Article written by myself: Net Neutrality and Open Source
I have received a few e-mails about this article from telcom trolls trying to get me to change my position on these topics because of this article. Since it went live on my website, I have gotten over 100 hits. I spent at least a week writing this article. It all stemmed from reading the ‘back of the package’ info for the song Flickr by Jonathan Coulton. That was a great article. It definitely should have raised the standard of the quality of the work LW showcases. I really wish that were true.

Article written by a LW blogger: Gaz’s Dwarf Fortress or Kieran’s articles
I went back through the whole year to find one. Of all of the articles for the year trying to find one that wasn’t written by myself that continued to entertain and was very well-written and presented, I found four. One was Dwarf Fortress written by Gaz. That one was very fun and really stuck out with me especially since it was later talked about on the TSG forums. The other three were all of Kieran’s articles. His writing was definitely some of the best we have seen. He is a great asset to the staff, and I hope he keeps writing for us when he has the chance.

New show on broadcast television: Community
Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. Do I need to say more? To those of us have been to (or will soon return to) community college: yes, this show is 100% accurate. I am not joking for once in my life, community college is exactly like this show. The fact that they have actual comedians playing every type of student seen in the series just helps ease the pain. The fact that the show is teamed with the rest of NBC’s Thursday comedy lineup (called Must See TV when I was growning up) helps make a viewing block that cannot be messed with.

Returning show on broadcast television: 30 Rock
The show deserves it’s three Emmy’s. It is the best comedy on any network, especially when compared to the other crap other networks show. With Community, they bookend the NBC comedy lineup and are the best shows on most Thursdays. Alec Baldwin is the best actor on television these days across all genres. The show is unbelievably well written and produced. It will remain a top show until they all get bored and move on.

New show on cable television: Stargate: Universe
Stargate x Battlestar Galactica. The series really really is a cross between the two. They even have a Baltar character. I loved the other Stargate series. Battlestar Galactica was the best show in the sci-fi genre. I like that Stargate is using elements that made Galactica great. This is definitely a new direction for Stargate. I hope it works for them.

Returning show on cable television: Dirty Jobs or Deadliest Catch
Two great shows that do a great job of showcasing careers that nobody wants. Dirty Jobs has continued to bring unique and interesting jobs to light. The camel farmers, goose pluckers, and diaper cleaners were all among the jobs shown this year. So many great memories. So many ruined cameras. The drama on the Bering Sea is always interesting to watch. There is always so much on the line and death is always possible. The After the Catch special adds to the drama. We got to meet the captains’ wives this season, and I hope the trade of Jake for Jake is actually done. That would be great. I can’t wait for more episodes of both.

New (to me) anime series (that I will eventually finish): Toradora!
Hyakko is a very close second. I am moved by almost every episode for some reason. It usually has to do with Taiga doing something very touching. I guess I click with her. May be because I have a moe for smaller girls. I just sort of connect with the show as much with Hayate no Gotoku. Taiga is such a good, cute, and fun character. She shows a lot of Kugamiya Rie’s development. Very fun show. Hyakko is also another great show. Torako is such a fun character. The show is short and simple and very worth the time investment. A lot of great voice actresses make appearances too.

Movie: Star Trek
I love that movie. I have been a Trekkie for a long time. After the last few Next Generation era movies were hit or miss (as all pre-Abrams Treks were to date), I was wary of this movie. Then I saw Cloverfield and was convinced of Abrams’ skill in making a great movie. Star Trek Got so much right in reinventing Trek as well as keeping a lot of the cornier elements alive. The criticisms for the movie were all copy and paste from past Trek movies and the cast was well picked. Shatner was a moron for not taking the role that was eventually revealed in the scripts that came out. He would have been perfect. The movie was the best Trek since First Contact. (Like First Contact, it had a Star Wars cameo. R2-D2 appeared in place of the Falcon this time.) PS: The rating for the movie according to Rotten Tomatoes is 95% or almost four times the rating for New Moon.

New game for the Wii: NSMBW
In the land of crap, the gold bar is golden. With all of the crap and faux sequels that came out for the Wii this year, the top choice is obvious. There wasn’t much to get excited about for the Wii this year. At E3, this and Spirit Tracks were their only big games coming out in 2009. As you can read in my recent review of the game, this was a surprisingly well put together game. All of their next great games will be next year at the soonest (starting Jan 26th with No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle), so Nintendo has to hold on to what little successes they have now.

New game for the 360: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed 2
I’m not a FPS fan, so ODST and L4D2 are out. Rhythm games are crap so Rock Band and Guitar Hero are out. Of the rest, Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed 2 were my favorite games on the console. Ghostbusters was a great game too, but these two were better. I love going around and stabbing people in this depressing holiday season. The story is a very good and deep one. Assassin’s Creed 2 is a great game overall. Batman is like being in a comic book. A comic starring the voice actors of the cartoon. But, this is not based on a comic book. It is one of the most awesome games ever. Some moron at Gamespy said it was stupid that there is no comic or movie tie-in for the game. That was what made the game better. Two great games. If it came down to is, Batman wins because no one can beat Batman.

