Three Best Video Games In A Movie Plotlines

Long before it became standard practice to turn every video game into a movie, the video game’s place in a film was more of an object of curiosity then a mere marketing tie-in. In film, the ability to control the GUI (Graphical User Interface) tapped into fears of a machine-dominated world or fantasies of being whisked away to a far off future to save the universe.

I’ve come up with a list of what I considered the best in-movie video games plotlines. If you can add to it, please do.

Wargames (1983)

A high school student whose gaming addiction caused his grades to suffer and like any good gamer, he hacks into his school system to change his marks. Somehow, changing his grades leads him to a super-secret government program that oversees nuke launches. Thinking it’s just RISK Online, he nearly starts World War III due to a poorly-guarded Firewall / gate keeping program.

The Last Starfighter

One of my all time movie favorites

Alex lives in the boonies with nothing to do but get drunk, have sex and play video games. What else does a good game geek do? The trailer-park teen spends his days battling Space Invaders by means of an arcade game. My kind of guy! Little does our hero know, the game is actually an intergalactic recruiting device used to find the best and brightest starfighters for nothing less than saving the universe.

When Alex hits the intergalactic Top Score, there’s no one around to congratulates him. Soon after, an independent contactor for the intergalactic recruiting video machine arrives to enlist him for the purposes of battling the evil Kur and the Ko-Dan armada.

Tron

Definitely one of my top twenty all time favorite movies

Time hasn’t changed too much. The kids of the parents who were scared of their kids getting too sucked up into games are now the parents of the kids who are sucked into today’s games. Tron took the 80’s fear to the literal extreme. The death of in-game characters brings back memories of frustrations and dry tears over the death of characters developed over weeks of game play and the unnatural bonds we formed with them.

Jeff Bridges, gets sucked into his character’s neon-colored game world where he and a security program (the aptly-named Tron) must race bikes, navigate through mazes, and throw discs at square beasts just so that he can escape but to his own world.

More Than Just Fun And Games

Mind Games

Hasn’t there been at least a couple of times you wished you had the power to move things with your mind? However no matter how hard you concentrated the person in front of you kept talking relentlessly. Gamers will soon be given the power to move things with their minds…in a game world at least.

Emotiv Systems has developed a neural-processing technology that lets players control game environments with their minds alone. Sensors in the helmet pick up on electric signals from the brain. The system software analyzes the signals and then wirelessly relays what it detects to a receiver, which is plugged into the USB port of a game console or PC.

Just as motion control has opened up a whole new world of interaction and gaming experiences, so could thought control gaming lead to a whole new host of innovative titles such a Drunk Auto Theft or Who Will Be The Next American Jedi?

The prototype device looks sort of like a smaller version of Professor X’s Cerebro and is designed to take video games to the next level. As with handwriting or voice recognition, the machine itself has a learning curve, improving as it better understands what the player is thinking, but there is also a skill level involving visualization on the part of the gamer.

The system seems to work best with children and those open to believing in their capability, according to Randy Breen, Emotiv's chief product officer.

"We have had a number of kids try the equipment, and they often get the best results right away," Breen said. "Part of that is because the kid doesn't have the same kind of barriers as an adult does. Lots of kids can fantasize about moving a cup and believe it."

Adults, on the other hand, are more restrictive in their thinking and therefore have a obstacle to believing that they can do something out of the ordinary, Breen said.

I have to admit that I find it amusing that Emotiv Systems has focused they’re first mind control product for gamers instead of some nobler cause such as helping quadriplegics or even enabling us to translate cat thoughts. I for one would love to know why they choose to sit on the laps of people who are allergic to them.

Cats thoughts will have to wait as Emotiv is not yet ready to announce any partnerships. However they did announce that they are developing its technology for use in other industries, including medicine, security, market research, and interactive television.

Nowadays everybody is talking about Xbox and Nintendo Wii’s revolutionary controller, but what may be on everybody’s mind in the near future is the Emotiv System. However… lets not get too carried away, the last thing I want is a Demolition Man kind of Vir-Sex.

Virtual Property Tax?

Edited by: Bellaluna from Purusha Studios

Come April 15 profits earned in online communities must be reported to the IRS.

Second Life has become a second life to many current and hopeful entrepreneurs. Second Life is thriving and many people are dancing to the beat of a virtual income. Entrepreneurs have flocked to Second Life - a computer-based 3-D virtual world where users create a second life all online in pursuit of making real money. The Second Life residents can buy and sell goods for Linden dollars, an in-world currency that can be converted into real U.S. dollars.

I've talked to a couple of Lifers that claim that Second Life pays their apartment rent. Anshe Chung claims to be the first virtual world millionaire made entirely from Second Life.

However, eCommerce reality is getting a virtual wake up as the reality of the tax man and tax reporting has come knocking. Under current tax law, it's clear that earnings in real U.S. dollars generated within virtual realities are reportable to the IRS. If a Second Life real estate mogul cashes out of her Second Life in-world property portfolio, she's liable to pay income tax on any profit that's been exchanged into real dollars, just as an ebay seller is responsible for reporting income generated from an online sale.

