Video Games May Reinforce Racist Stereotypes

If you don’t play video games, this hashtag probably hasn’t crossed your social media feed… or if it has, you may not understand what it means or why it exists.

According to game journalist, #GamesSoWhite was initiated as a companion to a much less confrontational hashtag, #INeedDiverseGames, in response to a series of articles that all seem to indicate that the video game industry has a problem with lack of diversity in developer personnel, and the evidence of this is how few video games feature characters of color, either as protagonists, or at all.

Source: http://jelanigreenidge.com/2015/06/04/why-gamessowhite-is-a-problem-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

Author: H'ng Yee Jin

Gender Stereotyping

Gender stereotypes are a common theme through many video games. For many young people still developing their perception of the adult world, the commonly used stereotypes in video games can be harmful and create a distorted representation for players of roles and abilities of the sexes. 

Female characters particularly are entrenched in stereotypes. Male characters appear more frequently in video games compared to females and talk significantly more; typically achieving more and demonstrating more leadership skills and opportunities compared to female characters. Women are often represented as passive and subordinate characters that depend on men, while often sexual relationships are key to their role in the game. Female characters are often categorized into four groups of characters: sex objects or prizes, victims, feminists and heroes.

Source: http://www.videogames.org.au/inappropriate-content/

Author: H'ng Yee Jin

Violence from video games

Young children have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy, which makes them more vulnerable to the effects of media violence. They may become more aggressive and fearful if they are exposed to high levels of violence in video games.

According to the book Grand Theft Childhood by Doctors Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner, children who play primarily M-rated games (whether the rating is due to violent or sexual content) are more likely to be involved in fights or bullying.

Source: http://mediasmarts.ca/video-games/concerns-about-video-games

Author: H'ng Yee Jin

YouTube fights back against Spam

Swedish gamer Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg with more than 30 million subscribers on Google's online video site announced that he would permanently disabling comments on his videos and he will turn to other platforms such as Twitter and Reddit to reconnect with fans.

PewDiePie isn’t alone: YouTube now attracts more than a billion viewers a month, yet whatever the content – whether its the new Taylor Swift video or a dog falling off a skateboard into a basket of kittens – the comments section will often be a warzone of insults, links to dodgy sites, and self-promotional tweets directing people to competing videos of dogs skateboarding into kittens.

However, YouTube has attempted but largely failed to clean things up.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/03/pewdiepie-switches-off-youtube-comments-its-mainly-spam

Author: H'ng Yee Jin

Grand Theft Auto V Beta Test - Phishing Scam

Pre-release access to games through beta tests or various forms of early access have become common nowadays that we tend to expect it and overlook it as being some sort of scam. Especially with major titles like Grand Theft Auto, we would expect its developers to be trustworthy when it comes early game access.

However, Rockstar, the developer of Grand Grand Theft Auto confirms that there is no public beta for its latest release, Grand Theft Auto V.

It is believed to be an online phishing scam that could not be traced. It is not by the developers of Grand Theft Auto V and everyone is urged not to acquire the “pre-released ‘beta’ test” of Grand Theft Auto V. 

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/rockstar-warns-against-grand-theft-auto-v-beta-scams/

Author: Ong Jun Chao

Gamers Spent a Fortune on In-Game Purchase

Freemium games have evolved into one of the most profitable models in the gaming industry, with mobile versions and their in-app purchases generating about $US7-8 billion in iOS revenue last year.

Just like many freemium games, League of Legends offers gamers the core game for free and then charges for additional premium content such as in-game currency, customisations and extra contents, but take note that the premium content is optional.

Players on the League of Legends subreddit discussed just where the money was coming from — namely, players spending thousands of dollars per year to keep up with new content.

One Redditor by the name of DTSuteru estimates that he spent around $US2,000 since he began playing the game in March 2013.

Another user by the name of cguo0516 estimates having spent more than $US4,000 on the game over the past three years.