New game for the DS: Pokemon Platinum
Take everything good about Diamond and Pearl and make them better. Fix a lot of the bad areas. Add many more Pokemon. Add new features. Add wifi events. Yummy, yummy wifi events. Free, rare Pokemon. Aside from those and many graphical enhancements, this is pretty much like Diamond and Pearl. Except for Spirit Tracks, there wasn’t too much to get very excited about in the DS area this year.

On the PSP and PS3:
I have only recently gotten these systems so I cannot properly give them a best new game yet. Next year, we all know they are going to be Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

Podcast: Penny Arcade/PvP/Wil Wheaton D&D Podcast Series 3
The only other contender in this realm was Memories of the Futurecast. I started listening to this podcast with episode 2 during PAX. I went back and listened to to the first two series to catch up. Every week as a wait until the next episode. Then came the last episode. That damn last episode. It is hard not to blame Binwin for what happened, but he doesn’t deserve all the blame or any hatred. It was an honest mistake of his. He was too wrapped in vengeance. Aeofel was being too good of a friend. They broke the cardinal rule and split the party. Mistakes were made. Recent tweets hint on the return of AQI. Series 4 should follow. That and Memories of the Futurecast Volume 2 are two podcasts to look forward to this coming year.

Song: Jonathan Coulton’s The Future Soon
Coulton ain’t new, and the song ain’t new. I just felt that this song best captured how my year has been. I’m a pathetic loser that has interests in science and technology with only glimpses at the idea of what love is. I also have the desire to make giant robots and use them mostly for good… eventually. Oregon and Iran get wiped off the map first then I go totally Iron Man with looser morals and more hatred for humanity. A nerd can dream. (If it proves my point any more that I could be the person in the song, I am currently on a Mac writing this in WordPress on Chrome with a Vocaloid theme and watching an open source Twitter program and listening to Code Monkey after The Future Soon. My Rei plushie is right next to me in case I need to hug someone that I want to hug.) [On a side note: it is almost 2010, shouldn't Ikari Gendo have cloned his wife by now? I'll give anything for one of those clones. If you have seen the show, you know who I am talking about.]

Book I actually read (out of the few I finished):
I am not sure I finished a book that qualifies for this. I’ve read mostly textbooks or graphic novels this year, as with any year. Some of the Japanese archaeology books were pretty cool. The books on physics are cool too since physics is only one step below mathematics which is less than or equal to God depending on your cardinality proofs. My textbook that I used to build neutron stars and white dwarfs was pretty cool too, but I read most of that last year. Oh! Wait! Reboot!
Book I actually read (out of the few I finished): Physics of the Impossible
The pompous and arrogent Michio Kaku proves that most of the cool sci-fi tech can be made some point in the future and all in languages you philistines can understand. This is a very great read. Pick it up.

Graphic novel: Kenjiro Hata’s Hayate no Gotoku Graphic Novel #7
Nagi put Tama in a washing machine. I love Futurama. To quote Free Waterfall Sr from Futurama: ‘We have them trapped like a tiger in a washing machine.’ The GN also features the [holiday doesn't exist] episodes, the Negima! reference issue, and Nagi’s date where Hayate is hidden on every page. All of that is in addition to the usual pure brilliance in comic, anime, internet and video game references. Oh! And the student body officers episode too. That features the moments that class president Izumi (aka Karin to Karin fans) fell for Hayata-kun.

DVD/BluRay: Star Trek
Second place goes to the release of the new Evangelion movies in the US. Since I now have a BluRay player (I love my PS3) [I never said they were a bad console. I just said they were too expensive and had hardware issues.], I can watch BluRays. I don’t normally buy video media since Hayate no Gotoku and Code Geass are the only series out on DVD that I collect. Into the Wild Green Yonder was a great movie as well. I had been waiting for Rebuild of Evangelion since the first moment I have heard of it. You can tell I am serious about a series if I don’t ‘acquire’ it in advance. But, Star Trek had a great release. All of the extras, as well as the DVD and digital copies were a great addition. Sorry Eva. There is always next year when you should be giving me Evangelion 2.0 and 3.0… unless Toradora! or Hyakko is out in the US by then. If that is the case… Well, Tron Legacy would have a December 2010 or January 2011 BluRay at the soonest… Hmm. Then Lucas owes us Star Wars on BluRay… Well. Damn. A lot of good crap is coming to BluRay by 2011. I guess that is one side effect of Obama, getting the BluRay industry to say ‘Yes We Can! (make consumers buy the same thing again)’

Webcomic: Penny Arcade
Daisy Owl, Looking for Group, and How I Killed Your Master were the top contenders as well. There were a lot of great moments in a lot of great webcomics. The ones listed are barely a cap of the iceberg of comics with great moments (the big LOLbat reveal in PvP for one). I felt that once again Penny Arcade were the kings. Just scanning through the first two months, there are many awesome moments in just such a short time. Love them. Plus, Jim and Omin didn’t kill Aeofel. Sorry Scott.