On the other hand, the tax law is shadowy when it comes to virtual money where money is part of the game and has created its own currency. The big Life question: Is a transaction that occurs only in Linden dollars and doesn't involve any real-world, currency exchange taxable?

The logical answer would seem to be no, but questions like that have the tax community animated about the issue. Taxable exchanges have gained enough buzz that it has attracted the interest of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. As virtual worlds gain popularity, they're studying issues related to the economies of virtual realities such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, (online role-playing games).

The results of the study are due to be released before the end of the month - and suggest that "as long as virtual activity stays within the virtual economy, it shouldn't be taxable," said Christopher Frenze, executive director of the JEC, which conducts policy research on economic issues facing Congress

Many people are arguing that even the profits that are generated and stay within the virtual world are taxable. "As soon as you start looking at what's going on in these worlds, they look a lot like real economic transactions," said Bryan Camp, a professor at Texas Tech University School of Law.

”Even if profit isn't realized in real dollars, there's still an exchange of items of economic value. In the real world, if someone trades goods or services without the exchange of real money - also known as bartering - that's a taxable event,” Camp noted.

With all of the attention drawn to Second Life and the thousands of Linden dollars that can be made the IRS eventually will have to respond to the debatable situation. "I think it's on the IRS's radar screen in a way it was not six months ago," Camp said.

Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee became interested in the issue when he began exploring some of the virtual worlds in his free time. He says he has an open mind about how real world tax authorities should interact with virtual economies.

"We are starting with a blank slate and going through the various dimensions of virtual economies, and seeing where they might intersect with public policy," he said. Miller hopes to have a rough draft of his report done by the end of the year, although he admitted that some of his colleagues may need some convincing.

A CNN Money article on Second Life income stated that an IRS spokesman offered the following comment via e-mail: "Any time someone wins a tangible prize or award, the value is reportable as taxable income. An accumulation of 'points' would not result in tax consequences, but redeeming or selling them for money, goods, or services would."

Second Life operator Linden Lab doesn't seem overly concerned about potential tax regulations on virtual economies, at least not yet.

"I found that talking about this issue with some of the other economists on the committee, they are not really familiar with what a virtual economy is. The idea of Second Life or World of Warcraft or some of these other synthetic universes, [is something] they have trouble wrapping their head(s) around. So there's an educational hurdle to overcome here," Miller said.

However, there are some on Capitol Hill who won't require much explanation.

"I can almost guarantee that there are some members of Congress spending time in Second Life or World of Warcraft," Miller said.

Future Telecommuting Positions

Does Video Games Encourage Dangerous Driving?

A survey for driving school BMS in the UK revealed that more than a third of motorists aged 16 to 24 said they were more likely to go faster on the roads after playing driving games. The study findings come just weeks after a teenager was accused of causing the death of a widow while driving. After the accident admitted he had played a computer racing car game shortly before the accident. A jury accepted that Christopher Hayden, 19, and his co-accused James Budden, 28, were not racing and were convicted only of careless driving.

In the US video game violence such as first person shooter games and online role playing games have always been in the blame game by the governments and child safety watch group targets. However, a recent study has once again shifted the potential blame back over to racing games.

Some people are saying that driving games should carry warnings to prevent young drivers from confusing fantasy with reality. However, there are some people who have video racing games to thank for keeping them safe. One voiced opinion said

“I can say though from personal experience, video game driving once saved me on the road during a bad winter storm when I lost control. Instinctively, I reacted as if I were playing a video game, and everything worked out perfectly. I did a full 360 on the road and regained control exactly when I needed to keep moving straight down the road. Thank you video games.”

In a generation of "game boy racers" driving recklessly in the game, does this mean they go into automatic behind the wheel?

Game Consoles Have Earned Their Place In The Living Room

The average household entertainment axis now consists of a television, DVD player and a gaming console. The Nielsen Company announced a Press Release that said their study conducted between 2004 and 2006 found 41.1 percent of households have gaming consoles. In the fourth quarter of 2006 there were 45.7 million homes with video game consoles, compared to 43 million in 2005, and 38.6 million the previous year.

"The video game console has become a major player in the battle for the living room," according to Nielsen's vice president of wireless and interactive services, Jeff Herrmann.

"In households across the country, consoles are successfully competing for consumers' time and attention; not simply as gaming platforms, but as multimedia hubs that also can deliver high quality digital movies and IPTV."

What about online gaming?

World of Warcraft is still the dominating force of online gaming, but Second Life’s real time second life is catching up and Microsoft announced today that Xbox now has more than 6 million gamers worldwide connected to Xbox LIVE. This was a goal they set last year at the E3 convention and have now accomplished four months ahead of schedule. Nintendo introduced three new titles and Activision has now jumped into the web with they’re online gaming investment by acquiring DemonWare.

What will be interesting to see is a study of online games in the household. While gaming consoles have earned their rightful place next to the DVD player, online games have continued to build popularity with bigger, better and more realistic worlds.

Obviously, the demographics of console ownership was partial to age and gender lines - males between 12 and 17 being the group most likely to have access to a console at home, while males between 18 and 34 recorded the second highest penetration level, at 67.7 per cent.

If your feeling any shameful geek thoughts for playing with your Nintendo Wii or Xbox on a Saturday night, let it go because you're not alone.

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