LucasArts and BioWare team up to create a hilariously terrible press release
If you think any of this gibberish looks interesting, you should poke around and subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up with new content.
One of the reasons I like combing through my Games Press e-mail every morning is that about half the press releases nowadays are written with at least a little bit of humor, or if not that, the understanding that the people reading press releases read thousands of press releases. It’s kind of like writing a college essay.
But sometimes there’s nothing better than a straight up non-event event announcement:
SAN FRANCISCO, CA and EDMONTON, CANADA - October 30, 2007 - LucasArts and BioWare Corp. today announced that they have entered into an agreement to create an interactive entertainment product. The product, details of which will be unveiled at a later date, will be developed and published by BioWare and LucasArts, and will push the boundaries of the gaming market by utilizing the strengths of both companies to deliver an innovative, high-quality experience. (em added)
Now you tell me what that means. BioWare will make scary monsters and LucasArts will license John Williams music? Actually I might buy that…
EVE Online is going to get a graphics update. Schweet.
As far as I can tell the release date for “Trinity” (the name of the update) is “Winter,” which I’m totally fine with because to be perfectly honest the graphics in EVE are already pretty cool. They’re not stunning, but then again, I’m looking at white pinpricks and metal hulls most of the time.
I got an e-mail the other day showing off their new models. Clearly they’re proud:
I’m having fun so far. My friend hooked me up with a special offer they’re running right now: a full account for 6 months costs only $45. Not to shabby when you realize that a normal monthly sub runs you around $15 a month.
Basically the hook on this game for me is that I end up playing while I’m not playing. Instead of “leveling up,” your character gets better by learning skills. Skills take a certain amount of time to learn (anywhere from around 15 minutes to weeks or months). But the character keeps learning while you’re not logged in.
I’ve probably logged about four or five hours of actual play time since I signed up for the account, by my character (Granny Weatherwax, if you’re curious) is constantly getting better. Awesome.
Haha you think people want free TV?
I just happened to mouse over this link today on my previous post. I NEVER get 186 clicks on a link. I don’t think I even have 186 people reading this blog.
Seriously, I’m talking to you TV networks: stream your shows online. ALL of them.
Why I don’t use Adblock Plus
I’m an internet publisher’s worst nightmare. I never click on ads. I think that in the time I’ve been using Google - years - I’ve probably given them about .20 cents for all the searching they’ve provided
But I’m willing to look at them. Because that’s part of the deal between me and Google: Google will happily munch away at whatever searches I enter so long as I agree to look at these ads. Their job is to make sure I get ones that are interesting to me. If they can’t manage that, then that’s their problem.
Today I ran into this Why Firefox is Blocked site via Phil Crissman’s post about advertising as a revenue model online. On that particular point, I tend to agree with him: online advertising as it exists today will probably not survive several more years. It needs to morph (although I’m sure it will continue in some form or another).
On this, though, I disagree:
Your readers are not obligated to view your advertisements. Readers who block advertisements are not stealing, being dishonest, underhanded, sneaky, malicious, or any other such thing.
Of course your users are obligated to view the advertisements on your site. It is the business agreement you make with your readers. More than that, it’s the business agreement that internet users today have agreed to abide by.
TimesSelect didn’t work because people are unwilling to pay for content that they feel should be free to them. And I can’t think of much online content more worth paying for than New York Times columnists.
The fact of the matter is that free content doesn’t exist. Someone somewhere eats the cost. I put no ads on my blog, and I have no plans to. I think it looks crappy. I’m eating the cost of my time, energy, and hosting in order to keep this blog because I enjoy it. To rephrase: this content is not free - I’m paying for it so my readers don’t have to.
So if the business agreement is “I show you content if you look at these ads,” why should I show you content if you don’t look at these ads?
The content that many online sites produce takes time and money to create and serve. As a business these sites have essentially three options:
- Charge for people to view the content
- Get someone else to pay for people to view the content (advertising)
- Go out of business
We’ve all made it pretty clear that in this century charging the viewer for online content is not OK. That leaves advertising.
When a publication takes money in exchange for ad placement, they’re really paying for exposure. If I run Website A, and I charge Company X $500 to display their banner for one week, and never show the banner, have I stolen from Company X? Absolutely.
If I charge Company X $500 to display their banner for one week, and allow my viewers to block the banner ad, so that it is never displayed, have I stolen from Company X? I think the answer might still be yes.
