps once we've been studying the sun for, oh . . . 10 or 15 thousand years, then we might have enough emperical evidence, REAL empirical evidence, for or against the case for human impact on global warming). Let's focus on the things we DO know about harmful pollutants and give up the fucking junk science.
bigbro2004's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 20:53
bigbro2004
They prolly have a sercet that the winner has to make a game that says it doesnt really exist.
Brad Rice's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 21:05
Brad Rice
I was actually at the event -- I'll have some articles up tomorrow about it.
Cloudman's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/11/2007 23:02
Cloudman
"The fact of the matter is that humankind hasn't been a part of this planet's ecosystem for long enough for us to know what kind of effect is has on a planet"

I think it's pretty safe to assume tonnes of pollution a day put into the air over centuries won't have a positive effect on the planet.
TheStripe's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/12/2007 09:36
TheStripe
But there's lots of tangible, emperically proven reasons why carbon and chlorine emissions are bad. Global Warming isn't one of them.
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