Video It's New. It's a League. It's for Gamers. It's the League for Gamers! (Video) 62
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Intrepid correspondent Timothy Lord writes, "I talked at SXSW with Kari Hale of League For Gamers, an organization started just a few months ago by Red 5 Studios founder CEO Mark Kern. (Kern was also team lead for World of Warcraft.) League for Gamers shares some of the goals of groups like the EFF and EPIC, but — as you might guess from the name — is tightly focused on the world of gaming. The group owes its existence to SOPA; the money used to start it up had initially been budgeted for Red 5 Studios' appearance at the most recent E3, but E3 sponsor's Entertainment Software Association's support for SOPA led Kern to withdraw from the show. Kari gave a quick rundown of the origins of the League, what it hopes to accomplish, and what sorts of efforts it's so far undertaken."
Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Are they extraordinary gamers?
Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Well there's a girl in the video, I'd say that's pretty extraordinary.
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No, that's male thinking. Human nature doesn't change, there will always be immature cretins whose Y-chromosome gets the better of them regardless of society's progress towards equality.
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Beyond sexism, this is open misandry.
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That's what a lot of young men really are like. Most, probably. Nearly all the kids I was at school with were quite open in their opinion that girls were sex objects. I believed it for a bit. Briefly.
First I've heard this. (Score:1)
but E3 sponsor's Entertainment Software Association's support for SOPA
I suppose it makes sense, since E3 is slowly slipping into obscurity due to the internet.
social activism (Score:4, Insightful)
The real currency of politics is voters. (Score:2)
It's just a social activism site using gamers as it's engine. Nothing more.
Really, nothing more? Look what an activism organization composed of people who shoot real guns can accomplish, the National Rifle Association. Now consider an activism organization composed of the more numerous people who shoot digital guns in video games. If you can get the digital shooters to show up on election day and vote in a manner supporting their cause quite a bit could be accomplished.
The real currency of politics is voters, not dollars. Like petitions, dollars are just a tool to influence vot
Finally a Reason for Video Submissions (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
She's not ugly but I wouldn't exactly call her out as "a beautiful woman"
Beauty is not skin deep, my friend.
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Did your wife make you say that?
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Red 5 had a majority stake bought by a company called "The9", or "Di Jiu Chengshi" which is the former operator of World of Warcraft in China, based in Shanghai.
They are famous for two things:
They're front desk has maybe 5 model quality ladies just sitting there, signing for packages, etc. I know someone who was a lead programmer there, she's slamming hot and wears tight jeans and towering heels. This is the inv
Re: (Score:1)
where are the beautiful women? what video were you watching?
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No prompter (Score:2)
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Not if they train. I don't say uh in conversation, but then I give a crap about communicating.
Silent pauses and interruptions (Score:2)
I don't say uh in conversation
I'll hazard a guess that by this, you have learned to pause silently instead of saying "uh". If so, do you often get interrupted in such silent pauses? The other possibility is that you have trained yourself not to make such pauses at all. If so, how did you do this?
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If so, how did you do this?
It's a simple process.
Step one: Lie.
I might be more inclined to believe the claim if "give a crap about communicating" didn't fly out the window as soon as the medium was the written word. Not that there's anything wrong with being lax about communication in /. posts, but if you treat casual writing that way I'm not about to believe casual conversation is not treated similarly and suddenly it's 100% focus on clear communication (especially since conversation is generally a more forgiving medium which is w
Jump cuts (Score:2)
I might be more inclined to believe the claim if "give a crap about communicating" didn't fly out the window as soon as the medium was the written word.
The nature of the written word edits out pauses in typing by the time you read it. But the medium of this article is not the written word; it is a video. Such edits to a video create jump cuts that violate continuity [wikipedia.org].
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I was talking about the geekoid's consistently poor grammar and spelling in his posts, done with a 'fuck it,it's slashdot' attitude. But then suddenly when talking about casual conversation it's all "oh yeah I make sure I'm always communicating properly only tools pause and say 'um' in conversation" and I just don't buy it.
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Buffering... (Score:2)
I've found that I can eliminate most pauses in my speech by thinking a few words ahead, the same way that you can read aloud from a book without faltering by reading 2-3 words ahead before you actually speak.
Coming up with ideas and turning them into words is a lot harder for me than translating symbols that are already there into words. This is true especially if I'm deep in thought or reading and asked a completely unrelated question, or if I have to think of how to analogize a particular assertion to meet a family member's known unfamiliarity with the more intricate parts of a subject. It's like the difference between streaming a video over the Internet (buffering...) and trying to render CGI in real time.
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Knowing what you're talking about helps. Use "I don't know" as a replacement for "um".
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"Uh" is natural for any human being not speaking from a prompter.
Which is why the very on of the first things anyone trained in any kind of public speaking whatsoever learns is how not to do that. Seriously, it isn't even that hard to learn. Find a friend willing to help, start making an improvised speech to them, everytime you say any filler words have them note it and point it out (you can start by having them record the number, than later interrupt when you use them). If you find yourself tempted to say "umm", don't say anything at all. Make it a pause instead. You ca
Interruption (Score:3)
If you find yourself tempted to say "umm", don't say anything at all. Make it a pause instead.
In my experience with family members, every pause opens me up to being interrupted before I can finish my sentence.
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If you find yourself tempted to say "umm", don't say anything at all. Make it a pause instead.
In my experience with family members, every pause opens me up to being interrupted before I can finish my sentence.
Eh that's called being enough of an adult to have patience and not be so damned impulsive. It's on the decline along with most other virtues not immediately tied to survival.
