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YouTube lifting 15-minute time limit for some videos
YouTube has announced that it is in the process of removing the 15-minute time length restriction imposed on videos. While the limit has, so far, only been lifted with a few special content partners like National Geographic and Lonelygirl15 (a channel which apparently still has viewers), it should pave the way for longer videos for all moving forward. So, why the change now after years of limits? Joshua Siegel, a product manager at YouTube told The New York Times that the company now has copyright issues under control via ContentID, which scans roughly 100 years worth of uploaded video per day in an attempt to fend off violations. There's no word on when the time limit will be further lifted, but for now, you can at least finally check out epic, full length National Geographic videos on YouTube (one of which we've linked below).
Game length in MMOs and elsewhere
Back when I was in college, when we asked a professor how long our papers should be, he answered thusly: "Like a skirt-- short enough to keep it interesting, but long enough to cover the subject." More and more, it seems that you could say the same thing about videogames. In days past, the length of a game was a selling point-- the more gameplay you could get out of it, the more the game was worth. And so MMOs especially ask for a lot of investment, and were asked to give a lot of gameplay in return. I used to beat old NES and Game Boy games in minutes, and now, like Fullbright, I've got days and weeks logged in the MMOs I play.But is that a good thing? I hate to keep harping on it, but Fullbright brings up Portal for me (a game that seems destined to redefine what we think of as games this year)-- there's a game that only takes a few hours but delivers an experience that lasts much longer than that. In terms of MMOs the current trend seems to be both towards shorter gameplay and less investment for that gameplay.MMOs may be the exception here-- you sit down to create one character, and heading into a persistent world should make you want to be there. But with many MMOs on the market than before (and an older, busier audience than ever), the trend seems to be headed towards shorter games, not longer. That's not to say that a great game shouldn't cover the subject (no game should end before its time), but designers are feeling more and more pressure to make things short enough to keep it interesting, rather than throwing in random FedEx quests to brag about a few more hours of gameplay.[Via GSW]
The long and short of battlegrounds
Speaking of a little PVP strategy, a good strategy in the battlegrounds can definitely mean the difference between a quick "four noder" in AB, or a long, drawn out turtlefight in AV. Artemis F makes an interesting point over on Livejournal with a roundup of the longest AVs players have ever seen-- before the battlegrounds, AV matches ran for a looooong time-- from three or four hours all the way up to days at a time. Of course, now that we're in the era of premades and crossrealm battlegrounds, things can be much, much faster. Here's a video, linked from the thread, of a Horde premade finishing the thing off in just under four minutes. Unfortunately, not all groups are as well organized (and knowledgeable-- what's that deal they do with the Generals at the end there?) as this one, and I'll often log into a WSG late at night hoping for a quick 15 minute match, only to have it turn into a 45 minute grind as one side hides the flag and/or farms away the HKs. As for AV, my average time is about 45 minutes or so, but never much longer than two hours. What are you seeing out there in the BGs? I'm sure nothing is as fast as they're predicting arena matches to be (under 5 minutes each, we've been told), but we don't still have weekend long AV games. Do we?
Sonic and the Secret Rings details
In absolute defiance of the game's title, the Sonic Team has come forward to reveal some details about these so-called "rings". It seems as though Sonic is the one and only playable character, speeding through an Arabian setting in at least 70 separate missions. Despite the plethora of levels, however, the game is estimated to take only around ten hours for the average gamer to complete. Medals and unlockables will extend the playtime for those perfectionists out there, however, and no less than 30 minigames are planned to be included as well. Also discussed is the evolution of the game. Originally, the Sonic team wanted to make the gameplay far more active than it currently is, in the traditional 3-D style utilizing the nunchuk attachment. However, the team noted that the gameplay was too "strenuous", which most likely signifies that the controls were tiring players out before long. So, the decision was made to switch to the current, on-rails version. Sonic and the Secret Rings is currently scheduled for a March 2007 release.
Japanese hardware sales, 28 August - 3 September: verbose edition
As per our fine comrades at the affluent webcomic Penny Arcade, we residing at the fanboy congregated to bestow upon you a post of great vim. Certainly, the readership is quite familiar with the veritable monarchy that the DS Lite has been erecting via its accrued sales numbers; today, the standing ruler has evidently resisted its supplantation. The fact that the DS Lite might even transcend a neoteric console (in its third revision!) is a statement of certain verisimilitude, as we can easily ascertain from the following quantitative analysis: - DS Lite: 228,939 65,665 (40.22%) - PSP: 27,499 2,446 (8.17%) - PS2: 22,703 874 (4.00%) - GBA SP: 2,751 32 (1.18%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,791 28 (1.54%) - Xbox 360: 1,250 53 (4.43%) - Gamecube: 855 18 (2.15%) - DS Phat: 320 90 (21.96%) - GBA: 22 8 (57.14%) - Xbox: 0 12 (100.00%) One might even conjecture that the leading candidate was, at one point, an inscrutable conundrum. [Source: Media Create]
