Holy Shit, Jellyfish!

I mean...look at that thing. What? Whose idea was it to make a living creature of the oceans of this Earth look like that? Why would you do that, nature? What's the deal? What happened here? Just for a start: depending on the species, jellyfish bodies are between 95 and 98% water. Plain old water, plus two percent fleshy, translucent membrane.

They have no brains. No specialized digestive system. No blood. No nervous system. No vascular system. Just a one-size-fits-all cavity where food meanders its way in and is passively digested. The gastrovascular cavity is basically a hipster nonchalantly swaying to the music at a Death Cab for Cutie show, because they're not as hip and unknown as they used to be and it doesn't want to look too enthusiastic.

"Yeah, Ben Gibbard is alright, I guess," he said, tears glistening on his cheeks as "Transatlanticism" reached its climax

The only thing jellyfish can consciously do (if you can even call it consciously, which you probably can't) is flex a single muscle that kind of, sort of, in a way, gives them control over their motion. Like spreading your arms and legs out to slightly alter your heading while you're falling from 20,000 feet without a parachute.

The way they reproduce is weird as hell, too. A bunch of them get together and basically make a big old cocktail of sperm and eggs, which eventually leads to mass fertilization. The eggs hatch into little larvae called planulae, which stick to a firm surface and grow into polyps. Polyps are essentially what you'd expect to get if you cross-bred a jellyfish with a sea anemone, and if there are any mad scientists reading this and thinking that sounds like a good idea, please don't. You are the most boring mad scientist in history. Stop it.

If this diagram shows up in your plot to take over the world, there are several somethings wrong with you.

So the polyp grows up a bit, and suddenly things take a turn. In many cases, the polyp will spontaneously just...clone itself. Because jellyfish are both sexually and asexually reproductive organisms. And then sometimes, just for kicks, a few polyps will decide they're not in a place right now where they can afford to live on their own, so they'll find some roommates and form a colony. Not to save on rent money, mind you. They share a goddamn stomach. Because of course they do.

Finally, they fly the coop to become an ephyra, which is more like what you imagine when you think of a jellyfish. Then it grows tentacles, and becomes a medusa. Then it haunts your nightmares and inspires Nintendo to design a creature that can literally suck your life force out of your upper torso.

If you played games in the '80s and '90s, you are now having PTSD-esque flashbacks.

Holy shit.

"Ben Gibbard 2" by Sharat Ganapati - originally posted to Flickr as Ben Gibbard. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ben_Gibbard_2.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Ben_Gibbard_2.jpg

Holy Shit, Gamergate!

If only.

For as long as I can remember, "gamer" has been one of the main points of my identity. Gaming was a constant companion for most of my youth. Several of my strongest and most enduring friendships were formulated on the foundation of shared interest in games. Games were a comfort and a release when I was a morose teenager.

Recently, I've started to shy away from calling myself a gamer. There are several reasons for the change. I have newer, more important ways to identify myself these days -- like husband, and more recently, father. But it's not like I don't still play. I do. Every chance I get, even if said chances are few and far between.

The bigger reason is Gamergate. Gamergate is a movement that is ostensibly about corruption in the games journalism industry. That's a very real problem. There have been instances of journalists being fired for writing honest reviews of games whose publishers were providing advertising revenue to the host site. That is all kinds of unethical, and it's not an isolated problem.

But we got these guys out of it. They're cool I guess.

But that's not what sparked Gamergate. Gamergate started when the jilted ex-boyfriend of an indie game developer posted a video manifesto that aired all of their dirty laundry, including accusations that she had cheated on him and exchanged sexual favors for positive coverage of her game. The Internet exploded in the way it only does when there's a new woman to harass. Of all people, Adam "Jayne from Firefly" Baldwin coined the movement's title...in the midst of one of his bat-shit, right-wing Twitter rants. 

Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might want to look to that.

It could have been a decent movement, to be honest. But from its inception, the people who were saying, "If that's true, it really says something about the state of games journalism" were instantly drowned out by the hordes of ignorant shits screaming, "It must be true! What reason would a jilted ex-boyfriend have to lie about his ex-girlfriend to her peers? Our only reasonable course is to threaten to rape and murder her."