Sporting event: Omegathon 09
MLG is a sport. Therefore, the decathlon of gaming is the top event. I only made it to two of the events: The Beatles: Rock Band and the finals of Skeeball. They were pretty freaking awesome. The Omegathon is the gaming competition attached to PAX. The game tests the gamers in several areas: console gaming, PC gaming, tabletop gaming, rhythm gaming, and all-around gaming. Gamers have to prove themselves across all areas, thus no casual gamers would survive. The tabletop game is usually a board game, Connect Four if memory serves. Mario Kart Wii broke down, so they had to do Double Dash instead. That should have been a harbinger of things to come. Skeeball took over a hour to get working just so that it could break down after every other game. How the frak did they find a real Skeeball game?! That was too awesome. The best part was when Mike and Jerry did battle and Gabe schooled Tycho. It was great. Rock Band was Rock Band. Absolutely nothing special. At all. Because if you’ve seen one rhythm game, you’ve seen them all.

Japan-related event: The life-sized Odaiba Gundam
I was tempted to troll through all of my wacky links I posted throughout the year, but then one thing stuck out in my mind: the 40-meter tall Gundam. It wasn’t just any Gundam. It was Gundam. The original. For lovers of classical anime, especially those of us who grew up on Voltron, seeing Gundam at life-sized was a dream come true. Now all they need to do is make it move then fly then arm it with a laser cannon and everything will be perfect.

Event: January 20th, 2009 at 1200 (noon)
I really hope non-politcos get that. If you don’t, that was the exact moment Barack Obama became the current US President. I couldn’t stop smiling for a week after that moment. The other great event of this year was my graduation from Cal Poly SLO with a Bachelor of Science in Physics. I was depressed by the end of that day, so it definitely wasn’t my favorite event. I also flipped while at PAX, but we’ll get to that later.

Convention: PAX
Going to PAX was the greatest thing that happened to me since my Japan trip. I’ve watched PA TV a few times already since It lets me relive stuff I went through those days. I miss it so much. I finally found a place where everyone from the top-down are exactly like me. I really cannot describe what it is like to have the feelings I felt while at PAX. If you are watching PA TV, skip to part 2 of the pilot. Skip to 4:50 when Freezepop is on stage. Look at the sea of lights. Those are DS Bigs, DS Lites, DSis, PSPs, cellphones, and even some crazy fucker with a MacBook Pro waving to the music like lighters in just the generation before mine. Those are my people.

New software: Chrome
Okay, so Chrome isn’t the newest software, having been released last year. Chrome has become my favorite browser. It is faster and a lot smoother than any of the other browsers out there. It was made for the internet. There aren’t many good themes out there yet. (I’m using the Vocaloid one since my next favorite is the Good Smile Company one, and they ain’t that great.) Extensions can be enabled, and I know there are a lot of good ones out there, but I haven’t really hunted for them. And if I can say this completely uncensored when I heard that Chrome was available on Mac on Dec 8th, I practically came. Anything not to use Safari and it’s horrible slowness anymore.

New web-based toy: Wolfram Alpha
This is what wikipedia would be like if it were written by geniuses instead of morons. The mass of useless facts and magic math solvers and data analysis and pure nerditude makes Alpha the funnest toy any geek would want to play with. A few minutes on Alpha can quickly turn into a Turing test or a battle of wits until you get discouraged that the entry for ‘Penny Arcade’ doesn’t mention Gabe or Tycho.

This work by Elliot James Hayter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal.

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Happy birthday me! Not just me but former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and a former King of Jorden. So yeah. That is awesome. Since I don’t want this to be some silly self-esteem boost (though I probably need one), let’s get to the main topic.

What is a gamer? A gamer is made of many elements: good reaction time, rapid situation assessment, an affinity for Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and cookies, and a distinct odor are some of the common themes. Of course those are not common across all gamers. In fact, there are two types of gamers: Casual and Hardcore. Well, there is also Handheld, Console, and PC gamers, but those are also subsections of the main categories.

Casual gamers are those that play mostly Rock Band or Guitar Hero or Peggle or Mario Party or Wii Sports. Most games are multiplayer or otherwise very easy. They have beaten the Elite Four, but their team may have a Pikachu, and the Dex only has 100 Pokemon captured. They have heard of GTA from Jack Thompson but have no idea who he is or why he should be hung by the neck while raped by wild boar. Except for Peggle and flash games, the closest thing to a PC game they have played is The Sims (which isn‘t a game) or Spore. And while they have played Spore, they have no idea what you are talking about when you bring up the DRM bullshit. They think that games based on television shows, movies and anime are actual games. They have no clue what six axis is, all they know is that their PS3 controller is acting weird. Their highscore on Tetris is less than 5 million. (5 million is my average with a combined highscore of well over 50 million. Not great, but still pretty good.) They are still gamers, but they stick out at Gamestop. Also, no odor. WTF?

Causal and Hardcore gamers are very different. The differences tend to be skill and devotion. Hardcore gamers can beat Master Quest with only three hearts. They have recognizable handles that they use during the Omegathon. Not only are their costumes for cons handmade, they are perfect down to the last detail from hand shaping Squall’s necklace to molding their own rubber MJOLNIR armor. The Hardcore gamer celeb would be like Mike and Jerry (Gabe and Tycho) or Adam Sessler. Even Jimmy Fallon is more than just a casual gamer.