... I will make an effort to tell them. If they won't listen or they keep cutting me off to talk about some frivolous irrelevant thing, OK, I respect their wishes. Since they a
The way I deal with that is simple. If I have information or advice that I know for certain will spare someone a lot of time, misery, suffering, risk, etc
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Plus, you will learn to think faster to fill the dead air (at least how to think up BS, if not actual content). Trust me, it is worth it to learn how to speak without using "uh" and "um." Granted, doing it in front of people is somewhat harder, but the basic idea is the exact same.
Why would I want to fill the silence with BS instead of a filler word? at least with a filler word like "uh" or "um" I'm not BSing people.
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Transcript - but go on, watch the video! (Score:5, Informative)
Title: Introducing the League for Gamers
Description: A voice for gamers and game developers
[00:00] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." scrolls across the bottom of the view from left to right.
The view is of interviewee Kari Hale in a hallway, standing near exit doors - as good as location as any.
[00:00] Kari>
The League for Gamers is a non-profit organization that was started by our CEO at Red Five Studios, Mark Kern and it brings gamers and game developers together to give us a united voice and to support gaming rights.
[00:13] Timothy>
How long has the League been around?
[00:15] Kari>
It's been around for a couple of months now.
We were prompted to start the organization when all the SOPA things were going down.
We actually shut down our FireFall and Red Five Studios website and we decided we wanted to make this a longer term thing to pursue.
[00:29] Timothy>
What is some examples of what League for Gamers does?
[00:33] Kari>
What we do is we try to be politically active.
I can give two examples of what we've done in the past:
[00:38] Kari>
With SOPA for example I just mentioned we took our websites down, we started a petition where we got thousands of signatures from gamers and game developers to protest SOPA and PIPA.
[00:50] Kari>
Another one that we just successfully completed was for the Oklahoma Gaming Tax.
What Oklahoma tried to do was put a 1% tax on all games that were rated Teen and above.
What we did is we sent a petition out to our members and we protested it and the bill has since been dropped.
[01:08] Timothy>
How (? stateful)
[01:09] Kari>
A very interesting story, actually, Red Five Studios CEO Mark Kern, we had invested about $15,000 to attend E3.
When we found out that the ESA who puts on E3 supports SOPA, we withdrew the money, we canceled our booth at E3, and we took that money and we started League for Gamers.
In the future we'll probably be having memberships - within the next month or so - all the people that sign up now won't have to pay dues, but they're more than welcome to donate to the cause.
[01:39] Timothy>
Who should be part of League for Gamers?
Is it mostly for people in the industry?
Is it meant for ordinary people?
Who should really be concerned about this?
[1:47] Kari>
I think League for Gamers actually casts a pretty wide net.
You have the gamer who doesn't want their rights taken away, they want to be able to express themselves freely online.
You have the indie game developer that's not properly being represented by organizations like the ESA, that tend to represent the bigger companies.
But also, we really do try to work for First Amendment rights, and that's something that applies to anybody who uses the internet and supports free speech.
[02:13] Timothy>
One more thing, a question I didn't have until just now, but it's from a game company [...]
[02:19] Kari>
Yes.
[02:19.5] Timothy>
[...] basically, the background, [...]
[02:20] Kari>
Yes.
[02:20.5] Timothy>
[...] and, does it benefit everybody in the industry?
Is it tied to [?] companies?
Talk about how political or apolitical the industry tied it is.
[2:33.5] Kari> ... we're not politically affiliated in any way.
The League for Gamers?
Well, I can say right now, we're not tied to any
We're just a group of people that want our voices to be heard.
We're not lobbying, we don't have people in Washington that are lobbying for us right now.
It's really an organic organization that really does support the smaller gamer that right now - his voice is being lost
[02:54] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." scrolls across the bottom of the view from left to right.
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Hopefully, many.
I'm not above saying that Kari is an attractive young woman (just as the young lady at the EFF booth was very pleasing to the eye).
However, if you've ever done any people watching, or even just hit google images with a random name, you'll know that attractive young women, and attractive young men, are a dime a dozen.
I would much more value Kari for her beliefs, knowledge, etc. than her looks.
And to whom it matters what the person looks like, there's certainly a lot more videos where those pe
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This is, for the lack of a better term, retarded. "Gamers rights"? What exactly are those? The right to play games? The right not to have your entertainment medium taxed? This is the sort of thing that pushes me away from "gaming" culture. The idea that a group of people who consume a particular form of entertainment need a group to represent them is a bit ridiculous. Game developers might want to form a group in order to get better working conditions and rules on "crunch" time, but this is too much for me.
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How about the same rights as non-gamers in regard to speech? I would imagine the ESRB would slap an AO on a video game featuring a topless African tribal unless the developer added a bra, even though it is culturally correct and I've seen National Geographic footage of a tribe of such women and it was rated G in the US.
I also had questions about why such a group is needed, though, because there already is a video game voters network, and SOPA/PIPA really didn't have anything to do with gamer's rights IMO, b
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"I don't think this is a very popular opinion, but maybe someone can post a few reasons as to why they see my position as wrong."
I can give you a fuck tonne of reasons why gamers should get political. The tradition of open sourcing commercial PC games has dwindled to a crawl with multi-platform games. This can only be a bad thing from an innovation and modding standpoint. Many modern games started off as mods: League of legends, heroes of newerth and others are derived from the DOTA user created mod for
How is it (Score:3)
The name mdash (Score:3)
I associate the name mdash with HTML authoring, not the world of gaming, so I would not have guessed that. :-)
VGVN (Score:3)
Does does League of Gamers differ from the Video Game Voters Network [videogamevoters.org]?
OK people (Score:3)
it's 2012. It is not only no longer 'shocking' or 'amazing' that women are gamers, it's not even relevant.
GTFU
Hmm, yes... (Score:2)
"I'm an internet athlete!"
*farts, scratches bedsores, inhales entire bag of Cheetos*