As a website owner I also have an obligation to make sure that I display the ads I’m charging for.
So I don’t use adblock plus because I am, essentially, stealing from the content providers when I do use it (or at least forcing them to steal from advertisers). If the ads on a site are too garish, I either look for an RSS feed or I don’t visit the site.
Everybody has to eat, and I think looking at advertisements is a pretty small price for me to pay to put food on someone else’s plate. At least that’s my thinking.
TV Links replacement sites
I asked yesterday what sites would be replacing tv-links now that nobody can watch House if they happen to miss an episode on Tuesday night. Turns out someone already compiled a list.
[ Update, since this post seems to be wildly popular, and hits pretty high in Google, I thought I’d put a few of the better sites here, so people don’t have to click through all the time. ]
SurfTheChannel - A pretty legit TV-Links clone. If you knew your way around the old site, this will look familiar to you.
Alluc - Different look and feel, frankly I don’t like it as much. But you know, two links is better than one.
VideoLemon - pretty simple page, one-column, just go nuts style thing. At first glance, not sure their selection is that huge.
FindTVLinks - Looks exactly the same as videolemon. In fact, maybe someone just cloned the site at a different address. *shrug*
If anyone knows of something completely awesome that isn’t on this list, just drop it in the comments.
TV-Links.co.uk shut down, 26 year old owner arrested
According to After Dawn:
TV-links.co.uk, the UK’s most used piracy film website has been closed down and its owner arrested after a raid by the anti-piracy group, Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact).
The closure was a first for major UK-based pirate sites and the owner, a 26-year-old man from Cheltenham, was arrested for charges relating to facilitating copyright infringement over the internet.
FACT claims that the site was providing links to pirated films as well as American TV shows.
It was inevitable, given how the site was providing a useful service for consumers that TV networks apparently refuse to provide. It goes to follow, logically, that since TV networks as a general rule hate consumers, that they’d come after tv-links eventually.
Anyone know what the next tv-links site is yet?
Blade Runner: The Final Cut in Seattle October 26th at the Cinerama
Thanks to Brett’s comment on my last post about Blade Runner, I stopped by the Cinerama site and used their contact e-mail to send in a request for the film.
I figured that, if nothing else, they’d figure out that The Final Cut exists, and hell, one e-mail film request is probably more than they get in a normal week, so there’s a chance they’d notice.
Any chance is better than no chance, and I love Blade Runner. I think I wrote at least two papers in college on the film, and I’m sure I alluded to it far more often than was necessary.
Here’s what came back in my inbox:
Hi Jason,
We updated the “coming soon” page on the Cinerama website today.
Please visit www.cinerama.com and click on the coming soon page to see that “Blade Runner: The Final Cut” will open at Cinerama next Friday, October 26th!!
We hope to see you at the movies.
Holy crap hell yes. Looks like they’re on top of things. I bought my tickets for the 8:40 showing on Friday, and I am PUMPED.
In-Game advertising used to recruit secret agents in Splinter Cell
OK, let’s be honest. Has any of us been watching this in-game advertising trend with any expectation of good things? I’ve basically been waiting for garish deodorant ads in the middle of Counter-Strike, telling me how to stay stink-free in my X-TREME gaming lifestyle.
But according to Kotaku this morning (you know, if the TimesOnline knew enough to care about inbound links, they might be upset that everyone is going to link to Kotaku), British intelligence agencies are going to start advertising in Tom Clancy and Splinter Cell games.
That’s pretty awesome.
One the one hand, i’m kind of upset that their game plan is to “plant the idea in the heads of younger players” brainwash kids into thinking spy stuff is the coolest shit ever, but on the other…spy stuff is pretty much the coolest shit ever.
On top of this, though, is the awesome fact that someone has started to notice all those studies that say, more or less, “playing video games makes you smarter.” People who play video games have better cognitive development, find things more quickly, and are often better able to focus on individual tasks. Don’t ask me to support those findings, I can’t. But I’ll bet you can find the evidence.
Portal
There are spoilers in this post. They’re behind the jump, but that only matters if you’re reading this on the front page. The warning is in bold so you’ll feel really really dumb if you read this anyway, and get mad because there are spoilers
Very few games in recent memory have grabbed me as completely as Portal. Even before The Orange Box became available, I was more excited for Portal than Episode 2 (and TF2 doesn’t really factor in for me, I always sucked at CTF, which is the basis of TF). Also, all it takes is twenty seconds in Google to find out that I am not alone in singing Portal’s praises.
