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It’s Science: Majority of Gamers Could Be Women By End of 2013

British Gamer Girls - SlightlyQualified.com

With the American media dominated by CNN and Fox News, many of us turn to other country’s news outlets for a more objective approach to not only what goes on over in our hemisphere, but throughout the entire world.  So like many Yankees (or White Sox fans; no offense, New York), I have news sites like BBC in my regular web rotation; it is through their recent technology news archives that I come across this incredibly interesting news story: gaming experts in the UK are predicting that by the end of the 2013 calendar year, the majority of British gamers will be female.  Shocking?  Yeah, I would say so.  Hit the link below for the full report!

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Gordon Freeman and Chell Go on a (Mute) Date

First off, how about a high five to a Mr. MikeNGary?  Or wait, is it two gentlemen: Mike and Gary?  Either way, he/they have put together a pretty awesome, live action Half-Life/Portal dating redux that highlights one of the oddest elements of gaming still around today: mute characters.  As a huge Half-Life fan, I have to get my obligatory, “WHERE IS HALF-LIFE 3?”, post out of the way, so there you go Valve.  Make it happen.  Where were we?  Oh yeah, mute video game characters.  Gordon Freeman and Chell are two of many, many video game main characters that were programmed without a voice, maybe to save disc space, possibly out of boredom, or maybe just as a proverbial middle finger to all of our imaginations; who knows outside of the developers?  I think the starkest example I can think of from my recent gaming memory is Dragon Age: Origins; I usually don’t have an issue with mute main characters, but that was just super weird. I know I’m not alone with that one.

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Awesome Original EverQuest Ad

Now I really feel old.  Is the original EverQuest really that old?  Released in 1999, before Y2K scared the shit out of just about everyone, and just before this guy was even a junior in high school, EverQuest, and MMORPG’s for that matter, has really come a long way.  Years later EQ fans were introduced to a bland, but still addicting EverQuest 2, and then of course we all know what happened next: WoW.  And in fact, EQ is not quite done as a series, as Sony Online Entertainment has the third main installment in the works, which is tentatively slotted for a late 2013/early 2014 PC release.  But let’s get back to the point here which is the original EverQuest, in which killing rats became many young teenager’s first real job, and where you prayed to your favorite deity that your Aunt Nancy didn’t call to interrupt your 14.4 modem’s blazingly fast, AOL connection.  Yes, let’s jump back to 1999.

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