Wargame: Airland Battle trailer details dynamic campaign
Halo 'Bootcamp' confirmed by Microsoft
Weekend PC download deals: Tomb Raider for $14
Game Dev Tycoon studio outlines future plans
Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced already has 350,000 words of new content
Weekend Confirmed Episode 21
by Garnett Lee, Aug 13, 2010 7:00pm PDTBefore Garnett and Brian head to Texas for QuakeCon, they sit down with Jeff to record this week's show. It's a broad swath of gaming in Whatcha' Been Playin? ranging from more Madden and Starcraft 2 to Arc Rise Fantasia and even Minecraft. Your thoughts from our conversation last week about the viability of female characters leads the Warning before the subject turns to the line between fun, engaging game design and frustrating compulsion to beat a game. And in the front page there's news of new Borderlands DLC and the celebrity voice cast in Fallout New Vegas. Due to travel we recorded early this week but we'll have Jeff's reaction to Bioshock Infinite and look at July's sales figures next week.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 21 - 08/13/2010
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Listen to Weekend Confirmed Episode 21 (player window will pop-up)
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Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Whatcha' Been Playin: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:30:37
Whatcha' Been Playin and Cannata-ford a New Game: Start: 00:31:40 End: 01:03:29
The Warning: Start: 01:04:38 End: 01:36:58
Music Break featuring "Quid Pro Quo" by Civicminded Start: 01:36:58 End: 01:40:14
The Front Page: Start: 01:40:14 End: 02:12:19
Music Break this week comes from Civicminded, winners of the Best New Artist honors in the Omaha Arts and Entertainment Awards. The track "Quid Pro Quo" comes from the band's debut effort, Sequence. You can download the full song for free on the Civicminded Facebook page. You can also catch up with them on MySpace. Civicminded’s own Phil Reno also composed the soundtrack for the Giant Bombcast.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest single, Small Town Hero on iTunes and check out more at his Facebook page.
Jeff can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. New episodes come out weekly on Tuesday.
Our Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page is coming along now so add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Weekend Confirmed will be taping live at PAX! Hope you can join us Saturday, Sep 4 at 2pm in the Serpent Theatre.
Comments
Like many people, my roommate is (was) an WoW player. He recently got a job at a consulting firm, because of, and not in spite of, talking about this passion.
His love was the 2v2 arena. He explained the arena in terms of having to be properly prepared to face different combinations of classes, being able to adapt strategies on the fly and maintaining a level-head in stressful situations. This prepared him to easily work in new situations, and being able to cope when things don't go according to plan.
He went on to talk about his time leading a guild in terms of managerial skills:
- Time management / scheduling for 30+ people,
- Creating effective teams by recognizing player's strengths and weakness,
- Conflict resolution
Not only did he confidently talk about his love for gaming, but was able to spin it into helping him with real skills, just as playing basketball would make you a better team player.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 10 replies.
Now I fly my gamer flag at my place of employment because I've been here for 10 years (and I'm in IT so it's sort of taken for granted). People know me as the "gamer guy" and it is perfectly acceptable in my office, but that's only because I've earned my spot. If new guys come on and profess a love of gaming it paints a picture that may or may not be fair.
But this isn't to say that gaming is necessarily linked to "kid-stuff" anymore. Instead, it invokes perceptions of young people who don't have ambition or motivation, are generally underachieving, and aren't interested in self-improvement or a solid work ethic. Now I know this is far from a universal truth, but it is true enough to be a stereotype (of which, most are based in some grain of accuracy) and one that employers can still legally be prejudiced against.
And frankly, I wouldn't want to work with an unproven employee who was a hardcore World of Warcraft player, or who spent every night playing Modern Warfare 2 or Halo (I say this as a former true hardcore WoW player). These types of activities tend definite personality type that doesn't mesh well in corporate culture; now there are always exceptions to the rule, but I'd rather not even take the risk given the situation.
I should state I feel that this really only applies to the corporate workforce. For general employment opportunities, there is much less stigma, or even interest in what you do in your free time. The issue becomes relevant when you're talking about jobs that don't fall into the 8x5 box. If you're expected to provide support above and beyond your normal work schedule (off-hours, on-call, etc) or are expected to continue professional growth (training, networking with clients, research, etc) it does become very important to have an idea on how you spend your free time as it can impact your ability to perform at your job.
Bottom line, if two people with identical qualifications submitted a resume where one had "interests" in the realm of fitness, the arts, education, or philanthropy and the other had games as a high priority interest; I'd pick the former every time. And I do say this as a life long, "hardcore" gamer.
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