Eaten by a Grue

Do you have fond memories of working together with your friends on WoW to accomplish a great feat? Read about a notable point in the history of WoW, when people from all over worked together, amassing an enormous list of supplies and defeating terrible enemies in a massive effort to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.

Authored by Ben Nanamaker: A little while back, one of my favorite web sites for thoughtful articles and analysis about video games, The Escapist, posted a video on an interesting topic of debate: "True Female Characters". The video, part of a weekly series they do called Extra Credits, digs deep into the issue of gender and character in video games.

Gerald "Jerry" Lawson, who is often thought of as the inventor of the first modern gaming console, died last weekend at age 70. Jerry designed the mechanics of what eventually became known as the Channel F, a predecessor of the Atari game system, and invented the ability to have interchangeable cartridges in a console, which influenced several cartridge-based game consoles throughout the next couple of decades.

Save the date!WolverineSoft, a student group on campus that focuses on game development, is planning a Tech Day on Saturday, October 8th. The event is designed to give a broad introduction to the University of Michigan's College of Engineering by inviting high school students and college transfer students to see the Engineering campus. They will have a table to display their club and its games.

It was bound to happen: The Computer & Video Game Archive is now on Twitter. Follow us at @umcvga.

Why do we enjoy playing scary games so much? Nicholaus Noles, a developmental psychologist at the University of Michigan, gives us a psychological perspective into the science behind our attraction to games that inspire a sense of fear, horror or danger. One of the reasons he gives is that they "allow us to experience powerful and complex emotions in a safe way," and that developers use situations in which gamers have limited control over a scary situation to create an effective horror-filled experience.

Our water game carnival has concluded, and the people receiving Amazon gift cards for their efforts are listed below.

Here are our top games from last week. Our water game carnival event has also now concluded, and the winners will be announced shortly.

Librarian Avenger (and one of my former students) Erica Firment has a new post up, where she describes her life in video game terms: "A Parent’s Life as a Video Game"...when I was pregnant with my daughter, I realized that pregnancy is essentially a really immersive resource-conservation RPG. I was always asking myself questions like: “Do I pick up this stuff on the floor, or do I save my Bending Over points for later?”

Professor Sheila Murphy is teaching her class again this semester, entitled "Video Games as Culture/Form." Besides a trip to our archive to get up close and personal with some of the more violent games in our collection, students from the class are also contributing to the course blog at http://videogameform.blogspot.com/, where they give their unedited perspectives on a variety of topics related to video games and culture.