Of course, more of the Hardcore gamers are more in line with Fallon than the others. We appreciate games with a challenge. While we don’t always play Ninja Gaiden on hard, we do 100% our games and usually without too much help from a guide or using GameFaqs. We appreciate games that call to our roots. I’ve been playing games since I could hold a controller. I have played Super Mario World so many times, I almost never lose a life anymore. I went through Super Mario 3 in a couple of hours (took my time since I hadn’t played it since Super Mario All Stars on the SNES). I look forward to New Super Mario Bros Wii since it plays exactly like Super Mario Bros on the NES (except for a few new fun features) and New Super Mario Bros played like a new version of Super Mario World. We also appreciate innovation in our favored series. I loved FF XII. I liked their FF XI-like battle style. Very nice. We also like games that take risks. Okami was one of the best games on the PS2. It was the perfect change of pace for Action-Adventure gaming. We are definitely a varied and distinct creature from the Casual gamer. Plus, our odors are finely crafted. It is like a musk.

The big issue in gaming is who to make games for: Hardcore gamers (yes!) or Casual gamers (sorta… maybe. If the game is good). The consoles are where most of the battle lines are drawn since the only games that should be played on PC are FPS, RPGs, RTS, MMOs, sims, and other games other than stuff like The Sims, which is not a game in any stretch of the definition, except maybe on Bizarro World and that is even stretching it. The games promoted for the PS3 and PSP are commonly ones with long dev times and enough depth to drown small children. Aside from the BluRay player and backwards compatibility, there is little for Casual gamers aside from PSN. The Wii and DS are mostly Casual games. All of the Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Animal Crossing titles are the essence of Casual gaming. Pokemon on the DS is probably the biggest and most popular almost-Casual title in the universe. (Once we get into EV training a Squirtle for a preteen trash talker (one not found playing Halo, that is), then all bets of Casualilty are off.) Nintendo has done little to maintain the Hardcore gamers aside from launch titles, No More Heroes, and little else. Hell, the DS even has RPGs that level you up while you’re not playing. That is just retarded! The best Nintendo has done is rereleasing their Hardcore titles on Virtual Console. The 360 tends to float between the two, but leans Hardcore thanks to Halo and other FPS games. With XBLA being the best source of downloadable games, it also has roots into the Casual market through Castle Crashers, N+ and others. Braid is a notable Hardcore title on XBLA. Don’t get me wrong. Casual games are fun. It is just that Rock Band gets boring, and you want to fire up some Saints Row 2 and start a war with some pimps or any other random mayhem featuring a rocket launcher and cop cars.

I see the divide between Casual and Hardcore games having four parts: story, gameplay, retellability, and communal experience. The stories in Hardcore games tend to be deeper. Even in the old days, when stories were shallower and not as long, the ones with great narrative have lived longer. Games like Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, and even Super Mario Bros had some story elements behind them to make them so popular. It is the story that made RPGs shine in the 8-bit era. That is what defines RPGs in the modern era. Super Mario Bros back on the NES has more story than most of the more popular Casual games. It for sure has more depth than The Sims, but The Sims is not a game, so this is like comparing Apples and PCs. (Sorta related side note: Apples are not gaming computers, so the one ‘I’m a PC’ ad is stupid since no one would want an Apple as a gaming computer.) Even action games have remarkable story depth. Halo is a prime example given the extent of the mythology around the series. You don’t really get spin-off books that get worked into the mythos for Peggle or Harvest Moon. (Well, you could write some nice Harvest Moon character shipping stories to explain where the son/daughter comes from, but that is a different definition of hardcore.)

Gameplay is another area where Casual and Hardcore games are divided. I do agree that Starcraft and Sim City both are very point-and-click in execution. Rune Factory and WoW both have you farming in a fantasy setting. But the differences between those games are vast. Starcarft can be equally or more effectively played using hotkeys. One friend was able to dominate Sins of a Solar Empire using only hotkeys. The farming in Rune Factory is far different than the farming in WoW, not to mention WoW is an MMO and goes far beyond Casual gaming. Yes, you wave your sword around in both Wii Sports Resort and Twilight Princess, but Link is using the wrong hand. The NGC version gives the proper feel and returns to the established control methods. The gameplay in Hardcore games draw you in more. You feel more at one with the characters. Okay. So you’re not jumping around like an idiot when you use a controller as opposed to a guitar in Rock Band, but Rock Band doesn’t have those damn annoying QTEs to get you involved in a cutscene. You only need two buttons to do every fight in Batman: Arkham Asylum but if you don’t use every other button, the experience would get very boring after awhile. Sure, Rock Band has you use five buttons, but it is the same thing every time for the same results. Only five buttons in Arkham Asylum can do an unique and insane combo utilizing punches, kicks, counters, batarangs, the bat claw, throws, back breakers, flying punches, and kicks to the crotch. You actually feel like you are Batman. As you get more skills to use in combat that feeling grows. And that is just combat. The stealth elements where you have to sneak around a room and ambush enemies that can kill you in one shot is straight from the comics or the recent movies. Those use fewer controls if you do everything right. You become Batman by your final fight. That is much more awesome than just pressing buttons and jumping around like an idiot.