I’m the odd FPS player who generally enjoys solving things more than combat, and so Portal immediately caught my attention. The atmosphere is amazing, flawless, and quite creepy. For those of you who don’t know, you are a test subject for an experimental “portal gun,” from Aperture Technologies. They make you jump through various hoops (literally) to prove, theoretically, that you can jump through said hoops.
If for some reason you haven’t played this game yet, play it now. Valve made an incredibly smart move when they picked this mod up.
Guitar Hero II: Thoughts and Review
Guitar Hero II
Score: 93%
I realized part of the way into my arbitrary review and rating system that all of these reviews are going to be heavily biased towards the top of the scale. This is because I’m incapable of finishing games that don’t rank at least an 85% on my scale, and I only score the games that I finish.
Oh well, you’ll have to live with that.
Guitar Hero II needs no introduction. Guitar Hero itself probably doesn’t need an introduction anymore. I remember I played it for the first time in my Resident Advisor’s room at Occidental College. Since I already had (and still have) a healthy addiction to Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero was not a particularly big leap for me. I was immediately hooked.
Guitar Hero II follows in the footsteps of it’s predecessor, lining up a fairly large collection of songs and impressively good set of tracks for all levels of play. One of the things about II that impresses me the most is that they didn’t overcomplicate the game - a common pitfall when developers follow up a breakout success.
My favorite part of the Mahalo “how to get a good night’s sleep” guide
The guide is here.
Get fifteen minutes of sunlight as soon as you wake up, says Dr. Dement. This will help set your internal body clock.
Don’t they know I live in Seattle? ;)
Hellgate: London has the best subscription model
I was cruising through the Hellgate: London review in the latest PC Gamer (why doesn’t PC Gamer put their content online like every other major publisher? Come on, guys, get with the future), and I spotted some info on their subscription model.
Yes, I said subscription. No, don’t freak out.
Here’s the model: once you buy the game, you can play it online with other people forever, for free, just like Diablo II.
If you want, you can opt to pay $9.99/month for frequent content updates, like rolling expansion packs.
Duh!
Where are the video game blogs?
When I launched Flicker Gaming a few years ago, one of the things I wanted to do beforehand was find out who mattered in video game blogging. It makes perfect sense to know the turf before you start playing ball on it, which is why doing business blog strategy is one of the services we offer at Parnassus Group. Part of that is making sure that the client understands the blogging niche they are trying to enter.
Roughly two years later, there still isn’t a very good place to figure out who is in what community. I’ve always thought that this is a glaring omission in the blogosphere. Blogs are such social vehicles, and if you blog in a certain space for long enough, you do find community, but it’s all very nebulous.
So, after blogging about video games for a couple of years, I’m putting together a list that should be a rough guide to the video game blogging community, at least as I see it. This list will be incomplete. I will forget people, yes, but there are also communities within communities, and undoubtedly there are bloggers I haven’t heard of.
If that’s you, and you want on this list, shoot me an e-mail. I’ll check out your blog.
Video game blogs come in two basic categories: video game news blogs, and personal blogs where video games are covered. Together we all make a kind of self-supplying editorial community. (As a side note, the news blogs are usually written by several people, and the personal blogs are usually written by one. But not always).
As much as I like to play favorites, these lists are ordered by PageRank, and failing that, alphabetically. That means that the blogs Google likes best are on top of the list.
Video Game News Blogs
- Destructoid - I met Niero while rumbling through the world of taking boring news stories and making them clever. Destructoid has always been able to find some of the juiciest tidbits, and I’m sure they will be happy to know their PR is equal to that of Kotaku and Joystiq.
- Kotaku - In every sphere there are behemoths. In video games, Kotaku is one of them. One of the Gawker Media blogs, it gets an instant leg up from that affiliate. It does, however, kick some serious booty in its own right.
- Joystiq - The other behemoth, Joystiq, covers roughly the same beat as Kotaku, but does it with a slightly different style. Check ‘em both out, and see which one you like better.
- Playfeed - this is the games part of GearLive media, another blogging collective like Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker. GearLive is run by my buddy Andru Edwards, who is a phenomenally good guy. You should give this blog a look.
- 4 Color Rebellion - This news blog has a good indie tint to it, so if that’s the scene you’re after give it a shot. Everybody likes a site that cares more about Smash Brothers than Halo 3 (yeah, yeah, I just dated this post).
