- Barak Obama is using in game advertising in his campaign for president. It would be nice to think that at long last we have a senior politician that understands games. The reality is that this was almost certainly done by someone on Obama´s staff without the great man himself being aware. It is still an excellent tactical move that will get attention and respect from a large demographic.
- Little Big Planet 95% on Metacritic. Exactly what Sony needs to prevent them being totally engulfed by the Microsoft bulldozer. Whether or not this can be a system seller when there is such a big price difference on respective systems is a different matter.
- The traditional news and entertainment media is in massive trouble due to the huge downturn in advertising. The normal big advertisers have chopped their spend to fit the economic times. But gaming continues to boom and spend even more on advertising. This is a virtuous circle as gaming per se gets a bigger slice of the average consumer´s attention and thus becomes yet more embedded in the mainstream. Ubisoft are the latest to announce their intentions in this area.
- The PC is showing yet more signs of being no longer viable as a gaming platform except for casual and MMO games. Some development studios now calculate that up to half of their customer support calls involve dealing with people who have pirated copies of the game. The thieves have no shame. Not only do they steal the game, they also steal support for the game.
- Michael Pachter states the obvious again: “We believe that the videogame software sector remains highly recession-resistant.” Something this blog has been saying for a long time. It needs to be said because there are still plenty of people in important positions that don´t realise this. But judging by recent news on the TV there are lots of people in important positions who don´t realise the obvious.
- Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski says he doesn’t think the industry values visionaries as much as it could. I know how he feels.
- Warhammer online 1.5 million units shipped. 750,000 players register. It is early days yet and we have yet to see how it compares with World of Warcraft for game player´s affection. What is for sure is that this is the first major new player in the Western MMORPG space for some time.
- MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online will get a full-featured social networking site. About time too. Social interaction is one of the main rationales of MMORPGs so maximising such possibilities is essential. As long as you don´t become all social networking and not much game, like Second Life.
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I’m pretty sure it’s spelt Barack.
It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t personally understand games, as long as he’s willing to employ people and listen to people who does.
Savvy beats Maverick.
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I can’t help but point out that Fallout 3 was released early by piracy on 360. The only thing stopping people from pirating so much on consoles is that not everyone has a mod-chip …yet.
In the last-generation they were widely available on all machines about halfway into their lifespan, and because console games have no copy protection they were (of course) easier to copy, but I didn’t see the downfall of the console industry.
I think the thing to take away from the article you linked to is that piracy is unavoidable, and steps should be taken to stop casual copying between friends, but not so much that it annoys the majority of people who bought the thing because it’s going to end up being cracked by determined people anyway.
Not every pirated game is a lost sale. But every lost sale due to DRM is. I’d rather have 70% of a lot, than 100% of little.
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/gears-of-war-2-leaked-on-torrent-sites
Bang goes another 360 title onto the pirate sites.
Good job they chose not to release this on PC, eh?
How about the industry focusing on things closer to home first, before punishing their loyal customers who don’t pirate?