Speaking of becoming Batman, that makes for great retellable moments. Yes, you beat DragonForce on Expert, but that is usually the extent of the story. A citywide car chase ending with Nikko having a helicopter duel with the police keeps people enthralled. Hell, trading character builds or E4 teams are usually more engrossing than crop strategies from Harvest Moon. So you made a Sim that looks like you and made him/her very popular to make up for your shortcomings. As the old saying goes, ‘I have a rocket launcher. Your argument is irrelevant.’ Or in this case, it is a Fallout 3 character who looks like me, and he has the Experimental MIRV and ton of ammo for it. Now, who do you think people would rather hear about: your character who looks like you and does whatever a Sim does or my character who looks like me and hands out justice in the form of a nuclear arsenal that makes the Cold War look like kids stockpiling snowballs? Click here if you can’t guess the answer. Most of the gamers you will speak with will have some crazy story of gameplay beauty to share. I doubt any of them will list beating Koopa at a mini-game or a Warioware micro-game as that story.

You have one controller so what do you do? You pass it around, obviously. But what if the game isn’t really one you can pass the controller around easily in, like Wind Waker or MGS4? Simple, you don’t, but the game is so fraking cool it doesn’t matter! True story. Sure, Casual games are easier to pass the controller around in, but there are some awesome Hardcore games that a rotating controller works fine in as well. GTA 4, Halo 3, Saints Row 2, and Modern Warfare are all such games where one controller can bring a room of players into a Hardcore game. That sort of thing is easier with Casual games, but what about those not playing? Let’s just say that watching another player kill dudes is just as entertaining as killing dudes yourself. That is how I spent my birthday last year, passing around the controller and watching others kill dudes in Gears of War 2. But back to Wind Waker, is that really a fun game to watch? Well, it was when I was hanging out at a friend’s house and that was his only game. You never play another person’s character. That is just the etiquette of this sort of thing. Hell, we even had three custom characters in Saints Row 2 for the different players. (We mostly stuck with the cockney Asian named Nasty O’Malley. My version of Nasty always dressed as a ninja.) Games with a lot of action or story can entertain an audience as well as any controller passing. Having three people trying to solve a puzzle on Zack and Wiki or a group sharing jokes and commentary about Travis’ latest folly, especially the ending, shoot, even my memorization of the Wind Waker heart piece map helped my friend and provided entertainment. Just look at groups like The Speed Gamers. They play video games for others to watch. They provide commentary and entertainment as well as doing it for a cause, and that makes it so worthwhile. You know what they said they would never do? Rock Band or Guitar Hero since those games would suck balls as a marathon. Shoot. More people watched Scribblenauts being played than Rock Band being played at PAX. Given that there were two demos for SWTOR, more people probably watched that than Beatles Rock Band as part of the Omegathon.

Another aspect of Hardcore gamers is their acceptance of the broader gaming world. I don’t really know other Hardcore gamers that have not tried dice chucking or card flopping. We know that D&D Online wasn’t always online. The draw of that game was to give the D&D experience to a wider audience. D&D and other tabletops were the origins of gaming before my generation. People wanted to play their tabletops on their computers (duh, we’re nerds), so they created programs to do so. (That is interesting since D&D was inspired by Tolkien and modern RPGs were built off of D&D’s basic model.) Many of us also have played various CCGs at some point. I don’t mean collecting cards for a series. I mean something like Magic: The Gathering or Star Trek CCG or even the Pokemon TCG. These take strategy and fast thinking, attributes needed to be a good gamer. Miniature-based tabletop games can be seen as a basis for TRPGs. These games are extensions of our natural gamer instincts. Even LARPing can be linked to gaming through D&D and other routes. LARPing also touches on our cosplay sides as evidenced by any con.

Hardcore gamers are also more political than Casual gamers. What I mean by this is that Hardcore gamers are more knowledgeable about issues involving video games and technology. They have an opinion on gaming psychology and know exactly why Jack Thompson got exactly what he deserved, minus the looking into the Arc and turning to dust like all Nazis deserve. Hardcore gamers are usually the ones that the media exploits whenever there is a school-related incident. Sadly, we are the ones that check ESRP more readily and even work with the system to help rate games. Were also usually the calmer heads in the debate with the facts on our side. Search YouTube for ‘Adam Sessler’ if you want to see a Hardcore gamer pwn some n00bs. (PS: Casual gamers, please don’t talk like a Hardcore gamer until you have earned Hardcore credentials.)

Another reason to focus more on Hardcore gamers is that it would be better for game sells. Casual gamer may be who all of the peripherals are targeted towards, and they may be the ones buying all of them, but overall game sells are more influenced by the Hardcore crowd. I’ll break it down a bit more. A Casual gamer goes and buys Rock Band or Guitar Hero. They also get enough extra guitars and drums and mics so all of their friends can play too. They would also buy all of the updates and DLC as well. All in all, about a few hundred dollars spent over a course of several months as DLC takes time to be released. Hardcore gamers would buy a game, make sure they had a big enough HD and had external storage just in case, there would be four controllers, at least one wireless headset, Gold Membership on XBL, and maybe case mods. Of course, we’d buy collector’s editions of some games. Pre-orders for the the pre-order bonuses. Maybe imports if we had an import console. Yes, we would trade in games, but we’d buy new (or new used) ones shortly afterwards. Then there is the DLC for the games. This is about a hundred or so dollars a month after trade-in values. Sure, not all Hardcore gamers spend that much, but a new (or new used) game a month still adds up to more money than Casual gamers spend on gaming. Hell, WoW players get off easy since they are Hardcore, and they only pay US$15/month. Just a small price to pay to keep your virginity intact.

