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Adobe to drop GoLive, Freehand
The Mac Observer is reporting that Adobe announced at Adobe Live that the company is giving the axe to GoLive and Freehand for CS3, due out spring of 2007. Before the Adobe-Macromedia merger, GoLive was Adobe's Dreamweaver (and a far superior product, might I add), and Freehand was Macromedia's Illustrator (here's hoping Adobe means every word of their comment that "Dreamweaver will get a new interface"). I'm sure that since this decision was made some time ago, Adobe has had extra development hands to spend on making an Intel-native Creative Suite other projects.If this announcement disappoints you, just remember something John Gruber said in his translation of Adobe's PR announcement and FAQs of the merger: "Competition is overrated - it only benefits customers".
Gamers resurrect imploded pop stars
What is it about Michael Jackson and machinima? After stumbling across this clever video set in Counter-Strike, I ran a couple of searches. This rabbit-hole goes deep. There's plenty of MJ to be found in World of Warcraft videos (Beat It, Billy Jean) which is unsurprising considering that the entire male population of night elves appears to have summered at Neverland ranch in their youth (this would explain many of their pathological in-game tendencies, but that's a whole 'nother rabbit hole). Many of the night-elf dance moves are lifted from the King of Pop's library of signature jigs, including the pelvic thrust and twirly-hand-leg-kick thing. Even denizens of Second Life appear to be thrilled by the opportunity to relive the days when Jacko only pretended to be ghoulish. Through machinima, fans of celebs who have dashed their careers against the treacherous reefs of fame can now travel back to the future. Fans can return to a time when their idols still had something worth worshipping. It's a form of therapy.
In-game ads infiltrate Counter-Strike
In-game advertising provider Engage has managed to net a deal with Subway to get gaming consumers interested in the chain's sandwiches--advertising in "the most popular online action game played amongst men 18 to 34". Gamecloud has managed to confirm the game as Counter-Strike, and the ad campaign reached 31,000 unique gamers in just three weeks.Engage are lauding this as a success for in-game advertising, so this paves the way for more prevalent forms of advertising to creep into games. While adverts aren't exactly out of place in realistic urban scenarios, having modern-day ads in, say, Halo 2 -- despite its huge following -- could prove to be a great misstep, so advertisers must remember that game popularity isn't necessarily a sign of suitability for advertising.[Thanks, bandersnatch]
