Boo GameZnFlix, Hooray Beer!

Approximately 192 hours ago I embarked on a quest to find out if GameZnFlix really was all that and a bag of chips. Turns out it was just a bag of chips. The 25 cent kind that contain about five chips and bunch of crumbs. Only I paid $13.00 dollars for them.

Numbers aside, I initially was very hopeful, even starry-eyed about my own personal media concierge. "I can have out two games or movies at the same time? This is too good to be true." I said to myself. Well friends, I can wholeheartedly back up the age old adage, "If it seems too good to be true, it is."

1.) Turns out you can only have one game and one movie at the same time (On the two out plan). Ok, not a big deal, although I was trying to circumvent Gamefly's pricey service.

2.) It took them 8 days to send me my first game.

3.) Their website is broken. It's somewhat difficult to explain through words without spewing expletives, but let's try. When browsing games, movies or search results you can't browse past the first page. You can, however, click with futility on the numbers indicating the next page of results. Essentially you need to know exactly what you want to rent so you can search for it on the website. Which brings me to my fourth point.

4.) When you press enter after you type in a search request the website asks you if you want to log out. You actually have to physically click 'search' once you've typed a request.

5.) They don't have customer service by phone. They do have a customer service phone number -- upon pressing one for customer service you are told that their customer service exists solely through email. Do they really think e-mail is a more efficient means of communication of telephone? I'm pretty sure even George W. Bush is aware of that.

6.) (Yeah, six) You have to listen to some dumbass introduce the "revolutionary" idea of renting games and movies from the same service every time you visit the website.

Succinctly, GameZnFlix.com sucks: their website is broken, their service is slow, and their customer service is non-existent. If you're really looking for a good website to rent games from, suck it up and pay for Gamefly -- they even have DS and GBA rentals. But really you should just stick to your local rental store anyway. Personally, I think Blockbuster could put all online rental services out of business if they just added a game rental component to their online service. C'est la vie.

In my opinion you should just use that money to buy a case of Lion's Head and break out Goldeneye. (You know you've still got it.)

An Army of United Nerds, or, How I Learned to Think Like a Group of People

The shit storm began roughly two weeks ago. Well, the most recent shit storm at least. Joystiq, like many other videogame news sites, has been running nearly daily coverage of the ridiculously outlandishly overblown controversy around EA/Bioware's, "Mass Effect." (The story has even warranted its own wikipedia page.)

Initially, the controversy was just one unheard of conservative blogger ranting about his gut reaction to the few YouTube videos of, "Mass Effect" he somehow stumbled upon. As gamers discovered his piece, they reacted to him and, as if things weren't ridiculous enough in his piece, Fox News even picked up the, "story" and ran with it. Geoff Keighley (yes, that Geoff Keighley) was asked to appear on Fox News to, "discuss" their claims - - and when he did, he was lambasted from all sides by arrogant downtalking and infantilization. The video is a great example of how Rupert Murdoch has turned Fox into all entertainment all the time. Political consideration aside, the lack of any respect towards the integrity of their own institution, none the less journalism on the whole, makes me wonder who's really out there, as a gamer, watching Fox for news.

Gamers run the gamut from conservative to liberal, politically speaking, just like the rest of the U.S.A. Gamers are not a unified group of people with the same political views, the same religious views - - we can't even agree on what horse reigns supreme. Fox News misrepresented the facts and, at very least, blew things way out of proportion. In doing so, Fox officially unified gamers behind something: a common enemy.

Cooper Lawrence, an "expert" in developmental psychology (I'm putting my money against that), became that figurehead. Ms. Lawrence thought she'd drop by a Fox newsroom and appear on a quick mid-day television show and in doing so, also promote her book. Based on her commentary, gamers flooded the Amazon.com page of the book she was promoting with negative reviews, claiming, much like she had, that they had never read the book but it was clearly terrible.

My question is this: Should gamers be enabling more stupidity like what happened at Fox by reacting as such? Yes, Ms. Lawrence acted that way herself - - does that mean we should too? Funny: clearly. Mature: not so much. And you? What do you think?

France Declares Games an Art Form, Roger Ebert Eats His Own Hat

Over at Gamasutra today, a feature story ran on the French Governments decision to support the videogame industry there with essentially a 20% tax break, given their business adheres to certain guidelines. These criteria can mean anything from, "obligatory narration driven, artistic expenses..." to , "...violence that could mentally, morally or physically hurt end users."

Who decides which violence (videogame violence for instance?) is going to be deemed as able to "mentally" and "morally" hurt end users and which isn't? Who watches the Watchmen?! Let's just hope the French Government continues its progressive stance with regards to game developers.

The point of the feature, however, was to point out that the European Commission only doles out this tax break normally to, "traditional" forms of the arts. Now, for all economic and legal purposes, Europe officially considers videogames an art. I'm not sold still - - how 'bout you?