Now, I have been pretty hard on Casual gamers. I just don’t think they are as important a demo as Hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are the ones that tend to shape the industry while Casual gamers tend to pollute it. Hardcore games get nerfed to appeal to a Casual audience. Conversely, casual games get made ‘more mature’ to try to appeal to the Hardcore audience. Most of the time this does not work out well in the end. Indy games like Braid tend to appeal to the Hardcore audience since it takes chances. Casual games are tamer to appeal to broader audiences. This is what gets leveled against Nintendo when they try to make Zelda and Mario games these days. The new ‘hint’ feature Miyamoto threatened us with is potentially a bad move since it tries to bring more Casual gamers into Hardcore realm. The darker edge in recent Zelda games and larger worlds help keep them purer in the Hardcore realm. If you want an example of nuking the fridge to appeal to both sides, look at the radioactive shit that Sonic has become.

I want to end with anecdotal stories about what Hardcore gaming means. These are incidents that Casual gamers rarely to never encounter.
One night, we were just sitting around and playing games like we usually do. Out of boredom, we downloaded the demo for the most recent FIFA game. The demo was so fun that two of my friends rushed out to Best Buy or Gamestop to pick up a copy of the the game. While the FIFA games at the time were not as good football games today, the number for football clubs in the game and all of the other featured reminded me of what Adam Sessler said in an old review for an older FIFA game. He talked about the large number of teams and gameplay options, as well as the pacing and other good factors that make FIFA > Madden in his eyes. The fun we had with FIFA afterwards proved his words true.
Last year, I got Gears of War 2 for my birthday. My birthday happened to fall on a Friday, so we did our usual gaming after going to dinner at my favorite place in town. We beat the sh*t out of that game! Going from about 9 PM to daylight. Just four friends, co-op play, soda, beer, cookies, and guns with chainsaws cutting a worm in half from the inside out. Awesome to the max.
Once upon a three-day weekend (a rarity at my school), Pedro was the lone man in his dorms. He was also sans computer. He finished his homework, cleaned h-bar, and reprogrammed all of the h-bar computers. That was the first 32 hours. About 9/10 PM on Sunday-ish, I got a call: ‘I’m bored!’ After bursting Pedro’s bubble that torrents would get the h-bar computers taken away and that the bowling alley arcade was the only arcade in town (which sucks a lot of balls), I offered to come out, pick him up, and we could game as long as he liked. That is a 15-30 min drive in one direction. He supplied the sugar and soda. I supplied the games. We/He played Saints Row 2 all night/day. We started about 10:30/11 PM and beat the game 18 hours later. I didn’t notice the sun was out until around 8 AM. He didn’t notice for a couple more hours. I played a lot of Pokemon that night too. That is an average night when we had a better place (Derek’s was the best!) to game for 24/36 hours straight. Gamers need a hub. That is a fact.
As I am known to mention a lot, I went to PAX 09. It was too awesome. Part of it was a Pokemon tourney. Unfortunately, the tourney was canceled. Probably because of the stupid kids with their hacked Pokemon. One member of our party was leveling his Pokemon to 100 the entire trip and while waiting to get in the show. He even ran back to my car to get my DSes after another friend took his DS and R4 back. He ran back to the cars after spending the past 27+ hours awake. That was just the start of our approximately 32+ hr day. Gotta catch ‘em all, baby.
Speaking of my birthday, my birthday two years ago also lead to some funny gaming moments thanks to South Park. Since my birthday fell on the day we went out to lunch with a professor, I got to pick the place. The gaming talk started with a gift of DS styli since I had lost all of my old styli, including one found from a friend, since I got my first DS (that includes them staying with me through Japan!) I still have two of them. The pink one is my favorite. Also, the restaurant is one of the best sandwich shops in SLO. It’s mascot is a purple dragon. So everyone started making jokes about chasing the dragon in Heroin Hero from South Park. We had to explain what Guitar Hero was to our teacher and what the joke was about. It was great. As you may know, South Park also did a WoW episode. All of my friends that play WoW, especially the one that plays WoW in h-bar, were looking forward to that episode. You know what happened to my friend? He missed the episode. He was too busy WoW-ing. Awesome.