Gamers need to have a sense of self-control when it comes to spending on in-game purchases.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/redditors-explain-how-they-spent-thousands-of-dollars-league-of-legends-2015-3

Author: Ong Jun Chao

Internet Gaming Disorder - Psychiatric Impact on Youth

Thomas turned 14 when he got into psychiatric treatment for depression and anxiety. This happened because he was spending most his time on the Internet, video games and Facebook. His symptoms have partly responded to cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and medication. However when he is at school, he experiences “panic attacks”.

The DSM-V has proposed "Internet Gaming Disorder" as the diagnosis teens such as Thomas, and describes it as a "persistent and recurrent use of the Internet to engage in games," leading to psychosocial problems and withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability, anxiety and sadness when Internet access is denied. It has become clearer in the past few years that Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) involves significant deleterious effects for our youth.

Source: http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/child-adolescent-psychiatry/psychiatric-impacts-of-video-games-internet-addiction-on-children/article/396984/

Author: Ong Jun Chao

Online Gaming Addiction: Time Wasted

It is so easy to dedicate a huge chunk of your free time to play online games. I think that it has got to do with the competitive nature of it. If you are losing, you wouldn’t want to stop until you get a win, and if you are winning, why stop there?

Other times, there would probably be a competition between you and your teammates. It is either to compete to be the best in the team, or to simply just not end up last. And with the online aspect of it, gamers get to interact with other gamers through the game, which in that case makes leaving your bedroom a little harder.

Source: http://millennialtype.com/millennial-problems-online-gaming/

Author: Ong Jun Chao

Gamers use #IDARB to Dish out Abuse and Insults

Unfortunately, hostile gamers are nothing new. Online platforms such as social media websites, and gaming services like Xbox Live, have given these trolls microphones with which they can spout insults and profanity to their hearts’ content. With its in-game Twitter and Twitch integration, #IDARB has become another one of these microphones. It needs to stop.

Upon booting up, the game displays the following message: “Your game settings allow the people of the Internet to interact with you. This may include profanity, threats, nudity, and unrealistic money-making opportunities“. While it makes for a funny boot-up screen, it rings completely true.

This type of behaviour, where people can take control of an outlet and spurt out vile, disgusting filth to any and all who are listening, is nothing new – but it is something that has to stop. It may not always hurt someone in particular, but it will always hurt gamers as a whole, when the vocal few give a bad name to everyone else. It’s this kind of behaviour that stops gaming from being taken seriously as a medium.

The following are some examples of messages that clog the #IDARB feed during a match (just a warning: many contain course language).

#IDARB PAPO IS A FAGGGGG

— Matt Sepulveda (@MattKarateGuy) February 10, 2015

#IDARB george bush doesnt like black people

— Royals_Jew (@poidypooty) February 10, 2015

Mike is a faggot. #IDARB

— Peter Sganga (@peteac635) February 10, 2015

Source: http://www.gamespresso.com/2015/02/10/gamers-use-idarb-to-dish-out-abuse-and-insults/

Author: Yau Ga Sheng

The Awful Truth Behind Sexual Harassment of Women Gamers

In an Indie game convention PAX East in 2012, Jenny Haniver recalled what happened one time when she tried to tell a male gamer about a nearby adversary. "Shut up, bitch," he said over and over again.

She created a website which documents and examines her experiences as a female gamer through a collection of transcribed audio clips recorded while she games online. Like many other women, she's frequently harassed by male gamers because of her gender and has been for years.

That's the arena Shannon Sun-Higginson steps into with "GTFO," which is set to debut at this year's South By Southwest Film Festival. Put into development long before Gamergate brought the issue of misogyny in gaming into the national conversation, the film details the casual abuse perpetrated by, in Sun-Higginson's words, a "vocal minority" of predominantly white male gamers who are fearful of losing their place within the industry.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/gtfo-sexism-in-gaming_n_6804106.html

Author: Yau Ga Sheng

Why do PC gamers and console gamers hate each other?

I’m more of a console gamer myself simply because I can't afford a good computer. But I go online all the time to like social media site and all, and I see a whole bunch of posts about hate between systems. I'm not trying to point fingers, but it's usually PC gamers calling console gamers "peasants." they say stuff like "Filthy console peasants have terrible shitty games and PC has 300000x better graphics," when they have basically the same games anyway. They only get better graphics because they pay more money for a more powerful machine. 