They're like this, but with death threats.

And I am not fucking kidding about that. Zoe Quinn was driven from her home by threats of sexual violence and death, from people who had found and published all of her personal information, including her address. Anyone of any standing in the industry who spoke in her defense was given the same treatment, including Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist critic who had already seen her share of death threats because of her video series that asks the question, "Do the games industry and gaming culture maybe treat women poorly?"

GEE I WONDER

The movement is completely out of control at this point, and it might be the biggest threat to gaming since the industry crashed in 1983. A largely falsified rumor about a woman's sex life has started a horrific campaign of harassment against women who are interested in games and want them to be a more inclusive medium. I mean, Jesus Christ, when I was a teenager my heart would have burst with joy if I learned that games were considered "art" enough where they could be subject to feminist critiques. I've always insisted that video games could be more than toys, and now that people outside of the traditional gaming demographic are acknowledging that, a bunch of children are trying to drive them away with death threats.

So as much as I'm not done with gaming, I'm done being a gamer. I know from the responses within the industry to Anita Sarkeesian and to the Gamergate lunacy that I can look forward to a richer, more diverse culture surrounding games. But gamers? I won't be a part of that world anymore.

Holy shit.

Holy Shit, Minecraft!

That guy up there is Markus Persson, better known by his alias, "Notch." In May of 2009, Notch went to the forums of TIGSource, a meeting place for indie game developers and players. He'd been working on a new concept, inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Infiniminer, and he had a working build ready for feedback. It was rudimentary at best -- you had an infinite number of blocks and a small area to work in, and the point was to just...go to town building whatever you wanted.

BUT WAT ABOUT MY GRAFIX?

But goddamn, was that promising. People got excited. They built statues, pixel art, the U.S.S. friggin' Enterprise, and whatever else came to mind. When they built something, they became proud and shared it with their friends. Word started to spread. This early version of Notch's vision came to be known as Minecraft Classic. Within a year, Indev (short for "in development") followed, bringing with it key features that would catapult Minecraft into the legendary role it plays today.

Like mining. And crafting.

I first learned of Minecraft around this time. I saw an introductory video from YouTube gamer SeaNanners, wherein he showcased the early crafting process. First, he punched a tree to get a log. Then, he used the crafting menu to turn the log into planks, which he used to build a crafting table. This gave him a 3x3 grid rather than a 2x2 grid. Then, he turned some of the planks into sticks, formed tools in the grid with sticks and planks, and I gasped aloud. The implications of this system were immediately apparent to me, and I purchased the game the moment the video ended.

Artist's rendition

What Minecraft offers is nearly infinite creativity with a side of adventure. There are monsters, and you can deal with them by creating, not just taking what the developer gives you and clicking until they die. You build your base. You build your weapons. You build your armor. You mine your own resources. It's the purest form of a video game sandbox that has ever been. Word of the game spread like wildfire as players shared their creations and experiences.

Which, let's be honest, were inevitably phallic in nature.

Meanwhile, Notch quit his day job and formed a company called Mojang. Continued success meant he could hire more programmers to add features and hammer out bugs. Groundbreaking success meant he could hand over the reins to said programmers and start working on other projects.

When I say "groundbreaking," I want you to understand just how much I mean it. As of this month, Minecraft is the single best selling PC game of all time. It sold more than the notoriously addictive World of Warcraft. More than Starcraft, which launched an entirely new genre of spectator sports. Across all platforms, Minecraft (so far) is the third best selling video game of all time. It's behind Wii Sports (whose numbers aren't going anywhere anymore) and freaking Tetris. It's sold more copies that Super goddamn Mario Brothers, which was bundled with the NES (the system that singlehandedly pulled the game industry out of the abyss).

Nintendo's role is not lost on Minecrafters

Thanks to Minecraft, YouTube went from a hub of cat videos to a hub of Let's Play videos about Minecraft. It launched incredibly successful careers for people who now spend their days recording and editing their own gameplay videos. It is impossible to overstate just how monumentally Minecraft altered the gaming landscape. And it all started with just...a guy. For fun.

Holy shit.