The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: Big Corps Are Evil (Page 14 of 14)

MindArk Battles The Man

More webmasters with too much time on their hands.

How do you spin being busted for using unlicensed software? If you’re Mindark, you say that Microsoft is afraid of the impending cash juggernaut that is Project Entropia. If your response to this is ‘project whaaaa?’, don’t freak, you’re not alone. It gets better. As Waterthread points out, MindArk has threatened to countersue, and put all of the winnings from the case inside of the game, where players will be able to earn a piece of the pie by mining, killing monsters, whatever. You just can’t make up this level of crack.

In other news, all is back to normal in the fishtank. My puffer has not only survived the ordeal, but apparently won’t even have a scar. Right after the fight with the powerhead, it was unclear as to whether or not he would ever see out of his right eye again. However, he’s back to normal now – he’s even beating up on the littler fish again!

A parting question. How do people with piercings in unusual places go through airport security?

Another One Bites the Dust

In case you ever wondered why GameMasters (and other Customer Service people) seem so tense. (Oh, yes, OSI and 3DO both got emails that looked a lot like that sounds).

R.I.P to another online gaming pioneer. 10Six had a difficult time in the massively multiplayer arena, falling short of its moniker by two or three orders of magnitude. It’s main problem was that it added skill-advancement and stuff acquisition to the first-person shooter arena, resulting in an insurmountable gap between the hardcore player and the casual user. Hopefully, those who follow those same footsteps will have been paying attention.

Die-hards (both of you) can hold out hope, however. The core team has claimed on their boards that they are going to try to relaunch it again, free from the borg. I don’t know how likely it is to happen, but it is certainly possible.

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