These are just some stories of Gamers being Gamers. More importantly, those are Hardcore Gamers. Casual gamers don’t suffer from bouts of awesomeness like we do. Sure, we may not all be Gabes, Sesslers, or Wheatons, but we are more than party game playing posers. We roll 20s. We would tap that. We can pick up the controller and play any game without reading the manual. We may not have the patience to see the Fluvians win, but we love the clash of the Gardens. We groan at QTEs and lol at pwned n00bs. We don’t rate Guitar Hero as one of the best game evar, just one of the better party games. Our racing sims have both realistic crumple physics as well as the f*cking blue turtle shells. We know what breast physics are and rag doll physics too. Last, the only dudes we create are avatars for MMORPGs, not Sims because Sims are gayer that Krakthorian Gay-Beast, and if we were running Sims, the Horde would mutilate the corpses of all of the Casual gaming Sims and tea bag them for free. Cause that’s how we roll.

My See-I-Told-There-Would-be-a Gaming Quiz:

Have you ever played the Second Quest?

How do you defeat the Ko-Dan?

What is the password to Master Belch’s lair?

What was Gabe’s third wish?

At least he has some chicken.

Where is the second Whistle?

What does the accessory Ozzie’s Pants do?

What game does Joshua lose?

Who does Takuto marry?

Yellow, ______, Green, Blue, ______, White

Who is the ‘team-killing fucktard’?

Complete the following: Up

Ni hyaku ni?

He is the leading man.

S, Z, L, ☐, |

Name the source: ‘Your mom is a classy lady!’

Who is The Dude’s avatar?

What tabletop does Wiseman play?

Who is Travis’ niece?

Gokou is on who’s computer?

This famous gamer likes late nights.

What were the first video games played on?

Meow : Nyan as Wark :

Here lies Link.

All your base are belong to us. Respond:

What does Richard fight for?

Which classic character talks like this? (Hint: Futurama)

↓↘→+✌

Who is better at skeeball: Mike or Jerry?

What shape is a dolphin?

Where is the princess?

What government employs Turkleton?

One chapter of his story is ‘The Long Goodbye.’

He is both Naked and Big.

What type of Pokemon is Gengar?

Who is a winner?

Who picked Duncy Kong?

The original 0/1 w/ Flying Artifact Creature.

One of this game’s objectives is to ‘Bomb the Harbor.’

You can’t ignore his girth.

Rules:
You know gamers don’t need to be told how to play the game. Also, as with all good games, there are hidden objectives go along with the quiz. Don’t bother checking the source for answers. I’m not dumb enough to put them there.

Prize:
To enter, join the forums and PM me your results. If you score above 75 points, you will win a special title. Answers caught posted in comments will be deleted.

This work by Elliot James Hayter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal.

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Since coding counts as word count according to the rules and YouTube embeds take up a lot of space with coding, here is an episode of everyone’s favorite show, Everyone Loves Hypnotoad!

Well, I’m not quite there yet but pictures are worth a thousand words so here you go!

Rei is so pretty! Everyone can agree on that. You just have to love her.

Since I know I’ll get yelled at for not filling up the whole space, here is another video:

That is all for now. Keep [word meaning copulating] that chicken!

This work by Elliot James Hayter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal.

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As of now, I have shared my simple interpretation on the barebones of Japanese archaeology and mythology. I have also mentioned an interesting mesh I saw between the two when it comes to the location of key shrines as well as with the development of agriculture and the Imperial Japanese state.

This is from my article on Amaterasu:

The mythical connection between Amaterasu and the imperial family is a more interesting one, especially when looked at in an archeological or anthropological way. It is said that in the year 500 BCE, Amaterasu’s grandson Jimmu organized the people of the Kansai plain and founded the Japanese state. He was given three magical items by Amaterasu to prove his divinity. One was the mirror that lured Amaterasu from the cave. Another were a set of magnatama beads like those used by Amaterasu to win her bet with Susano-Wo. The third was a powerful sword. Archeologically, this is all BS since there is no evidence for a Japanese state for another 1000 years, but the archeological record does support some of the story. Around 400 BCE, rice cultivation spread rapidly in Japan from Kyushu. The Kansai plain was a rich area for rice cultivation. With agriculture also came iron and bronze tools and weapons. The beginnings of writing and civilization began around 300 AD. With Amaterasu’s main shrine being in Ise, firmly in the Kansai plain, the religious, economical, and technological elements have to be taken together as support for parts of the Jimmu legend.

Now, the idea of an archaeological link between myth and reality is not a new idea. There has been work done linking Greek mythology to the archaeological record. A lot of the connection mentioned in the quote above can be linked back to the Yayoi period. That period saw the migration of people from Korea to Kyushu who later became the Yamato after interbreeding with the natives and the spread of agriculture and metallurgy brought with the immigrants.

The ancient seat of power was in Kyoto, in the Kansai region. The prefecture of Nara is in that region as well. It is the prefecture with the largest amount of famous shrines. The Kansai region is some of the best rice producing lands in all of Japan. In the legend of Jimmu-tenno, he came from Kyushu and established his rule in the Kansai region after finding it to be most hospitable. Jimmu-tenno was the allegedly a descendent of Amaterasu, the Sun god who has a major shrine in Ise which part of, you guessed it, the Kansai area. The migration of Jimmu-tenno to the Kansai area makes for a good match of the possible migration of agriculture and technology that would have spread with the Yamato settlers.

