Newmark's Door

Soon kids will be even harder to educate . . .

. . . because they'll be playing, 24/7, with Microsoft's new motion-capture, no-controller, full-body-interface video game system. It's code-named Natal and it has been praised by "game players, developers and movie mogul Steven Spielberg alike."

Microsoft's promotional video.

Ecstatic early review.

Some technical details.

"Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre"

How Catan took Germany by storm and is now catching on in the U.S. (Wired, 3/23).

"95 Old School Games You Can Play Online"

List here.

The current state of the video game business

Nintendo is currently winning big. But remember when the Sony Playstation was top dog? It's an extremely competitive business.

True dat

"12 reasons PC gaming is better than consoles".

And while, granted, some huge percentage of PCs are never used for anything other than Outlook and basic web, PCs remain the most flexible and happiest way to game.

"Five mistakes in limit Texas hold 'em"

"Playing poker isn’t always about outplaying your opponents, sometimes all it takes to win is a simple look at your own game and finding ways to minimize the all too common mistakes we see over and over in Texas Hold’em."

A lot of truth here

"How to Tell You're an Aging Gamer".

Casino tales

"Casino insider tells (almost) all about security".

Even if you are cheating, and they know you're cheating, they might leave you alone if you're not that good at cheating. Take card counting: While counting cards in one's head is not illegal, a good card-counter in blackjack gains a statistical advantage over the house, and if the casino decides the counter is making too much money, he or she will be escorted off the premises.

But card counters have to be really good: One mistake an hour could swing the advantage back to the house. And casinos don't mind that. "If you're not perfect at card counting, you can still lose money," Jonas said. "They'll watch you count cards and if you make any mistake they'll just let you play."   

"Industrial policy" redux?

James Pethokoukis observes that Hillary Clinton sounds like she wants to implement "industrial policy".

Sigh.

My suggestion: conservatives should chip in to buy Ms. Clinton and her political allies each a copy of the newest expansion pack of Civilization. It's fabulous. It would keep them busy for months at a time. And they would get what they have always wanted: a chance to run the world. And we would get what we have always wanted: that they would leave our economy alone.

Pareto improving. Win, win. What more can you ask for?

A question about the economics in computer games

A good question: "Why do economic models in computer games always suck?"

Quite likely a good answer: " . . . a game its supposed to be fun to play, not work. If the economy were realistic casual gamers would all be peasants. Nobody wants to be a peasant: people want to be rich and famous and powerful heroes. In order to make it fun for everyone, including the stupid people, the game designers have to make the game easy to play."