Sci Fi becomes SyFy

Sometimes you just have to shake your head at the so-called image makers. Someone thought it was a good idea to rebrand the Sci Fi Channel as SyFy. As soon as the news was announced, a collective ‘ugh, that’s awful’ could be heard around the Internet. The renaming has good intentions. ‘Sci fi’ couldn’t be trademarked owing to the fact that it has been in collective use for decades. Further, you can’t argue with the fact that SyFy is pretty unique, distinguishing it from a host of other cable channel names. At the same time, it’s somewhat similar to the old name.

However, good intentions haven’t stopped the scorn that’s been heaped on the name change. A writer at Cnet called the change “perhaps the most ill-advised branding move since New Coke.” Gawker commented that the network’s new tagline, Imagine Greater, “means nothing and is grammatically incoherent.” Ouch.

Via New York Times.

Play games, die young

A new advertisement campaign by the British government strongly implies that playing video games lead to an early death. The Change4Life campaign features a poster of a boy holding a game console controller with the words “Risk an Early Death, Do Nothing.” The campaign also has a TV commercial that shows a parent and child leaving an unhealthy session of playing video games for an opportunity to play outside.

The campaign is also backed by The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research and Diabetes UK.

The Change4Life campaign, which also features a second, similar advertisement with another child about to eat a cake, is aimed at promoting physical exercise in children. There’s no evidence that playing video games leads to obesity any more than other sedentary activities. Further, games like Nintendo’s popular Wii Fit points towards an increasing trend of more active games.

Sony Entertainment is considering a suit against the British government to prevent the use of its game controllers in campaign posters.

Change4Life commercial:

Via GamePolitics.

Sexy for FIFA Online

FIFA Online 2 is massively multi-player soccer game based on FIFA 07 video game. Originally released in Korea in 2006, the game has since become popular in other countries, particularly in Asia.  A localized version set for SE Asia was released this January. With the release came a set of pictures of model Ayawara (not sure if that’s her real name) gamely posing with a soccer ball. The pictures doesn’t really have much to do with FIFA Online 2 (well, apart from the gold soccer ball), but I don’t the mostly male audience of FIFA Online 2 care.  Take a look. Read more