copies
Latest
Attack of the Clones: The Flappy Bird copies have arrived, and boy are they crappy
Flappy Bird is simple, straightforward and hugely successful. Those three things make it a prime target for copycats, and now that the game has perched itself on the top of the App Store charts, the clones are arriving in full force. They are, on the whole, completely garbage, and I've taken a whole bunch of them for a test drive so you don't have to. It was brutal, but here are six Flappy Bird wannabes that you should avoid at all costs. Flappy Penguin Avoid the deadly garbage (lasers and bombs, for some reason) while collecting the other garbage (coins and items). Yawn. Flappy Plane Clipart of a plane needs to avoid the other clipart. That's the entire game, and the plane doesn't flap, so it's also false advertising. Fly Birdie - Flappy Bird Flyer Holy crap. Even though this game consists of two moving parts (the bird and the pipes in the foreground), it runs like absolute garbage. It's actually bogging down on my iPhone 5s. That's a special kind of broken. Smarcle Flyer I don't know what a "Smarcle" is, and I don't ever want to know. The game is ugly and doesn't play any better than it looks. Flappy Bee The best part about Flappy Bee is that its name is actually "Happy Bee" after you download it. Clearly the game wasn't performing well enough under its original title so the developer decided to see if a new title would help. It didn't. Fluffy vs Flappy Birds The one actually looks surprisingly good for a ripoff, but the gameplay is somehow even more frustrating than that of Flappy Bird -- and not in a good way. It's slow, boring and offers nothing in the way of a reasonable, enjoyable challenge.
Project Tank tanked by World of Tanks
A while ago, Project Tank popped up on our radar for two reasons. First of all, it was a browser-based multiplayer tank-based combat simulator. Second, it bore a lot of similarities to the existing multiplayer tank-based combat simulator World of Tanks, enough that Wargaming.net brought out the copyright lawyers. A copyright infringement suit was filed today by Wargaming.net, claiming that Project Tank directly copies many elements of World of Tanks and violates some existing patents. Gamebox has responded to these claims on the official site for the game, claiming that Wargaming.net has engaged in "underhanded" actions to try to shut down the project. This marks the end of the closed beta for Project Tank, which is promising open beta in approximately a month. You can take a look at the side-by-side comparison from before and draw your own conclusions about whether Project Tank is being unfairly accused or entirely fairly accused.
Zenimax: Skyrim ships 10 million copies, outsells other PC titles three to one
Zenimax has announced 10 million copies of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim have been shipped out to retailers since launch, which represents $650 million in potential sales so far. Keep in mind that those copies are shipped, not sold. Sales for the RPG are doing well so far, and odds are quite a few more of those shipped copies will find their way into homes and stockings this holiday. Zenimax also reports that Skyrim has outsold all other PC games by a factor of three to one in the month since its debut, and currently holds the title for the fastest-selling game in Steam's history. Star Wars: The Old Republic is set to officially arrive next week, so it's hard to see Skyrim holding up that ratio on PC for much longer. In summary: infinity times ten million equals a hell of a lot of dragons.
4.5 million pirated copies of Witcher 2 out there, according to CD Projekt
Polish developer CD Projekt claims that its Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings has been pirated more times since release than you might have expected. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, CEO Marcin Iwinski does some quick back-of-the-hand calculations according to what he saw on illegal downloading sites, and comes up with 4.5 million copies of the game obtained illegally. He also says, however, that "as of today we have sold over one million legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio." He then suggests "the reality is probably way worse." Still, CD Projekt isn't interested in digital rights management, and Iwinski says that it would cause more trouble for legally paying gamers than it would stop any piracy. The solution, he says, is to both add value to buying games legally, and educate users about why it's the right thing to do. "We started offering high value with the product -- like enhancing the game with additional collectors' items like soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc.," he says. "This, together with a long process of educating local gamers about why it makes sense to actually buy games legally, worked. And today, we have a reasonably healthy games market." Iwinski's got a point -- it's often an easier battle just selling more legal copies of a game (by providing a better value to customers) than preventing would-be pirates from beating even oppressive DRM.
The Daily Grind: Do you prefer digital copies or boxed copies of games?
Long ago, you had one way of obtaining a new game -- you went to a store that carried video games and brought it home. The advent of digital distribution has changed that, however -- it's quite easy to pick up a new game on Steam or via download, with certain games like Global Agenda primarily seeing distribution via digital outlets. Considering that most games offer a client download and patches will frequently update the entire game anyhow, getting a box almost seems quaint. Of course, if you're used to having a hard copy on hand, it might not even be an issue of whether or not it's worth buying a boxed copy. You want a game, you go out and buy it. So when you have the option, do you head out to the mall and pick up a boxed copy to have a physical representation of the game? Or do you just download and not fuss about with what amounts to sentimental clutter? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
TUAW giveaway: HexaLex for iPhone
We featured HexaLex as our daily app a little while back. It's an excellent Scrabble alternative, and it mixes up the tried and true formula just enough that, if you and your friends are looking for something different to play, it's worth checking out. And we're here to make that easy for you. TUAW's got 10 promo codes to give away to 10 lucky readers, so you can download a copy of HexaLex for free! To enter the giveaway, leave us a comment telling us the highest word score you've ever earned in a word game (or make one up if you've never played before). Here are the official rules: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, leave a comment telling us the highest word score you've ever earned in a word game. The comment must be left before midnight on Monday, August 2, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Ten winners will be selected. All will receive one promo code for HexaLex, valued at $1.99 each. Click Here for complete Official Rules. Good luck!
Multiboxing in formation with Xzin
Xzin, always ready to show off his multiboxing setups, sent us a video of movement tests for his 10 boxing group. Yeah.I don't know-- I don't really find this exciting at all. I mean, sure, there's a little bit of skill in actually coding this stuff all out and hooking it all together, but after you do that, what's the point? Isn't this close enough to botting that Blizzard would frown on it? Sure, if you pull this off, you'll be able to win a whole BG by yourself, but if I had a couple grand in cash to waste on all this stuff, I'd just hire Pandemic to come and do it for me.Are you guys interested in news about multiboxing or not? If there's a large group of you who finds this fascinating, I'm more than happy to post this stuff when we see it come through. But while I can see the skill in coordinating 10 computers to do your will, the results just don't thrill me that much.Thanks, Xzin!
Konica Minolta's coffee-making "bizhub of the future"
There's really not a whole lot the workplace can offer (or that corporate will allow) to make us want to roll into the office day after day, but Konica Minolta's "bizhub of the future" just might change all that. Besides being the typical "prone to jamming" mega printer that has become a staple of workplaces everywhere, it touts an integrated screen, DVD player, built-in speakers, and even an espresso machine to keep our eyelids peeled. Of course, you can also scan, copy, and fax while you're sipping sucking down that caffeinated goodness, but we don't envision much work getting done with Mike Judge's Office Space rolling on the LCD. Currently, the machine is simply a prototype waiting for production, but if the Michael Scott's of the world all band together, surely we can make the mundane work week seem a bit less humdrum.[Via Pocket-Lint]