Two of the key religious artifacts as part of the Jimmu-tenno legend are his sword and mirror. Metallurgy had been brought to Japan previous to the spread of the Yamato people but when they arrived, metal working quickly spread throughout Japan. An iron sword would have been a powerful tool in an area with relatively low technology. The ability to produce powerful weapons and tools using iron would have seemed godly to the uninformed (based on the theory that the high tech can seem like magic or godly, look at cargo cults for example). A fancy luxury item like a shiny copper mirror would have been unheard of to the relatively unorganized, preagricultural communities in northern Japan at the time. Copper luxury items like the mirror in the Jimmu-tenno legend/the actual artifact in the shrine at Ise only started coming into production at the end of the prehistoric in which Jimmu-tenno lived.

An agricultural base, advanced technology, and a ‘mandate of heaven’ would have aided in the spread of Yamato influence during the Kofun period, built on the Yayoi roots. And, as the old saying goes, the victors write the history books. The educated elite would have been the only people with knowledge of writing an literature until after the Kofun period, when prehistory ends and history begins. They would been able to use their power and influence to spread the Imperial divinity myth. Once the historical period began, they would have written the myths down. This apparently worked too well since the historical record stayed with the myth until August 15, 1945. Fortunately, the Japanese are proud of their heritage. They are willing to accept the myth with the fact. This willingness to accept and blend the mythological record with the historical and archaeological record is rare in modern society, but it is another area where the Japanese may be more advanced than the West.

This work by Elliot James Hayter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal.

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Jomon Period

The Jomon period is noted for the pottery, the method of which lends the period its name. Jomon is a type of cord marking that the ancient Japanese used to decorate their pottery. The period has an uncertain start with the age of Japanese pottery being pushed back to between 15850 to 12500 BP. This is some of the earliest pottery on the planet. The period ends around 2400 BP when large scale agriculture is brought to Japan (Habu 2004).

The Jomon were sedentary hunter-gatherers. They took advantage of the resources at hand without necessarily developing agriculture. They had an advanced tool kit with many types of stone and bone tools. They were expert pottery makers for which the period is known. It is believed that there was some cultivation of different crops, but the Jomon people were still mostly hunter-gatherers living off of gathered plants and fishing (Habu 2004).

The Jomon people are considered to be more related to the Ainu of northern Japan and Hokkaido. Studies have been done on Jomon period remains in comparison to modern populations and found more of a correspondence with the Ainu than the majority of the population. This difference is explained by the migration of Korean immigrants to Japan during the Yayoi (Habu 2004).

Yayoi Period

The Yayoi period is named for the part of Tokyo where artifacts from this period were first found. The period lasts from about 2400 BP to 300 AD. The start of the Yayoi period is marked by the introduction of large scale agriculture to Japan as well as migrations of Korean immigrants to Kyushu. The period ends with the beginning of the development of the Japanese state and the start of the Imperial line (Imamura 1996).

Agriculture is the key feature of the Yayoi period. The location of Japan in the monsoon zone allows for massive rainfall in the summer which is perfect for rice cultivation. This was accompanied by iron tools brought with the immigrants from Korea. The immigrants interbred with the native population and created what became the modern Japanese (Yamato) people. The advanced tools and extensive resources of the Yamato allowed them to spread throughout Japan, supplanting the native population to the north and Hokkaido where rice was harder to grow. While tools were brought with the immigrants, the Yamato developed the ability to mold bronze and iron tools as well. This allowed the spread of technology that eventually lead to the creation of the Japanese state (Imamura 1996).

Kofun Period

The Kofun period is named after type of burial mound commonly associated with the period. It is dated to between AD 300 to 700. The period is marked with the emergence of the Japanese Imperial state beginning at the end of the Yayoi and ending with the introduction of writing and native history recording. The history of the period is mentioned in Chinese and Korean chronologies of the time. The Chinese and Korean records are backed up by archaeological evidence (Aikens and Higuchi 1982: 251-253).

The technology of the Kofun period is similar to that of the Yayoi period, but with more proof of Japanese reliance on their own production methods. Molds for bronze and iron working are found at many sites. These molds are for items from mirrors to weapons. Such items would have only been for the elite few and would have been used as status symbols or religious objects (Imamura 1996).

The end of the Kofun is marked by the emergence of the Japanese Imperial state. The state arose from the Kinki area, where the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara grew. The area was very fertile for rice cultivation which allowed for sustaining a large population. Leaders controlling the rice and iron tool production could have formed political alliances for trade and defense. The importation and modification of the Chinese writing system allowed learned people to start recording history, thus ending the prehistoric period of Japan (Imamura 1996). In an interesting note about the introduction of writing to Japan, fish are so important to the Japanese diet that when Han characters were imported to Japan, the convention of naming of fish by the general word for fish plus an additional character was insufficient. The Japanese at the time had experience with so many types of fish that they had to create a whole new system of naming for each fish (Imamura 1996: 8).

Bibliography:
Aikens, C Melvin and Higuchi Takayasu
1982 Prehistory of Japan. Academic Press, New York.

Habu Junko
2004 Ancient Jomon of Japan. University Press, Cambridge.

Imamura Keiji
1996 Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia. University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii.

This work by Elliot James Hayter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal.

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