Would you let your children drop out of public school to competitively play Video Games? If you have no children, would you expect your parents to support such a decision?
For those unfamiliar with the story of Blake Peebles, here is the short summary: 16 year old plays Guitar Hero, gets really good, wins prizes in various competitions, contemplates dropping out of High School for competitive gaming, his parents support his decision of his new found gaming career choice.
For those that play video games, this sounds like a beautiful Cinderella story, but is it all that it’s cracked out to be?
Competitive gaming is a growing trend by itself, and players can earn as much as $80,000 a year, but those are a few and are in need of rare granted sponsorships. For others, they can make an average of $25,000 a year with a lot of traveling, accomodations and daily needs eating into that salary.
We are not ignoring the actual problem of education…what about the children’s studies? Well, Blake’s parents did not give up on that, he is simply receiving home studies and actually improved his grades along with practice time alotted for gaming.
This particular poll received thousands of votes, along with many comments that varied from complete and utter support of Blake and his dream to disbelief and anger at such a “stupid” decision. It seems that people equal video games with stupidity. Is that so? That would have to be determined by another intriguing poll…next time.
Our geeky design guru has been a die-hard Diablo fan ever since the first edition came out. Now, as Blizzard sets the stage for launching Diablo III, and fans around the world (our guru included) sit and wait in anticipation, a design scandal is brewing, and the guru is alllll over it.
It all started when Blizzard uploaded some screenshots from Diablo 3 into its official website. The fans drooled over the screenshots, examined them carefully, and had some input: the screenshots weren’t dark enough. Too many rainbow effects, and not enough grittiness. Some creative fans edited the screenshots, and made them darker. A petition was started online, to call for a change of direction by the Blizzard design team. It became a massive petition, and whether because of it, or for other reasons, Diablo III art director,Brian Morrisroe, quit.
We decided to test the Diablo 3 design issue: a Diablo photo poll was posted, along with samples of the original Blizzard Diablo 3 screenshots, and some fan-made darker shots. We then called on Diablo fans in discussion forums and message boards to voice their opinions. As of now, over 1,200 gamers voted on our Diablo III poll, and the results are surprising: most people definitely prefer the original Blizzard design (does someone have Brian Morrisroe’s email? He’d be pleased).
We are proud to introduce a brand new feature here at pollsb: it’s a way to see the people who voted on a poll, before even voting on it! It’ll help you follow your friends around the site, see who votes on what, and who’s active at the moment. Yep, all that without even having to visit the results page. Isn’t that cool? Here’s how it looks:
Someone just rocked the entire Pollsb office here with this piece of video, proving without a shred of a doubt that shock rocker Marilyn Manson (some people in the office are big fans) is BALD. That’s right. The whole goth, super-straight hair thing, is just a clever wig.
In this video, Marilyn Manson is exposed in all his baldness when an insistent fan keeps yelling at him, asking to come and shake his hand. At first, Manson’s bodyguard’s keep the fan out of the star’s reach, but finally Marilyn agrees, and puts his hand out to shake the fan’s hand. The man the hugs Marilyn, and accidentally causes the star’s wig to fall down from his head. He’s immediately reprimanded by Manson’s bodyguards, while Manson is being escorted away, his completely bald head shielded by someone’s coat. The video then replays and slows down to show the concrete evidence: Marilyn Manson is bald.
Here’s the incriminating video:
And here’s the original poll, and how we learned about this:
It’s an exciting Tuesday morning here at the Polls Boutique labs. We’re all tired and overworked, but we couldn’t be more satisfied: a brand new version of the site is online, and it includes some features that are bound to bring happiness to the lives of pollsters all over the world.
The new features include:
Safe browsing: from now on, as a default, you won’t be seeing adult materials on polls boutique, unless you visit your user page and specifically choose to do so by clicking on our new Adult Content button.
New Categories: we’ve reorganized the topical poll categories on the site. From now on, when posting a poll, users must choose at least one and up to three categories from a list. This makes browsing categories much more accurate and fun!
Block User Option: if you can’t stand someone’s polls, just visit their user page and click “Block this user” and poof! their polls won’t bother you anymore.
Private Poll Option: make your poll private, so only people you invite can see it.
There’s much more to come. So hang on, and enjoy the pollsb ride.
Putting up our personal pictures, videos and music online is nothing more than a way of asking: what do you think about my new outfit? should I cut my hair? Should I get this tattoo? I made this video, what do you think? and so on… More often than not, we need others’ opinions to keep ourselves in check, and be aware of other points of view. One of the best ways to getting an advice that will be truthful and honest, is trying to get the outsider’s opinions, people who don’t have any obligation to be nice, who have no intencives to embellish the truth: the crowd.
On polls boutique, asking questions like that is made easy. Just upload your pictures, your videos and audio, and enjoy instant feedback and answers from loads of people from all over the world. Instantly find out what people think about your new haircut, your tattoo, and your hair:
Since we’re all geeks here at Polls Boutique, nothing makes us happier than seeing our poll widget appear in two of the web’s best gaming blogs: PS3 Fanboy, and PSP Fanboy.
Using a Polls Boutique poll is a great way to get feedback from customers and people you work with. Just setup a poll and send it to your client and/or peer. You can also embed the poll on your company’s website or intranet. It’s a great way to get instant feedback on your service.
We’re seriously considering starting a new program that will turn a few prolific Polls Boutique users into our editorial team. Those selected will be emailed with news stories (in topics they’re interested in) and will be invited to post relevant polls.
As a first step, we’re interested to know which of you will be interested in joining such a program. We posted a poll about it.
