http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/kotaku.com.png http://kotaku.com/tag/society http://kotaku.com/tag/society Agent 47 may just look like a bald guy in a suit from the front but that iconic barcode on the back of his neck lets you know that there's something different about him. Something deadly. More »
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A researcher at Oxford University queried adults who were 16 years old in 1986 and found a correlation between an interest in video gaming and a lower likelihood of going on to college. More »
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Nielsen, the folks who measure every single thing that is or could possibly be done with a television set, have released an analysis of gaming habits by ethnicity, finding that African-Americans game the most per day, on average, Asian-Americans the least. More »
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You've lost your job, your house, and your savings are completely gone. Can you survive for a month on $1,000? That's the challenge put forth in the game Spent. Are you up to it? More »
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Almost one out of every ten artifacts unearthed from the ruins of the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro in present-day Pakistan were play related. Have archaeologists been underestimating the social significance of play and games? More »
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Last night President Obama delivered the State of the Union. Written for posterity, perhaps, it's still a policy speech, and policy costs. Here's "Debtris," reminding everyone that, a bilion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money. More »
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Rep. Tim Murphy discussing the Tucson shootings. We have a Constitution that prohibits government restraint of most creative works, and guarantees a right to own firearms. Both can be called problems as well as values. Thanks truthtellah for the pullquote. More »
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If I'm Not Drunk, the satire "game" about DUI, was too subtle in its message of how pathetic you are when you're drunk, there's now Guardian Angel, which takes a more proactive stance in helping alcoholics avoid relapse. More »
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As Kotaku's resident deplorable alcoholic, expectations for me are low enough that not only can I post something this reprehensible, it's practically expected. So here's the problem of drunk driving imagined as a 1990s-style game - note, this game doesn't exist. More »
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The Army is remaking its basic training for the first time in 30 years to cope with a generation that, as the general in charge says, has a courage and physique shaped by, you guessed it, video games. More »
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Last night on a very special Family Guy: When Peter loses his memory, he needs to re-learn everything. That includes driving. Trouble follows when Lois hooks him up to the murder simulator. More »
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As reported earlier, the National Institute on Media and the Family, whose key funding dried up in a terrible economy, is closing. Founder Dave Walsh talked with the Associated Press, and reflected on his organization's influence in the industry. More »
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A researcher down in Texas has found that, when people are assigned to play characters wearing the brooding black robes of an emo Jedi, or the coneheaded getup of a KKK grand kobold or whatever, they exhibit antisocial behaviors. More »
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The National Institute on the Media and the Family - whose annual report cards were more fair and reasonable than such an Orwellian name might imply - will close at the end of 2009 after 14 years of watchdoggery. More »
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Despite women's documented surge in gaming, "somehow, gamer girls retain their aura of mystery," writes Dairuka Sutain. "Gamer girls are not special anymore. Take them off the pedestal." More »
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Meet Alice and Kev, a father/daughter pair of homeless Sims, struggling to survive in a Sim city that wants nothing to do with them. More »
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Two days from the 10th anniversary of Columbine, Salon's David Sirota writes that "our national discussion about violence hasn't yet matured past gun control and video games." More »
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A bunch of Church and charity leaders gather around a table to discuss video games and their impact on society - surely a recipe for military-grade Moral Outrage, no? More »
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This month sees a big push among Christian publications around the country towards educating parents and families about the growing influence of video games in our culture. The focus of the push is a lengthy article by Christian journalist Steve Rabey titled "Getting serious about gaming - Impact of video game industry raises concern", and quite frankly it isn't at all what I expected. Instead of being a religious rant about the dangers of video game, Rabey's article offers varied points of view on the subject, especially when discussing video game violence and the effect it has on children. More »
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With all the chatter about the Fall 360 dashboard update that's going to incorporate more 'social networking' aspects a la Facebook et al, Leigh Alexander has some interesting thoughts up on her Sexy Videogameland blog (taking off from some proposals made by N'Gai Croal in Newsweek) on potential schemes for 'social sanctions' via gamertag. This is still being driven by the Bioshock dilemma that doesn't give you many options (harvest or save the Little Sisters?), but I'm not at all convinced that investing in-game experiences "with actual, long-term, lingering consequences" is going to add some deep and rich experience to gaming. Alexander doesn't sound terribly convinced, either: More »
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Why does this man hate freedom? Perhaps it is because after four days of rushing about from appointment to appointment, walking countless miles across the city of Santa Monica, the promise of a party finds him walking a long and lonely mile down a deserted beachfront along with hundreds of others doing exactly the same thing, which technically negates the deserted and lonely bits I know, but it's my narrative and you can't have it. At roughly 5PM on Friday, July 13th, Gamecock and a couple hundred friends mourned the death of the annual E3 'make the gaming press walk around for days' festival with another mile of walking. More »
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Bashcraft's Japan Wii Launch coverage continues. More »
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The PS3 launch a cakewalk? Far from it. We don't usually let readers take the reins (fearing y'all would rub us out of a job), but Tokyo-based reader Dirk Benedict sent us this doozy of an email, complete with first hand reporting, a pic and video. His observations struck a cord with me: Things that I saw at launch, which at the time seemed small, but in hindsight, really, weren't. Hit the jump for video of the PS3 chaos and Dirk's email in full: More »
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I've been riding the Light Rail from my house in suburbia to downtown Denver since January. And while I play games on either my PSP or DS Lite every day, twice a day, I have yet to run into another person doing the same... until today. More »
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