Yea, that article is much better actually. Thanks for the link.

Yea, but you're using the example of something positive (jogging) that's unquestionably good for you. You can rest assured that corporations will apply the same process to encourage behaviors that are not so good ("ate 10 Big Macs in a single day!"; "bought every Nickelback album!").

You're not really making a good case. Basically you're acknowledging that gamification is exploiting our underlying psychological mechanisms to make us indulge in compulsive, repetitive behavior, without the underlying story, depth, or emotional investment that characterizes real games.

Personally, I think it's ruining games, which to me are about emotional investment and immersive experience. This kind of stuff reduces it to a pissing contest.

Way to miss the point entirely. This is not about casual vs. hardcore. This isn't even about tripe like Farmville. It's about companies trying to graft game-like aspects onto marketing gimmicks in order to influence behavior. Hypothetical example: Amazon giving you experience points for every book you read on your…

Haven't played it, but as long as we're talking about spin-offs, Warriors of Might and Magic was god-awful.

Oh shut the fuck up you fucking cunt.

DID YOU BRING YOUR BABY? BABIES DON'T WATCH THIS!

Well, I never!

How is that tiny second screen useful at all? All it does is make the keyboard more cramped. If they really wanted the dual screen thing, they should've just gotten rid of the physical keyboard and used the second screen as a touchpad.

Right, and why don't we focus on the people at Guantanamo that WEREN'T wrongfully detained and tortured?

Revolutions have always been driven by the young. Lenin's older brother formed an anarchist faction while he was still in college and was executed for trying to assassinate the Tsar when he was 20. You don't need education to understand that when 1% of the nation control 50% of the wealth, shit is seriously fucked up.

The judge must have been a Star Trek fan.

Who the hell pronounces Sega as "Seega"? You guys are weird. But don't sweat it, our commercials back then consisted of stuff like this:

Oh hi!

Not to mention being able to switch to any weapon instantly rather than having to cycle through them one by one.

Has anyone at your company brought up just how stupid and confusing from a user-interface standpoint it is to have TWO separate newsfeeds, especially when most people already set their main feed to "Live Stream," which this new "real-time" news feed on the sidebar would be essentially duplicating?

Well, that comment from Brandon changes things somewhat, but not by much. Also, you left out the link he gave with screenshots of the new system.

Word to that.

Actually, if you'll recall, when the new layout launched with its garish ads, there was a mass exodus of regular commenters from Gawker, Giz, and all the affiliates. And we did bitch about it, and had every right to, and the people like you who were all IT'S DENTON'S SITE HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS LOL were just as…