Category: Big Corps Are Evil (Page 7 of 14)

Sony Takes McQuaid Back

May 8, 2006 / Damion Schubert

This weekend, in a surprise announcement made near the close of business Friday (therefore guarunteeing the community guys had a hellish weekend), it was announced that Sigil was divorcing itself from Microsoft, and working their way into a ‘copublishing’ agreement with Sony.

The Vanguard faithful are upset primarily about SOE’s involvement in the deal. This is unsurprising, given that Vanguard’s community has basically been built by promising a version of Everquest true to its original vision (read: before being sullied by the hands of the unwashed heathens that currently run it). This positioning by Sigil is, in fact, what was so surprising about the change in bedfellows. Continue reading

XFire Hits Jackpot

April 26, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Another shout-out goes to the XFire gang, who are reported to be selling out to Viacom for $102 Million. As mentioned previously, one of the XFire head honchos is Chris Kirmse, who was one of the two tech visionaries on Meridian 59.

I had more to say on the subject, but to be honest, Raph beat me to almost exactly what I was going to say.

In Praise of EA Spouse

April 26, 2006 / Damion Schubert

This is just a quick shout out to Erin Hoffman, who was outed today as EA Spouse, the same day that EA settled a class-action lawsuit against them for their employment practices. Thanks partially to her, everyone I’m talking to about potential employment falls over themselves to stress they’re trying to forge a healthy work culture.

Maybe I’m dreaming, but maybe things really are turning a corner in the quality of life angle.

25 To Life “Not A Good Title” – says Publisher

April 24, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I’ve pointed out before how 25 to Life has gotten abysmal reviews. This article talks about how the game’s sales are being fueled by the controversy stoked by game activists. The part that made me chuckle was this quote from a publicist for the game:

“Frankly, it is not a good title and under normal circumstances it would not be selling as well,” said Michelle Curran, a public relations director for Eidos, the British producer of the game….When the game was released, Curran said, the company did nothing to promote it. There were no TV ads, magazine campaigns or other promotions. The company did not think the game had much potential.

And that’s the publicist talking.

Good For Us!

April 21, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Sure, they won’t be my employers much longer, but still, I can’t help but feel a swell of pride on the note that Ubisoft is pulling Starforce from it’s products. This makes me happy.

Being part of the MMO bastard stepchild of the games industry, I’ve always been a bit more laissez-faire with the whole piracy thing, but this undoubtedly comes from the fact that games that require serial codes verified on the server you play on are pretty hard to pirate, at least until someone backwards-engineers your client and puts up a ‘grey’ server. Really, piracy may well be the only part of MMO development that is actually EASIER than making a standalone game. Continue reading

Majestic Sued For Making Crappy Life Crappier

April 19, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Spotted on the blog of my favorite lawyer, someone wants to sue Electronic Arts over Majestic. Apparently, the game scared her into having multiple heart attacks.

Your company described your “game” Majestic which was said to be a “persuasive gaming harness” built around fictional characters in an “interactive suspense thriller” borrows from The X-Files, War Games, and Michael Douglas’ movie The Game as it entwines players in a dark conspiracy on the Web, then tracks them down in real life, outside the anonymous safety of a Web browser.” It certainly wasn’t contained to the safety of the Web Browser as you are still continuing to experience even now.

Pardon Me, I’ll Be Camping The Wicked Witch of the East

April 9, 2006 / Damion Schubert

So, you got yourself the Wizard of Oz license! Congratulations!

Rule one of working with a license: understand, deep at your core, what your license is about.

Don’t, for example, turn Dorothy into an Antonia wanna-be.

Oh, wait, too late.

XBox Patents…. Watching

March 8, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I like to watch. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.

According to this article, though, if I want to put an observer mode into my game, I’ll have to pay Microsoft, who apparently discovered and patented it.

Patent No. 6,999,083 “provides for a host of technologies that enable groups of networked game spectators to enjoy a unique and richer experience to viewing the action within a networked multiplayer game.”

Activision Ordered Not To Use Pre-Renders to Sell Gameplay

February 23, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Here’s an interesting story, with some potentially far-reaching ripples for how games are packaged and sold: UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that Activision’s TV ads (primarily for Call of Duty 2), which show pre-rendered footage, do not accurately represent the video game they are selling.

The ASA’s investigation revealed that the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) understood the adverts to be made of scenes taken from the games themselves, although apparently no checks were made because it wasn’t until afterward, when contacting Activision about the complaints, that it was informed by the publisher that the computer-generated scenes had been produced solely for the ads. “They said they therefore immediately made the ads unacceptable for broadcast as they did not consider that this was common practice in such ads.”

Emphasis mine. This brings up the obvious question – would the ASA have objected if the pre-renders had come from Call of Duty 2’s Intro Flic? Showing intro flic screenshots in ads and on box covers has long been one of the more annoying traits of making and marketing games – and yes, devs hate it when we do it too. On the other hand, in some games, pre-rendered cutscenes are clearly a part of the experience, even if they do not provide gameplay – Blizzard’s Warcraft 3 and the Final Fantasy games come to mind.