Tweet On Your Feet For A Pizza Hut Gig

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Pizza Hut is planning to hire a new manager of digital media, and it’s launching the search at SXSW with 140-second interview sessions with interested candidates. The restaurant chain says the exercise reflects the real-life demands of a marketing position in an environment fueled by digital media. The quickie in-person interviews are meant to put candidates on the spot and see if they can be brief yet on-point, memorable, even creative, just like communicating through social media. The 140-second limit is an obvious homage to Twitter’s character limit.

Yum! Brands-owned Pizza Hut is not alone in taking a creative approach to job interviews with questions meant to test qualities that go beyond just qualifications.  Google is probably best known for it, mixing practical interview questions with probing designed to throw candidates off their game.  Potential product managers there better polish up on conundrums such as how much they’d charge to wash all of the windows in Seattle or how they’d evacuate San Francisco in a disaster, while a software engineer should know why manholes are round.

Hewlett Packard seems to want to separate the wheat (the logic-driven) from the chaff (everyone else) with this one: “If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?”  Online shoe store Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh likes to ask, “On a scale of one to ten, how weird are you?” It probably works as one of those lines that’s ice breaker to some, iceberg in the water to others.

The overriding goal with these types of questions is largely to see whether people can go beyond rambling off what they’re good at, showing if they can tackle unforeseen problems, gin up new ideas, and perhaps innovate on the fly. All are important qualities in today’s corporate world.

For Pizza Hut’s part, chief people officer Tracy Skeans said the ‘tweet on your feet’ first interview is to see “how the candidates hold up.”

After SXSW, Pizza Hut is giving other candidates the opportunity to participate in 140-second interviews for the same position over Skype. It has also launched the Twitter hashtag #becauseimgreat and put out a video spelling out the process for anyone interested.

Source Media Post

Iron Man 3 – Trailer #2

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The most detailed story trailer yet has released for Iron Man 3, revealing how personal this fight will be against Mandarin and his terrorist organization “The Ten Rings.” As it turns out, Iron Man and War Machine might not be enough to fend off this new threat.

Pitch Perfect Engagement

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2K Sports’ Perfect Game Challenge is back for MLB 2K13. In stores now, the contest kicks off opening day on April 1.

 

Throughout the month, players can compete for a prize pool of $750,000 across 30 MLB Team Leaderboards. The top four in the overall leaderboard will be invited to New York during the MLB All-Star Week in July to compete for a grand prize of $250,000. The contest is being promoted via a destintion URL and Facebook app.

 

Gaming Makes Older Adults Happier: Study

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According to researchers at North Carolina State University at Raleigh, older adults who play video games have higher levels of emotional well-being. 140 people belonging to the age group of 63 were asked whether or not they played video games and how often they played (if they did at all).

Based on the responses, the participants were divided into the groups of ‘regular gamers’ who played once a week, ‘occasional gamers’ who played less than once a week, and ‘non-gamers’ who didn’t play video games. The researchers then assessed the participant’s emotional and social well-being with the help of a battery of tests.

The study found out that those participants who played video games, including those who played video games occasionally, had higher levels of well-being when compared to those who never played any games. Non-gamers had more negative emotions and showed higher levels of depression.

“The research published here suggests that there a link between gaming and better well-being and emotional functioning,” lead author of the paper Dr. Jason Allaire, who is an associate professor of psychology at NC State. “We are currently planning studies to determine whether playing digital games actually improves mental health in older adults.”

Source: ScienceWorldReport.com

Elder Scrolls Online Food Truck Coming To PAX East

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Future, Bethesda Softworks, and Fearless Media announced that the Elder Scrolls Online Food Truck will be at PAX East 2013 to give away free food to hungry fans. Included in the complimentary food is Eidarmelt (Nordic Jarlsberg Grilled Cheese) with the dipping sauce Fire Petal Dip (spicy, homemade marinara sauce), Emperor’s Garden (Chef’s special pesto) or Tomato-Mammoth (classic Bolognese) with Tangy Ninroot (pickles), Corkbulb Crisps (kettle chips) and Alocasia Fruit Juice (fruit punch spritzer) on the side.

Those interested should check the foodtruck out at 391 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02110 on Friday, March 22 from 11:30 AM — 3:00 PM ET. You can also follow the Elder Scrolls Online Food Truck on Facebook via the Facebook app at apps.facebook.com/esofoodtruck.

Garry’s Mod Has Generated $22 Million In Sales

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Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman revealed that his Source Engine based physics program has generated about $22 million. Currently up to its 13th major iteration, Garry’s Mod has sold over 2 million copies.

According to Newman, Linux might be next for Garry’s Mod. “Hopefully we’re gonna get the Linux version out. Then hopefully we’ll move to SteamPipe, and I’ll get the NextBot stuff hooked up . . . then I want to do another Gamemode Contest,” he posted. “But I want to knock out a bunch of gamemode creating tutorials first to help people get their foot in the door.”

Source: Garry.tv

NPD: Core Gamers Still Attracted To Purchasing New, Physical Games

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The NPD Group is reporting that half of the U.S. population ages 9 and up play video games on what would be considered a core gaming device (game console or PC). However, only 14 percent, or 37.5 million people, would be considered a core gamer, as designed by their time and devotion to games.

Those aged 9-17 are most likely to be a core gamer (26 percent), but the likelihood only diminishes slightly among those ages 18-34 (21 percent) and only sees a significant drop off until ages 45 and older. The mean age of core gamers is 30 years old.

On the sale side, there are 10 percent more core gamers saying that their spending has decreased versus a year ago than there are those stating that their purchases have increased, which is accurate to the trend of diminishing returns for the AAA gaming industry. 88 percent of core gamers say they purchased new physical games, while 78 percent say they purchase used physical games and 70 percent say they purchase digital full games.

“Digital purchasing among core gamers has plenty of room to grow,” said Liam Callahan, industry analyst, The NPD Group. “While many core gamers indicate they are purchasing full games and digital add-on content frequently, there are those that stated they have never purchased digital content.”

In the most recent quarter, core gamers spent the most on new physical games at a mean of $129. Digital full games and physical used games followed in spending, though both saw less than half of what was spent on new physical titles.

Tomb Raider Not Returning To Guardian Of Light Model

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Crystal Dynamics has tried a few different approaches with the Tomb Raider franchise, one of which was Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. While the cooperative, digital-only release was reasonably well received, Tomb Raider creative director Noah Hughes said they aren’t looking to continue along those lines.

“Guardian was a great opportunity to explore things that we may not have done in the pillar franchise titles, but in that case it was co-op,” said Hughes. “There are no plans to do anything in that series but it was a great opportunity to do something a little bit outside of the core.”

“We’re anxious to continue to play with ways that people could tomb raid together. With Guardian of Light, the tone and the story supported side-by-side play in the campaign; this time around, it’s less appropriate and we tried to do more of a complementary experience, hoping it would have a lot of replay ability and people can just jump in and have fun. Those are just two of our explorations into multiplayer in the Tomb Raider universe, and we are anxious to see what else we can do in connected play,” he added. “The key point is that neither will represent the single blueprint that we’ll iterate on.”

Source: Official Xbox Magazine