And that was D.C. This is Paris! Surely you want to set foot outside the gathering...at some point?

Ahaha. Sounds like my first revelatory steps into academia. Whenever someone who is paid for knowing something begins to believe that he actually does know that thing inside and out, it's time for him to step the hell down.

Ahahaha. /agree.

Though I guess the point of that game is to simulate the real acts involving dog care, and so any relaxing effects one might gain from the game one has to attribute to the original act of dog-owning. Vicarious relaxation?

Anyway I would tend to agree that calm is found not only in repetition. Or at least, not repetition on the most surface level of point and click once, point and click again. Playing through a level you know very well in a faster-paced game might give you the same relaxing benefits despite its fast pace. It's repetition, but not in a slow or deliberate manner.

That is never, ever going to happen.

To embrace don't ask don't tell is to stop spewing your sexuality all over creation. Which today's culture isn't about to start doing. So, either learn to deal with open homosexuality, as everyone else has been forced to deal with open heterosexuality. Or go move into a shack somewhere far from civilization.

I'm actually kind of surprised Kotaku bothered to post this in the context they did. I'm not accustomed to them giving a rip when the bigoted heart of gaming flaunts itself.

But that's not going to happen. There are socio-political implications in nearly any game that has characters in it. The pixellated bust size of the females, the use of black voice actors for white characters ("We white people want the manly voice but, ah, you can keep your skin, 'kay?"), and the insistence upon heterosexuality except in gratuitously titillating homosexual scenes are some examples.

Even a cursory sampling of the commenting populace of this site reveals these rabidly right-wing, largely uninformed tendencies.

The best I could hope for from a game isn't neutrality, because it's not possible. So just a toning-down of the belligerence on issues like race and gender would be nice.

Quick, let's put her back on her knees in front of some guy, right? Because that's where she belongs.

And male gamers wonder why they're so lonely.

Of note, Japan is not so free and easy re: foreigners as you might think. The Diet just passed a law demanding fingerprinting and photographs of all foreigners entering the country after November.

America does the same thing. If you're going to be angry at Japanese people for treating Americans like crap, you kind of have to be angry at America for treating, oh, anyone of Middle Eastern appearance like crap as well. Everyone is guilty.

I am not in tune enough with hardware issues to be able to say, so...might a few years down the line produce systems significantly fast enough--faster than the recommended system--to compensate for the huge loading times? It would be nice...

@ BARTS_706 : Grats on the win.

Yes. Yes it does.

@aestheticity: I would disagree. While a successful manipulation of an EVE account does call for a certain level of intelligence, that level of intelligence doesn't guarantee "attention span or discipline." It's not rocket science. People can get it, and you know, it might just not be their thing. That doesn't mean they play naked elves dancing on mailboxes, or that they appreciate said WoW fixations. To judge someone's character based on a video game is to adopt a very, very narrow-minded view of the world and the people in it.

But I suppose it would be too much to ask the gaming community to step away from those sort of judgments, because after all, if we didn't go around angering one group after another (women, "minority races", gay gamers) on forums, what would we have to talk about? *Gasp.* Could we actually talk about the games themselves with intelligence and awareness? Nah. It would be too much of a strain.