Gamers, game designers, and parents: "Mortal Combat", a documentary by Spencer Halpin about the game violence debate is worth watching -posted here.

Spencer Halpin's documentary, Mortal Kombat, discusses the debate surrounding about the content of video games, as well as issues such as the video game industry's drive for profit, artistic freedom, "pushing the envelope", and the impact of video games on society. The video is about 85 minutes, but worth watching if you are a gamer, parent, teacher, game designer/ developer, or academician.

One of the reasons I think the discussion in the video is important is that in 2010, more people are playing games on large high-definition displays, providing an enhanced sense of immersion. I'm not sure what the consequences of this trend might be.

Caution:  There are some scenes in this video that might be offensive/violent, and others that would not be appropriate for children.


Here is the description of this video from the Babelgum website:

"Moral Kombat takes a look into the controversial subject of violence in video games. Director Spencer Halpin shows the constant conflict between the game creators' first amendment right to make a violent game and the eminent threat that violence poses on the next generation. In addition, the film is full of the latest green screen and high-definition technology that allow watchers to actually envision the world of gaming. Filled with interviews from lead game designers, politicians, parents, and psychologists, this film provides a candid take on the influence games have on youth today."



Thanks to Henry Jenkins for providing this link.

Boxee and Digital Convergence

This post is an update to a previous post, Digital Convergence & Interactive Television

Have you heard about Boxee?  I first learned of it today when I came across an interesting post on the Boxee Blog of a debate with Mark Cuban, author of the post, Why Do Internet People Think Content People Are Stupid? on Blog Maverick.

This debate led me to the following related posts:
Boxee CEO: Consumers Will Get a la Carte Online
(Ryan Lawler, Contentinople: Networking the Digital Media Industry)
Bewkes Defends TV Everywhere (Post by Georg Szalai on the Hollywood Report of how Time Warner would provide subscribers to view cable TV network content online.)

What is boxee? Sort of a social-network-internet-cable-TV-Wii application....
"On a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr."

quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.
From the boxee blog:

"boxee is the developer of the first “social” media center. boxee plays media from your computer and other devices in your home network, as well as connect you to various Internet sources that allow you to stream or download movies, tv shows, music and photos. boxee is based on the xbmc open-source project. we have been working with team-xbmc since early 2007.

We are in the process of alpha testing boxee, so this is why you need to get an invite to participate.. sorry. the alpha is for Mac OS X 10.4 (and above), Ubuntu and Apple TV (a Windows version will come out towards the end of the year"