Gaming journalism

This weeks assignment had us watch a podcast about technology and write about it. I chose a podcast from Inside Gaming. The title was about buying reboot games but the first topic, gaming journalism, is what I'm going to focus on.

I have been playing a games for a long time. In the beginning I decided what games I should buy by the cover in the Blockbuster video and what I could afford. Back then I made my money selling chicken eggs which adds up surprisingly quickly. When I got older and found other friends that played games I relayed on their referrals. After high school my friends moved out of state so I tried magazines to find good games. I quickly stopped using magazines because I had bought too many games on their referrals only to be disappointed. From then on I relayed on forums of people who played the game showing what the game was like. This eventually grew into watching Let's Plays and game play video's to make my decisions on. I stopped trusting paid video game reviewers a long time ago.

A while ago a event started called "Gamergate." It all started when a female game developer supposedly slept with five male game reviewers to give the game high ratings. After that it exploded to something about females being discriminated in video games. I'm not sure how that leap happened. I'm going to focus on the woman sleeping with five guys to increase game ratings. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous that anyone would resort to that because I along with a majority of the gaming community have long since stopped using game reviews as a source. We gamers have always known of paid reviews. As far as I know the female game developer was not forced into doing what she did. In my mind all of it was for nothing.

Game developer DoubleFine did a study and showed that let's plays boosted sales more than metacritic, a common review site. This only makes sense to me because having been involved for along time. I know that you just stop trusting the people paid to give reviews. Even if I disagree with what the guy playing the let's play says, I can at-least see the actual game for myself before I buy it.

I guess in the end I was just amazed that people found this shocking.

Assignment 6 Ted Talks

TED Talks ( http://www.ted.com/talks ) are great presentations on a variety of topics. Select and watch a TED Talk. Review the presentation. What was the topic and argument of the presentation? How were visual or other props used in the presentation? Was it effective? Were questions asked? Humor used? How was the pacing? Was there a ‘path’ through the presentation? Were you engaged or inspired? 


 I watched the TED Talk where Laurel Braitman Talked about mental disorders in animals and how it relates to humans. I selected this talk because I believe my own cats may have some mental disorders and I was hoping for some answers. My oldest cat, Bah, likes to chew plastic bags or other thin plastics and is as excited as a dog when I come home. Ralphie likes to "bury" things and is very into smells. If I leave a bowl of Chinese food unattended I will come back to him "burying" the food. He also goes in the litter box after Bah to make sure she properly buried. I believe the presentation was good at explaining that yes animals can have mental disorders and gave examples of different animals being diagnosed and treated. She used pictures of the animals she was talking about and some youtube videos that showed the habits of animals with disorders. She used some humor but didn't ask/answer questions. Her pacing was good except for a few times she paused for an odd amount of time.

Assignment 5

"The use of social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter are rapidly being utilized by companies. Research two organizations that are using Facebook and Twitter. Why are they using these services?  How are they using them? Who is their audience? How do they manage relationships? Are there any strategies in place for their use? Develop a report of how two companies use social media.  Use examples and/or references to support your position. Post your report your blog for others to read and comment. Read other student blog posts and make comments to continue the discussion."

	Walmart	Gamestop	Both
Why are they using these services?	-	-	To advertise while receiving feedback from their customers.
How are they using them?	To try to prove they are good. (improve image)	To  inform people of release dates and sales
Who is their audience?	Any shopper	Gamers/ parents to buy games for kids.	People with $
How do they manage relationships?			Customer service team/feedback from customers
Are there any strategies for their use?	Using old black and white photos to make them seem like an old all-American company.	Telling customers when the games they want are going t be out and when sales are.	Communicate sales events.

companies use social media tools to advertise sales and interact with their customers. Walmart seems to be trying to improve it's tarnished image by trying to look old-fashioned. As a person who has worked in manufacturing, I'm not fooled. I have heard the stories of how walmart truly gets its low prices direct from supervisors who worked with them. They call up and tell the product manufacturers how much they are going to pay. The manufacturers have to make the product cheaper to make any profit on making the product. This all leads to a cheap product and recalls. 

Summery: It's all advertising. All the advertising in the world doesn't change the facts.

Why I am at MATC.

I am Jackie Uecker. I have lived in Wisconsin my whole life. I first enrolled in MATC because in high school my friends and I exhausted the programming curriculum at our high school. The school offered to send us to MATC to continue programming. While I was there, I learned about the Network specialist program and realized with financial aid I could actually go to a college. Before I learned about that college wasn't an option financially.

Computers have always been apart of my life. When I was child, my family had a small farm of rabbits and chickens. We had a computer for making and managing the rabbits pedigrees. I also played video games and still do. I started with just an Atari 2600; now I have over 28 systems with over 647 physical games. I have built my own computer and Cisco lab.

I am currently in my final semester of the program. My life as a student has had it's ups and downs. I am both excited and nervous about completing this milestone and taking the next step in my career.