Got Game?

Hylton Jolliffe writes "Hey, thought you might like a new blog we've just launched on gaming by RIT professor Andrew Phelps. He's going to be writing about a whole host of things: the gaming industry, the rapidly expanding user base, the role of gaming in the entertainment/media spectrum, the technology and standards that undergird today's games, the emerging social phenomena surrounding them, the future of wireless gaming, the study of gaming in academia, blah, blah, blah. Neat stuff and Andy's already in full stride - see this as a possible starting point."

True

[No Such Agency]

I don't know about "legitimizing the industry", but as a mode of human cultural expression, computer games are worthy of academic scrutiny, as are "Gilligan's Island" and "The Old Man and the Sea" for that matter. All can reveal deeper truths about the societies that spawned them, and be fodder for interesting examinations of humanity (or at least a few graduate theses).

RSS Feed?

[Kip]

It would really be nice if Corante would provide RSS feeds for these blogs. Most of the weblogs tools in use today offer RSS feeds and quite frankly I find it a lot easier to keep up with many weblogs if I don't have to visit each and every page every day, I don't have that kind of time. :)

8bit graphics

[pommiekiwifruit]

Making a bunch of 30x30 sprites (and that would have been LARGE back "in the day") doesn't require the intervention of an artist.

Whoah! I have to disagree with you there. Artists entered the industry in the 8 bit days and were very much needed. "Programmer graphics" is a well-used insult. We may be able to draw 8*8 monochrome characters (e.g. text) but when you get up to 16*16 by 4 colours, you really need an artist, or an artist/programmer, not a straight "i can't draw for toffee" programmer like myself.

Even for icons in tools, artists make an improvement in looks (a specialist graphic designer might be even more useful).