- Aeropause - A little lower profile spot for collecting your gaming gossip. I know I said I wouldn’t play favorites, but I like this one for some reason.
- British Gaming Blog - There aren’t a whole ton of bells and whistles on this one, but do check it out for massive numbers of very pretty screenshots.
OK, that list goes on, clearly. But those are blogs whose business it is to be discovered by readers. If you can’t find them on your own, they are failing at what they do. What you’re really interested in are the individual blogs, where “real people” blog about their impressions and thoughts and favorite football teams. Well here’s that list:
Personal Video Game Blogs
There are way too many of these for me to write a little note about each one, mostly because all of those notes would be roughly the same. You’ll just have to make do with: these are all awesome people, writing about games.
- Major Nelson - OK, Nelson gets a note just because he’s in a weird place. He’s the director of programming for Xbox Live at Microsoft, and he spans several groups of game bloggers simply because he’s so damn important to the industry.
- Acid for Blood
- AFK Gamer - as Troy correctly pointed out, this one definitely deserves to be on the list. Largely MMO stuff.
- The Buttonmasher - Tony is, in my book, the original gameblogging badass. He started the Carnival of Gamers, which was my real introduction into the community, and maintains a thoroughly entertaining blog.
- Cathode Tan
- Curmudgeon Gamer
- Grumpy Gamer
- Tea Leaves - Another note. This blog is a bit more “thoughtful” than some of the others. I really like it.
- Man Bytes Blog - Corvus is undoubtedly one of the more intelligent gamers out there, and MBB runs the gamut from incomprehensibly deep design theory to the ever-interesting Blogs of the Round Table.
- Kill Ten Rats - Expect a lot of MMO talk. I have always loved the name.
- The Game Chair - Used to be a reviews blog run by my buddy Seth. He closed shop and converted it to a personal blog, but hasn’t posted much. Here’s hoping he starts doing it regularly.
- Flash of Steel
- G-pinions
- JaySlacks - Highly opinionated and highly entertaining.
- Hawty McBloggy - I have no idea why bs angel’s PageRank is zero, but this is no indication of the quality of her blog. It is teh awesome.
- Jason-Preston.com - Oh, and me of course.
Outside categorization
- Gamers With Jobs - I had basically no idea how to categorize this place, but I would have trouble compiling the “video game blogosphere” and leaving GWJ out of the picture. So here it is.
You can also find tons of good gaming blogs by simply cruising the entries to the currently-defunct (but not entirely dead) Carnival of Gamers, hosted by The Buttonmasher.
And of course, there’s the wide (and exploding) world of video game podcasts, which I haven’t even touched on here. Perhaps another time.
Finally, the media center will boot again
Thanks to scouring through endless google searches for “Verifying DMI Pool Data…” I finally ran across this forum thread, which had the kind of suggestion I always like to find: simple, easy to try, and no way in hell it could possibly work.
It turns out that switching the jumpers on my hard drive from Master/Slave to cable select (both Wester Digital) allowed my computer to boot up just fine. I’m not asking any questions. This is a BIG step forward ever since The Big Crash two weeks ago when my projector, media center, and car all died within a 24 hour period.
I’ve given up for tonight because the damn thing doesn’t seem to think there’s a TV Tuner card installed (there is, I looked). I’ll worry about that tomorrow. For tonight, I’m just happy the damn thing boots.
Interview with Gabe Newell at Next-Gen
Around 2000, just a year or so after the release of the original Half-Life, I had the great good fortune to have lunch with Gabe Newell, the head honcho at Valve Software, and I distinctly remember leaving with the impression that this was a man who really looked into the future.
That feeling has been borne out again and again with the subsequent release of Steam, and Half-Life 2, and Valve’s investment in Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and now Portal.
It’s the main reason I think that his interviews are some of the most interesting in the industry, and I’d like to point you to an interview he did with Next-Gen.biz. Now, he says a lot of cool stuff, but this one blows me away:
Edge: Do you feel that maybe this has come too late – that you missed the point at which you could have monopolised the digital distribution market?
GN: I’m far more concerned about the fact that you can’t mod Steam – that worries me a lot more than other companies doing digital distribution.
Did I read that correctly? Did Gabe Newell just say that what worries him most about his market position in Digital Distribution is that his system isn’t open enough? Yes, he did.
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