From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games

Que parla català? No ho comprenc!

Here's an online artifact that stymies Babelfish: a review of From Sun Tzu to Xbox in Catalan!

Anybody out there willing to offer a translation?

Discovery Zone

Amerikanskers: have you yet seen the Discovery Channel's Rise of the Video Game? It continues with new installments each Wednesday. I'm featured in at least some of the episodes, probably most often in parts Three and Five.

Some recent notice: WOW Report, Game Politics, Joystiq, Joystiq again, Rock, Paper, Shotgun

post-script: This is the same (exact same?) documentary series known as I, Videogame outside the States.

LaRouche, LaRouche, LaRouche is on fire

A new frontier for the book: From Sun Tzu to Xbox cited in Executive Intelligence Review , the LaRouchite journal, in an article by a member of the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement. The same issue of EIR also contains a piece on Spacewar.

(Photo from here, via here.)

krieg-spiel

The book got a review in German recently, in a paper called Die Tageszeitung. I can't read German but I think it looks gut.

Link: taz 3.5.07 Schwere Geschütze.

I, Videogame

Don't know if this will be coming to the US or not, but Discovery Channel International in Asia, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Norway and elsewhere currently features the five-part documentary miniseries I, Videogame. In addition to interviews with such luminaries as Ralph Baer, Henry Jenkins, Will Wright and Alexey Pajitnov (inventor of Tetris!), it also features yours truly talking about--guess what--the relationship between war and videogames. Reportedly it will be airing in "170 countries throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa in spring 2007."

I haven't seen it yet, but I hear from others it came out very good (it was co-produced by World of Wonder, the mucho-hip documentary outfit responsible for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Party Monster and much more). The design seems tight and they've got a cute if poky flash-game promosite. From what I remember, I was wearing a short-sleeved purple shirt, still had on extra poundage from writing the book, and was in bad need of a haircut. In short, I look the role.

Link: I, Videogame - Discovery Channel.

Anyone Read Polish?

Well if you do, be a pal and tell me what this says!

Link: Kultura 2.0 » Archiwum bloga » Gry i wojna (omówienie książki Eda Haltera).

GamePolitics/Dizzies/VH1

Gamepolitics has at long last posted their review of From Sun Tzu to Xbox. There's also some interesting input in the comments section from others who have read it.

Elsewhere: championed by VH1 Game Break and shouted-out by formidable bookmeister E.Park at The Dizzies!
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Recent Book Press: Gamespot, Escapist, Alex Jones

Some recent press:

Interview on Gamespot about the book.

Reviews in The Escapist and Rochester City News.

Interview with Austin's Alex Jones. While I'm not a "9/11 Truth Seeker," Alex was kind enought to have me on his show when I was down in Texas a couple weeks ago, after seeing a feature I wrote for the Village Voice about 9/11 conspiracy films. You have to subscribe to his site to watch the video, but here's the audio.

Islamogaming in Washington Post

Jose Antonio Vargas looks a the recent Islamogaming phenomenon, including Night of Bush Capturing, Afkar Media's work, and others. And get this:

The Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, a nonpartisan group that translates Arabic language television and Web sites, says that in June, Sheik Nabil Al-Awadhi, who has a weekly show on the Kuwaiti channel Al-Rai TV called "Sa'at Saraha" ("An Hour of Sincerity"), spoke of the need for Islamic games that compete with Western games. He also suggested developing a game in which the Muslim player "slaughters the Jews and liberates the Al-Aqsa Mosque." In the West, they turn their wars against Muslims into games, he said, and Muslims should do the same.

Also includes quotes from Dennis McCauley of Gamepolitics (who writes about Vargas' article here) and yours truly.

Vargas also wrote about the effects of game training on soldiers earlier this year.

Link: Way Radical, Dude - washingtonpost.com.

Islamogaming Response

Wow, I have to say that I'm kind of surprised and wicked flattered by all the great response and discussion my CGW Islamogaming article has been getting -- it's quite unexpected. You can see some of the threads here and here and here.

And, even more of a surprise: it's been reprinted on the Fox News site, which I guess has to do with some sort of syndication through Ziff-Davis, who publishes CGW. I am honored therefore to be on what must be an extremely short list of writers to have contributed to both the Village Voice and Fox!