Free Valentine’s Day Cards for Gamers
It’s that time of year again. Love is in the air, suicide rates are spiking, and businesses everywhere are lying and trying to take advantage of you. Some companies are spending millions in television advertising to convince you that buying pajamas on the internet will get you laid. Or perhaps the woman you desire will finally surrender to you once she sees that you’ve bought her a teddy bear that cost more than the Prestige Edition of Modern Warfare 2? What about diamonds, or the boxes of chocolates where you only end up getting one or two bites of the one you really like? Maybe a really expensive, super-special arrangement of flowers from that guy with the commercials who gives off the distinct impression he might be considering marriage someday in the state where they make the pricey teddy bears? That’s not likely to do it either.
The brutal truth is that the only people guaranteed to be stimulated this evening are the flower shop owners and Hallmark store managers. Plus, in the opinion of this aging writer, if you’re having to pay for it you’re with the type of chick you might as well try and get the money back from once she’s refilled your health meter. Instead you need to keep your Modern Warfare 2 NVGs turned on and eyes peeled for the type of girl that cares more about a players Mana then his gold. A woman who’ll start an Army of Two with you and always give her all playing Co-op even when you’re wounded and it looks like you won’t have ammo enough to make it to the next save checkpoint.
They are hard to spot and even harder to convince to join your party. After all, if your a hardcore gamer reading this then evolutionary psychology has your desirability level just above someone in high school band, and just below chess club members (who tend to go on to having higher average incomes).
But don’t despair – I’m proof that even the biggest nerds can end up with amazing women. (Happy Valentine’s Day, Noelle. I love you and thanks for all your patience and support.)
Until you find a really good co-op player yourself, save your money! Rather then fattening up Hallmark by surrendering $5 for a sappy poem in a piece of folded construction paper, print and cut out the handy Valentine’s cards we’ve provided. You’ll know she’s a keeper if she’s impressed by how frugal you are and gets the gaming jokes. Heck, if she turns out not to be “the one”, there’s still a good chance she’ll appreciate even a poor Gamer just needs to get his health gauge refilled sometimes.
(Originally created for a previous year, some might have lost a little of their relevance over time. Art by the amazing Chris McGuire.)
Project Natal Coming to Windows
It looks like Project Natal, the nifty gesture-recognition system for Xbox 360, will be coming to Windows. According to who? None other than Bill Gates. In an interview with CNet, Mr. Gates said:
“I’d say a cool example of that, that you’ll see… in a little over a year, is this (depth) camera thing.” Gates said it was not just for games, “but for media consumption as a whole, and even if they connect it up to Windows PCs for interacting in terms of meetings, and collaboration, and communication. Both the Xbox guys and the Windows guys latched onto that and now even since they latched onto it the idea of how it can be used in the office is getting much more concrete, and is pretty exciting. I think the value is as great for if you’re in the home, as you want to manage your movies, music, home system type stuff, it’s very cool there. And I think there’s incredible value as we use that in the office connected to a Windows PC. So Microsoft research and the product groups have a lot going on there, because you can use the cost reduction that will take place over the years to say, why shouldn’t that be in most office environments.”
Twitter Used For Social Media Fundraising?
As some of you may know, I was recently involved in a tagline competition for The Printed Blog.
The prize for the winner was a Nintendo Wii. Despite being way behind after missing a day’s worth of voting, I ended up winning the contest, with over 51% of votes.
My sincere thanks to everyone who voted for me, from Twitter, Facebook and a few emails that were sent out. When the Wii arrives, I’ll be taking it down to the kids at the Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto. They need it far more than I do.
One thing this showed was that social media continues to be an amazing way to raise awareness about good causes, as well as foster support for them. Twitter in particular is beginning to shine as a cause marketing platform. Think about Tweetsgiving, Twestival and the 12for12k Challenge to name just a few. All great causes, all originated and supported via Twitter.
Which made me think.
Twitter’s main issue at the moment seems to be long-term monetization and financial security. They have just received a cash injection, but that won’t really sustain the platform in its journey to mainstream acceptance and profitability. What it needs is a long-term plan to achieve stability.
So how about this?
Twitter stays as it is - a great communication tool for personal and business use - but it becomes a standard for social media fundraising? Its ability to offer instant action and reaction is perfect for fundraising. And we’re already seeing success on it.
The founders of Twitter could speak to Bill Gates about his Foundation and see if they could receive annual funding towards their charity work. Businesses could also sponsor Twitter for its cause marketing work. And all the fractured causes on Twitter at the minute could fall under one umbrella, benefiting from increased support and promotion.
Obviously it’s just the most basic of ideas at the minute and it would need some serious think tanks to bring to fruition.
But isn’t it something worth thinking about?
Top 10 Best Selling Games
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