Why do they always argue all the time?


Source: http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/why-do-pc-gamers-and-console-gamers-hate-each-othe-31395064/ 

Author: Yau Ga Sheng

Facebook blocks messages with links to gaming torrent sites

Facebook adds its support to the fight against online piracy as it begins to block messages that contain links to a file sharing site or torrents especially for games.

The social networking site had blocked sharing torrent links on walls and news feeds since last spring, according to technology magazine Wired.com.

The site now has widened the block to include messages. An attempt to send any such links results in a message that states “This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy.”

"We have systems in place to prevent abuse on Facebook and prevent spam which we'll continue to deploy with the new Messages", a Facebook spokeswoman told wired.com in a written statement.

While Facebook's move to stop such messages is good to prevent piracy, concerns regarding privacy continue to linger.

Source: http://www.techworm.net/2014/11/bt-sky-blocking-private-torrent-sites-without-court-order.html

Author: Yau Ga Sheng

Steam Wallet Scam

People will always try to discover new methods of scamming, as long as there are something worth real money, there will be people trying to steal it.

Some common scams in Steam gaming social networking platform are: Steam wallet scam, PayPal scam, phishing scam, software scams (key loggers and account hijacking), impersonation scam, and item swapping scam.

                                                                                  [Click to Enlarge]

Steam wallet scam may be one of the most used scams in Steam, because it is so easy to execute. The scammer will send you a trade offer, he will offer low quality items or no items at all, for some of your items. With the offer there will be a message, where he claims that you will receive money in your Steam wallet after the trade is completed. 

This is NOT true, you cannot send money over Steam! Be vigilant, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Source: http://www.tobyscs.com/avoid-getting-scammed-steam/

Author: Ooi Hooi Wooi

Fake Razer Communication App With Malware

If you’re used to using Razer communication as a social networking tools software to connect with gaming friends online then you might probably want to double check where you’re getting it from.

Malwarebytes has recently spotted a fake version of the official website of Razer - the developer of Razer Comms, a popular voice chat and messenger app for gamers - that supposedly offers the app for download. Spyware tries to lure gamer through fake in-game voice apps.

At first, it steers you to a fake website offering Razer's Comms software. If you're eager enough to click the Windows download link, you instead get a script that tries to harvest your logins and other sensitive information. 

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/04/fake-game-voice-app-spyware/

Author: Ooi Hooi Wooi

Data Thieves - Unity gaming plug-in puts millions of web users at risk

A researcher is warning that a gaming plug-in from Unity Technologies said it had identified the code paths leading to the vulnerabilities installed on over 200 million PCs contains a flaw that could let attackers steal users’ data from websites they’re logged into, such as their Web mail and social networking accounts.

The technology is used by hundreds of thousands of developers to create online games and other interactive 3D content. The researcher found a vulnerability that allows a malicious app to trick the player into allowing requests to be made to third-party websites..

The same attack could be done against users logged into Facebook or any other website as long as they have the Unity Web Player installed.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2931892/researcher-warns-popular-gaming-plugin-puts-millions-of-web-users-at-risk-from-data-thieves.html

Author: Ooi Hooi Wooi

Identity Theft: A Real Problem for Gamers

Online gaming with Internet-accessible game consoles allow more and more players to go online and join in the virtual fun. Users could get together online in chat rooms and virtual-reality areas. With that comes an increased chance of personal security issues. Identity theft has become one of the fastest-growing Internet crimes in the world. This is because the criminals are seldom captured or convicted.

Everyone is always told not to talk about their personal lives online. However, more gamers are getting comfortable with sharing tidbits of information on websites which will allow the criminals to take that information and use it for their own devices. Before a user knows it, his or her identity is stolen. Hackers often target these systems and steal credit card information then create new accounts in order to purchase items over the Internet.

Source: http://www.cloudwards.net/is-online-gaming-safe/

Author: Ooi Hooi Wooi